The Chicago-Hispanic Image in American Film

Hispanic Times Magazine, Oct-Nov, 1997 by Robert Kendall

Author Frank Javier Garcia Berumen confronts an all-too-neglected subject of the Chicano/Hispanic role in film in an entertaining and informative manner in The Chicano/Hispanic Image in American Film (Vantage Press, $18.95).

Berumen, a history teacher at his alma mater of Lincoln High School in the Lincoln Heights barrio of Los Angeles, holds a dual degree in history and education from California State at Los Angeles and a master's in education from Harvard. Berumen became interested in the subject he definitively covers when, as a child, he was "exposed to the positive images in Mexican cinema, in contrast to the demeaning Hollywood stereotypes."

Berumen's book is both an encyclopedia of film for Latin performers as well as an analytical compendium of cinema pertaining to the Chicano/Hispanic experience. In addition to providing capsulized biographies on Latin stars from the 1920's to the present, from Ramon Novarro to Raquel Welch, Berumen analyzes films involving the Latin experience from the inception of talkies to now, enhancing his text with informative interviews of current performers Silvana Gallardo and Alma Martinez.

The author scores a coup by presenting a comprehensive analysis of the spectacularly acclaimed Salt of the Earth, which was banned in the U.S. in 1954 during the peak of Cold War hysteria. He traveled to Cuernavaca to interview the brilliant Mexican actress Rosaura Revueltas, who was blacklisted in both the U.S. and Mexico for starring in the labor/feminist epic.