In the documentary film, Backside, director/ filmmaker Raúl O. Paz-Pastrana (Border South), has lovingly composed a poetic meditation about the immigrant workers who care, feed, and tend to the million-dollar race horses at the Kentucky Derby racetrack.

Because of its historical association with royalty and nobility, horse racing is often called “the sport of kings.”In the horse racing caste system at the top are the horses, jockeys, owners, and gamblers, followed by the trainers, and beneath them, the workers who work for the trainers.

Pastrana skillfully uses a minimalist, cinema vertité approach to his film to imbue the workers with an aura of grace and nobility of their own.

There is no celebrity narrative voice over or mood setting, ethnically tinged music with a guitar or piano. There are no long-winded testimonials detailing aspects of the story.

Instead, Pastrana slowly lets the story, with virtually no dialog, pictorially unfold and reveal itself naturally by observing the workers going through their daily routine in quiet elegance. Often, the scenes that show the workers doing their jobs are framed and composed in a painterly fashion that evokes Van Gogh’s representations of working-class people in his timeless and iconic artwork.

The deep emotional attachment depicted in the film between horse and worker is one of the more touching and effective storylines of the film. In one scene, a curious wife asks her husband why he gives the horse candy.

“Because he’s my friend,” he whispers to his wife.

In the opening scene, we watch as a horse is being taken onto a ramp from a trailer. In the final scene, the horse is led up a ramp into a trailer to travel south. The scenes act seamlessly as cinematic bookends for the whole documentary.

Pastrana, a Mexican immigrant from Chihuahua, Mexico, now living in Denver, Colorado, is intimately knowledgeable about the immigrant experience in America and the untold value immigrants bring to the U.S. economy. In this unfortunate era of ICE raids and a Mass Deportation agenda, Backside is a gentle but persuasive reminder of the important and often unknown contributions of the immigrant community to America.

The Kentucky Derby Race is often described as the most exciting two minutes in sports.” Pastrana’s moving documentary, Backside, shows us the thousands of hard-working, tireless, dedicated  hours that go into making those “two exciting minutes.”Backside premieres on PBS, Monday, April 13. Check your local listing for times.

Independent Lens: Backside (2026) can be watched primarily on PBS.org and Free PBS App . It is also available for on-demand streaming for PBS Passport members and will have broadcast airings on various local PBS stations and the World Channel.

The post Backside: An Intimate Portrait of Immigrant  Workers at the Kentucky Derby first appeared on .

We Are The Americans

Emmy Award winner John Leguizamo follows up his brilliant one-man show, Latino History for Dummies (2018), with a Master Class in the three-part historical documentary for PBS VOCES. American Historias: The Untold History of Latinos, Leguizamo’s panoramic, kaleidoscopic landscape exalting the centuries long contributions of Latinos to the Americas is a colorful, dramatic and illuminating cinematic wall mural worthy of Diego Rivera.

American Historias, co-written and directed by Ben de Jesus, proudly chronicles the Latino legacy from the great indigenous ancient Meso-American empires, the Conquest, the Latinization of the Americas and the Caribbean. It reminds us of our military heroism, patriotism, political activism for social justice, our cultural influences in the arts, music, film, theater and not the least of which is our world class cuisine.

Leguizamo points out Latinos are an ethnic mixture with roots in Europe, Africa an  Meso America. We are a complicated multi-layered and delicious ethnic dish like traditional Mexican mole, a blend of native and several ingredients from all over the world.

American Historias bursts, con mucho argullo Latinim like a busted piñata. Each one of the tasty historias is excellent material for movies, like Walkout and Stand and Deliver. We must have our own all Latino streaming network like Netflix. We must have a MEXFLIX streaming network to tell and share nuestro American Latino historias with the world.
American Historias is currently streaming Prime Video, Hulu & YouTubeTV.  You can also watch it free on pbs.org/VOCES

American Historias: The Untold History of Latinos is executive produced by Jill Kirkorian and produced by Alessandra Quest and Belinda Salazar Kizy among

Currently Steaming on Hulu, Prime Video and on PBS.org/Voces. Or to purchase the three hourlong episodes go to Amazon CLICK HERE.

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Just finished watching House of Spoils. Ariana DeBose gives a solid performance as a driven ambitious chef trying to open a gourmet restaurant in an old house in the woods that just happens to be haunted by a witch who lived there before.

It’s an atmospheric thriller that evokes  Henry James‘ The Turn of the Screw and Tim Burton‘s  Sleepy Hollow.

DeBose’s kitchen is a chaotic nightmare  serving  some  questionable dishes.  After seeing some of the food served, I looked over at my wife and said: “We’re not going to this restaurant. How about  if we stay home and I fix us some migas?”

However, House of Spoils does serves up some tasty scary moments.

Have a great weekend.

The post Fideo Loco Quick Review: ‘House of the Spoils’ starring Ariana DeBose first appeared on .

Written by Roberto Leal

“The problem with Marilyn playing dumb blonde roles is she’s not dumb or a blonde” —Arthur Miller, Playwright

Ana de Armas has clearly and undeniably nailed down the coveted pole position for the for Oscar race for Best Actress. The talented, beautiful, Cuban-born de Armas delivers a stunning portrayal of Marilyn Monroe that is at once harrowing, compassionate, heart-breaking, nuanced, at times painful to watch and emotionally courageous. Ana de Armas has laid the foundation for this ground-breaking and controversial performance with critically acclaimed roles in her previous films, Knives Out, in which she plays a humble caregiver, the latest Bond girl in No Time to Die and a tough, kickass CIA agent in The Gray Man. But in Blonde, de Armas not only carries the film on her slender shoulders, she elevates the entire film to award-winning heights which in turn required her to extend her emotional acting range to newer, deeper and darker regions.

The Film Auteur’s Vision

The great Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, who gave us classic films like Persona, The 7^th Seal, and Wild Strawberries, observed that sitting in a darkened theater and watching the mesmerizing flickering images dance on a movie screen is the closest thing to the dream state. Andrew Dominik, the director of Blonde and noted for his avant-garde film, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Bob Ford, masterfully applies his auteurship skills to his vision of Blonde, which is based on the highly fictionalized, 1999 novel of Marilyn’s life by the author, Joyce Carol Oates.

In Blonde Dominik has created a surreal journey through the catacombs of Marilyn Monroe’s tortured inner psyche, as Norma Jean Baker struggles with the manufactured Hollywood identity of Marilyn Monroe that inhabits her body, mind and soul. In de Armas, Dominik has found the perfect vessel to bring his vision to life on the screen.

Dominik uses dark, muted light and shadows to convey an ethereal, dream-like tone that pervades the film often blending and mixing reality and nightmarish sequences with delusional fantasies.

Netflix, in a rare move, gave Dominik carte blanche to realize his vision of the material which contains some strong sexual content that resulted in Netflix getting its first NC-17 rating. But while the sexual content is disturbing, it is not especially graphic and as experienced through the vulnerable eyes of de Armas as Marilyn, it comes across more like pathos than porn. Ana de Armas uses her eyes, face, and inner dialogs between Norma Jean and Marilyn to paint a very textured portrait of the legendary Blonde Bombshell as a complicated, conflicted and misunderstood human being who became a Hollywood myth.

A Fine Supporting Cast

Blonde features an excellent supporting cast, all of whom turn in notable acting performances. However, Lily Fisher (Station 19, Life & Death)) as young Norma Jean and Julianne Nicholson (August: Osage County, Black Mass) as Gladys Baker, Marilyn’s mentally unstable, delusional and often abusive mother, deserve a special shout-out for their fine work in the opening scenes of Blonde that depict, with often unsettling detail, the genesis of Norma Jean /Marilyn Monroe’s journey.

Fisher has a very unforgettable and poignant scene when she is shuffled off to an orphanage and protests in a quiet, haunting, plaintive voice: “But I’m not n orphan.”  Nicholson’s riveting performance of Gladys’s descent into utter and complete madness is a disquieting and viscerally frightening experience to behold.

A Cinematic Triumph for Ana de Armas

But in the final analysis, Blonde is all Ana de Armas. Her performance is like a great concert pianist playing George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.  She commands the attention of the camera. You can’t take your eyes off of her. She draws you into the story and demands you watch, listen and try to understand her pain. The camera loves de Armas in much the same way it loved Marilyn Monroe, who was beyond a doubt the most photogenic Hollywood movie star of all time. 

Ana de Armas’s physical resemblance to Monroe is obvious. She worked diligently with an accent coach to diffuse her lovely Cuban accent and recreate Marilyn’s speaking voice. Her Cuban accent slightly betrays her only once or twice on certain words and did not detract from her performance at all.

In fact, it was a bit of unintentional irony that de armas, a Latina, was cast to play Marilyn Monroe. In real life, Monroe kept her Mexican birth heritage (her mother, Gladys, was born in Mexico) a professional secret because of pressure from the Hollywood studio executives who did not want their valuable All-American “product” to be tainted with a Hispanic background. So, in a karmic twist of fate, de Armas is in reality the perfect actress to portray Marilyn Monroe.

Ana de Armas’s star power keeps intensifying with each new challenging role. After her brilliant star turn in Blonde the only question remaining for de Armas is what designer dress this gorgeous and talented Latina will be wearing during her red-carpet interviews on her way to receiving her many well-earned and richly deserved acting awards for her role in this film.

BLONDE

Director: Andrew Dominik

Stars: Ana de Armas, Lily fisher, Julianne Nicholson

Distributor: Netflix

Blonde is currently streaming on Netflix.

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 The Re-Browning of America. Is It Something We Said?

William Frey’s seminal work on the changing future demographics of the United States, The Browning of America has it all right, except for the title. The book should be titled, The Re-Browning of America. 

How soon we forget. The pre-Columbian Americas from Canada down to Patagonia were flush with brown people long before the first seasick pasty white Pilgrim set foot on Plymouth Rock.

Frey predicts by 2030 most of the West Coast, the Southwest, the Deep South, and some East Coast states will become minority-majority states with Latinos of all fifty shades of brown, accents, music and food making up a huge percentage of the population in those areas.

California is already a minority-majority state. So we can assume that Los Angeles with its massive Chicano community and the home of Latino Hollywood is the place where diversity and inclusivity are a slam dunk in film and TV, right? Well not so fast Speedy (insert your favorite Spanish surname).

Fear and Loathing in LA

“They’re singing songs of diversity, but not for me” is a tune many in Latino Hollywood find themselves singing these days. And in the face of so many reported gains in diversity and inclusion for women and other minorities for opportunities in front of and behind the camera, the question has to be asked why Latinos haven’t benefitted from these improvements?

An article about the recent WarnerMedia Discovery merger in a Latin Heat article, cited the public criticism by several Latino advocacy groups for inviting minority groups to their corporate board table. Rather the message to the Latino entertainment community was not to bother attending, but that they were more than welcome to come and bus the tables.

A similar UCLA study showed that even though Latinos make up almost 19 percent of the US population, they only have a 7 percent representation in film and TV.  Why such a wide gap in the disparity of representation in comparison to women and other minorities? Could it be fear?

The City of Los Angeles and the Latino community have had a troubled relationship ever since the city became part of the United States. The Anglo incursion into the city resulted in Latinos moving into barrios where they increasingly became objects of scorn and suspicion.  The Zoot Suit Riots of 1943 only underscored the image of the Latino as a criminal to be feared.

The Chicano Movement of the ‘60’s was a wake-up call to the “establishment” that we were unified by an identity of pride and were now a force to be reckoned with. And now there is enough star power in the Latino entertainment galaxy with countless brilliantly talented producers, directors, writers, actors, musicians, cinematographers and craft technicians to light up a whole city. A city like LA. Could it be there are leftover vestiges of that old Latino dread that still linger in the big studio boardrooms and they feel threatened of losing their power in the oncoming, unstoppable cultural tsunami of The Browning of Hollywood?

What Do We Need?

In 2020, over 270 Latino writers and showrunners wrote the “Dear Hollywood” open letter demanding action on inclusivity. The letter’s signatories included such luminaries as Gloria Calderón-Kellett (One Day at a Time), Lin-Manuel Miranda (Encanto) Steven Canals (Pose), Tanaya Saracho (Vida), and John Leguizamo.  In the letter, the group lays out a list of five points of action they deem necessary for change: 

• Hire Latino writers to tell Latino stories
• Greenlight more projects from Latino creators
• Represent all aspects of Latino life and culture
• Do away with writers repeating low-level positions
• Hire Latino writers for projects about other groups.

That was two years ago and from all indications as the song says: “The beat goes on.” So, what do we need to make things change? When will Othello be played by Edward James Olmos rather than James Earl Jones? When will the next reboot of Cheaper by the Dozen be about a blended Mexican-American family of 12. Mom is a retired Air force helicopter pilot who is now running for political office. Dad is a doctor who runs a free clinic in their small Texas border town. The kids divide their time volunteering for Mom and helping out Dad at the clinic.

Who’s going to greenlight these projects from Latino creators?

Bel Hernandez, publisher of the influential trade journal, Latin Heat Entertainment, has been tracking Latino Hollywood since 1992. They don’t call Bel the Godmother of Latino Hollywood for nothing.  “In my opinion having Latino showrunners is essential,” she said. “But what we also need is studios and networks executives to greenlight our projects.” Adding, “And just as important, we need Latinos with deep pockets to invest in our stories like the African American community has done in theirs.”

Impatiently Waiting at the Railway Station

Latino Hollywood has been sitting in the railway station holding a ticket for its inevitable inclusive destination long enough.  That diversity train should have already arrived a long time ago. Well, the damn trains never run-on time, do they? But it won’t be long before we hear the roaring down the tracks of a fast-approaching train.

The post Why is the Hollywood Diversity Train Leaving Latinos Behind at the Station?? first appeared on .

The International Rippling Cultural Effects of Mexican Independence Day

Most non-Latinos think Cinco de Mayo is Mexican Independence Day. It’s not. Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican Army’s ass-kicking of the mighty French Army at the Battle of Puebla in 1862 when Emperor Maximilian tried to establish a monarchy in Mexico. No way, José or I should say, Pas question, Pierre.

Mexico bid adios to their Spanish colonial overlords on September 16, 1810. Six years earlier, Haiti, an island nation of black slaves, overthrew their French colonial overlords. What was historically significant in both those revolutions was they were both accomplished by people of color against white Europeans. They didn’t get as much coverage on the Nightly News as the American and French Revolutions. Wonder why?

The Mexican Revolution did catch the attention of the fledgling American nation because now their next-door neighbor was no longer governed by fellow traveler white Europeans, but by brown indigenous peasants and barefoot mestizos. So, like a good neighbor, they declared war on Mexico (Mexican-American War 1846 – 1848) and stole over half their territory. But the USA failed to heed the warning of Oscar Wilde: “When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers.”

 The greedy gringos won the war, but we—the Mexicans, the Latinos, the Chicanos, the Mexican Americans and even the Pochos del Otro Lado—we who now dominate the Southwest, California and increasingly are influencing the rest of America and the world, we won the goddam narrative. Here’s how.

ALL HAIL THE UBIQUITOUS TACO
It’s been said the banana and the potato are the “perfect foods.” These are foods you can survive on without other foods. Well, I guess if you are a monkey or Irish that may be true. But consider the taco. The taco is a complete meal encased in corn, flour, wheat or a multi-grain tortilla. As a complete meal, the taco solves the mystery of chopsticks, exposes the knife and fork as unnecessary and renders the bologna sandwich obsolete. The taco can be enjoyed for breakfast, lunch or dinner. What a taco consists of is only limited by your imagination and what is in your fridge.

In any large American city, there are as many taco trucks on the streets as there are city buses. You can enjoy tacos in Paris, Texas and Paris, France. Legend has it some nice Mexican women made tacos for the defeated French soldiers after the Battle of Puebla. They washed them down with their stuck-up French wine rather than good, ice cold Mexican beer, but c’est la guerre.

YOU’RE IN AMERICA, VATO, SPEAK SPANISH!
Spanish was the first European language spoken in the New World, not English. In some parts of the Occupied Territories along the Tex-Mex border Spanish is the first language of choice. Check out the rosters of Major League Baseball teams and you will find more Spanish surnames than you would in a Havana phone book. 

Millions of people with Spanish surnames can be found in every stratum of America: food production and processing, textile sweatshops, the building trades, home and health care and the military. Maybe it’s time English-speaking America learned a little Spanish so they can communicate with those who feed, clothe, house, take care of and protect us.

LATINO HOLLYWOOD ON THE VERGE
Latinos make up a huge percentage of the film and TV viewing audience. But that number is not reflected in the representation of Latinos on the small and big screens. Unfortunately, too often the stories told are stereotypical depictions of gang bangers, drug cartels and other violent, mindless shoot ‘em ups. There are some bright spots to be sure. Cable TV shows like, One Day at a Time, Selena: The Series, Gentefied and recent theatrical offerings, Walking with Herb and In the Heights are just a few positive examples.

The problem is not a lack of talented Latinos in front and behind the camera. The problem is no Latinos heading up big studios that can greenlight more exemplary stories about our community. But this too shall come to pass.

THE TRANS-PACIFIC CHOLO EFFECT
The cholo tradition of East LA has crossed the Pacific to the Far East country of Japan. Today you can find young Japanese girls dressing and making up themselves like the cholas of Boyle Heights. On the streets of Tokyo, lowrider car clubs can be seen and heard bopping up and down the boulevards in a less than fast and furious fashion to the thumping beat of reggaeton.

DON’T LOOK NOW, AZTLÁN HAS ARRIVED

Do we Chicanos have the legal and primordial rights to the lands annexed by the United States resulting from the Mexican-/American War? I seriously doubt this current US Supreme Court would rule in our favor. But if you look at the undeniable influence through language, culture, cuisine and sheer demographics on those annexed territories and around the world the mythic dream of Aztlán has already been achieved. It’s a testament to the indomitable spirit of the Latino people and el grito heard around the world.

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In Search of the Great Latina Game Show Host

I started watching Jeopardy! way back in1964 when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and  I was in high school. Art Fleming was the original host. The game so dramatically influenced my life I found myself reflexively offering answers to any query in the form of a question. One Sunday morning as I was slurping down a hot bowl of menudo to cure a raging hangover, my mother asked in her telltale Tex-Mex accent, “Mijito, what time did you get in last night?” Without looking up I responded, “What is I was way too drunk to remember?”

Fans of Jeopardy around the world were saddened by the passing of long-time, legendary host, Alex Trebek. Since Trebek’s passing a series of guest hosts have been hosting the show with mixed results vying for the job. Those guest hosts have included an NFL quarterback, a CNN anchor, Drs. Oz and Gupta, Katie Couric and Levar Burton just to mention a few.

But surprisingly, or maybe not so surprisingly there were no Latinx guest hosts. Considering the well-documented fact Latinos make up a huge portion of the network TV viewing audience this oversight seems to be…uh, what’s the word? Stupid! We Latinos watch more than just telenovelas and fútbol on TV. Okay, I confess, I watch a lot of Liga MX fútbol.

Our steadily growing demographics indicate it’s time we had a person with a Hispanic surname hosting Jeopardy. But more specifically a Latina game show host. Game shows have too long been dominated by amiable white guys with nice hair and one lone nicely dressed black guy. Let’s see if we can come up with a Final Jeopardy answer to this question by having a slightly altered form of Jeopardy.

Host: “Good evening contestants. Tonight there will be only one category to choose from: Latinas Who Would Make a Great Jeopardy Host.

Contestant #1: “I’ll take Latinas Who Would Make a Great Jeopardy Host for $200.”

Host: “Okay, here is your clue: This Latina is one of the greatest female fastpitch softball players of all time. She has won Gold and Silver medals in the Olympics and is now a baseball analyst on ESPN.”

 Contestant #1: “Who is Paris Hilton?”

 Host: “No, that’s wrong.”

 Contestant #3: “Who is Sarah Palin?”

 Host: “Sorry, also wrong.”

Contestant #2: “Who is Jessica Mendoza?”

HOST: “That’s correct. Jessica Mendoza is also the first woman to work on a Major League Baseball World Series broadcast team. She was the first female to be a broadcaster on the College World Series of Baseball.”

Contestant #2: “I’ll take Saturday Morning Cartoons for $40.”

HOST: “We don’t have that category tonight. We just have the one category.”

Contestant #2: “Oh fine. Whatever. Shoot.”

HOST: “This Latina is a broadcast journalist, news anchor and author. The New York Times calls her the “Voice of Hispanic America.”

Contestant #1: “Who is Charo?”

HOST: “Incorrect.”

Contestant #3: “Who is Chiquita Banana?”

HOST: “No, very wrong! Chiquita Banana is not a real person. She’s a banana.”

Contestant #3: “Then why is her name in boldface type”?

HOST “I don’t know. Take it up with my editor.”

Contestant #2: “Who is Marí Elena Salinas?”

HOST: “You’re right. María Elena Salinas has interviewed countless Latin American dictators, Hollywood and music celebrities and every U.S. president since Jimmy Carter. Salinas was one of the first female journalists to report in wartime Belgrade.”

Contestant #3: “Well I’ll take the same category for $600.”

HOST: “This Latina is a talented actress, stand-up comic, singer,  impressionist and visual artist.”

Contestant #1: “Who is Kim Kardashian?”

HOST: “No, it’s not Kim Kardashian. I told you Saturday Morning Cartoons was not one of our categories tonight.”

Contestant #2: “Who is Melania Trump?”

HOST: “Nope. Not Melania.”

Contestant #2: “Are you sure? She’s pretty funny and she does a great impression of a happy, loyal wife.”

HOST: “No, I’m sure.”

Contestant #3: “Who is Melissa Villaseñor?”

HOST: “Yes, it’s Melissa Villaseñor. Melissa has the unique distinction of being the first Latina cast member of SNL. Unfortunately, by the time, the unbearably long cast member roll call gets down to Villaseñor most of the TV viewers have drifted off to sleep or changed the channel to the Home Shopping Network.”

Well, there you have it: Jessica Mendoza, María Elena Salinas and Melissa Villaseñor. Three excellent candidates for the job of a permanent host on Jeopardy.  Did you notice all three Latinas were the “first” in some area of their profession?

Which talented lady will be able to add “first Latina host of Jeopardy” to her resume? These are just three names off a very long, list of highly qualified contenders. One of them deserves  to have her name introduced by Johnny Gilbert: “And now, here’s the host of Jeopardy…”

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Why San Antonio Will Be the Epicenter of It All

Written by Roberto Leal

A Nation No Longer Groovin’

Due to the Trumpvirus and the colossally incompetent mishandling of the pendejodemic by the Incredible Hoax President, the world has slid off its once well-oiled grooves and skidded into a chasm of chaos and despair. The evidence is all around us, especially here in Texas, thanks to our Punch ‘n Judy puppet team of Gov. Abbott and Lt. Gov. Patrick, we are dealing with:

1. Trumpvirus cases in Texas, are spiking higher than Dr. Timothy Leary on peyote.
   
2. Latinos are getting knocked down like bowling pins, by the pendejodemic, like league night at a neighborhood bowling alley.
   
3. African Dust. No, African Dust is not the latest offering from the Rastafarian Drug Cartel. It’s a noxious, sand cloud drifting across the Atlantic from Africa, and due to descend on Texas this week.

The consequences of these stats are grim indeed. With all those Mexican-American women sick and unable to work, who is going to do the laundry, mop the floors, clean the rooms, and make the beds, in my retirement villa, here in San Antonio? Who is going to work in the kitchen, cook meals, serve food, bus tables, and take guff from gringo residents grumbling “those Mexicans don’t know how to cook meatloaf”!  Who? Donna Reed? June Cleaver? Carol Brady? I kinda doubt it.

The Orange Plague is the New Black Plague

During the Middle Ages, the Black Plague decimated the population of Europe. But out of that catastrophe arose the Italian Renaissance that took root in the city of Florence and eventually spread throughout Europe, bringing Enlightenment and the Age of reason to the Old and New World.

I predict when we get past this Orange Plague (aka the Trumpvirus pendejodemic) a Chicano Renaissance will blossom all over Texas but will realize its brightest and most glorious flowering in my hometown of San Antonio. Here’s why:

Solving the Re-Naming of the Confederate Monuments

True, Texas was part of the Confederacy and there are many military installations public buildings and statues named after the Guys in Gray, who came in second place in the Civil War. But Tejas is also a state that proudly celebrates its Tex-Mex heritage and roots, as the state increasingly becomes more “Mex” and less “Tex.” Therefore, post-Orange Plague Chicano legislators will begin the process of re-naming those offensives, Johnny Reb Relics of the past with names that reflect the growing, dominant Latino culture.

Examples:

• Let’s rename Fort Bliss in El Paso, Fort Feliz. Fort Hood in Temple could become Fort Pico de Gallo. Lackland AFB converted to La Virgen de Guadalupe AFB. Texas Tech becomes Tin Tan Tech.
  
• The fabled Texas Rangers have a well-documented early history of genocide and lynching of Comanches and Mexicans, after the Mexican-American War. The Texas Rangers baseball team will become the Texas Tornadoes. The famous Tejano group’s signature hit, will become our new national anthem because it playfully asks the probing question of what went wrong in Trump’s America: ¿Hey Baby, Que Pasó?
  
• Replace the statue of Jim Bowie, the knife-wielding, racist, slave-owning hero of the Alamo with a statue of Julian Castro, the former mayor of the Alamo City and our future president.
  
• Finally, but most importantly, nobody remembers or cares about Stephen Austin, the man for whom the capital was named after. But everybody remembers and cares deeply about Selena. So, change the capital of Texas to Selena City.

Texas Has Mucho Latino Talent

That is a Lone Star State-sized understatement. Forget about Washington, DC becoming the 51^st state. You could create a whole new US state populated entirely with talented Latino, Mexican-American and Chicano artists of every conceivable kind; visual arts, film, TV, and theater actors, poets, authors, screenwriters, (like yours truly), directors, and music.

San Antonio is the hometown of a galaxy of Latino stars: Eva Longoria, Robert Rodriguez, Emilio Rivera, James Roday, Michelle Rodriguez, and Jade Esteban Estrada, just to name a tiny, tiny few.

The Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center, located in W. San Antonio hosts CineFestival, the longest-running Latino-based film festival celebration in the USA. CineFestival has played an important role in introducing and promoting Chicano, Mexican and Latin American filmmakers to a wider, world-wide audience.

San Antonio also showcases great mural artwork, traditional Mexican dance and music festivals featuring every Latino musical genre under the hot South Texas Sun.

Toss in the growing virtual production technology and you have the recipe for San Antonio to emerge as the epicenter of Latino-based film, TV, music, and multi-media

¡Las Vidas Latinas Important!

Of the 800,000 DACA recipients in the US, 130,000 live, work, and contribute to society in Texas. A recent court ruling ordered the release of migrant children being imprisoned in dog cages, along the Tex-Mex border. In the Chicano Renaissance, all this Latino potential will not be working in meat processing plants so Bubba can have his sausage, biscuits, and gravy at the all-White diner in Gabachoville.

Instead, many of these young Latinos will come to San Antonio and create film, music, art, poetry and add to the ever-expanding Latino galaxy of stars in the Chicano Renaissance starry, starry night.

The ripple effects of the San Antonio-centered Chicano Renaissance will work its way through the country. Recall that the Chicano Movement started here in Texas in Crystal City, and we all know the seismic shifts that subsequently resulted from that political earthquake.

The Chicano Renaissance coming on the heels of the Chicano Movement and this current Pendejodemic will continue to change Texas from Red to Purple, to a permanent, Latino-based Azul.

¡VIVA AZUL TEJAS!

P.S. My Mom made terrible meatloaf.

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