Chon Noriega, director of UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center and a professor in the film, television, and digital media department, is a participant in What It Means to Be American, a national conversation hosted by the Smithsonian and Zócalo Public Square.
Noriega penned an essay for the online series, “Movies’ Most Memorable Mexican-American Moments: From Stand and Deliver to Giant, These Are Hollywood's Strongest Cinematic Depictions of America’s Third Largest Ethnic Group.”
In “The Cisco Kid and maids are only part of the story,” Noriega described his evolution from a teenager who thought that Alan Arkin was Chicano after the actor played Mexican-American cop Bean in the movie “Freebie and the Bean” (1974) to his growing appreciation of Latino actors who played Mexican-American roles, from Jimmy Smits as the Cisco Kid to Lupe Ontiveros.
"The late Lupe Ontiveros was without a doubt the patron saint of Chicano cinema of this era," Noriega wrote. "Though she played a maid more than 150 times in her 36-year career, she also appeared in just about every Chicano-focused feature and television series. But — true to my love of action films — I’ll always remember her as the drug lord in 'Blood In, Blood Out' (1993) and her final, magnificent shootout scene. Lupe lived large on the silver screen, and, as a consequence, so did we."
