Smack-dab in the middle of Hispanic Heritage Month, PBS will air the 38th Hispanic Heritage Awards tonight.
The show took place on Sept. 4 at the Warner Theatre in Washington, D.C., and honored a collection of musicians, artists, actors, journalists and business leaders.
This year’s honorees, selected by the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, included NPR’s “Alt. Latino” journalist Felix Contreras, stoner comic and Chicano art collector Cheech Marin, Puerto Rican pop music visionary Rauw Alejandro, Oscar-nominated actor and dancer Rosie Perez, Rizos Curls Chief Executive Julissa Prado and “Mexican Queen of Pop” Gloria Trevi.
Honoree Felix Contreras accepts the Journalism Award onstage during the 38th Hispanic Heritage Awards in Washington, D.C.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Hispanic Heritage Foundation)
Contreras is one of the few journalists to ever receive the esteemed honor, though he was initially reticent to accept. “We learn early on that [journalists] are not supposed to be the story,” Contreras told The Times earlier this year.
Recently, Marin has moved on from a successful career making stoner comedy films and is now best known for his work as a collector of Chicano art. After being a lifelong gatherer of art, the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture of the Riverside Art Museum opened to the public in June 2022.
Rauw Alejandro, meanwhile, has innovated the Latin music scene with his experimental albums, such as 2022’s techno-infused psychedelic album, “Saturno”; his beachy follow-up, “Playa Saturno,” in 2023; and his 2024 ode to the 1970s New York City salsa scene, “Cosa Nuestra.”
Cheech Marin accepts the Arts Award onstage during the 38th Hispanic Heritage Awards.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Hispanic Heritage Foundation)
Rosie Perez made a name for herself as a dancer on the TV show “In Living Color” and with starring roles in Spike Lee films before being nominated for an Oscar for 1993‘s “Fearless.”
Gloria Trevi is one of the most successful Latina artists of her time. She has garnered over 30 million sold albums and 7 billion combined streams, along with several top-selling albums and an induction into the Latin Music Songwriters Hall of Fame.
As the Rizos Curls co-founder and CEO, Prado is being honored, per the HHF, for “her personal journey of self-discovery into a nationally celebrated, multi-million-dollar business specializing in textured hair care.”
Gloria Trevi performs onstage at the 38th Hispanic Heritage Awards.
(Paul Morigi / Getty Images for Hispanic Heritage Foundation)
The ceremony was hosted by actor and writer Mayan Lopez, and viewers will be able to take in performances by Trevi, along with artists Daymé Arocena, DannyLux, Lisa Lisa and RaiNao.
The awards show was established in 1988 by the White House to honor cultural visionaries within the Latino community. Previous awardees include Bad Bunny, Anthony Quinn, Sonia Sotomayor, Linda Ronstadt, Los Tigres Del Norte, Gloria Estefan and Tito Puente, among others.
“The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States,” says the award-winning comedian and museum founder
In 2022, the iconic L.A. comedian Cheech Marin opened an art museum with the hope of inspiring a Chicano art renaissance.
“I looked around and said, ‘This could be the next big art town’ — because the foundations were already there,” Marin told De Los. “There was this kind of nebulous underground here, but [they’ll] reach officialdom when they have their museum.”
Known colloquially as the Cheech, the museum is widely considered the only space in the nation that exclusively showcases Chicano art. It’s located in Riverside, a majority-Latino city which is also within one of the largest Latino-populated counties in the country.
In its first two years, the space attracted over 200,000 visitors, according to an independent study commissioned by the city, with around 90% of attendees coming from outside the Inland Empire. The study also found that the Cheech brought around $29 million into the city’s local economy in that time frame.
“We were recognized as one of the top 50 shows in the world,” Marin said. “The fame of the museum is spreading far and wide, and people are coming from all over the United States.”
While the Cheech grew in nationwide prominence, its artistic director, María Esther Fernández, explained that the museum’s team also worked to fulfill Marin’s goal by taking advantage of its rapid success.
In the last three years, the center has become a hub and vital resource for many of the region’s Chicano artists. It has done this by creating opportunities to network with high-profile individuals, hosting recurring professional development workshops and regularly contracting emerging creatives for different design projects.
Drew Oberjuerge, the center’s former executive director, added that the museum has invested in the region’s economy by hiring locals to help prepare artwork for installation while also paying musicians and other contractors to work throughout their events.
Cheech Marin photographed in the Riverside Art Museum for the unveiling of the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture (a.k.a. “The Cheech”) in 2022.
(Gustavo Soriano / For The Times)
Most important for these artists, however, is the space that the Cheech has designated to put their art front and center.
“What we’ve been really lucky to leverage is the visibility of the Cheech,” Fernández said. “We’ve been really dedicated, since we opened, to featuring artists that are emerging or some that are even mid-career in the community gallery.”
Some of the creatives, who have collaborated with the Cheech within the community gallery since it first opened, say the center’s efforts have legitimized their career paths and created new opportunities to help pursue their dreams.
The gallery is located next to the museum’s entrance and is only a fraction of the space given to the other exhibits within the 61,420-square-foot museum — and it feels like being in a waiting room in comparison to the rest of the center too. Yet, on only four small walls, the artists featured in the area have put on powerful exhibitions that tell the region’s story while also making art on par with Marin’s collection.
This includes shows like “Desde los Cielos,” which was co-curated by Perry Picasshoe and Emmanuel Camacho Larios, and looked into the concept of alienness — as well as Cosme Córdova’s “Reflections of Our Stories,” which emphasized a cultural connection between Inland Empire artists, despite the use of vastly different mediums.
Perry Picasshoe stands outside the Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture as part of a performance piece in Riverside on July 3, 2025.
(Daniel Hernandez)
In total, the Cheech has held at least seven different exhibitions that showcased artists from across the Inland Empire — at times, catching Marin’s connoisseur eyes.
“I bought a couple of pieces from different artists because they are of that quality,” Marin said. “It’s great to be encouraging local talent as well as recognizing a larger picture that they are a part of, or going to become a part of [the Cheech].”
According to the Cheech’s spokesperson, Marin has purchased three works from Inland Empire-based artist Denise Silva after they curated an exhibition named “Indigenous Futurism” within the gallery. Another piece, created by artist Rosy Cortez, who has been featured in several exhibitions, was purchased by an anonymous donor and added to the center’s permanent collection.
“We’ve also begun to implement an artist fee for artists who are participating in the exhibitions,” Fernández said, adding that her team has assisted in the transportation of larger works of art as well. “Participating in exhibitions can be cost-prohibitive for artists, and so it’s something we’re trying to mitigate in our practices.”
Their most recent exhibition within the community gallery, called “Hecho en Park Avenue,” has been one of their most successful showings, with over 1,300 community members attending its opening earlier this year.
The exhibition’s co-curator, Juan Navarro, explained that the show culminated years of work within Riverside’s Eastside neighborhood. He, along with other Chicano artists, has been creating art within the Latino-dominant community since 2021.
Then, when the Cheech asked them to curate a show, Navarro felt it was the perfect chance to tell the stories of the Eastside’s locals. The response to the final product was more than Navarro could have ever imagined.
“The community showed out: from intellectuals from UC Riverside, from local government, to state government showed up, to the gang members,” Navarro said. He also noted the emotional weight of being recognized for his art, while surrounded by the work of Chicano artists who waited decades for their own to be recognized.
“Seeing this big, broad community and seeing that our show met the need for a diverse audience… It was meaningful to a lot of people, that’s what I cared about.”
The show’s other co-curator, Michelle Espino, also expressed gratitude for the chance to tell the Eastside’s story at the Cheech. Besides being one of its featured artists, Espino worked on many of the behind-the-scenes aspects of the “Hecho en Park Avenue” exhibition.
It was also a full-circle moment for her; years prior, Espino had written about Fernández’s work for a Chicano art history class. This year, she met with Fernández to ask for advice and to finalize plans for the exhibit.
“It [validated] that I do want to continue with this,” Espino said. “She is literally the person I look up to.”
On top of Espino’s one-on-one meetings with the artistic director, she has also enrolled in a few professional development workshops hosted by the center, most recently taking a class that taught both the art of portraiture and poetry. The Cheech regularly partners with a nonprofit organization named the Riverside Arts Council to host professional development classes.
“If we had these resources when I was younger, my trajectory could have probably been a little bit different,” Espino said.
Marin, in his lifelong quest to collect works for his private collection, has seen how Chicano artists have grown their communities in their respective cities. It starts with painters sharing their works with each other through smaller shows, he said, which builds excitement and increases participation. He likened it to a biological process, where each generation builds upon the growth of the previous iteration.
That process is starting in the Inland Empire now, he added.
“We are a part of this big American picture,” Marin said. “And there’s nothing more official that you can do besides having your own museum.”
Stoner comedy legend, actor and Chicano art curator collector Cheech Marin will be honored this year at the 38th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards.
The Hispanic Heritage Foundation named Marin as a recipient of the 2025 Hispanic Heritage Award for the arts on Tuesday, one of several honors bestowed on notable public figures for their accomplishments and cultural contributions to the Latino communities.
Past awardees at the Hispanic Heritage Awards include Bad Bunny, America Ferrera, Becky G, J Balvin and others. Marin will be awarded alongside National Public Radio journalist and “Alt.Latino” host Felix Contreras and Rizos Curls co-founder and CEO Julissa Prado.
“I’m extremely honored to be receiving this Hispanic Heritage for Arts Award,” Marin said in a press release. “I accept this recognition with deep gratitude and a commitment to continue uplifting voices, building bridges, and honoring the legacy of those who came before us.”
Having spent his childhood in South-Central L.A. and the San Fernando Valley, Marin’s comedy career kicked off in the late 1960s, when he fled to Canada to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War. It was during that time that he first met his future comedy partner Tommy Chong — and the rest is burned into history.
“For over five decades, Cheech Marin has reflected our cultural impact on America and the world as a comedian, actor, director, art collector, and humanitarian,” said Antonio Tijerino, the president and CEO of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, in a press release. “His groundbreaking work has not only entertained but enlightened. We are thrilled to pay tribute to Cheech and the other 2025 Honorees and tell their stories to inspire, unite, and mobilize other generations.”
Cheech and Chong’s blazing success first reached national attention after the release of their first comedy album “Cheech and Chong” in 1971. The 11-track LP was nominated for a comedy recording award at the 1972 Grammy Awards and generated the famous “Dave’s not here” line. Their second album, “Big Bambú,” was nominated for a Grammy in the same category at the 1973 award ceremony.
In 1978, the duo released the stoner comedy feature film, “Up in Smoke,” which was based in L.A. Though it was critically panned, the film became a cult classic and was added to the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry in 2024.
Marin’s 1987 film “Born in East L.A.” — which includes a spoof of Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” — was acclaimed by critics for blending of comedy with such serious subject matters as deportation and living as an undocumented person in the U.S.
“Without saying so much as a single word that could be even remotely described as preachy, Cheech Marin makes his points about the second-class nature of American citizenship for ethnic minorities and the desperate situation in which illegal aliens find themselves,” The Times wrote in a 1987 review of the movie.
Many consider the museum to be the largest private collection of Chicano art in the world, with more than 550 paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs from Marin’s personal collection will be on permanent rotation. Nicknamed “the Cheech,” the 61,420-square-foot, two-story art museum and education center resides in what used to be the downtown Riverside Public Library, and has displayed works by artists Chaz Bojorquez, Judithe Hernández, Frank Romero, Patssi Valdez and others. It’s considered the only permanent art space to exclusively showcase Chicano and Mexican American art in the country.
“You don’t have to be Chicano to love and appreciate this work,” Marin told The Times in 2022. “Just like I don’t have to be French to appreciate Impressionism or German to appreciate Expressionism. We recognize it as part of the conversation in the history of art. And now we are part of that conversation in a more concentrated effort than we’ve ever had before.”
