Meet LA Vanguardia: The Latino innovators, instigators and power players breaking through barriers
Nov 1, 2022
A rising star who will be the first Latino lead in a superhero movie, and a Mexican American who is also TV’s first Native American showrunner. The director of original series at Netflix and the head of contemporary art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. A pioneer in Latino Urbanism and the creative director guiding Bad Bunny. “This Fool” and “What We Do in the Shadows.” Our inaugural LA Vanguardia class represents an amazing array of talent defining the culture of today — and tomorrow.
Read their stories, then check out the rest of our LA Vanguardia package rolling out all week long.
Power players
Rafael Agustín, CEO of the Latino Film Institute
Agustín was a junior in high school when he learned that his family, originally from Ecuador, lacked legal status in the United States — a fact that he, as a teen immersed in American pop culture, had been oblivious to. In his heartwarming memoir “Illegally Yours,” he recounts his winding journey to college and, eventually, a career in Hollywood, including an unproduced pilot called “Illegal” that landed him a job as a writer on the CW’s charming telenovela spoof “Jane the Virgin.” He currently serves as CEO of the Latino Film Institute, where he works to give others a start in the business. As he told The Times, “There are people in my community more talented than me who weren’t able to rise up.” — Meredith Blake
Read the full article here.