Esther Cepeda: Elizabeth Peña was trailblazer on the big screen

Source by Esther Cepeda

It's no overstatement to say that we lost a trailblazer when Elizabeth Peña died earlier this month. To note that she was wonderful, but not exceptionally famous, isn't a knock on her abilities. It is a testament to her undervalued contributions to the performing arts.

Peñabroke a major barrier for Hispanic women in Hollywood: playing a woman, not a “Hispanic” woman. Formerly, only women who Anglicized their names—such as Jo Raquel Tajada aka Raquel Welch—pulled that off. Though several advocacy organizations complain about a lack of Latino representation in Hollywood, Hispanics have been part of mainstream entertainment for as long as movies have been around. At the dawn of film, some actors changed their names to sound Latino in order to capitalize on the “Latin lover” trend in movies—Jacob Krantz morphed into Ricardo Cortez and went on to stardom in the 1930. Read More.