Yes, it’s the last day of Hispanic Heritage month, September, but you can watch these movies and TV shows for weeks to come!
Netflix has one of the best, including John Leguizamos’ Latin History for Morons, a movie based on Leguizamos’ Broadway show of the same name. This is his comedic effort to help his bullied son feel proud of his great heritage, and goes over 3,000 years of Hispanic history, and charts the Maya, Aztec and Inca civilizations and even teaches us about Latin American heroes of the American Civil War. All with some humor thrown in, of course, so it’s highly recommended and well worth seeing. Oh, and Rotten Tomatoes gives it 100%! Amazon Prime also has some actual history shows on Latinos, including the great PBS 2013 series The Latino Americans. This is an amazing 6 part series on Hispanics in America , starting from the 1500′s to the present day, all narrated by Benjamin Bratt. There is a plethora of information here, and a lot of it is first hand, with interviews with people like Delores Huerta, Rita Moreno, Linda Chavez and Herman Badillo. Even if you don’t like history, like me, you’ll love this. And it gets a 7.1/10 on IMDb. Amazon also has A Class Apart, the 2009 PBS episode of the American Experience, about the little-known legal case of Hernandez v. Texas. This show the Mexican American lawyers who fought to end the Jim Crow-like laws that were pervasive in the Southwestern United States and the road they took to the Supreme Court. It’s an enlightening show on, for me, an unknown case of exclusion in this country, and it’s narrated by Edward James Olmos! And it gets a stunning 8.6/10 on IMDb. Amazon also offers The Bronze Screen: 100 Years of the Latino Image in Hollywood, a 2002 documentary directed by Susan Racho. This studies the different stereotypes of the Latino in Hollywood movies, from silents to contemporary film, with stars like Rudolph Valentino, Carmen Miranda, Lupe Velez and Rita Hayworth. It’s a fascinating subject and a problem that actors like Jennifer Lopez and Antonio Banderas still deal with. And it gets a 6.6/10 on IMDb. And, finally, Hulu has the 2014 movie Cesar Chavez, directed by Diego Luna(Y Tu Mama Tambien). This stars Michael Peña as civil rights hero Cesar Chavez, leader of the labor leader and cofounder of the United Farm Workers Union. It also stars America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson, Yancey Arias and John Malkovich, and is an inspiring story about the one of the greatest figures in American movement for civil rights of the 50’s and 60’s. And it gets a 6.6/10 on IMDb.
So educate yourself on the Hispanic contributions to civilization in this country and in the world, today and every day, online!
Grownups Guide to Streaming 