Making Waves

The 35-year-old joined WGCU public radio last year as a reporter and a host of the popular afternoon news and talk show, Gulf Coast Live!, which covers a range of topics from healthcare to teen suicide. His personal favorite, however, is Latino culture.

"I’ve tried to touch on some of the bigger things [such as] immigration," says Hernandez, whose family moved to Florida from Puerto Rico when he was five. "It’s a touchy subject with people, but you’ve got to talk about it, because if you don’t, they’ll start to clump [Latinos] all together and look at us all the same way."

He wants to show non-Hispanics more of the different cultures, ideas and lifestyles of Latino communities, whether Puerto Rican, Cuban or Mexican. Each is distinct, "just as Californians are different from New Yorkers, and the Midwest is a way different world than everywhere else," Hernandez says.

Hernandez discovered radio broadcasting in school at Flagler College in St. Augustine, and has worked in commercial television and radio ever since. He is also, however, fond of fictional storytelling.

Hernandez is currently acting in The Lion in Winter with the Cultural Park Theatre Company in Cape Coral. He’s also written a novel and a children’s book that he hopes will be published. How does he find the time?

"I’m not married," Hernandez says with a laugh. "I don’t have a family. I only have myself to be responsible for."