The Untold History of Latinos
Growing up in El Barrio, I lived across the street from a well known movie theatre called The Cosmo. I remember, every Thursday night looking out my window and watching the marque movie titles change. It was a sneak peak of the movies being featured for the following week ahead. Movies like Rocky, Star Wars, Jaws, Grease and Saturday Night Fever were the posters I would see outside the theater as we walked inside the double glass doors. Tickets were affordable as MOM would pay .75¢ for me and she paid $1.25 to enjoy a double feature movie. We would eat buttered popcorn and at the end of the night walk across the street and be home. I always admired movie posters and how the power of the artwork would set the stage for what to expect during the film. As a kid, I had no idea that one day my name would be on one of those posters or at the end of the movie credits as Art Director… Until this past week!
Inside The Cosmo Movie Theatre – Museum of the City of New York – all rights reserved.
On September 21, 2024 The New York Latino Film Festival, one of the country’s largest Hispanic film festival showcased an amazing ensemble of films and documentaries. One film featured was VOCES American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos by John Leguizamo and Director Ben Dejesus.
This three part docuseries, Leguizamo unlocks the untold history of latinos as well as our past contributions in the world. When Ben reached out to me and asked if I would like to be part of the production team, I had no idea it would be such an important and purposeful project. I looked through my library of images and began to see their vision. like John, when I was growing up I also didn’t see many latinos in film or in my text books… It was like we didn’t exist. When I was given this opportunity to make history, I was extremely inspired to represent the culture with my creativity.
I created posters that reflected the themes of each episode in order to recreate what was erased for the history books. The Raices posters I designed in 2007 were on set while John explains the importance of Latino representation in episode 1 and 2. As part of the Rafael Tufiño Printmaking worksop, I used some of the prints made at the printshop to exhibit the amazing talent and techniques that the Puertorican master printmakers created. My collage Arte Y Identidad (Art and Identity) which was part of the High School of Art and Design alumni art exhibit can be seen as John enters the set. I also reached out to my network of latino creatives and asked if they would support our project. Thank you to Taller Boricuas Nitza Tufiño, Marcos Dimas, and Luis Corderro for lending us their art work. Palanté Siempre Palanté documentary, Iris Morales, Michael Abramson and Vanessa Roman for lending us the posters of the Young Lords marching. It really does take a village to create positive change.
– Oliver Rios
VOCES “American Historia” premiered Fridays, September 27 and October 4 and 11, at 9/8c on PBS.
You can watch all 3 episodes on https://www.pbs.org/show/voces-american-historia-the-untold-history-of-latinos/
