First Posted: 1/15/2009
PEMBROKE - Monday night at The University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Rosie Perez did the right thing.
The actress/choreographer/ director/producer and all-around Brooklyn bombshell, who got her big break when she portrayed Tina - Spike Lee's hot-as-a-jalapeno love interest in his 1989 cinematic ode to racial tension in New York City, “Do The Right Thing” - gave a racially tinged real-life performance as she discussed her own Puerto Rican heritage and the racial disparities that she says still confront this nation and her people.
As she stood behind the podium at Givens Performing Arts Center - a participant in UNCP's Distinguished Speaker Series - she described how the very thing that thrust her into the nation's consciousness was used against her. Perez explained to the rapt crowd how she was chastised by the leaders of her own Latino community because of her stereotypical portrayal of Tina as a ditzy, hot-blooded Brooklyn-born Puerto Rican preoccupied with sex.
“When that film (‘Do the Right Thing') came out, the Latin community waged a war against me,” Perez said from behind the podium, which threatened to blot out the diminutive actress. “They thought it was such a negative stereotype. I said ‘yes it is, it's satire - everybody in the movie is a stereotype.'”
Perez told of a face-to-face meeting with a Latino community leader who had been critical of her performance.
“She said that Latinos had fought for years against negative stereotypes, and again I told her it was satire,” Perez said. “And she said many people didn't understand satire, all they understand is the negative portrayal.
“She told me that she had been an actress for 30 years but nobody knew her because she refused to take only roles offered to her as a Latino - maids and prostitutes,” Perez said. “I told her that I was part of the hip hop generation and we celebrated the struggles she went through; I told her that I was proud to be Puerto Rican and I told her that she misconstrued my portrayal. Today I can be anyone I want to be - I don't have to put on the white face.”
Perez said she went on to give her inquisitor a history lesson on Puerto Rico - a history she shared with the Givens crowd, a history most had never read in their sanitized school books.
She told the harrowing story of the Tainos, the indigenous natives of Puerto Rico who were massacred by the Spanish Conquistadors. Perez related how, after centuries of Spanish rule, the Americans promised to liberate the Tainos and restore to the natives autonomous rule.
“Sound familiar? Oops, Iraq,” Perez said. “Sound familiar? Oops, Vietnam.”
In Perez's version of America's early relationship with Puerto Rico, she said the United States offered industries tax-free incentives to relocate businesses to Puerto Rico. She said once American businesses were moved to Puerto Rico, the U.S. passed legislation that stated only females could work in the factories, most of which were garment factories.
This, Perez said, had a twofold effect: It damaged the “machismo” of the Puerto Rican male, making him powerless in Puerto Rican society, and it allowed the U.S. to set up sterilization clinics in the factories to reduce and control the island's population.
“They built 160 sterilization clinics,” Perez said. “The women would work a full day and then get sterilized and be back at work the next day. They told the women they were doing their patriotic duty; they didn't tell them the procedure could not be reversed.”
Afterward, UNCP Chancellor Allen Meadors applauded Perez's history lesson.
“What was great about her presentation was she gave the Puerto Rican view of history,” Meadors said. “It was a story of a culture, of how things transpired. How can you understand where other people are coming from if you don't know how they view history?”
Perez also talked of the positive contributions made by Americans of Latino descent. For example, Perez said that Desi Arnaz had invented the use of multiple cameras with the “I Love Lucy” show; she also touched on the contributions to American life of such men and women as bandleader Tito Puente, actor Cesar Romero, and actress Rita Moreno, a former speaker in the UNCP series.
“Not many people know this,” Perez said, “but Moreno is the only entertainer to win every major award - Oscar, Emmy, Tony, Grammy; she won them all.”
One audience member who knew Perez's Puerto Rican view of history was Angelique Cortes, a student of Puerto Rican descent who attends The University of North Carolina at Wilmington.
“I thought it was absolutely wonderful,” Cortes said. “It's unfortunate that there's a lot of history about Puerto Rico that doesn't make the history books.”
After her talk ended, Perez opened a lively Q&A session with the audience, fielding questions as diverse as what she thought of the effort to make Puerto Rico our 51st state - she said it isn't her place to tell the Puerto Rican people how they should vote on this issue - to one brave young man who asked the actress out to dinner.
“I appreciate the invitation, but I'm going straight to bed after this,” Perez said. “I have to be on Broadway tomorrow night.”
