María Jiménez Henley pioneering Latina actress, choreographer and stage manager. She began her career when she played  the role of “Teresita” in the motion picture WEST SIDE STORY. Latinopia learned that  after María was accepted into the cast of the film, something happened which nearly ended her career before it began. We hear this story in her own words.

Sister and brother, Jeneda and Clayson Benally from the Navajo (Diné) Nation in Northern Arizona are Sihasin, a musical group that combines bass, drums and original lyrics into songs that empower and celebrate the human spirit. They address the scapegoating of undocumented workers in the United States in their original song “Move Along” which they performed at Denise Chavez’s  2013 Border Book Festival in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

In 1968, the United Farm Workers were in the third year of a struggle to get California grape growers to sign just contracts with the union. But the strike was becoming ever more violent. Beaten by Sheriffs and teamsters alike, many striking farm workers were having difficulty coping with UWF President César Chávez’s  non-violent approach to the strike. César Chávez decided to defuse the situation by going on a fast, a hunger strike to emphasize the importance of non-violence. UFW Vice-President Dolores Huerta was in New York City when she heard of the fast.

Ricardo Alejandro Rodas is a poet and an immigrant from Argentina. While in his homeland he was published in the anthology  Poetic Rebirth, published by the Society of Latin American Writers and Poets. Ricardo pursues his literary interests in his new homeland at the Bohemian Nights literary group in Sylmar, California. He reads here from his poem, “Open Letter From An Immigrant.”

Las Cafeteras is a music ensemble that combines the vibrant energy of Son Jarocho music with an edgy LA-alternative sound & political message. Their pounding Afro-Mexican rhythms, stomping zapateado dancing, & uplifting lyrics tell stories of everyday people searching for love & fighting for justice in the concrete jungle. The group is comprised of Annette Torres, Daniel French, David Flores, Denise Carlos, Hector Flores, Jose Cano, y Leah Gallegos. In 2009 they perform a rendition of the popular folk song, “La Bamba” at the Tia Chucha bookstore. Their version is infused with contemporary lyrics that give it relevance to the Latino experience in the United States.

Welcome to Cocina Hernández! In this episode Diane Velarde Hernández shares another one of her great Mexican recipes with us. This time it’s “Sopa de Fideo,” a traditional rendering of vermicelli pasta cherished by Mexican households for generations.  Enjoy!

Olmeca is a songwriter and spoken word artist whose lyrics, at times in Spanish and at times in English,  reflect the issues of urban Latino youth. This is the second installment of a recent jam with other spoken word artists at “Espacio 1839,” an bookstore and art space in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.  Olmeca is currently on a fundraising effort to secure funds for his new album, “Brown is Beautiful.”  Visit to  www.olmecaone.com to contribute to his latest effort.

Los Angeles Ward is a futuristic web drama series starring Jade Puga.  The series is produced by the creative team of actress/writer/producer Jade Puga and writer/director Richard Montes.  The webisode is set in a near future when an underclass of Los Angles residents battle a city run by a corporate elite. This video was produced, is owned and copyrighted by Safada Y Sano Productions Inc. and is posted on Latinopia.com by permission.

Rubén Martínez is an author and performer.  His books “Crossing Over” and”The New Americans” have been widely acclaimed. In his latest book, “Desert America,” he recounts a ten-year spiritual and socio-political journey into the American Southwest.  Moving from the desert of Joshua Tree, California to the arrid Tohono O’odham reservation of Southern Arizona, to the scenic but troubled region of Northern New Mexico and as far as the Marfa, Texas, Rubén shared with Latinopia what he learned on this life journey.

Diana García is a poet who grew up in the agricultural community of Merced, California. Her poetry often deals with the lives of farmworkers as well as feminist and family themes.  In September of 2010 she read passages from her eight-part poem “Bittersweet Harvest,” an homage to the lives of Mexican field hands during the bracero program of the 1950s, at the USC Flor y Canto Literary Festival.  Latinopia is proud to showcase  her reading here.

In March, 1968, Mexican American students from four high schools in East Los Angeles walked out in protest of the inferior education they were receiving. Parents, community activists and clergy met on March 4, 1968 to organize support for the striking students.  They created the Educational Issues Coordinating Committee ( E.I.C.C.) and named Rev. Vahac Mardirosian, a baptist minister who had grown up in Mexico, as President of the group. Soon they would be making Los Angeles civil rights history.

When he’s not managing his parent’s popular Las Cruces restaurant, “Nopalito,” Victor Gallegos is managing one of the first art galleries in Las Cruces to be owned and operated by Mexican Americans.House in an ancient but restored adobe house along the Camino Real (The King’s Highway), the Nopalito’s Galeria was founded by Victor and features a wide variety of Chicano and Latino artists. Victor shared with Latinopia how he converted an ancient historical treasure into a contemporary art gallery.

Denise Chávez is a New Mexico author whose novel “Face of an Angel” won the American Book Award. Her coming of age novel, “The Last of the Menu Girls” is a classic of Latina literature. In her piece “Novena Narrativas y Ofrendas” (Nine Narratives and Offerings) she creates the voices of nine Latinas from different walks of life. Latinopia asked Denise to read one of these “Corrine,” the voice of a feisty barrio “bag lady.”

Dr. Rolando Hinojosa Smith is a pioneering Chicano author whose writings transcend genres. His novel “Klail City” won the prestigious Casa de las Americas literary award. Hinojosa has created the fictional world of Klail City located in fictional Belkin County, Texas. His writings draw on his experiences growing up in the Rio Grande valley of Texas. He reads here a selection, “The Searcher IV” from his novel “Klail City.”

Jade Puga and Richard Montes are a writing/producing/directing team whose company, Safada y Sano Productions, has produced webisodes as well as long form dramas.  Their webisode series “Los Angeles Ward” offers a dystopian view of marginalized people in American society.  Latinopia is proud to showcase the first episode of this web series, the episode is titled “The Voiceless.”

Conjunto Hueyapan is a jarocho musical group made up of two generations of the Herrera family.  Founded in 1973 by Fermín Herrera, the group hails from Oxnard, California and are always is in popular demand for their accomplished renditions of traditional jarocho songs. Here they perform “El Ahualulco,” one of the standards of the jarocho tradition.

Irene Díaz is a singer/songwriter who has performed at venues like The Roxy, House of Blues Sunset, and Room 5 Lounge. Recently she performed with friends at the “Espacio 1839″ art space in Boyle Heights where she performed her original song, “Frequencies.”

JACKIE ROBINSON.

Not long ago something happened that really had me scratching my head.

I accompanied a friend of mine who went to Tucson to shoot a little film about the political scene in Arizona, a state where Latinos seem to be under siege. The first stop on that little tour was the office that been the campaign office for Congressman Raul Grijalva. A group of Chicano students from Cal State Northridge had gone down there to help with some street canvassing. The office walls were decorated with a number of photographs of iconic American figures.

I walked up to a wall where a photo was hanging. It was classic black and white photograph of a Major League Baseball player sliding into home plate, his Brooklyn Dodgers cap flying dramatically off his head. I’d seen that photo lots of times. When I was seven or eight years old I remember first seeing it in Life Magazine. A young Chicana was staring at the picture when I walked up beside it, admiring it – and admiring the thought of this young Mexican American woman being impressed with what the photo evoked. I said to her, “Well, there he is, amazing to think about what that represents isn’t it?” She stared at me blankly. Her eyes seemed to say, “What the heck are you talking about?”

Immediately,  I started thinking, “Maybe this print is just to blurry and out of focus for her to see clearly who that baseball player was.” I was wrong. I said to her, “That’s Number 42.” Now she looked at me as if I was from another planet, or smoking something that’s now presumably legal in Colorado.

A bit exasperated I said finally, “That’s Jackie Robinson.” Then, astonishingly to me, she said, “Who is that?” Then I looked at her as if she was from Mars.

I ended up giving her a two-minute history of Jackie Robinson and the trancendent social-historical-political significance of his breaking of the color line in Major League Baseball in 1947. “Really, I didn’t know that,” the college student replied.

I walked away from that conversation stunned.  I stood there as if I was frozen at the plate, bat in hand, having taken a called third strike hurled with blinding speed by Sandy Koufax.

A dozen questions bounced around in my head. How could an apparently intelligent college student not know who Jackie Robinson was? Is it a generational thing? Is it just that I’m heading into codgerdom; maybe I’m making the wrong assumptions about what young, educated people should know? Am I just assuming too much about our collective contemporary American history? And the final question I asked myself: where did we go wrong that someone in this country just wouldn’t know something as basic as who Jackie Robinson was and what he represents – to all of us?

That incident happened a while back, but thoughts of it were rekindled recently when I saw a trailer online about the new biopic “42”. The film opens to coincide with opening day of the baseball season.

For days I seemed a little bit obsessed with that encounter with the college student in front of that iconic photograph. I went out of my way to ask people what they thought about it. I found myself asking twenty-somethings at Starbucks or at Vons or at the library if they knew who Jackie Robinson was. Nothing scientific about my “survey” of course, but I was astonished again and again the more I probed. Young folks – black and white, Latino and Asian American – didn’t seem to know who I was talking about. (At one point at dinner my wife chided me, “Just give a rest.”) Yet, I was a bit obsessed by all this.

Who else doesn’t register with young people? Do young people also not know about Rosa Parks? Cesar Chavez?  Neil Armstrong? Goodness, even president Kennedy and the assassination? Individuals in history are mileposts in our collective experience. They’re the catalysts into historical epochs. Stuff, it seems to me, we should all know and share. I wanted to fault the school system, which let’s face it, is under attack for seemingly doing everything wrong. That’s not entirely fair, of course, given that public schools have their share of problems and are probably earnest in doing the best they can. But something is wrong somewhere. I certainly don’t know the answer, but I am troubled by the consequences.

Maybe it’s just that I live in Pasadena, the mecca of all things Jackie Robinson and my perspective is skewed. No I don’t think that’s it. I grew up in East L.A. and I certainly knew who he was. Maybe it’s because I played baseball as a kid and that’s why I knew. No, that can’t be it. It’s something I grappled with and still grapple with.

Maybe it’s a generational thing, after all and maybe I should stop fretting that some young people just don’t know who Jackie Robinson is and what his accomplishments mean to this country. Maybe I’m just getting old and maybe I’m losing perspective. One young person I quizzed at the grocery store told me, “That all happened before I was born, how should I know about it and why should I know about it.” That did it. Hey, I wasn’t around when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president, but books have told me who he is. So that explanation by that kid in the grocery store just doesn’t wash with me.

Where have we gone wrong?
__________________________________________________________________________________

Luis Torres, a journalist and writer from

Pasadena, California, is at work on a

book that examines the 1968 East  Los

Angeles high school student walkouts.

Alberto “Tito” Ríos is a celebrated poet and author who has published ten books of poetry, three short story collections and a memoir. Latinopia was intrigued by his body of work as a poet and asked a simple question: “How do you go about writing a poem?”

Little Joe Hernández may be the foremost innovator of Tejano music, taking elements of the conjunto sound of Santiago Jimenez, Narciso Martinez and big band sound of Beto Villa and elaborating an original and distinct Tejano music sound that has flourished for more than forty years. Latinopia visited with Little Joe and asked him what the lasting effect of Tejano and Chicano music will be on American society.

Rey Villalobos is the acclaimed Director of Photography of such motion pictures as “Urban Cowboy,” “Nine to Five,” “A Bronx Tale,” and “American Me.” He has also directed numerous episodic television dramas.In 1993, when César Chávez passed away, Villalobos joined Latino directors Greg Nava, Edward James Olmos, Jesús Treviño, Luis Valdez and producer Moctesuma Esparza in a very special assignment, the filming of the César Chávez funeral. He recalls the day.