Two Latinx films have been included in this year’s list of 25 movies that have been selected by the Library of Congress to join the National Film Registry: Selena (1997) and the short film Chicana (1979). The announcement was made this morning by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, and also includes other titles such as Strangers on a Train (1951), Pink Flamingos (1972), Star Wars Episode VI — Return of the Jedi (1983), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), and WALL-E (2008). Below are descriptions for the two Latinx selections provided by the Library of Congress.
In her first major film role, Jennifer Lopez captures the talent, beauty, youthful spirit and many of the reasons why Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was so beloved and on her way to becoming one of the biggest stars in the world. Already the first and most successful female Tejana music singer, Selena, through her growing popularity in both Mexican and American music and fashion, paved the way for many of today’s biggest pop stars, including Lopez herself.
Directed and written by Gregory Nava, Selena is the official autobiographic film authorized by the Quintanilla family. Selena’s father, Abraham Quintanilla, serves as a producer and is played by Edward James Olmos in the movie. Olmos has said that there were moments on the set when Selena’s father would excuse himself and quietly cry in the corner because of the fresh emotions of her death and because many events were so accurately portrayed. The final montage of the movie features real footage and photos of Selena’s life.
Selena “will stand the test of time,” Olmos said. “It’s a masterpiece because it allows people to learn about themselves by watching other peoples’ culture.”
In Chicana, producer-director Sylvia Morales created this 22-minute collage of artworks, stills, documentary footage, narration and testimonies to provide a counterpart to earlier film accounts of Mexican and Mexican-American history that all but erased women’s lives from their narratives. Centering on successive struggles by women from the pre-Colombian era to the present to combat exploitation, to break out of cultural stereotypes and to organize for national independence, women’s education and the rights of workers, Chicana resurrects an arresting array of proto-feminist icons to inspire Chicana feminists with role models from their cultural past.
In 1977, Morales, an artist and cinematographer who had worked at KABC in Los Angeles and was enrolled in UCLA film school, became enthralled with a slide show created by Chicano Studies teacher Anna Nieto-Gómez that included a history of Mexican women of which Morales was unaware. With Nieto-Gómez’s support, Morales conducted additional research with Cynthia Honesto; hired composer Carmen Moreno to score the film and renowned actress Carmen Zapata to narrate it; shot documentary footage; and recorded interviews with Chicana activists Dolores Huerta, Alicia Escalante and Francisca Flores to incorporate as voiceovers into the film. Acknowledged as a brilliant and pioneering feminist Latina critique, Chicana has served as a stepping stone for Morales’ distinguished career as a writer and director of acclaimed cable and public television documentary and fiction productions. UCLA has digitally scanned the best surviving picture sources for interim preservation purposes and hopes to turn this provisional work into a full restoration effort.
“I loved the movies, and so I decided early on, when I was a teenager, that I was going to make some movies and put some Mexicans in it,” Morales said. “I think it’s the struggle that’s important, and that’s what Chicana is. It’s the struggle to be whoever you are.”
