‘An Actor Should Have No Frontiers, No Barriers’:  Chicanas and Chicanos Surpassing Stereotypes in Theater, Film, and Television

Talk by Prof. Anthony Macías

This talk analyzes Latino-Latina representation vis-à-vis American culture and consciousness by focusing on the careers of Anthony Quinn, Katy Jurado, Robert Beltran, Lupe Ontiveros, and Ricardo Montalban. Spotlighting ethnic Mexicans center stage illustrates how their pocho-pocha version of pop culture pluralism subtly transformed mainstream America, from the mythological past of the wild West to the speculative future of science fiction. 

Anthony Macías is a scholar of twentieth-century cultural history, an Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Riverside, and the author of Chicano-Chicana Americana: Pop Culture Pluralism Starring AnthonyQuinn, Katy Jurado, Robert Beltran, and Lupe Ontiveros (University of Arizona Press, 2023); and Mexican American Mojo: Popular Music, Dance, and Urban Culture in Los Angeles, 1935-1968 (Duke University Press, 2008).  He has also published on bebop, hip hop, punk rock, Latin music, bandleader Gerald Wilson, Jewish Americans, Hollywood westerns, gay rights and Dog Day Afternoon, and the pan-American hemispheric imaginary.