Accordion Dreams - Latino USA Episode 424
00:30
His latest film, Accordion Dreams, documents the history of this instrument and the role it plays in the development of Texas' most prominent working-class music throughout most of the 20th century.
04:06
Now, when I interviewed Valerio Longoria in your film, Accordion Dreams, you call him the great innovator of Conjunto music. What struck me, and this was in 1985, but what struck me about him was that he was so humble.
04:55
My feeling is that if it does go mainstream, then of course it loses its uniqueness and its beauty. Fortunately, I was able to meet some of these young people in Accordion Dreams.
05:24
Now, yes, they do experiment and dabble in different areas, but that key music is still there. And that's what gives me hope that it will stay and it will be what it is.
05:37
Well, thanks very much for speaking with us. We've been talking with filmmaker, Hector Galan of Galan Productions. His latest documentary, Accordion Dreams, is scheduled to air nationally August 30th on PBS.
Anthony Quinn Profile - Latino USA 426
00:00
I am a good miner. I have a clever nose for the metals. But I beat up the boss and they kicked me out.
00:51
His second autobiography, One Man Tango, was published in 1995.
01:57
Right after I made La Strada, everything changed.
02:00
I became, forgive me because I don't believe in it, but I mean I don't believe it happened. I became what they call an international star at that time. And things changed for me then.
02:17
But the biggest, interesting enough, the biggest hit I ever made was in Mohammed, which was not shown in America for political reasons.
02:27
And another picture I made called Lion of the Desert, which was about an Arab Omar Mukhtar, who was the hero of all the Arab people in the world. And so I have 750 million fans in the Arab countries.
02:48
You know, reading your book, One Man Tango, there's really a sense that you are, at this point of your life, dealing with issues of spirituality, of what the world means, what the world means to you.
03:10
And what are the issues that you're kind of, that you think you're trying to come to terms with in your book, One Man Tango?
05:32
Actor, artist and writer Anthony Quinn. His new autobiography is One Man Tango and it's published by Harper Collins.
Bread and Roses - Latino USA Episode 425
00:07
Beginning June 1st, though, Bread and Roses will be released nationwide.
00:11
The bilingual film chronicles the struggle of immigrants to form a union in Southern California during the 1990s.
00:18
The film premiered recently in Los Angeles.
00:24
As Bread and Roses opens, its heroine, Maya Montenegro, played by Pilar Padilla, survives a dramatic border crossing.
00:43
Once in Los Angeles, she joins her sister, Rosa, played by Elpidia Carrillo, working as a janitor in a downtown high-rise. Soon, a union organizer comes calling.
00:52
Hi, is Rosa in? Yeah, Hold On. Mami! Que? Hay alguien en la puerta-
00:59
Hi, I'm Sam Shapiro, the Justice for Janitors campaign.
01:07
I'm Rosa, Justice for Rosa's campaign.
01:10
Maya liked Sam, played by actor Adrien Brody and the idea of the union, but the more hardened and cynical Rosa is not so easily persuaded.
01:19
There is every chance you can get fired. I've seen it before. What are you going to do? Pay the rent? Feed my kids?
01:24
And you? You better keep away from this nice one. Listen, they will fire anyway!
02:10
Laverty convinced director Ken Loach there was a film in the story of the janitors and he began poking around the union where he ran into organizer Jono Shaffer.
02:19
The first time I met Paul, he sort of appeared and started asking a bunch of questions and I was totally suspicious about who this guy was, you know.
02:27
But over time he, you know, sort of wore on me. He said he was making a movie. I was like, yeah, right, everybody in L.A. is going to make a movie. You know, it's like this will end up in some trash can somewhere.
02:37
Shaffer, who bears a resemblance to the film's organizer, says Laverty and Ken Loach took some artistic license, making the work of the organizer a little more reckless and spontaneous than it is in real life.
02:48
But he says they didn't exaggerate the difficulty of organizing a union in the United States.
02:54
Real life janitor Dolores Sanchez says she saw a lot of herself and her co-workers in Bread and Roses.
03:01
I don't know. I cried during the whole movie because it does have several things that those of us from other countries have been through.
03:39
Bread and Roses mixes drama and fiction with reality.
03:43
Director Ken Loach required the actors to work a shift alongside real life janitors, some of whom also appear in the movie along with other L.A. activists.
04:15
Bread and Roses has received mostly thumbs up from the critics, but as a business venture, it's a little risky, says its distributor Tom Ortenberg of Lionsgate Films.
04:25
It doesn't have Tom Cruise or Mel Gibson, it doesn't have a lot of action, it's got a political bent to it about union organizing and those just aren't easy things. It's not a popcorn, bubble gum kind of movie.
04:41
The film was made independently, backed by a group of investors from Europe, but says Ortenberg he hopes it's successful enough at the box office to convince Hollywood to take on similar projects.
04:52
Bread and Roses debuts June 1st in 15 to 18 cities across the country with more to follow in the coming weeks.
El Teatro Campesino - Latino USA Episode 416
02:44
And in the Teatro's recording studio, their uncle, singer, composer and actor Daniel Valdez, is recording the soundtrack of the Teatro's annual miracle play, The Virgen of Tepeyac.
15:33
As we went on and got to Zoot Suit, and there I am at the Mark Taper Forum now as a playwright, and we were there with the teatro first.
15:40
We did a 10-day run at the Mark Taper Forum with Carpa de los Rasquachis in the mid-70s.
16:01
Zoot Suit told the story of racism against Pachucos in Los Angeles.
16:19
Pachucos were young Mexican-Americans who'd adopted the Zoot Suit style of dress during the time of the Second World War.
16:27
It was, said Valdez, a very American play. Zoot Suit is about American identity. The Zoot Suit phenomenon was something that was of the period of the early 40s.
16:55
The whole country became Zoot Suit crazy. And of course I'm talking about the young people, those young people that were just about getting ready to go off to war.
17:03
What it meant for Chicanos is that they were identifying with the average American kids who were wearing Zoot Suits and saying, Hey, we're American. We love this music. We love this style. We're here, and we're doing it in our own way.
17:16
And so Zoot Suit became a symbol of Chicano identity, but also a symbol of American identity. So that's what the play's about.
17:23
Four hundred thousand people saw the production of Zoot Suit at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, where it ran for 46 weeks, with actor Edward James Olmos in the lead role of El Pachuco.
17:35
Before I got that phone call, I could not work in this community because there was nothing for me to do. I've been entertaining people since 1961. Here it is, 1978. I had not gained one penny from the American theater. The first paycheck I ever got was from Zoot Suit when I made 250 bucks a week for acting on stage.
17:56
Actor Edward James Olmos, star of Stand and Deliver and Miami Vice, recalls he was a furniture mover when he was asked to audition for Zoot Suit and saw a script of the play.
18:09
Words never seen printed in my life. Words that I had heard all my life. Words that only could come from the heart and the passion and the understanding of the finest who command the language.
18:40
Ladies and gentlemen, the moment you're about to see is a construct of fact and fantasy. But relax, weigh the facts, and enjoy the pretense.
18:53
Our Pachuco realities will only make sense if you grasp their stylization. It was a secret fantasy for Vivato, living in or out of the Pachucada, to put on the Zoot Suit and play the myth. Pues Orale!
19:16
This is the fact, the fantasy, the music, the myth, the magic, the movie. Zoot Suit. Universal Pictures presents Zoot Suit, an American Original.
19:52
Seven years went by between the release of the film of Zoot Suit and Valdez's second film, La Bamba.
20:25
La Bamba, the story of 1950s singer Ricardo Valenzuela, better known as Ritchie Valens, grossed 55 million dollars in the United States, 90 million worldwide.
23:16
Though Luis Valdez is widely considered a pioneer, he himself doesn't consider his work nearly done yet. Last year, Valdez premiered a new original play, The Mummified Deer. Zoot Suit had a successful revival in Chicago. And in the long term, a number of important film projects remain on El Teatro Campesino's horizon.
Ensalada de Nopales Asados - Latino USA Episode 429
02:16
Susana Trilling is author of the book Seasons of My Heart, A Culinary Journey Through Oaxaca, Mexico.
02:22
It's published by Ballantine Books.
Nortec Collectivo - Latino USA Episode 433
00:55
Bostitch, Fusible, Panoptica, Hyperboreal, Chlorophylla are some of the names of the DJ crews sampled in a release called Nortec Collection, the Tijuana Sessions Volume 1.
05:56
We've been speaking with Pepe Mogt, who is part of the Nortec Collective, a CD with the Nortec compilation called The Tijuana Sessions Volume 1 is out on the Palm Pictures record label. [Music]
Ojala (Band) - Latino USA Episode 428
03:03
So let's talk about the music. I'm wondering when you do a song like Cucurrucucú Paloma, which is so Mexican.
04:00
[Singing] Cucurrucucú Paloma. Cucurrucucú no llores.
04:21
[Music] What I found interesting was how, for example, in the song Corazon Loco, you've got the very Arabic intonation and yet the singing is in Spanish.
Rita Moreno - Latino USA Episode 411
00:18
I like to be in America, okay by me in America, everything free in America. For a small fee in America.
01:29
And my father gave me permission to watch this movie about something happening in New York and of course you were there.
01:35
You're speaking of West Side Story.
01:37
And certainly that moment for me became an incredible moment in recognition. In that someone who had my name existed in this country which of course I previously felt that no one did exist in this country with that name.
01:52
My goodness that movie did more things for more Latinos than you can possibly imagine.