Latinxs Representation in Film
Based on an episode with Rosa Parra 🇲🇽
Welcome to Latinx in Power, a podcast aiming to help to demystify tech, the way we do that is by interviewing Latinx and Caribbean leaders all over the world to hear their perspective and insights.
Rosa Parra is a Chicana born and raised in East LA. She became interested in films at a young age and just recently decided to become a film critic. Rosa is currently working toward her Bachelors in Film and Media studies. Rosa’s primary job aids in the medical field as she’s a certified electron microscopist, that means a specialized lab technician and works in a hospital in Los Angeles.
I’m a big fan of Rosa’s podcast Latinx Lens about Latinx representation in film and television, so we’re going to talk more about that too. In this episode we talked about why we use the word latinx, Latinxs representation in the film and television industry, the difference between the term Hispanic and Latinx, and where Latinxs can make an impact.
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What does it mean to be a Latina for you.
The term itself is a self proclaimed term, meaning that you can only identify yourself as one. Unfortunately, we’re in an era where we try to always judge and put each other in boxes and always trying to check off social norms but, the term Latina, in my opinion, is someone who is from or descends from a Latin American country, which can be Mexico the Caribbean, Central or South America.
In terms of it being self-proclaimed, I personally do consider myself as a Latina, because my parents are both from Mexico, and I’m a Chicana meaning that I was born and raised here in the US, but of Mexican descent. Unfortunately, when the term Latina comes into play or when I hear the word Latina, I think diversity, I think richness and cultures, and sadly under-representation and invisible ancestry too, because it’s who I am, my role models and sadly again, marginalization, we’re just so often forgotten.
I know a lot of people either who are from those countries or of this descent who don’t identify as Latinxs. They either identify as Hispanic or they want to be more specific and they say, I’m Mexican, or I’m from Puerto Rican or I’m Dominican, or they just specify what country they’re from which is perfectly fine too. Nothing wrong with that. I think it’s more of the US terms like Hispanic and Latino are coming to play now.
I know you’re super vocal on Twitter regarding the words Latina/Latino vs Latinx which is awesome in my opinion. I’d love to hear your perspective about it.
The United States is a country that it’s either one of a few or if not, the only one where compartmentmentalization is the norm. You have to put yourself in a group where the government always has to place you, somewhere they have to put you inside a box.
Unfortunately, it first started with the term Hispanic and anybody that was from a Spanish speaking country that were automatically deemed Hispanic. I guess either they’re too lazy to not want to either know about the people and know where their ancestry is from or they are from different countries so they just use an umbrella term and bundle all of us in it together.
The term Latina/Latino has also been around for a few years, but the term Latinx is a newer term if I’m not mistaken. The term Latinx, I think it’s predominantly used in academics, because it is new and not a lot of people are gonna know about it. Biologically speaking, we do tend to be very frightened of the unknown so when there comes a term of course people are gonna be a bit hesitant to use it.
As the term is, in my opinion, more of a gender neutral term. It incorporates individuals who don’t identify as either men or women, or non binary. Of course if I know a person does identify as a woman or as a man, then in that case, I’ll go ahead and move forward and use the word Latina or Latino, or however they wish to identify as. The origins of the term itself is from Latinos themselves, and from people who are non binary. A lot of people are trying to move away from that masculine language and just trying to be neutral and try to be equal about it.
I think for the most part the argument that I do hear against the use of the term or incorporating the term Latinx is exactly how it violates or doesn’t follow certain Spanish rules. I was actually born here in the US, I predominantly communicate via Spanglish. Trust me when it comes to appropriately using the Spanish languages, I am a far less suitable person to do it, because we’re communicating or I communicate via a combination of both the English and Spanish.
When people come to me with an argument that Latinx is violating the Spanish appropriate pronunciation or rules or whatever, I just say that I’m a Spanglish speaking person. Not that I don’t care, but I’m going to use the terminology and the language to communicate so I’m just going to do it however I find it better for me. The term Latinx itself is not forced upon people, they’re just using it however they think it’s best. If you don’t want to use the term, don’t use it.
It is very important to at least know the differences between the term Latino and Hispanic. Hispanic, refers to anybody from a Spanish speaking country descent, which includes people from Spain, but excludes Brazil. Latino is more of a Western hemisphere kind of identity. The term certainly does include Brazilians but it excludes people from Spain.
Latino is more of a term where we’re pretty much embracing our roots, where we’re celebrating our indigenous roots and being aware of where we’re coming from. Hispanic tends to be more of a celebratory term for the Spanish, for the colonists. I identify myself as a Latina, of course, and a Chicana to be more specific if people need to know which is quite bothersome, quite frankly, that people automatically need to know where you’re from.
I’m a Latina but where exactly am I from? Why do you need to know? Why does it matter? Oh, so you can just put your stereotypes on me and just get an assumption or a perception of who I am based on your biases and everything? It makes no sense to me, just know me for who I am, no matter where my roots are and my cultural background as well.
How would you describe yourself?
I’m a Chicana born and raised in East LA, and it’s funny that we don’t have a lot of representation when it comes to film in Hollywood, but whatever little representation we do have, it does tend to represent who I am, which is your stereotypical Chicano/Chicana from East LA. I’m over here, advocating for representation for everybody, yet I’m the one that’s perhaps being represented the most in Hollywood.
I was raised in East LA and I still reside in Southern California, I’ve been here my entire life, I’ve never moved from here. I just love Southern California. I love the weather, and it’s gonna sound crazy, but I don’t mind the earthquakes either since I’ve come to get used to that. I love that aspect of it, and it’s a little price we have to pay for the good weather.
On a personal note, I’ve been married for 16 years and I have four daughters. My primary job is in the medical field, I’m a certified electron microscopist which means a specialized lab technician, and I work in a hospital here in Los Angeles. I love everything I’m doing with also Latinx Lens and reviewing movies is more of a hobby for me. I love the medical field and science, they’re just my passion.
During the pandemic situation to work in a medical field has been rough because, unfortunately, the media and misinformation that’s going out there and for us is, our government isn’t the best at handling the pandemic. I’m at the front line, not as a doctor or nurse, but I am in the laboratory. I am receiving the specimens and the biopsies from patients who do have the virus.
It’s been frustrating to see what this virus is doing, and everything that’s happening with the patients. We just turn around and see in the news a lot of people that are not taking the precautionary advice or the guidelines seriously because they don’t think it’s real. They think it’s a hoax. It’s sad.
Unfortunately because I have to go into work 15 minutes before my shift starts to go through a pre screening. Every single day before I go into work, I have to go in early, take my temperature, do all these things to make sure that I don’t have the disease and then I have to go in there and work and do what I got to do.
It’s been tough just working in the medical field and seeing everything that this virus is capable of doing, but I think it’s tougher for me just seeing the outside aspect of it and how politicians are using this as a political movement for their own game. Some of them are not necessarily taking these lives and caring for these patients. They’re not taking the virus and the pandemic seriously which is the way it’s supposed to be taken.
You’re one of the hosts of the Latinx Lens podcast where you and Catherine Gonzales talk more about the Latinx representation in film and television. Tell us what were the main motivations to create your podcast.
On Episode One of the podcast we go really in depth in about that and the podcast came to be a little bit about myself and a little bit about Catherine. I was taking a class called race and gender in American film, and for week 4 we were supposed to focus on Native Americans, Asian Americans, Latinos and Hispanic representation and contributions into film and television. That should have been a red flag in the first place when you have three different demographics just for one week?
I was excited, I couldn’t wait and I wanted to learn about what Latinxs and Hispanics have done, their contribution to the film and Hollywood. Throughout the history of approximately 100 years, we were utilizing a textbook, a 500 page textbook to read, do the readings and such. After reading a page and a half. Just a page and a half on Latinos and Hispanics, what they contributed and what they’ve done for Hollywood.
It was very disappointing because a few weeks before that I had written an article about one of the actresses and in the silent era from the 1920s in Hollywood, her name was Dolores Del Rio. She was a Mexican actress who started in Hollywood, and then eventually would move back to Mexico and be part of the Mexican golden era of Mexican cinema. I studied her, I read her biographies and then I wrote an article about her. It was for Women’s History Month. I probably wrote more about her just one actress than this entire book told us about all of our history.
This was disappointing as I went on to Twitter and I sent a tweet asking if anybody would be interested in listening or consider listening to a podcast where we highlight and we shine a light to Latinxs and our representation in the film and such. To my surprise, the support was overwhelmingly positive and I was very lucky to have Catherine reply to my tweet.
She commented and volunteered to help me out. We have both worked together ever since, and we came up with all these ideas and now we’re here. Catherine and I just met on Twitter and we read along about each other’s journeys and everything, probably a year or two before the Latinx Lens came to play, but once you get acquainted, and try to build that chemistry or build that genuine and authentic relationship between the both of us. We’ve never met in person, I’m here in California and she’s in Texas.
The lack of representation is certainly our motivator. It’s not necessarily that we’ve come to figure this stuff out as we go, but we really try to dig in Hollywood on past films, actors and actresses. We didn’t know very much about the content and I thought we were going to run out of filmmakers, actresses and actors to talk about, but no, the list is pretty long.
I think what we’re lacking here is bringing awareness to all the work. Just having a platform to highlight and dedicate one episode to filmmakers, actresses and actors that have been doing it all this time, but they’re just not given the same amount of attention as their counterparts, who are predominantly white.
Where Latinxs can make an impact in your opinion?
I think we have this idea that Latinxs are only limited to do certain things and unfortunately, it comes from the lack of history that wasn’t taught in our schools. In addition, the lack of history in general, it can be film history, political history or it can be history in general. So we build this notion that we don’t exist, then we sit down in front of the television or in front of a movie theater and we see the representation that they do of us.
We only see ourselves as criminals, or as immigrants, people who clean houses, do landscaping or people who are nannies, and that’s it. I’m talking from, even in Los Angeles which is 50% Latino predominantly Mexican, also California was once part of Mexico. So the history with the country is quite lengthy, but we don’t see the whole representation. I work in the medical field, I’ve never seen my story been told on television.
Maybe television does have a little bit of an advantage over film since it does have more representation, in that sense, Hollywood has a lot of catching up to do. I’ve met doctors and I’ve met lawyers and I’ve met a lot of professors, I met a wide range of careers where Latinxs are presented, but we just don’t see it represented on film, we don’t see it on television as much.
We’ve been everywhere. We’ve always been here, from doctors to medical assistants and medical professionals to lawyers to politicians to civil rights activists, all the way to farm workers. We want those farmworkers picking up food for us. So we’ve been everywhere, I think it’s just a matter of opportunity and given that same equal advantage, not advantage, but the same equal opportunity. When I advocate for representation, I advocate for not only representation in front of the screen but also in directing, writing and producing.
On top of that, I’m a film critic as well, and it’s directly reflected when you see 80% or 90% of Hollywood films are directed by white males. It’s not a surprise to see that 75% of critics on Rotten Tomatoes approved critics are white males as well. When you have white males talking about white males directed films, and having just one lens telling us what films to watch and rating movies just because of their experience, it is going to be biased.
I’m advocating for representation all across the board. When I advocate for a presentation, I don’t want you to hire me as a film critic because I am a woman of color, I want you to hire me because of my talents and because of my capabilities. I want to be represented and hire directors or filmmakers because of who they are.
All I want is for you to give them the same amount of chance and same opportunities. Give Latinxs the interview. Just let us get into the door and then we’ll show you what we have. That’s all I ask, we don’t want anything handed to us. We just want you to get to know us, to give us the interview and then I’ll show you what we’ve got.
Tell me the first thing that comes to mind when you hear these phrases:
Your superpower
Motherhood. I think all mothers are superheroes. We manage to develop this ability to multitask so we can do 10 things at once, and we still do all of this with two hours of sleep.
A dream
Equality across the spectrum. I know when I advocate for Latino and Latina representation, I’m obviously going to leave out other demographics that are perhaps even far less represented. I wish for equality for everybody. Just give us all the equal amount of representation.
Favorite place.
My car which it’s also my dream and my favorite place. When I’m driving to work, or driving back from work, this is my only alone time I get so I get a lot of thinking done. A lot of my creative process goes on while I’m driving. Actually the title Latinx Lens came to me when I was driving.
I’m also an assistant editor of Idol which is a website dedicated to female representation in film and television. We’re talking about Latinx Lens and the term can be utilized in different manners. We can use it as Catherine and I explained how we are viewing the films from our perspective, but also how Hollywood’s camera lens has been representing us, how they’ve been developing our Latinx Lens and how therefore society is looking at us, how they’re been representing us.
A movie.
Stand and Deliver by Ramón Menéndez is perhaps my favorite movie of all time, and the movie I’ve seen the most ever. It takes place in East LA, the story is about math professor, Jaime Escalante, who was teaching math at Garfield High School where I also attended. He managed to teach a group of 18 high school students calculus and help them pass the AP Calculus exam. Of course if you’re somebody who is low income, they weren’t looked upon as bright students and this is because these types of tests are only for bright students who were going to go to college. To have predominantly Latinxs who have to go off to take this exam is something that was never heard of. It was not even possible to think about what these kids were capable of taking the exam, nonetheless passing and how they delivered the results they did. This movie had an everlasting impact on me and when I was taking calculus in college, I would watch this film three or four times a week just as a motivation.
What is one thing that Latinx Lens brought to you that you didn’t expect?
For the first time, it made me think of why I viewed things in a certain way, my own biases, my own perceptions and evidently, it got me thinking about why our community is represented the way it is or why it is invisible.
It got me thinking about some things I would not have taken the time to just sit and think about if I was not doing this podcast. It helped me to open my eyes to different stories and it made me more humbled. It allowed me to be more open to learning other stories and it also helped me to be more understanding and open to see other people’s perspectives.
This includes people who think differently of me, people who have different political beliefs or any religious beliefs or anything in general that are different from mine. I’ve come to learn from experience and it’s been more of a philosophical impact than I thought it would make. I’m more open, understanding and willing to listen to anybody who has different views from myself. This is something that I probably would have never thought of if it weren’t for this podcast.
The audience just learned about these actresses, actors and filmmakers that have been trailblazing all this time. We just recently recorded an episode about Gomez Addams who I only knew from the Addams family. We went into his filmography, we saw the documentary about him and he was just fascinating, so I’ve also learned the importance of representation.
I always get asked why does it matter who is portraying the character in the story of the film? I understand the argument, but after seeing the documentary about Raúl Rafael Juliá who is Puerto Rican, the first thing they asked him was who inspired him to go down this journey, to do all of this. He said, Jose Ferrer who was the only Latino ever to win the Oscar for the leading actor in the history of the academy, which is 90 something years ago, that was back in the 1950’s.
Jose Ferrer is also a Latino, he’s also Puerto Rican, and he got it for Cyrano de Bergerac which is also a stage play as well. If there wasn’t a Jose Ferrer, there wouldn’t be a Raúl Rafael Juliá, and without Raúl Rafael Juliá we would not have the Lin-Manuel Miranda that we have now, who has also been a success in theater because of these two successful people.
Which further validates the importance of our presentation, if you don’t see yourself up there and you don’t see the people that look like you, talk like you, then you won’t see people you can identify with on films like The Addams Family etc. Every new generation of people are now going to know who Gomez Addams is because of his films and because they saw the Academy Award and saw a Latino win the award. This is all very important to our culture for generations to see these films and know we are being represented in popular films.
If we don’t have those influences and if we don’t have role models, we just think of ourselves as limited to certain dreams, when in fact, we can just go out there and do whatever we set our mind to. Bringing it back to people asking me why it matters who is behind the films, isn’t the performance what matters? Yes, it’s true, the story matters, the performance matters, but when it comes to movies and television unconsciously developing this stereotype and these biases, certain demographics matter.
It’s gonna matter when you only have Latinxs, blacks and all these minorities being represented on film as criminals because a lot of kids are gonna see this. You don’t know what’s going on, they don’t know these movies aren’t real and they’re gonna think those types of people are the only criminals there are.
What are the best resources that have helped you along the way?
School is the main one. Now I’m working for my Film and Media Studies degree, I’m also working on another science degree, and working on a Chicano Studies degree as well. So I’m working on three bachelor’s at the moment.
It’s unbelievable that I have to earn and work in this degree to learn more about my own history. The Chicano Studies degree is really about my own history and that has certainly opened up my eyes to a lot of things. For example, how film has influenced that because Hollywood is predominantly and controlled by heterosexual white men.
How did they manage to represent us all in the US? How has that influenced a lot of the social justices that we’re still currently experiencing? It wasn’t that long ago where there’s still a lot of marches going on about Black Lives Matter movement and the #metoo movement as well.
I also just purchased a lot of books during this pandemic situation. I’ve never read so many books in my life as I have in the past few months. Books, autobiographies, memoirs, and film history books. There are books out there about Latinos and our influence in Hollywood, sometimes it’s just a matter of searching for them and trying to go out there and get them.
Of course, Google always comes in handy when necessary. I predominantly just use it to get the years, filmmakers and screenplay people from particular films, but it’s all solely focused on my main source of research.
Which advice would you give to yourself 5 years ago?
Never stop trying. Never stop working. Don’t lose the eagerness to learn. Don’t allow your fears and insecurities cloud your decisions, we need to get past those insecurities by facing them. This may be a bit hypocritical because I’m working on that myself. I have a lot of insecurities to work on especially on increasing my self esteem. This is something I’m working on as I’ve been able to do podcasts and being a guest on YouTube videos and such. So I’m getting there and something I would have never done if you had asked me probably a few months ago.
Just never give up. As a woman and mother of four daughters, four little girls that are going to grow up to be women, I think the best advice I would give myself and I would give them is to never allow themselves to worry too much about the social norms of being a woman, or being ladylike. Don’t be too nice, don’t let people judge or just assume your capabilities. Go out there and do what we got to do and don’t spend too much time worrying about whether I’m beingnice enough, whether I’m going to be called the B word, or whether I’m checking off these boxes because at the end of the day, it’s not going to matter. You’re never going to please everybody so just go out there and be the fearless person you are and just accomplish what we went up there to get.
I hope you enjoyed this podcast. We will have more interviews with amazing Latinx leaders every first Tuesday of the month. Check out our Latinx in Power website to hear more. Don’t forget to share comments and feedback, but always with kindness. See you soon.
Additional Reading Mentioned in the Interview
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