Latinopia Event 1970 El Rio Park-H.264 800Kbps from Latinopia.com on Vimeo.
Estimadas(os): Last year, my good friend—and friend of many of you as well—Jesús S.Treviño launched “Latinopia,” a video-driven website with sections on Art, Literature, Theater, Music, Cinema and Television, Food, and History. “Latinopia” continues Jesús’s remarkable body of work.
For those who may benefit from a summary of Jesús’s work:
Jesús is a true pioneer. He began his career in film and television as a student activist in the late 1960s-early 1970s, documenting the Chicano Movement that was then emerging. His national PBS documentaries about Latinos and the Chicano struggle include America Tropical; Yo Soy Chicano; La Raza Unida; Chicano Moratorium; The Salazar Inquest, and BirthWrite; In 1997 Jesús was co-executive producer of the highly-acclaimed four-part PBS documentary series, CHICANO! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement. Another contribution to the documentation of the Chicano Movement is his book “Eyewitness: A Filmmaker’s Memoir of the Chicano Movement.”
A Talented Director, Jesús’ television credits include Law and Order-Criminal Intent; The Unit; Criminal Minds; Prison Break; Bones; ER; Resurrection Boulevard; CANE; Third Watch; NYPD Blue; Crossing Jordan; The Practice; The O.C.; Dawson’s Creek; Chicago Hope; Nash Bridges; Seaquest; Star Trek Voyager (and various episodes); and many others.
Jesús has won dozens of national and international awards and recognitions including the prestigious ALMA Award (Outstanding Director of a Television Drama [Prison Break]; Outstanding Co-Executive Producer of Best Prime-time drama series [Resurrection Boulevard]) and (twice) Directors Guild of America award.
In Jesús’ words: “I am a Chicano and I am a director and I am a writer and, above all, I am a storyteller.”
A feature of Latinopia’s History page is “A moment in history” type of segment which provides short videos of important historical events in Chicano and Latino life along with event timelines, biographies and documents. This coming week’s “A moment in history” features the El Rio for the People struggle in Tucson, for which Jesús interviewed me.
A true community empowering movement, El Rio for the People represents a defining moment in the political evolution of the Chicano community in Tucson. As I note in the interview, the El Rio struggle fundamentally and permanently changed the Tucson political landscape.
Although I was interviewed for Latinopia, El Rio for the People, as I note above, was a true community movement and many people—young and old, women and men—provided great leadership and inspiration to that historic movement. A good number of these were our then-elders. Although many of those history makers have passed away, their legacy lives on.
I am distributing this…
- In that the three-minute interview provides a decent summary of the historic El Rio struggle for those who may not be aware of it…
- So as to promote Latinopia for those who may not be familiar with it.
When you access “Latinopia,” scroll down to “LATINOPIA EVENTS 1970 EL RIO PARK.”
HERE’S THE LINK TO LATINOPIA:
