the sparkling parade of latino field stars featured in the book heroes lovers and others will forever change the way we think of race and ethnicity in hollywood much more than a collection of celebrity stories heroes lovers and others present the personal lives and public personae of some of h s most famous stars the book chronicles five major eras of latino film history silent films and the early talkies the good neighbor policy era surrounding world war two the cold war era the modern era heroes love version though there's a story of latinos in hollywood that really surprised me in doing this book was that there were so many people acting during the silent era and early talkies who were latinos with spanish surnames which was very different from the time when i was growing up and the number of latinos in films was very very small and there were many stories about people which changed their names so that they would have they were known in english right they began in the in the silent era in one nine hundred twenty five but they moved into the early talkies and it's sort of interesting who were the actors that were able to move into the early talkies there was a gender difference there was a very famous actor and that's another thing that surprised me about was there early period was that not only were they there but they were in very prominent and they were playing all kinds of roles not the stereotype to let the in a spitfire or grease or all of that was there as well and so the gender difference was when as the movies moved because he had a very high value and so the accents the accents were more prominent then and that was one of the reasons that it was possible when hollywood moved to california it was much more accessible to people from mexico and anthony quinn for example with which most of my students don't know who he is but he was huge in his time right he began in film because his father who wasn't on documented  immigrant had just came over the border is people used to do back in the day as they say he got a job as a camera man on the set and so he was always hanging around the set and so that's how he became interested he became huge although when he by the time he entered film it was not so acceptable to be latino and so he took a name from his grandfather quinn and he became anthony quinn mexican movie story is they know nothing about the career that she had in hollywood before she went to mexico in that period and one of the reasons that i think it's very important to look at these icons is because they are forgotten and sold today as you know baby boomers are thinking about all of the people that that are icons that have passed on these people are not remembered and an example of this is w died a few years ago they showed him in his first movie with who was his dancing partner for us the ginger rogers right ginger rogers and they show them dancing well it happened  to be a movie flying down to rio where the person who headlined that show was dolores the real who knew that you know why wasn't why isn't she why hasn't she been a latinos they played all kinds of roles and they they played with spanish surnames we went into another period that was after the depression right where the roles became a little more difficult everything became more difficult for people in the movie industry and so things sort of tempered down a bit but with a good neighbor era what happened is that all of a sudden it became important for markets for markets for for film companies to retain their film markets in latin america as well as other markets it big they were very important to make and to make sure that latin americans would not side with the axis powers right and so all of a sudden movies were looked to as a way of and yes as a way in which to make latin america friendly and there was an actual office that was set up and this office had in the government this office had the responsibility of reviewing the films and making sure that there was nothing that was offensive to people in latin america and in some cases they would even introduce certain scenes like a happy conga line or or a line saying something like i just met the most wonderful girl in in mexico or where whatever the country was so during this period there was a great deal of emphasis on gayety musical on singing and every and latin american is a very good yes yes exactly but the whole thrust of the film is donald duck going to all these countries in latin america and just having a wonderful time and telling everybody about how wonderful it is  american then up by now maybe god this was all going on as part of that propaganda good neighbor and i thought it was fascinating because you were giving opportunities to these people that they never had before  and it became such a famous soul yes who got started the room go crazy with in money so that's right and that's what you that's right that's exactly right that's exactly right i  recently played that song to my students and none of them had ever heard and actually the the words going to enter the painted vender right but the words are very lovely thing a very poetic in many ways but you're right and it was it was a huge that's right yes and he was the first latin lover and that's one of the things that i also find in the book that that what what was latin really has changed over time whereas in that early period it referred to people who were italian of if your viewers lover to rival hollywood and it was rudolph valentino also italian but but the french were also referred to as latin as well as anybody and any from southern when did you learn about that in your book we just came from the latin  by a student why i called my first book latin lovers and i said because that's how they were known at the time right i think for what you're doing it's important to distinguish because i think you're you're limiting not limiting but you're defining your icons as people of spanish origin right so i think i think today is probably it probably makes sense the to go with what they know or and what academics use today is lead latina slash oh so it incorporates both the women and the man as opposed to their big debates about this law oh that's right yes that's a new name it's such an honor and a pleasure and i feel like a little kid will go i've been around the block a couple of times but it's because of what you're doing is meaningful your books are available at amazon dot com i must say  and these over ten books these articles and in my introduction you've heard what she's done and what she's doing but keep talking about for example story you know one of the reasons that i got from it and so the history of latinos began with and with west side story in one nine hundred sixty one but i know that there was a much longer history and that that history was quite complex and that it had changed depending on the political and economic situation of the country one of the things that i found very interesting and doing the research is how much wars influenced  the kinds of films that were made and who was in the films and for example during the world war two period we've talked about the good neighbor era and how some films were made so as to present latin america as a very positive place with positive relations but at the same time if you look at the movies that were made in that same period and examine how german characters or japanese characters were represented  they were represented in a very different way from where from the way in which they were represented in the eighty's when the sun was rising in the east economically speaking so i think that it's very important to have this much longer historical view and west side story is it is a fabulous music musical however it did  originally it was supposed to be about a catholic girl and a jewish boy with a girl and then they decided that wasn't trendy enough for its time so they  got interested in mexicans and so they wanted it to be just to be mexicans but they found they had filming in mexican bazil was too complicated or too dangerous and so that's how it  is about to have national politics and economics influences the way in which black bean also are represented in film and it was a difficult era but that was followed by as we moved into the new millennium by this latin explosion this the pot what i call the post modern era where there were many many things going on many opportunities and more more new work that was being done right now i think that it's changed somewhat because i think for people who work in in the film industry it's always a kind of encouraged by lynn man when it's so wonderful hamilton play and how much how much that has really changed the way in which people think not just about plays but about history  i think he's done just an amazing job and i is why i'm glad that that he has been that has to me about her so it's very interesting when the book first came out as you can see rita hayworth is on the cover and people would say to me why is reader whisper on the cover i would be success of dolores the real one right right and so she thought that being a little more latin as in rita can see you know would be helpful to her career but what happened then and she's a interesting example of how the film shifted from one period of time from one era to another and so she comes in in the early talkies period but she finds  that she's not really getting anywhere with this read i can see you know she was by the way not a red head she was brunette she was a little heavier than she was as rita hayworth and she underwent very painful electrolysis she had a kind of a low widow's peak which at that time was very painful so as to raise her forehead and she according to to the  some others name here in new york and her father was the dancing can senos in spain which is how she would dance with him along the mexican border of various places and that's how she became such an excellent dancer and could dance with fred astaire and keep up with with with all of the others at the time but anyway back to the man that she married so she she as i said she became a redhead she lost some weight she had the electrolysis done and she changed her name to rita hayworth and she went on girl during the that's right she went on to become the all american pin up girl and it's very interesting if you look at the material that exist in the in the archives that this was all very much created that you know they would they would show her with july fourth soldiers for  example so that this whole association of this rita hayworth with americana as it was understood then was really emphasized throughout and that contributed to her becoming this kind of non ath definitely non latina all american pin up girl in during that period of time it's interesting that the way in which the media manipulates images  s was also shown at another at another point there was a very famous and you get the his picture there was a very famous actor by the name of antonio and he too is described this is a picture of him he too is described in the magazines in the literature of the day as being at the top of the heap in terms of hollywood circles right that you know it's all done for the fans you know who are following antonio maranoa and she couldn't be too pretty right so she was sort of playing because in a way they wanted to do we will right right it was you know well well orchestrated because they wanted to feel that they could still have him right even though he was now married but the truth of the matter was that he was quite open about his sexuality and he was quite gay i remember last others in hollywood exactly i'm out that's right know yes yes well i always wondered because i had a cousin whose name was and i wondered you know how you know how did this name sort of cross over right into a non spanish speaking world right but it turns out that she too a little bit like rita hayworth began in california and one as i remember talking to says in interviews that she was told not to use her spanish surname that this would not advance her at all and her father as i think many people did when she was growing up as told the did not teach them spanish because he felt that this would be a drawback to their success in this country which is kind of reading you ensure that oh it's so when we went from that good neighbor era and we went into the cold war era a lot of people had to had to get work elsewhere because they could no longer get work in  the during the cold war era it was more and more difficult for her to get any kind of work that i guess that that she felt she could take and so she ended up going abroad and i was and she's another one of these kind of legends who know read a murder and all we all know chita rivera and i think we need to make sure that the new generation doesn't forget who they are and that's why i think that your show your program is so very very important but