First of all, this is the first movie ever about the Chicano civil rights movement. And as many Latinos know, the Chicano civil rights movement created some better opportunity for our people.
The cast is almost entirely Chicano, which is amazing within itself, seeing that Latinos only make up 2% of Hollywood. It gives us a chance to play Characters, and not only the "Brown person".
A piece of history is being told, which has been totally written out of History by the mainstream media & educational institutions. All of the police beating scenes in this movie were re-creations of archived material from TV Stations, which were not allowed to broadcast in 1968.
The protagonist is a young woman who is half Filipina & Mexicana. This is great because revolutionary leaders are usually only seen as tough men. This also shows that oppression crosses all color lines, the issues come down to a class struggle, and this can be a catapult for different ethnicities working together on common issues.
I feel that we should embrace this movie, and create others also, with stories of our peoples struggle. There are several movies about the Jewish struggle, the African American movement for equal rights, women's rights, but this is so far, the only one speaking of the Chicano civil rights struggle.
