by Antonio Mejías-Rentas
Ricky Martin
POP PHILANTHROPISTS: Five of the top Spanish-language recording artists pledged to help Latin America’s poor at last week’s annual meeting of the Inter American Development Bank in Miami Beach.
During the meeting’s opening day, on April 4, singers Juanes, Ricky Martin and Juan Luis Guerra launched the Yo amo América campaign, for which each artist will assume a specific area of responsibility through their individual charitable foundations.
Ricky Martin, whose charity work focuses on children’s well being, will head an effort to register the continent’s all newborn children. Juanes will promote pre-school education in the region and Guerra will oversee micro credit initiatives.
Later that day, singers Shakira and Alejandro Sanz announced a series of fundraising concerts to be held in various Latin American cities on May 17. The effort is being spearheaded by the America Latina en Acción Solidaria (ALAS) foundation, which last month signed an agreement with the bank to “work jointly to raise aware ness of the vital role children and youth play in human capital development in Latin America and the Caribbean”.
The foundation (www.fundacionalas.org) was launched last year by several recording artists and activists and lists Nobel laureate Gabriel García Márquez as honorary president.
MASTERPIECE’TO AIR: A documentary on the life of the first Mexican American to be named Catholic bishop will premiere this week on PBS.
A Migrant’s Masterpiece: The Life and Legacy of Patrick Flores, by writerdirector Hector GalAn, will begin airing nationally on April. 3 on most PBS stations (check local listings). Filmed during Flores’ last month as Archbishop of San Antonio, the film uses rare footage, personal archives and interviews to tell the story of a man who rose from picking cotton in rural Texas to become the most influential Latino in the U.S. Catholic church.
Covering nearly 80 years of history, the film is “really the larger story of the Mexican-American experience in the United States, according to Galán, a San Antonio filmmaker who has covered Latino history and culture in several documentaries for PBS. “I see a lot of my own history in Patrick’s life that mirrors what many Mexican-American families had to endure.”
ONE LINERS: The two leading music publishing rights’ organizations announced Latin award winners recently: ASCAP will honor Puerto Rican artists Víctor Manuelle and Black: Guayaba at a May 16 ceremony in New York while BMI will name Argentinean musician Gustavo Santaolalla an Icon at a June 12gala in Los Angeles. Hispanic Link.
