He was waiting to board a flight.
An older Latino man, he had opted to go casual: a sweatshirt, jeans and a baseball cap, rather than his usual suit.
After the gate agent announced, “Now boarding first-class passengers,” he moved to join the line.
“Sir, are you even first class?” a woman to his right asked.
He tried to explain that he was a first-class passenger, but the woman ordered him to get to the back of the line.
“The announcement was made in English,” she shouted as he made his way to the back of the line. “We speak English in America.”
He later passed the woman seated on the plane as he made his way aboard.
He took off his cap and introduced himself.
“Ma’am, my name is John Quiñones, and I host a TV show called ‘What Would You Do?,’ and you would be just perfect for it.”
Quiñones shared this story Tuesday, Oct. 6, in the Dee J. Kelly Alumni Center. The event was hosted by TCU’s Human Resources, the Center for Connection Culture, and TCU’s College of Education in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month.
Emmy Award-winning journalist John Quiñones has worked in national television for over 40 years. Whether working as an ABC News correspondent or the host of a nationally acclaimed social-experiment TV show, Quiñones has graced the screens of Americans for decades.
However, his beginnings were far from ABC’s headquarters in New York.
Quiñones was born into a low-income migrant family in San Antonio. Spanish was his first language, and he did not learn English until he was 6 years old.
In the summertime, Quiñones and his family would travel to Ohio to pick tomatoes, and then to Michigan to pick cherries.
It was there, in those fields, that he learned the importance of hard work and perseverance. By age 13, he had decided what he wanted to do with his life: become a journalist.
Quiñones joined his high school newspaper to improve his reporting skills and auditioned for “Romeo and Juliet” to practice his public speaking.
For college, Quiñones attended St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, where he studied speech communication. He then received his master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University.
After college, he moved to Chicago to work for CBS as a general assignment reporter before taking a job with ABC.
In his speech, Quiñones recounted advice he received in the early years of his reporting career.
“Don’t concern yourself with the movers and the shakers of the world,” his boss said. “Focus on the moved and the shaken.”
The advice stayed with Quiñones and later inspired him to create the show, “What Would You Do?”
First airing in 2008, “What Would You Do?” is a social experimental show that “holds a mirror” to American society.
The show reenacts real-world scenarios and uses hidden cameras to see how everyday Americans would react in certain situations.
As Quiñones recalled the airport encounter, the story took an unexpected turn. When he made his way to the back of the boarding line, the man standing in front of him asked, “John, is this a ‘what would you do’ scenario?”
Because in truth, every moment can be a “what would you do” scenario; it just depends on how people choose to respond.