Being a Chicano in Hollywood, my experience is that you're not given credit for any sophistication... You're just kind of some guy that just crossed the border, you know, on the back of a truck and that's it.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
You have to want to be Chicano to be Chicano.
Don't ever insult a Chicano about being a Chicano because then all the other Chicanos will be on you with a vengeance. They will even fight each to be first in line to support you.
To me, you have to declare yourself a Chicano in order to be a Chicano. That makes a Chicano a Mexican-American with a defiant political attitude that centers on his or her right to self-definition. I'm a Chicano because I say I am.
There are some Chicanos who don't want to be Chicanos - they want to be Mexican-American, Hispanic, or even Spanish.
Who said that being Latino is to be a stereotype? Characters are stereotypes when making plans or without shades. I do not believe in the picture or model established in the movies.
I like to consider myself an actor who just happens to be Hispanic.
A couple of years after I arrived in Hollywood, everything that was Latino was fashionable, and years after, my thought is that we're not fashionable anymore. We're here to stay.
I just feel lucky to have grown up where I did because I think it gave me a nice base. Hollywood can really mess with your sense of self and I feel like coming from the South keeps me pretty grounded.
Hollywood has definitely grown, in embracing the inclusion of Latinos in the world, because, for some time, we didn't exist. We were not part of any stories.
I was interested in a lot of subjects from very early on. And that's uniquely Chicano because every Chicano I knew always had three jobs.