Be The Change You Want To See
“One afternoon I had lunch with Lupe Ontiveros in Los Angeles. She is a beloved Latina actor who has been reduced to the role of the maid or the nanny in scores of movies. I asked Lupe to be a major character in our documentary and she offered an enormous amount of assistance. When I left the table she turned to my producer and said bluntly in Spanish, “Please, just don’t f—us.”” Taken from Latino in America by Soledad O’ Brien with Rose Marie Arce (The companion to the CNN series)
Remember Black In America? Well due to the success of Black In America, CNN has decided to make a documentary called Latino In America. The title explains it all. It is supposed to cover the life of Latinos here in America. Within days before the premier, www.mibodegaonline.com had the opportunity to watch a preview of Latino in America at EL Museo del Barrio located on 104th and 5th avenue, NYC with the well known blogger Jose Vilson. Soledad O’Brien hosted the event and allowed us to ask questions after the documentary finished playing.
Here are our thoughts on Latinos In America:
Lemuel
To be honest, I think Latinos in America is off to a good start. Soledad O’Brien started off the documentary by talking about Immigration and the struggles with it here in the U.S. It focused a lot on immigration, which has a huge impact on Latinos. My only concern is how do you really capture a diverse group like Latinos? They are so diverse with many similarities and differences. Latinos have different backgrounds, they come in different colors, shapes, and sizes. Soledad O’Brien has a challenge here; Can she really capture Latinos as a whole without leaving anyone out? Great reporting captures the good, the bad, and neutral. I’ll be satisfied if Latino In America can capture all of these attributes. I am also interested in hearing about the contributions of Latinos for this country. Many people think that Latinos are immigrant workers who are only capable of cooking, cleaning, and maybe doing construction. Latinos are so much more than that. This is the first time that a power like CNN gives Latinos an actual voice. I really hope they represent Latinos the right away. Like I said, I want to hear the positive as well as the negative, don’t water anything down, or leave anything out. Like Lupe Ontiveros said, “Please, just don’t f—us.”
EL DSG
MIBODEGA's EL DSG and CNN's Soledad O'Brien at EL Museo Del Barrio This Past Saturday (10/17/09)
I commend Soledad O’Brien for not stopping her in depth documentary investigation with Black in America, but also going on to tackle what it is to be Latino in America. After hearing her speak at the event, I am convinced to a great degree that she is not you’re typical reporter and she keeps it real if you will. Before taking questions, she made it clear that to fully tackle was it is to be Latino in America would take well above and beyond her given time duration guidelines of a couple hr segment. She advised with the time she was given for creating a documentary, she wanted to cover the good, bad, and the neutral. This is the best rule to follow when you’re doing any type of documentary; in order to engage in constructive dialogue and to create solutions to a problem. There were good points brought up during the Q & A session after her Latino in America Extended Preview was shown. Someone beat me to the “What are we going to do about your boy Lou Dobbs?” (This is my version of the question asked) (For those of you who aren’t familiar with Dobbs here are two of many examples of why he is a concern).
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Dobbs on Race
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Dobbs on Immigration
This was my interpretation of her response which was pretty much as a new organization that is a company that depends highly on ratings and the best way to get the highest ratings in the news market is to have every type of point of view for that news organization and for maximization. This is also bringing a more fair and balanced approach to news and even though this is Fox New’s tag line it is far from that. This was an example of her keepin’ it real and I admire that. She touched slightly on the politics of getting something on the air or pitching it to the higher ups to get the green light, which to those of us who are Latinos have to take it into consideration. I look forward to seeing the full documentary to truly give a more heavy and thoughtful response.
