Journalist from Los Angeles, known for his reporting in Mexico and on Mexicans in the United States, and for his chronicle of the opioid crisis in the United States. His first journalism job was in 1987 at the Orange County Register. In 1992 he moved to Seattle, where he covered government news and county politics for the Tacoma News-Tribune. He left for Mexico in 1994, where he worked as a freelance reporter until he returned to the United States in 2004, where he began working for the Los Angeles Times covering stories about immigration and gangs. In 2013 he asked for a leave of absence to work on his book Land of Dreams, about the opioid epidemic in the United States. Since 2014, Quinones resumed his activity as a freelance reporter and writes regularly for important media such as National Geographic, Pacific Standard Magazine, New York Times or Los Angeles Magazine. Throughout his career, he has received several scholarships and recognitions for his work as a journalist, such as the Alicia Patterson Scholarship in 1998 or the Maria Moors Cabot Award from Columbia University in 2008. In February 2012 Quinones started the blog True Tales: A Reporter's Blog, about "Los Angeles, Mexico, migrants, culture, drugs, neighborhoods, the border and good stories". He has lectured at more than fifty universities in the United States.