My research, which formed the basis of the dissertation I completed at Harvard University under the direction of Professors Werner Sollors, Lizabeth Cohen, and Ruth Feldstein, examines the various and contradictory meanings assigned to the consumption of films produced in the United States by Mexican audiences. It's a story populated not by stars or famous directors but by everyday movie goers, film critics, municipal inspectors, and small-time movie theater owners.
I came to my research via an article published in 1926 in La Opinión, Los Angeles' largest Spanish-language daily. The article identified a a troubling phenomenon: Mexican women and girls were abandoning their homes in droves. Destination: Hollywood. I had heard about the girl who took the train from Kansas to Los Angeles in hopes of making it in motion pictures, and, of course, about imported stars such as Dolores del Río, Pola Negri, and Greta Garbo, but the idea that anonymous Mexican women were inspired to try their luck in Hollywood was new. I wanted to learn more about what motivated these women and how Mexico's cultural and social elite responded to their desires for fame, fortune, or merely adventure.
