Looking for Carrascolendas: From a Child's World to Award-Winning Television

Aida Barrera

Published by University of Texas Press 2001

Looking for Carrascolendas

From a Child's World to Award-Winning Television

Aida Barrera

In the series Louann Atkins Temple Women & Culture Series

https://doi.org/10.7560/708914

Overview
Contents

About this book

If your childhood friends were Agapito, the bombastic, bilingual lion; Campamocha, the fix-it man; Caracoles, the restaurant owner; Uncle Andy, the shoe seller; Berta and Dyana, the life-size dolls; and Señorita Barrera, then you grew up watching Carrascolendas. This award-winning show, which originally aired on PBS in the 1970s and was subsequently broadcasted throughout the country in the 1980s and 1990s, was the first Spanish and English children's educational television program broadcast to national audiences in the United States.

In this engagingly written memoir, creator-producer Aida Barrera describes how the mythical world of Carrascolendas grew out of her real-life experiences as a Mexican American child growing up in the Valley of South Texas. She recalls how she drew on those early experiences to create television programming that specifically addressed the needs of Hispanic children, even as it remained accessible and entertaining to children of other cultural backgrounds.

In addition to her personal story, Barrera recounts the long-term struggles for network acceptance and funding that made the production of Carrascolendas something of a miracle. This off-camera story adds an important chapter to the history of Anglo-Mexican cultural politics during the 1970s. Given the fact that Latino characters are still under- and stereotypically represented on network television, Carrascolendas remains an important reminder of what is possible and what has been lost in authentically multicultural television programming.

Author / Editor information

An award-winning television producer with extensive experience in broadcasting, public policy, and education, Aida Barrera was the creator, executive producer, and project director of Carrascolendas. She lives in Austin, Texas.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
CHAPTER ONE Spiders Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
CHAPTER TWO Angels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	20
CHAPTER THREE The Other Side Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	50
CHAPTER FOUR The Black Blobs Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	83
CHAPTER FIVE The Bureaucratic Two-Step Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	108
CHAPTER six The Mythological Mosaic Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	133
CHAPTER SEVEN Carrascolendas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
CHAPTER EIGHT Cookies and Tortillas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 254
Illustrations
- Other: 28 b&w photos

eBook

Published: May 20, 2013
ISBN: 9780292756359