If you want an accurate picture of ethnic and gender diversity in the United States, don’t look to Hollywood.
That’s the conclusion of the “2015 Hollywood Diversity Report” conducted by the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA.
The report quantifies the striking — if not surprising — racial and gender imbalances in film and television, both behind and in front of the camera, by comparing the representation of minorities to their actual proportions of the population…
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What happens when Mexican folk music meets Cajun Zydeco? NPR’s Rachel Martin talks to Felix Contreras and Jasmine Garsd of NPR Music’s Alt.Latino about some musical mash-ups…
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The results are in: Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Birdman” is the best picture winner of the 87th Academy Awards. The film starring Michael Keaton tells the story of a down-and-out actor looking to get back into the spotlight with a passion project. The film was produced by Alejandro González Iñárritu, John Lesher, Arnon Milchan and James W. Skotchdopole, who were on-hand to accept the award at the rushed conclusion of the Oscars telecast…
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“This award is so much more than myself,” said Jane the Virgin star Gina Rodriguez upon accepting her Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy series in January. “It represents a culture that wants to see themselves as heroes.”
This sentiment is one with which the hit CW show’s devoted fan base wholeheartedly agrees. Despite the telenovela-inspired comedy’s unabashedly over-the-top premise, Rodriguez’s multidimensional Latina protagonist is part of a stellar cast that offers an arguably unprecedented portrayal of Latinos on network television. Jane the Virgin is a necessary breath of fresh air in a media landscape that has historically been unfriendly to women — especially women of color…
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It’s ironic: Agustín Lira should have been born an American.
His mother, a U.S. citizen, was illegally deported in the 1930s. Lira was born in Mexico and came to California as an undocumented migrant farmworker before becoming an activist.
The Fresno man’s experiences fuel his work, using art to talk about inequality. Despite the struggles — picking crops from age 7, growing up in poverty, being homeless for a while — he is on the brink of releasing an album of his songs from the Chicano movement of the 1960s for that most quintessential of American institutions, the Smithsonian…
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