Late astrologer and iconic TV personality Walter Mercado is the subject of Mucho Mucho Amor a new Netflix documentary. By Alci Rengifo For the average Latinx millennial Walter Mercado was a constant presence on the living room television. The late Puerto Rican psychic left his mark on ’90s Spanish-language television as a trailblazing cultural figure, known more for his flamboyant charisma than his horoscope readings. Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado , a new documentary on Netflix, charts Mercado’s rise and eventual fall, as well as his emerging place as a Latinx queer icon. Directors Cristina Costantini and Kareem Tabsch, along with producer Alex Fumero, approached the project as both objective filmmakers and Latinx artists who grew up with Mercado as a constant pop culture presence. The three recently shared about how they came about making a documentary about a man who had been so present in Latin media before suddenly vanishing. “We all grew up watching Walter with o...

Charter academy founder Rubén Alonzo (r.) tables at Mariachi Plaza to pitch the school to parents. Photo courtesy Exelencia Academy  By Richard Vásquez One place you never hear the term Chicano is on Spanish-language media in Los Angeles.  Because Los Angeles was ground zero for the historic Chicano movement, it strikes me as rather odd that this should be the case.  We have four over the air, twenty-four hour a day, Spanish-language television broadcast stations and dozens of radio stations, with corresponding digital bandwidth covering the Los Angeles Metropolitan region, a market indicator zone generously mapped to include as Ventura, Los Angeles, Orange and most of Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. A powerful demographic aggregate, it is synonymous with the definition of “Hispanic media” in the U.S. and the number one Hispanic market in the nation, comprising nearly 12 million Latinos. In terms of scale, the L.A. Metro Area is home to over one-fifth of th...