Galán Incorporated

Episode two features Miriam Colon and the Puerto Rican Traveling Theater Company (PRTT) of New York, Tejana musical artist Selena, and the Santero art tradition of New Mexico. This episode unveils the stories of New Mexico artisans known as Santeros who engage in an art form heavily steeped in history and tradition. Santeros present an interesting juxtaposition of imposed religion and Native American culture. Santero artists Charlie Carrillo and Nick...

Filmed on location throughout Texas, Songs of the Homeland tells the story of Tejano Music. This critically acclaimed documentary features images of the past and present and includes performances and interviews with musical pioneers such as Tony de la Rosa, Valerio Longoria, Lydia Mendoza, Isidro Lopez, Sunny Ozuna, Mingo Saldivar, and Little Joe Hernandez. Produced and Directed by Award Winning Filmmaker Hector GalA¡n, Songs of the Homeland is an...

Episode six features the history of Salsa music and dance in Philadelphia, the first Mexican-American Prima Ballerina Evelyn Cisneros, Tejana music pioneer Lydia Mendoza, and the father of Chicano music and National Medal of Arts recipient, Lalo Guerrero. A segment unveils the trajectory of Salsa music includes commentary on world renowned performers Celia Cruz and Tito Puente..

The unsung hero of the American West is the Mexican American "Vaquero," literally translated as "cowboy" in the Spanish language. Today, there are only a handful of these descendants of America's first cowboys since a rapidly changing industry has quickly made this lifestyle obsolete. Shot on location in South Texas, this moving documentary pays homage to a breed of men that history has overlooked as they continue a trade from an era gone by..

Episode five highlights the Taco Shop Poets of Southern California, early tent theater of the Southwest called Carpas, and performance art in San Francisco. Performance artists covered include Guillermo Gomez-PeA±a, performance troupe ASCO, and the performance art pioneers Royal Chicano Airforce. The Taco Shop Poets, a group of Chicano poets living in San Diego, blend the spoken word with lively beats. The poets strive to take their social and political...

Episode four begins with New York's Latino Hip-Hop and dance cultures. The Hip-Hop story looks at the new wave of Latinos who took Hip-Hop and created a culture that revolutionized the genre. It features New York Hip-Hop dancing couple Rokafella and Kwikstep. Then it travels to Miami's unique Afro-Cuban sound. The second segment takes us to Miami to experience a music that is a blending of traditional Cuban music, explosive jazz and American Pop called...

Examines the beginnings of the movement by profiling Reies Lopez Tijerina and the land grant movement in New Mexico in 1966 and 1967. It shows how Tijerina's fight to convince the federal government to honor the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) galvanized Mexicans and Mexican Americans across the Southwest. It then moves on to discuss Rodolfo (Corky) Gonzales and his founding of the Crusade for Justice in Denver in 1966. Focusing on the importance...

'Chicano! Episode 2: The Struggle in the Fields' is part of a series of films from Galan Incorporated. This four part landmark documentary series now a classic for Mexican American history of the U.S., chronicles the struggle for equality and social justice of the Mexican American community in the United States from 1965 to 1975. Produced from Austin Texas by Galan Productions, Inc. It features the Chicano land struggle, Cesar Chavez and the UFW,...

Political empowerment for Latinos in the United States has always been difficult. A Mexican-American butcher's son from Texas, Willie Velasquez questioned the lack of Latino representation in his city's government, propelling him into a lifelong battle to gain political equality for Latinos. This documentary examines obstacles Latinos had to overcome to obtain representation, and addresses issues facing Latinos today.