La Bamba Movie Essay

Although not very evident throughout the film, discrimination plays a huge role in the movie “La Bamba”. The type of discrimination we see in the movie consist of; prejudices against Hispanics and stereo types. Richie is of Mexican descent and although he does not speak Spanish, people many times assumed that he does because of his appearance. An example of this is when Bob speaks to Richie in Spanish when they first meet (44:04). Here, we encounter a type of stereotype that all Latinos don’t know English. Another example of this type of stereotype is when Richie is attempting to convince his manager of performing “La Bamba”. Immediately, his manager begins to shut the idea claiming it’s because of Richie not being able to speak the language.

Meaning it was uncalled for Bob to have use that statement because it was irrelevant to the situation which caused Richie to become aggravated. Regarding prejudices, it is evident that Donna’s father doesn’t like his daughter seeing Richie. Donna’s father is first introduced as Richie walks her home. After Richie leaves Donna at the front of her house, we hear her father refer to Richie as Italian (24:12). This scene is very powerful in the sense that Donna doesn’t correct her father due to the fear she has of not being allowed to see Richie because of his Latino heritage. Later, Donna’s father realizes Richie’s background and prohibits her from seeing him, although she is allowed to go out with “other boys”, except with Richie (58:56). To further emphasize the stereotypes in the film, when Bob gives out the name “Ritchie Valens” to the radio announcer, he refers to the name as French. Moments later, he is seen laughing and calling Richie a “barrio kid” (56:45). These types of terms can be seen as discriminatory because by referring to Richie as “French”, the radio announcer was mocking the attempt of changing Richie’s name in order to hide his