00:16I discovered the story of the Hernandez case, odd enough, on the subway one day while reading
00:20a New York Times editorial. It was on the 50th anniversary of the case. I had gone to law school.
00:25I had never heard about this case, and it surprised me that this case existed. I decided to delve
00:31further into it, and once I found out about the case and the fact that it covered not only
00:35issues of discrimination, it was an expansion of the 14th Amendment, but it also allowed
00:40for a way to explore the issues of identity that surround being a Latino because it deals
00:45with the issues of whiteness. I thought this was a case that really would be captivating.
00:53I'm always interested in stories from American history, and in particular stories about people
00:57who have been left out of the traditional tellings of our history. And when Carlos approached me
01:04about this film and said, you know, he was making a film about the Mexican American Civil
01:09Rights Movement of the post-World War II era, I thought, I don't know anything about that.
01:14This is a civil rights movement that I should know about, and so naturally I was intrigued.
01:19And then when I got to learn a little bit more about the story, I realized that not only was
01:23this a very important story that the public needed to know about, but it also was a fantastic
01:28subject for a film with really compelling characters and with a wonderful dramatic storyline.
01:34I think one of the greatest challenges of telling a story like this, a story that is in the past,
01:40but not so distant past, and that comes out of a community that itself has not been documented
01:45for a variety of reasons, is trying to piece together that story. Trying to find how the story
01:52can be pulled together in terms of the documentation.
01:55Indeed, when we started working on this project, there were very little historical literature about
02:00this, and we really were on our own in many ways, digging through the archives, talking
02:04to witnesses of this history, and trying to figure out what happened, and putting together
02:10this elaborate puzzle.
02:12The Hernandez v. Texas case is one that has not been generally documented by historians.
02:17This early Mexican American Civil Rights Movement is only now coming into its own.
02:21In fact, the Supreme Court case at the core of our story, Hernandez v. Texas, has no transcript.
02:27They weren't even keeping transcripts back then. There's no recording. So we really don't know
02:32exactly what happened inside the Supreme Court. So putting all of this together, from all the
02:36available resources, and from the ingenuity that Carlos brought to digging through the archives,
02:42was really a major, major challenge.
02:44I actually gained access to the homes of some of the characters, such as Carlos Cadena's household,
02:50or Gus Garcia's household, to try to find and go back to their files and find material.
02:56Where we were able to find letters and correspondence that could verify some of these points.
03:03The other thing that is difficult about making a documentary like this, at this particular
03:08stage in history, in the history of the story, is we're talking 50 years after the fact.
03:12So the principles are no longer around. We were lucky to find James Zanda before he unfortunately
03:18passed away. Someone like Gloria Cadena, who was able to tell us the story of her husband,
03:22and she's since passed away. Also Paulina Rosa, who unfortunately passed away as well.
03:29So there was an urgency about finding our subjects and capturing them on camera.
03:43When you approach a story, such as the one that we have, you want to work on a couple of
03:47different
03:48levels. Obviously you want to tell the greater story, which is a story of Mexican Americans in
03:55this post-war period, which has generally been excluded from our history. But that's an amorphous
04:00subject to try to tackle in a one-hour film. And you really want to bring the audience along with
04:06you. So it helps tremendously when you have character. And luckily we had characters in spades
04:11with people like Gus Garcia, Carlos Cadena, John Herrera, and James Zanda. So it was a matter of
04:19interweaving the story of the individuals through the story of the case, and that way being able to
04:25find and develop the tapestry of that time. One of the significant challenges that we had in terms of
04:31structuring the story was that the discrimination that Mexican Americans face in that period is not
04:37well known throughout this country. And so we couldn't assume that knowledge. And we had to sort of
04:43establish that base before we could move into the actual story of the case itself.
04:49And that proved to be a challenge, trying to figure out what the proper entry point would be.
04:53And we went to settle on telling that backstory first and then evolving into the case.
05:00Documentary films are about story and they're also about image. They're about pictures. And we
05:05needed to gather images in order to bring this story to life. There's a remarkable array of
05:10photographs which came from a variety of sources. We had a tremendous team that was going out there
05:16and researching these archives. Peter Miller, who was probably the best in the business. Peter went
05:20out and hit every film archive there was, as well as all the universities, and going online, going down
05:25to Washington to research and the like. It required a whole lot of ingenuity to figure out what do you
05:29show when there aren't that many pictures that depict this story. There are no photographs of Gus
05:35Garcia, Carlos Cadena, and John Herrera at the Supreme Court. There's very, very little documentation
05:42of this history. So we had a challenge, which was to go out and find images that could help tell
05:47this
05:47story. In the course of a couple of years of work, we dug up thousands of images. Jordi Valdez, our
05:54associate producer, was absolutely energetic in going out and finding and tracking down all the archives
06:00that are out there impossible. Jordi spent years digging through archives, finding photos, finding
06:08headlines, finding images and artwork to help bring this story to life. We also were very fortunate in
06:16finding the Russell Lee collection of photos, which exists at the University of Texas. Russell Lee's
06:23photographs from late 1940s showed Mexican-American life in the Southwest in the late 1940s, which really
06:30captured the essence and the spirit of the people who were at the core of our film and incorporated a
06:35great many of those photos into our into our film.
06:51One of the first steps in making a documentary like this is trying to find your characters,
06:55the people that you're going to interview, and that involves a great deal of guerrilla research going out
07:00contacting people in the field. Then you go out and you interview them, and you develop these questions
07:06out of other material that you found. And you have a great cinematographer such as Alan Moore, who was
07:11able to frame people beautifully, to cast them in an exquisite light, and it gives honor to the people
07:16of this generation. Alan Moore went with us to Texas to shoot interviews, and while we were there,
07:26tried to capture some of the cityscapes and the landscapes of the place in which our story took place,
07:32to breathe some life into this half a century-old story.
07:37You go through and you've gathered up this material. You come back and you have these interviews.
07:42You still have to pull them together, and from there, pull your story together. So there's a script.
07:48And you have a lot of material that you've covered in terms of not only the interviews,
07:51but the photographs you've collected, and how is all that going to be pulled together and actually be
07:56yielded to the story. Aaron Vega was remarkable as an editor in that. He really has a gift and a
08:03craft
08:04and an ability to be able to pull together these desperate elements and elegantly lay them out before us.
08:10The glue or the soul of a film like this can be the music, and we found that soul in
08:16Steven Schoenberg.
08:22His music, I think, is evocative, a presence while not being intrusive and just kind of gives that
08:28extra layer of depth. And the voice of Edward James Olmos, who I think is the voice of this movement
08:36incarnate. And so his presence is felt through his voice and that reality.
08:51As such of none of the kind have taken, the words of this movement was honour to be indojisni.
08:56it will take a very narrow glow to what Lord is touring in the side with life success and
08:56values can find 30% of those various modes for us, the catchment of the shared
08:57showing up and encouragement I think there'll not be information closer to every single day…
08:57So what it's easier for you to see today, is for the day to see today.
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