Bringing Truth and Information to the Community

Victor Huyke, 59, is the Publisher of El Conquistador Newspaper, the only Latino-owned newspaper in Southeast Wisconsin. Journalism has been in Huyke’s blood since the days of his Great Grandfather, Juan Bernardo Huyke. Juan worked as a writer, publisher, educator and served as the Interim Governor of Puerto Rico in 1923. Along with his many accomplishments, Juan published El Pais (The Country), a pro-statehood newspaper in Puerto Rico with conservative views. According to Huyke, his Great Grandfather has schools and streets named after him in Puerto Rico to this day.

“I kid you not, since grade school,” said Huyke recalling the early pressures he faced of starting his own newspaper because of his well-known relative. “We started a little one-leaf newspaper in grade school, and they had me there as one of the writers. In high school, it was the same.”

Huyke started the El Conquistador Newspaper in 1998.

“To me, it’s always been covering the truth and bringing everything to light,” said Huyke.

Born in Puerto Rico, Huyke, his mother Juanita and his father Victor, first migrated to New York in the ‘60s as his father followed jobs. From there, they moved back to Puerto Rico until Huyke was around eight years old and again, they returned to the states this time settling in California.

In 1971, the devastating San Fernando Earthquake hit California. “That was enough for my mom,” said Huyke. Shortly after, the family packed up and moved to Milwaukee where his mother had a sister. Huyke has lived all over Milwaukee since then and currently resides in Riverwest.

Huyke slowly faded away from writing after his schooling but living in the Riverwest area with so much happening in the community, he started writing letters to the editor of the Crazy Shepard, a Milwaukee newspaper originating in 1982 now called the Shepherd Express. The letters consisted of things he saw going on in his community that he felt light needed to be shed on. Huyke was eventually invited by the former publisher of the Shepard Express to write for them in an unpaid position. He agreed.

Since then, Huyke has worked for a wide range of newspapers including the Spanish Journal and the Spanish Times. However, he soon got tired of working for everyone else.

“I wanted to have control of my own writing,” said Huyke. He took his last paycheck and shortly after bought a couple of computers with some friends and started in sales to make some money. Their first set of sales paid for the printing of their newspaper. “Next thing you know, we were off and running,” said Huyke.

Within one year, their paper was published weekly. “The public wants to read stories, local stuff, and that’s what we concentrated on,” said Huyke. “When it comes to newspaper, people relate to the guy next door more than the President of the United States.”

A big focus of El Conquistador was gentrification. “It was a nightmare in our community and still is today,” said Huyke. “Gentrification often hides itself as development.” With the majority of their readers being immigrants, Huyke consistently covered the challenges many of them faced.

According to Huyke, neighborhoods were being forced out. Corporations, not just from Milwaukee but Chicago and various other cities bought out the Milwaukee neighborhoods in areas like Walker’s Point and Riverwest. In place, they started building high-rise condos and luxury apartments where a family of four couldn’t afford to live, especially a working-class family of four.

“The area we grew up in, the area we’ve known as the Latino community for decades all of the sudden became somebody else’s neighborhood,” expressed Huyke. 

Hypocrisy was present during this time, said Huyke as many of the people forced out were told it would provide better jobs and houses. However, according to Huyke, it didn’t. “The people who moved in got the better jobs and better houses.”

An economic crisis started for the Puerto Rican community as the jobs they were given were immediately taken away from them when people returned home from World War ll. People lost their jobs and money wasn’t coming in, so they had to close the bars, restaurants and local businesses, many of them started.

However, younger generations started protesting upon realizing it wasn’t just the Latino community being affected. According to Huyke, Native Americans, African Americans and other minority groups were all going through the same thing. In the 60’s and 70’s, those groups came together. These were the topics El Conquistador consistently covered and continues to cover locally and nationally as all minority groups constantly face challenges.

“We’re the first that are taken into war, we’re the first that are asked to do all the filthy, dirty jobs and we’re the last to get any rights,” said Huyke.

This July will be the 24th year of El Conquistador. One aspect of the newspaper Huyke highlighted was that it succeeded without government subsidies. Huyke expressed how he never signed up as a minority on the newspaper even though there are a lot of opportunities available if you do.

“The whole idea behind that was because I wanted businesses and corporations to do business with me because I had a good product, not because affirmative action was forcing them too,” said Huyke. “I wanted to stand on my own two feet, not my two feet with the government.”

Eventually the government added their own advertisements to El Conquistador, but only after the newspaper already had success on its own.

“Thats proof in the printing,” said Huyke. “We didn’t need government subsidies, we didn’t need anything else other than a good backbone and a good product that everybody wanted.”

Along with providing a good product, El Conquistador hosts a wide range of community events in which they offer free resources to communities in Milwaukee. Each event is hosted in the form of a festival or celebration to draw in larger crowds, and everything is free to the public.

“We’re trying to create an environment where families can come and enjoy themselves and not have to worry about an economic crunch,” said Huyke.

Events include a Latino-themed wedding show where information is provided on cakes, food, jewelry and dresses, a Cinco De Mayo celebration that draws in around 15,000 people, Puerto Rican Festival a day of sharing cultures and traditions to create an understanding of who Puerto Ricans are, and one Huyke especially enjoys, the Latino Family Expo.

The Latino Family Expo is set on October 30 for Halloween. It is a community, family resource event that includes a free indoor trick or treating activity. Parents visit booths that have important resources and information on things like opening a new bank account, attending job fairs and getting teeth fixed. Each booth is also a trick or treating station for kids to collect candy from.

“Children often get bored and tired at events like this, and the parents don’t accomplish what they want to do,” said Huyke. “With this event setup, the parents and the kids are happy.”

The ultimate goal is to build a community. Huyke believes when people get jobs and buy a house, they are more likely to reinvest in the community later on and continue to build it up. With a community that has suffered so much throughout the years and has had so much taken away from them, Huyke establishes a sense of relief and comfort in all the work he does. Through the spreading of information with El Conquistador and the offering of resources through family-friendly, community events, success has been proven in numbers and readers.

“I really believe in the concept that sunlight cures everything,” said Huyke. “And working hard to bring the truth, bring information to the community and everyone as a whole is important to focus on.”