On Jan. 5, 1931, Mexican-American students were barred from attending their local elementary school. The parents took the school district to court.
An undocumented immigrant receives a heartwarming yet heartbreaking phone call from his daughter across the border.
Lily, a little girl, prepares a party for her father while she is in the care of her cousin Teo, who completes her idea of family.
Chicano is an exploration between the similarities and differences between Chicano culture in America and Japan, and how the scene is not all about gang culture, but has a deep-seated root in family values.
Foreign Puzzle is an intimate documentary that captures the journey of an inspiring Mexican American dancer as she communicates the impermanence of life through dance while juggling the roles of a recently divorced parent of a 6-year-old, a choreographer and a primary school teacher amidst intensive treatments for breast cancer.
The Longoria Affair is about a controversy that arose when the body of a dead soldier from WWII was finally identified in 1949.
Following the death of a close uncle, siblings Guillermo, Lucia, and Nora are forced to interact with each other and their extended family during the customary nine days of a Novenario.
Experimental film woven around a poem about Chicano culture in the U.S.
90's era home videos of a Mexican father starting a new life in the United States
CORPUS explores the mass adulation and explosive posthumous recognition of Selena Quintanilla, the Tejano rock singer murdered by the president of her fan club in 1995. Pushing beyond the mainstream media's fascination with her violent death, Portillo interviews Selena's family and friends as well as the devoted fans that pilgrimage to Selena's grave in Corpus Christi, Texas, to pay homage to the slain star. Moving and provocative, this humble investigative portrait explores Selena's cultural significance as a pop icon and shines a light on the hopes, fantasies, fears, and realities of young Latinas today.
When Ruben, a young Chicano musician, is caught between his mother’s expectations and his own hopes, he is forced to make a decision that will change his life forever. Based on true events, “Con Esperanza” follows Ruben on his journey of pursuing his dreams, balancing both the traditional and financial expectations of his Mother.
Marthas is a PBS documentary about an extraordinary rite of passage in Laredo, Texas where teenage Mexican-American girls debut in a grand Colonial Ball dressed as American revolutionaries - a tradition that goes back 114 years.
This coming-of-age story follows three students of El Paso's Bowie High and their search for the American dream, a dream inspired by family, fueled by sports, and complicated by the US/Mexican border.
On August 1, 1942, a 22-year-old Mexican American man was stabbed to death at a party. To white Los Angelenos, the murder was just more proof that Mexican American crime was spiraling out of control. The police fanned out across LA, netting 600 young Mexican American suspects. Almost all those taken into custody were wearing the distinctive uniform of their generation: Zoot Suits. The tragic murder and the injustice of the trial that followed, coupled with sensational news coverage of both, fanned the flames of the racial hostility that was already running rife in the city. Within months of the verdict, Los Angeles was in the grip of some of the worst violence in its history.
Mexican American Rodolfo P. Hernandez faced death along the 38th parallel, earning a Congressional Medal of Honor for valor during the Korean War. A story of heroism, perseverance and service, Hernandez proved that even in the most dire circumstances a wounded soldier can accomplish his mission and go on to greater service as a veteran.
Violence erupts when two vicious street gangs go to war in the inner city. Duke, the gang leader of Tokers Town, is feeling the pressure from his Barrio to go to war with their rival gang 14th St. But while Duke was in jail he made a peace treaty with the leader of 14th St. only to discover they had broken it. Now with his homies getting shot and his mothers pleas to stop the violence he is at the breaking point.
Danny ponders a way for rival gangs to avoid violence at an upcoming dance.
Diversity trainer Lee Mun Wah assembles a diverse group of eight American men to talk about their experience of race relations in the United States. The exchange is sometimes dramatic as they lay bare the pain that racism in the US has caused them.
"Stolen Education" documents the untold story of Mexican-American school children who challenged discrimination in Texas schools in the 1950s and changed the face of education in the Southwest.
Told through the eyes of a young journalist named Maya, who has inadvertently gotten captured into a human trafficking ring while doing an investigative article on the treatment of illegal immigrants in America