Glitz and Gravitas as Latino Artists Honored

Smithsonian Awards Go to Cultural Warriors

Jorge Hernandez and other members of Los Tigres del Norte were among the performers at the Smithsonian Latino Center's Legacy Awards gala. (By Kevin Clark -- The Washington Post)

There was the requisite red carpet last night, rolling straight into the National Museum of the American Indian, and on it a handful of the professionally pretty people, they of the spray-tanned bods and freeze-dried faces. One woman inexplicably wandered about, hands on hips, sporting a giant tiara. Pop songstress Jimena shuffled along, a la Morticia Addams, in her mermaid gown. And Eduardo Verástegui, hair slicked back, looking every inch the telenovela hunk he once was.

But this was but a bit of glitz sprinkled into the gravitas -- celebrity lite, if you will.

The Smithsonian Latino Center's 2007 Legacy Awards reception was about honoring the heavyweights among Mexican and Mexican American artists and cultural warriors, those for whom art is a cultural mission. That meant Verástegui wasn't there to be applauded for his work in the chick flick "Chasing Papi," but rather as an "Emerging Talent," along with his collaborator, filmmaker Alejandro Monteverde. They were acknowledged for their commitment to making only films that promote positive images of Latinos here and in the Americas.

It also meant that comic Cheech Marin was there not to crack wise, but to be honored for his work as a serious collector and advocate for Chicano art.

"It's very prestigious and honorific and all those big words," he said, clutching his award and sounding, just for a minute, like the guy we remember from back in the Cheech and Chong days.

It was a night of blending dual identities, with mistress of ceremonies María Elena Salinas flipping between English and Spanish with startling speed and proficiency. "I was born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents. I'm so proud my parents raised me in a bilingual, bicultural environment," said the Mexican American journalist and co-anchor with Jorge Ramos of "Noticiero Univision."

Even more than Mexicano pride and Latino pride, the point of the evening was to lobby for an official institution that would codify those accomplishments. So Rep. Xavier Becerra and Sens. Mel Martinez and Ken Salazar were on hand to push for the proposed Latino museum.

"Just like we have a Native American museum," Salazar told the crowd, "the time is now to move forward with a Latino museum."

And just about everyone else who got a chance at the mike was right on cue, too. Must have been in the script.

"We are here because we truly care about Latino culture," said Columba Bush, wife of Jeb and a member of the Smithsonian National Latino Advisory Council. "Y por supuesto, que viva Mexico!" (Long live Mexico!)

In addition to Marin and Verástegui, the honorees were Los Tigres del Norte for music; architect Enrique Norten and fashion designer David Rodriguez for design; photographer Graciela Iturbide and painter and sculptor Carmen Lomas Garza for visual arts; Arturo Ripstein and Moctesuma Esparza for film; novelist Laura Esquivel and playwright Luis Valdez for literature; Guadalupe Rivera Marín, daughter of famed painter Diego Rivera, for arts advocacy; scholar Tomás Ybarra-Frausto and poet Dana Gioia for humanities; and longtime civil rights activist Raul Yzaguirre for lifetime achievement.

This was the fourth time this year Los Tigres del Norte had been honored, after the Latin Grammys, the regular Grammys and the Billboard honors. "This one is special," Tigres member Luis Hernandez said of the Smithsonian award. "This is about our contribution to the Latino community."

Accepting his award, Yzaguirre, who served as president of the National Council of La Raza from 1974 to 2004, said he was so focused on fighting for the basic survival of Latinos that he had dismissed arts and culture as unnecessary.

"Today," he said, "I am a convert. I no longer see art and culture as the playthings of the leisure classes. . . . I now know that our souls need nourishment."