Salon.com > Sandra Hernandez

The ugly truth about “Betty La Fea”

Fri, 01 Jun 2001 19:24:00 +0000

More than 80 million people in the United States and Latin America tuned in to "Betty La Fea," the telenovela in which an ugly woman navigates a world where beauty is generally all that matters.

High-profile Spanish-language columnists, politicians and pundits touted the show's feminist message, a rarity in the formulaic world of telenovelas. Respectable publications such as Colombia's leading daily, El Tiempo, dedicated entire columns to the soap's heroine, Betty, an unattractive but brilliant economist.

Betty message boards buzzed with e-mails from fans eager to discuss the previous night's episode. Even newspapers in the United States, which generally ignore Spanish-language television, reported on the "Betty" phenomenon as it captured record television ratings in the countries, including the U.S., where it had its finale in May.

Why, then, did this groundbreaking cultural event end with angry words from critics and widespread hostility from fans? Simple. It reverted to type and dashed the hopes of those who had watched it with a giddy sense of a revolution.

Hola, Domino’s calling

Thu, 17 Aug 2000 19:00:00 +0000

With its red-tiled roofs, brightly painted storefronts and quaint town square that's home to a pair of sloths, El Hatillo is the kind of small Venezuelan town that harks back to an era when life moved at a more leisurely pace.

But tucked away on Calle Bella Vista, just a few minutes from the main square, Wilmer Moreno anxiously watches the clock. "We have 40 minutes to get it to you, otherwise your pizza is free," the 32-year-old manager of Domino's Pizza tells a caller.

Armed with an armada of seven motor scooters and a staff of 10 delivery guys who sport familiar red, white and blue uniforms, Moreno oversees one of the most popular food places in town. Once the territory of street vendors and mom-and-pop food spots, this South American nation of 23 million has developed a penchant for hot ham-and-cheese pies delivered right to their doors -- rápido.

Conventional boom or bust?

Wed, 16 Aug 2000 19:00:00 +0000

Claudio Mammana paced around the empty parking lot of his downtown gas station, wondering how he would recover the $2,000 a day he has lost since the Democrats came to town.

"My business is down by at least 40 percent, and I've been forced to hire extra security in case there are problems," says Mammana, whose business is just two blocks from the Staples Center, the site of this week's Democratic National Convention.

After waving at two nearby security guards sitting in lawn chairs, Mammana pointed to a half dozen police officers standing just a few yards away and appropriately quipped: "They're the only ones on the street."

The convention was supposed to be a big economic coup for the city -- the Los Angeles Convention and Visitors Bureau estimated a $135 million windfall with some 35,000 people coming to town.

But just two days into the event, small business owners and local politicians are wondering if the primary beneficiaries of the Democratic love fest will be big businesses and those in posh neighborhoods.

A deafening silence

Tue, 07 Mar 2000 12:00:00 +0000

When Los Angeles County threatened to reduce the number of hospital beds available to poor and working residents, the state's Latino political leadership rallied to block the plan. When the city's highest ranking Latino educator came under attack this fall, Latino politicians came out to defend one of their own. And when television crews captured the grainy images of two Riverside County sheriff's deputies beating undocumented immigrants two years ago, Latino civil rights and elected officials marched and called for a federal investigation of the incident.

But six months after the eruption of one of the worst corruption scandals in the history of the Los Angeles Police Department -- in which it was revealed that a rogue anti-gang unit ran amok in the Latino community, shaking down gang members, illegally harassing immigrants and in one case shooting and planting a gun on an unarmed drug dealer -- the state's powerful Latino political bloc remains curiously quiet.

Caught in the LAPD cross-fire

Fri, 04 Feb 2000 17:00:00 +0000

On Jan. 21, Alex Sanchez walked along the streets of Los Angeles' mid-Wilshire area, as he had many times on his way home. But that night as Sanchez, a stocky 27-year-old with closely cropped hair and a smattering of tattoos, moved toward his car, he was stopped suddenly by a Los Angeles police officer and handcuffed.

Sanchez, a former gang member, was arrested on a 2-year-old warrant from the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He faces federal criminal charges stemming from his reentry into the U.S. after having been deported in the early 1990s. He could be deported to his native El Salvador. His arrest has sparked protest from gang peace organizations in Los Angeles and added to the controversy over the LAPD's Rampart division, which has been facing one of the most widespread and highly publicized police corruption investigations in U.S. history.

Once a member of one of the city's most violent gangs, Mara Salvatrucha, Sanchez had transformed his life. In recent years he has split his time between work, family and heading up Homies Unidos, a bi-national gang peace organization with roots in Los Angeles and San Salvador. As the lead organizer of Homies, Sanchez's work had captured the attention of some of the city's most noted gang peace advocates, as well as California state Sen. Tom Hayden, who believed Sanchez was helping to bring peace in a war that has claimed thousands of lives.