Plot Synopsis

Premiering nationally during Hispanic Heritage Month 2013, LATINO AMERICANS is a six-hour documentary series that features interviews with nearly 100 Latinos to cover more than 500 years of history, chronicling how Latinos have helped shape the United States and have become the country's largest minority group. Relying on historical accounts and personal experiences, this series tells stories of early settlement, conquest and immigration; of tradition and reinvention; of anguish and celebration; and of the creation of this new American identity with an influx of arrivals from Mexico, Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and countries in Central and South America. LATINO AMERICANS is broken into the following six chronological segments that cover the 1500s to the present day: "Foreigners in Their Own Land" (1500s - 1880s), which surveys the history and people during the period from the first Spanish explorations in North America to the Mexican-American War; "Empire of Dreams" (1880s - 1940s), which documents how the American population is reshaped by Latino immigration, as Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans began arriving in the U.S. and started to build strong Latino-American communities in South Florida, Los Angeles and New York; "War and Peace" (1940s), chronicling how Latino Americans served their country in WWII, yet still faced discrimination at home; "The New Latinos" (1940s - 1960s), showing how new arrivals from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic seek economic opportunities from the post-World War II years into the early 1960s; "Prejudice and Pride" (1960s - 1980s), detailing he creation of the proud Chicano identity and growing Latino activism, as labor leaders organized farm workers in California; and "Peril and Promise" (1980s - Present), examining the growing Latino influence on American culture and the debate over undocumented immigrants, with hundreds of thousands Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans fleeing civil wars, death squads and unrest. LATINO AMERICANS includes interviews with Gloria Estefan, Rita Moreno, Linda Chavez, Dolores Huerta, Herman Badillo, Maria Elena Salinas and more.