Viva la Voices: Latino Filmmaker stresses importance of people telling their own stories
Sunday, June 9, 1996
by Anthony DellaFlora
Paul Espinosa was born in Colorado, grew up in Albuquerque, went to college on the East Coast and now lives in San Diego.
But his heart has never ventured far from Mexico.
The award-winning filmmaker has made his reputation exploring the lives of Mexican-Americans and the relationship between Mexico and the United States.
In films like "The Lemon Grove Incident," "The Hunt for Pancho Villa," "Uneasy Neighbors;' and "...and the earth did not swallow him," Espinosa's mission has been to give voice to the voiceless.
He'll appear Friday at the Latino World Film Festival in Albuquerque to present and discuss three of his works. "The Mexican-American, Hispanic, Latino community is a community whose stories have not been told for a variety of reasons," Espinosa said. "Those stories have been left along the wayside."
Espinosa said it is critical that they be presented.
"Mainstream media is so full of outsider representation of Latinos and Mexican-Americans, and what results in many cases is stereotypes." said Espinosa.
If Latino film and television characters aren't maids, gardeners, pimps or drug pushers, they don't exist, he said.
He noted there are approximately 25 million Latinos in the country, "and there is no network television show that deals with any aspect of the Latino experience."
"The fact that so little media attention has been paid to this group is disturbing. I believe it makes a big difference when the perspective is informed by somebody who is from that group."
"I believe there have been many fine films done by outsiders, but I think it's important that there be opportunities for people of a particular group to make films about their own experience. Those people are going to bring more awareness, more sensitivity to those kinds of stories."
Long journey
Espinosa said it was a long journey to becoming a filmmaker.
After graduating from Highland High School in 1968, he went to Brown University, where his intention was to be a scientist or engineer.
Instead, he ended up majoring in anthropology and studying cross-cultural issues. "Looking back on it, growing up in New Mexico gave me a certain kind of appreciation for diversity, for different cultures."
That, coupled with his concern over the influence of mass media, led to the film career. "I became alarmed about the impact of mass media and the fact that so much media was empty of diversity, for lack of a better word. You could go all over the world and essentially you would be seeing American films in theaters, you'd see American television programs on television - an incredible dominance of American media, a certain kind of American media that tended to be monocultural."
Espinosa said he became interested in public television as a forum, because he felt he would have the opportunity to produce films about the themes he was interested in, and get them out to a wider audience.
He noted, for example, that "The Hunt for Pancho Villa" was seen by an estimated 6 million people on PBS.
He described the historical film as "a real eye opener," something that could be said about most of his work.
'Lemon Grove Incident'
"The Lemon Grove Incident," tells of the first legal challenge in the United States to school segregation. It involved students of Mexican ancestry in California. The kicker is that it took place in 1931, more than two decades before the more famous Brown vs the Board of Education case. (It shows 7 p.m. Friday.)
In "Uneasy Neighbors," Espinosa contrasts the squalid Green Valley migrant worker camp with the affluent Carlsbad, Calif., neighborhoods it overlooks. The camps are without running water, electricity or toilets. His use of archival footage culled from Edward R. Murrow's shocking 1960 documentary "Harvest of Shame" about migrant workers points up the fact that conditions even worse today than they were then. (It begins at 9 p.m. Friday.)
"..and the earth did not swallow him" is a feature film based on a book by Tomas Rivera. Although not done in Espinosa's usual documentary style, it has nevertheless won acclaim at film festivals in Santa Barbara, Minneapolis, San Antonio, Cairo and San Diego.
Like "Uneasy Neighbors," it depicts the life of migrant workers, only this time through the eyes of 12-year old Marcos Gonzales, in 1952.
"It's that space between being a boy and becoming a man and seeing a lot of things that are pretty hard to take, kind of adult experiences, and trying to make sense of them in some way."
Unfortunately, Espinosa added, "some of the kinds of things that happen in the film are still happening today. The living conditions of migrant workers are just deplorable and you see some of this in the film. It's a period film, but in some ways it hasn't changed all that much. (In addition to showing at 7p.m. Wednesday, the movie will air June 19 on KNME-Tv at 7:30p.m.)
Espinosa is nearing completion of a three part series about the war between the United States and Mexico from 1846-48. Much of the story takes place in New Mexico.
"When I tell people I'm doing a series on this war, the reaction I usually get is 'Which war was that? Was that the one with Teddy Roosevelt?"' said Espinosa. "They may have some understanding that yes, this land did belong to Mexico at one point, but the particulars of how that happened and how that unfolded is not particularly well known. Hopefully, this series will help to remedy that."
Espinosa said his films are needed now more than ever, but admits they might not be for everyone. "I suppose people that are bent on keeping their eyes closed and not learning anything more and not being informed by reality wouldn't like these films."