As word evidently reached activists in the last few weeks that disturbing allegations of sexual abuse against Chicano civil rights icon Cesar Chavez were forthcoming, things started to happen without much explanation.
Groups began to cancel long-planned parades, dinners, lectures and fundraisers scheduled for Chavez’s birthday on March 31. People who I’ve known for years suddenly weren’t returning calls or texts about what was going on. Longtime defenders of Chavez — who stood by their hero even as revelations in this paper and in biographies over the past generation showed there was a dark side to the man — suddenly became hard to reach.
When the United Farm Workers and the Cesar Chavez Foundation put out statements Tuesday morning that “troubling allegations” against their patriarch were considered credible enough for them to offer help to his victims, the silence transformed into dread. There was a discomfort similar to waiting for a tsunami — that whatever was coming would change lives, shake institutions and make people question values and principles that they had long held dear.
And like a natural disaster, what emerged about Chavez was far worse than anyone could’ve expected.
Wednesday morning, the New York Times published a story where two women whose families marched alongside Chavez in the fields of California during the 1960s and 1970s disclosed that he sexually abused them for years when they were girls. Just as shocking was the revelation by Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s longtime compatriot and a civil rights legend, that he had once raped her at a time when their leadership in the fight to bring dignity to grape pickers earned national acclaim and amounted to a modern-day Via Dolorosa.
The silence has transformed into screams. Politicians and organizations that long commemorated Chavez and urged others to follow his ways are releasing statements by the minute. My social media feed is now a torrent of friends and strangers expressing empathy for Chavez’s victims and outrage, disgust and — above all — disappointment that someone considered a secular saint by many for decades turned out to be a human more terrible than anyone could’ve imagined.
There will be questions and soul-searching about these horrifying disclosures in the weeks, months and years to come. We will see a push for the renaming of the dozens of schools, parks and streets that bear Chavez’s name across the country and even the rebranding of Cesar Chavez Day, a California state holiday since 2000 devoted to urging people to give back to their communities and the least among us.
The reckoning is only right. Much of the Latino civil rights, political and educational ecosystem will have to grapple with why they held up Chavez as a paragon of virtue for too long above others just as deserving and, as it turns out, nowhere near as compromised.
In any event, the myth has been punctured.
A portrait of Cesar Chavez on a mural on Farmacia Ramirez, 2403 Cesar E Chavez Ave. in East Los Angeles.
(James Carbone / Los Angeles Times)
Chavez’s biography always reads like an entry in the “Lives of the Saints” genre of books that Catholics used to read about the holy men of their faith. The son of farmworkers who became a Mexican American Moses trying to lead his people to the promised land of equity and political power. An internationally famous leader who lived a mendicant’s life. Who devoted decades to some of the most exploited people in the American economy. Honored with awards, plays, posters. Murals, movies and monuments. President Biden even kept a bust of Chavez at his Oval Office desk.
It was a beatific reputation that largely persisted even as the union he helped to create lost its influence in the fields of California and a new generation of activists looked down on Chavez for his long-standing opposition to immigrants who came to this country to work without legal status. Admirers kept him on a pedestal even as former UFW members alleged over the last two decades that the boss they once idolized purged too many good people in the name of absolute control. The hagiography continued even as a new generation of Latinos came of age not knowing anything about him other than an occasional school lesson or television segment.
I was one of those neophytes. I first heard his name at Anaheim High School in the mid-1990s and thought my teacher was talking about Julio Cesar Chavez, the famous Mexican boxer. I was thrilled to discover that someone had bravely fought for the rights of campesinos like my mom and her sisters, who toiled in the garlic fields of Gilroy and strawberry patches of Orange County as teenage girls in the 1960s, the same time that Chavez and the UFW were enjoying their historic wins.
“Who’s Cesar Chavez?” my Mami responded when I asked if his efforts ever made her work easier.
My admiration for Chavez continued even as I learned about some of his faults. I was able to separate Chavez the man from the movement for which he was a figurehead. Long-maligned communities seek heroes to emulate, to draw hope from, to hang on their walls and share their quotes on social media. We create them even as we ignore that they’re flesh and blood just like us.
Chavez seemed like the right man at the right moment as Mexican Americans rose up like never before to battle discrimination and segregation. Now, Latinos and others who admired Chavez have to grapple with his moral failings of the worst possible magnitude at the worst possible time: when there’s an administration doing everything possible to crush Latinos and we’re looking for people to look up to like never before.
He remains one of the few Latino civil rights leaders known nationwide — and Chavez is nowhere near as known as acolytes make him out to be. Some people will argue that it’s unfair he will likely get wiped away from the public sphere while other predatory men from the past and present largely maintain their riches and reputations.
But that’s looking at the abuse revelations the wrong way. For now, I will follow what those most directly affected by Chavez’s actions are telling us to do.
The UFW and Cesar Chavez Foundation were wise to not try to defend the indefensible in their statements and instead consider any victims first before deciding how to decide what’s next for them.
The Chavez family put out a news release that states “we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.”
Huerta wrote in an online essay: “Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement. The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual.”
Another of his victims told the New York Times of Chavez’s legacy: “It makes you rethink in history all those heroes. The movement — that’s the hero.”
The fountain in the Memorial Garden surrounds the gravesite of Cesar Chavez and his wife Helen Chavez at Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif.
(Francine Orr)
The face of that movimiento brought inspiration to millions and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands. That’s why we shouldn’t cancel the good that Chavez fought for alongside so many; we should direct the adulation he once attracted and the anger he’ll now rightfully receive toward the work that still needs to be done.
To quote an old UFW slogan that Chavez transformed into a mantra, la lucha sigue — the fight continues. It’s a statement that’s more pertinent than ever, damn its imperfect messenger.
After months of fretting, California Democratic leaders are now truly freaking out about too many of their own running for governor, potentially allowing two MAGA Republicans to advance to the general election.
Someone find me the world’s smallest violin.
It’s the latest mess created by a party that has held supermajorities in the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion for most of the last 15 years, yet has done little to make life better for its constituents while blaming President Trump for everything.
What does it say about them that no Democratic candidate of color is considered a favorite to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, when whites are only a third of California’s population? That a party casting itself as the champion of the working poor against Trump’s oligarchic reign isn’t telling a billionaire like Tom Steyer — who spent $341 million of his own money on a failed 2020 presidential run — to bow out and throw his support and moolah behind someone else, just because he’s polling in the top five?
California voters have made the state Republican Party as relevant as the Angels in baseball — yet under Democratic rule, life keeps getting harder for too many. Especially galling is how the state Democratic Party has done next to nothing to help Latinos become household names who can win.
Three Latinos with distinguished resumes — former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — are running for governor, yet they stand as much a chance of moving on to the general election as Alfred E. Neuman.
Latinos are a plurality of California’s population and the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Yet there’s a good chance that after November, no Latino will hold a statewide elected position for the first time since 2014.
So excuse my schadenfreude upon hearing earlier this week that California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks wants low-polling candidates to drop out of the governor’s race, claiming in an open letter that their continued presence will “imperil” democracy.
Candidates are definitely choosing — to spite Hicks. We all should. He could have made his move long ago, as the top Democrat in the state. Instead, waiting until just before the candidate filing deadline is more amateur than a Little League game.
Worse, his move reeks of el dedazo, the kingmaking process under Mexico’s long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional that translates as “the finger point,” because that’s how undemocratic it was.
“El dedazo is not appropriate in California,” Becerra told me, referring not to Hicks but to other Democrats who have suggested that he and others withdraw. “And I suspect that very few voters in California think that a variety of choices [for governor] is not a good thing.”
Candidate Xavier Becerra chats in a hallway during the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco last month.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
As of this columna’s publication, not only has no Democratic candidate dropped out, but most are officially filing papers to jump in. Thurmond even posted a video on social media implying that Hicks’ request is racist because almost all the potential spoilers are people of color, while the top three Democratic hopefuls — Rep. Eric Swalwell, Steyer and former Rep. Katie Porter — are white.
“To me, this act doesn’t reflect the Democratic Party of 2026,” Thurmond thundered. “Aren’t we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy?”
Hicks’ move and the embarrassing aftermath reminds me of Will Rogers’ famous quip that Democrats are members of no organized political party — even if I do understand why Hicks and other Dems are so nervous.
No Democrat is towering over the field, which is why party leaders and activists futilely tried to recruit big names like Padilla and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Those who are running are nice enough. But politically, they’re carbon copies of each other. As a group, they’re as inspiring as printer paper.
The subsequent free-for-all has allowed Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco to occupy two of the top three slots in the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll alongside Porter, with Swalwell and Steyer close behind.
No other candidate polled higher than 5%, but together, the rest of them added up to 30%. Factor in the 10% of voters who are undecided, and that’s a significant slab of the potential electorate. If just two Democrats drop out, that would almost certainly stop both Hilton and Bianco from advancing.
A Republican governor for California in the Trump era would be embarrassing, terrible and a political self-own without precedent. It would make previous California political earthquakes where conservatives pounced on liberal cluelessness, like Prop. 13, Prop. 187 and the Gray Davis recall, seem as innocuous as a bounce house.
But telling candidates to kill their campaigns to make it easier for people who supposedly have a better chance is the type of least-worst choice that Democratic leaders have forced upon party faithful for too long.
They need a rude awakening. Making them sweat about a gubernatorial primary is a start. That’s why I’m glad Hicks’ plea is going nowhere. If people want to scatter their votes, it’s not only their choice — it’s democracy.
When I asked Becerra if he or his fellow underdog Dems should accept responsibility if a Republican becomes California’s next governor, he brushed off the question.
“That’s more than speculative — it’s not going to happen,” he said, predicting that undecided voters will “crystallize” soon to make the issue moot. He once again joked that there are “too many dedazos in the air.”
Villaraigosa’s answer was more damning: “It would be a collective responsibility that as a party, we failed to convince the electorate.”
LIFE Film Festival (Latina Independent Film Extravaganza) returns to Los Angeles this week for its 13th year. Founded by “Real Women Have Curves” playwright Josefina López, the festival will screen over 60 short films and four feature movies at Casa 0101 in Boyle Heights, and for the first time at Cinépolis in Pico Rivera.
From Thursday to Sunday, LIFE Film Festival will offer a series of workshops and networking opportunities where aspiring filmmakers will have a chance to learn from Latinas in Hollywood, like Emmy Award-winning editor Michelle Tesoro, who worked on Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” and the 2023 film “Maestro.”
Since López founded LIFE Film Festival in 2013, her commitment remains the same: to celebrate Latino stories in cinema and empower the next generation of Latina filmmakers.
As a Chicana screenwriter and producer for over 30 years, López knows firsthand the underrepresentation of Latinos in Hollywood films. “Latinos are the majority here in California, and we’re still rendered invisible, even though the industry is right in our backyard,” López said. “They just really don’t want to invest in our stories.”
According to UCLA’s 2025 Hollywood Diversity Report, which looked at the 104 top-performing English-language movies released in 2024, only 1% of leading roles went to Latinos; less than 5% of directors were Latino; and approximately 2% of writers were Latino in last year’s top movies. Latinos make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population.
When it comes to gender, the disparities were even more glaring. There were zero Latina directors and screenwriters in the top theatrical movie releases of 2024. In front of the camera, the numbers weren’t that much better. Less than 1 in 50 movie roles went to Latinas.
“I never knew anybody in my family who was a screenwriter, and now I’m a WGA screenwriter and I’m giving back to my community,” LIFE Film Festival co-director Cristina Nava said. “I could be the tia [to] one of these filmmakers.”
López’s response to underrepresentation extends beyond opening doors. With LIFE, she says she wants to support storytellers who are challenging Latino stereotypes. “There are all sorts of Latinos,” López said. “Yes, we are the immigrants, the servants, but we’re more than that.”
Every year, LIFE recognizes a Latina moviemaker whose work has reshaped representation within the entertainment industry, with the Lupe Ontiveros Award.
Created by López to honor the legendary Mexican American actress, the award is bestowed to a filmmaker whose work amplifies Latino voices. This year’s honoree is “Encanto” Oscar-winning producer Yvett Merino.
In her 35 year-long career, Ontiveros played the role of maids and housekeepers over 150 times. López believed that Hollywood was wasting her friend’s talents and promised to cast her as a more complex and interesting character.
López kept her word, casting Ontiveros as Carmen, the hardworking, hysterical mother in “Real Women Have Curves.” “We have to keep telling stories so that all these talented Latino actors have better opportunities than to play stereotypes,” she said.
Commentary: And just like that, the Cesar Chavez myth is punctured. What’s next?
An eerie silence had settled.
As word evidently reached activists in the last few weeks that disturbing allegations of sexual abuse against Chicano civil rights icon Cesar Chavez were forthcoming, things started to happen without much explanation.
Groups began to cancel long-planned parades, dinners, lectures and fundraisers scheduled for Chavez’s birthday on March 31. People who I’ve known for years suddenly weren’t returning calls or texts about what was going on. Longtime defenders of Chavez — who stood by their hero even as revelations in this paper and in biographies over the past generation showed there was a dark side to the man — suddenly became hard to reach.
When the United Farm Workers and the Cesar Chavez Foundation put out statements Tuesday morning that “troubling allegations” against their patriarch were considered credible enough for them to offer help to his victims, the silence transformed into dread. There was a discomfort similar to waiting for a tsunami — that whatever was coming would change lives, shake institutions and make people question values and principles that they had long held dear.
And like a natural disaster, what emerged about Chavez was far worse than anyone could’ve expected.
Wednesday morning, the New York Times published a story where two women whose families marched alongside Chavez in the fields of California during the 1960s and 1970s disclosed that he sexually abused them for years when they were girls. Just as shocking was the revelation by Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s longtime compatriot and a civil rights legend, that he had once raped her at a time when their leadership in the fight to bring dignity to grape pickers earned national acclaim and amounted to a modern-day Via Dolorosa.
The silence has transformed into screams. Politicians and organizations that long commemorated Chavez and urged others to follow his ways are releasing statements by the minute. My social media feed is now a torrent of friends and strangers expressing empathy for Chavez’s victims and outrage, disgust and — above all — disappointment that someone considered a secular saint by many for decades turned out to be a human more terrible than anyone could’ve imagined.
There will be questions and soul-searching about these horrifying disclosures in the weeks, months and years to come. We will see a push for the renaming of the dozens of schools, parks and streets that bear Chavez’s name across the country and even the rebranding of Cesar Chavez Day, a California state holiday since 2000 devoted to urging people to give back to their communities and the least among us.
The reckoning is only right. Much of the Latino civil rights, political and educational ecosystem will have to grapple with why they held up Chavez as a paragon of virtue for too long above others just as deserving and, as it turns out, nowhere near as compromised.
In any event, the myth has been punctured.
A portrait of Cesar Chavez on a mural on Farmacia Ramirez, 2403 Cesar E Chavez Ave. in East Los Angeles.
(James Carbone / Los Angeles Times)
Chavez’s biography always reads like an entry in the “Lives of the Saints” genre of books that Catholics used to read about the holy men of their faith. The son of farmworkers who became a Mexican American Moses trying to lead his people to the promised land of equity and political power. An internationally famous leader who lived a mendicant’s life. Who devoted decades to some of the most exploited people in the American economy. Honored with awards, plays, posters. Murals, movies and monuments. President Biden even kept a bust of Chavez at his Oval Office desk.
It was a beatific reputation that largely persisted even as the union he helped to create lost its influence in the fields of California and a new generation of activists looked down on Chavez for his long-standing opposition to immigrants who came to this country to work without legal status. Admirers kept him on a pedestal even as former UFW members alleged over the last two decades that the boss they once idolized purged too many good people in the name of absolute control. The hagiography continued even as a new generation of Latinos came of age not knowing anything about him other than an occasional school lesson or television segment.
I was one of those neophytes. I first heard his name at Anaheim High School in the mid-1990s and thought my teacher was talking about Julio Cesar Chavez, the famous Mexican boxer. I was thrilled to discover that someone had bravely fought for the rights of campesinos like my mom and her sisters, who toiled in the garlic fields of Gilroy and strawberry patches of Orange County as teenage girls in the 1960s, the same time that Chavez and the UFW were enjoying their historic wins.
“Who’s Cesar Chavez?” my Mami responded when I asked if his efforts ever made her work easier.
My admiration for Chavez continued even as I learned about some of his faults. I was able to separate Chavez the man from the movement for which he was a figurehead. Long-maligned communities seek heroes to emulate, to draw hope from, to hang on their walls and share their quotes on social media. We create them even as we ignore that they’re flesh and blood just like us.
Chavez seemed like the right man at the right moment as Mexican Americans rose up like never before to battle discrimination and segregation. Now, Latinos and others who admired Chavez have to grapple with his moral failings of the worst possible magnitude at the worst possible time: when there’s an administration doing everything possible to crush Latinos and we’re looking for people to look up to like never before.
He remains one of the few Latino civil rights leaders known nationwide — and Chavez is nowhere near as known as acolytes make him out to be. Some people will argue that it’s unfair he will likely get wiped away from the public sphere while other predatory men from the past and present largely maintain their riches and reputations.
But that’s looking at the abuse revelations the wrong way. For now, I will follow what those most directly affected by Chavez’s actions are telling us to do.
The UFW and Cesar Chavez Foundation were wise to not try to defend the indefensible in their statements and instead consider any victims first before deciding how to decide what’s next for them.
The Chavez family put out a news release that states “we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.”
Huerta wrote in an online essay: “Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement. The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual.”
Another of his victims told the New York Times of Chavez’s legacy: “It makes you rethink in history all those heroes. The movement — that’s the hero.”
The fountain in the Memorial Garden surrounds the gravesite of Cesar Chavez and his wife Helen Chavez at Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif.
(Francine Orr)
The face of that movimiento brought inspiration to millions and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands. That’s why we shouldn’t cancel the good that Chavez fought for alongside so many; we should direct the adulation he once attracted and the anger he’ll now rightfully receive toward the work that still needs to be done.
To quote an old UFW slogan that Chavez transformed into a mantra, la lucha sigue — the fight continues. It’s a statement that’s more pertinent than ever, damn its imperfect messenger.
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Too many Democrats in California governor’s race? That’s a great thing
After months of fretting, California Democratic leaders are now truly freaking out about too many of their own running for governor, potentially allowing two MAGA Republicans to advance to the general election.
Someone find me the world’s smallest violin.
It’s the latest mess created by a party that has held supermajorities in the state Legislature and the governor’s mansion for most of the last 15 years, yet has done little to make life better for its constituents while blaming President Trump for everything.
What does it say about them that no Democratic candidate of color is considered a favorite to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom, when whites are only a third of California’s population? That a party casting itself as the champion of the working poor against Trump’s oligarchic reign isn’t telling a billionaire like Tom Steyer — who spent $341 million of his own money on a failed 2020 presidential run — to bow out and throw his support and moolah behind someone else, just because he’s polling in the top five?
California voters have made the state Republican Party as relevant as the Angels in baseball — yet under Democratic rule, life keeps getting harder for too many. Especially galling is how the state Democratic Party has done next to nothing to help Latinos become household names who can win.
Three Latinos with distinguished resumes — former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra and State Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — are running for governor, yet they stand as much a chance of moving on to the general election as Alfred E. Neuman.
Latinos are a plurality of California’s population and the bedrock of the Democratic Party. Yet there’s a good chance that after November, no Latino will hold a statewide elected position for the first time since 2014.
Yes, Alex Padilla is our senior U.S. senator. But enough California Latino voters became disillusioned with the Democratic platform that Trump made large gains among them in 2024, and Latino GOP legislative candidates stormed Sacramento like never before.
So excuse my schadenfreude upon hearing earlier this week that California Democratic Party Chair Rusty Hicks wants low-polling candidates to drop out of the governor’s race, claiming in an open letter that their continued presence will “imperil” democracy.
Candidates are definitely choosing — to spite Hicks. We all should. He could have made his move long ago, as the top Democrat in the state. Instead, waiting until just before the candidate filing deadline is more amateur than a Little League game.
Worse, his move reeks of el dedazo, the kingmaking process under Mexico’s long-ruling Partido Revolucionario Institucional that translates as “the finger point,” because that’s how undemocratic it was.
“El dedazo is not appropriate in California,” Becerra told me, referring not to Hicks but to other Democrats who have suggested that he and others withdraw. “And I suspect that very few voters in California think that a variety of choices [for governor] is not a good thing.”
Candidate Xavier Becerra chats in a hallway during the California Democratic Party convention in San Francisco last month.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
As of this columna’s publication, not only has no Democratic candidate dropped out, but most are officially filing papers to jump in. Thurmond even posted a video on social media implying that Hicks’ request is racist because almost all the potential spoilers are people of color, while the top three Democratic hopefuls — Rep. Eric Swalwell, Steyer and former Rep. Katie Porter — are white.
“To me, this act doesn’t reflect the Democratic Party of 2026,” Thurmond thundered. “Aren’t we supposed to be the party who embraces democracy?”
Hicks’ move and the embarrassing aftermath reminds me of Will Rogers’ famous quip that Democrats are members of no organized political party — even if I do understand why Hicks and other Dems are so nervous.
No Democrat is towering over the field, which is why party leaders and activists futilely tried to recruit big names like Padilla and former Vice President Kamala Harris. Those who are running are nice enough. But politically, they’re carbon copies of each other. As a group, they’re as inspiring as printer paper.
The subsequent free-for-all has allowed Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco to occupy two of the top three slots in the latest Public Policy Institute of California poll alongside Porter, with Swalwell and Steyer close behind.
No other candidate polled higher than 5%, but together, the rest of them added up to 30%. Factor in the 10% of voters who are undecided, and that’s a significant slab of the potential electorate. If just two Democrats drop out, that would almost certainly stop both Hilton and Bianco from advancing.
A Republican governor for California in the Trump era would be embarrassing, terrible and a political self-own without precedent. It would make previous California political earthquakes where conservatives pounced on liberal cluelessness, like Prop. 13, Prop. 187 and the Gray Davis recall, seem as innocuous as a bounce house.
But telling candidates to kill their campaigns to make it easier for people who supposedly have a better chance is the type of least-worst choice that Democratic leaders have forced upon party faithful for too long.
They need a rude awakening. Making them sweat about a gubernatorial primary is a start. That’s why I’m glad Hicks’ plea is going nowhere. If people want to scatter their votes, it’s not only their choice — it’s democracy.
When I asked Becerra if he or his fellow underdog Dems should accept responsibility if a Republican becomes California’s next governor, he brushed off the question.
“That’s more than speculative — it’s not going to happen,” he said, predicting that undecided voters will “crystallize” soon to make the issue moot. He once again joked that there are “too many dedazos in the air.”
Villaraigosa’s answer was more damning: “It would be a collective responsibility that as a party, we failed to convince the electorate.”
Watch out, Rusty — here come your Dems!
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Hollywood still undervalues Latinas. “Real Women Have Curves” author gives them the spotlight
LIFE Film Festival (Latina Independent Film Extravaganza) returns to Los Angeles this week for its 13th year. Founded by “Real Women Have Curves” playwright Josefina López, the festival will screen over 60 short films and four feature movies at Casa 0101 in Boyle Heights, and for the first time at Cinépolis in Pico Rivera.
From Thursday to Sunday, LIFE Film Festival will offer a series of workshops and networking opportunities where aspiring filmmakers will have a chance to learn from Latinas in Hollywood, like Emmy Award-winning editor Michelle Tesoro, who worked on Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” and the 2023 film “Maestro.”
Since López founded LIFE Film Festival in 2013, her commitment remains the same: to celebrate Latino stories in cinema and empower the next generation of Latina filmmakers.
As a Chicana screenwriter and producer for over 30 years, López knows firsthand the underrepresentation of Latinos in Hollywood films. “Latinos are the majority here in California, and we’re still rendered invisible, even though the industry is right in our backyard,” López said. “They just really don’t want to invest in our stories.”
According to UCLA’s 2025 Hollywood Diversity Report, which looked at the 104 top-performing English-language movies released in 2024, only 1% of leading roles went to Latinos; less than 5% of directors were Latino; and approximately 2% of writers were Latino in last year’s top movies. Latinos make up nearly 20% of the U.S. population.
When it comes to gender, the disparities were even more glaring. There were zero Latina directors and screenwriters in the top theatrical movie releases of 2024. In front of the camera, the numbers weren’t that much better. Less than 1 in 50 movie roles went to Latinas.
“I never knew anybody in my family who was a screenwriter, and now I’m a WGA screenwriter and I’m giving back to my community,” LIFE Film Festival co-director Cristina Nava said. “I could be the tia [to] one of these filmmakers.”
López’s response to underrepresentation extends beyond opening doors. With LIFE, she says she wants to support storytellers who are challenging Latino stereotypes. “There are all sorts of Latinos,” López said. “Yes, we are the immigrants, the servants, but we’re more than that.”
Every year, LIFE recognizes a Latina moviemaker whose work has reshaped representation within the entertainment industry, with the Lupe Ontiveros Award.
Created by López to honor the legendary Mexican American actress, the award is bestowed to a filmmaker whose work amplifies Latino voices. This year’s honoree is “Encanto” Oscar-winning producer Yvett Merino.
In her 35 year-long career, Ontiveros played the role of maids and housekeepers over 150 times. López believed that Hollywood was wasting her friend’s talents and promised to cast her as a more complex and interesting character.
López kept her word, casting Ontiveros as Carmen, the hardworking, hysterical mother in “Real Women Have Curves.” “We have to keep telling stories so that all these talented Latino actors have better opportunities than to play stereotypes,” she said.
Source link