I grew up in a Spanish-speaking home in Echo Park. On my mother’s one day off a week from her restaurant, we’d go to matinees at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. We rarely saw people like us on the screen, but on TV, I watched “I Love Lucy”: finally, a Latino lead actor who even spoke Spanish, though it made him the butt of other characters’ jokes. I remember the season the Ricardos and Mertzes relocated to Hollywood for Ricky’s career, which made me think I’d want to go there too — not realizing, at the time, that I was already here.
My community’s Hollywood history, or rather the lack of it, is why I said yes when I was invited to consult on Season 2 of the HBO series “Perry Mason.” The eight-episode serial, which is set in 1930s Los Angeles, centers on a mystery: Brooks McCutcheon, eager to put his mark on the city and — as the son of a powerful, rich white capitalist, well-positioned to do so — is killed, and two Latino brothers, Mateo and Rafael Gallardo, are charged with the crime.
I’d served as a historical consultant before for documentaries, government agencies (including the State Department), corporations (Amazon), museums and nonprofits, but this would be my first time helping with a television show. A team of formidable scholars was already meeting with producers and showrunners who took very seriously the idea that no detail was too small to get right.
Read more about this here: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2023-04-02/perry-mason-season-2-historical-accuracy-los-angeles-1930s-latino-history
