Latino American Series to Feature Filmmaker

Angelo State University’s “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History” series will feature filmmaker John J. Valadez for the third installment of the series at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 8, in Room 100 of the Mathematics/Computer Science Building, 2200 Dena Drive.

The event, which is free and open to the public, will include a screening of Valadez’s new 30-minute film for PBS, “The Head of Joaquin Murrieta,” the film uses both fiction and documentary storytelling to reveal and revisit the history of lynching of Mexican-Americans in the Southwest.

The Peabody Award-winning and Emmy nominated filmmaker was also a writer, producer, and director of the six-hour PBS series “Latino Americans.” His other films include “Passin’ It On” and “The Last Conquistador,” both for the PBS series “POV,” and “High Stakes Testing” for “CNN Presents.” A Rockefeller Fellow, PBS/CPB Producers Academy Fellow and twice a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, Valadez is a founding member of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers. 

ASU’s year-long series, “Latino Americans: 500 Years of History,” presented by ASU’s Department of History and the Porter Henderson Library, has been made possible through a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the American Library Association. This particular event also received funding from ASU’s Center for Community Engagement. Dr. Kanisorn Wongsrichanalai of the history faculty and Kimberly Wirth, business manager and community engagement coordinator for the Porter Henderson Library, are the coordinators of the year-long grant.