Back More
Salem Press

Table of Contents

See Also

Elizabeth Avellán

Martha P. Cotera

Dolores Huerta

Cherríe Moraga

Robert Rodriguez

George Romero

Great Lives from History: Latinos

Sylvia Morales

by Cynthia J. W. Svoboda

American filmmaker

Recognized as a documentary film writer, editor, producer, and director, Morales also has written essays and taught production courses at several higher education institutions in Southern California. In her film and video work, she has created resources that have increased American understanding of Chicano culture.

Areas of achievement: Filmmaking

Early Life

Sylvia Morales (SIL-vee-uh moh-RAH-lehs) was born in Phoenix, Arizona, and raised by her mother. She attended school in Culver City, California. In her youth, she and other family members enjoyed teatro (theater), dancing, and singing for family entertainment. After completing high school, Morales earned a bachelor of arts, cum laude, and then a master of fine arts in film from the Motion Picture Department at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Through connections at UCLA Morales became acquainted with another UCLA graduate, Jose Luis Ruiz, who hired her to do some camera work for KABC-TV, a local affiliate of American Broadcasting Company. The television program Unidos focused on the local Chicano community; Morales filmed thirteen short documentaries for Unidos. Two years later, in 1973, Morales helped direct portions of a Sesame Street production on Cinco de Mayo.

In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, documentaries were beginning to appear on Chicano television programming in California. Morales and several other UCLA graduates were among those creating this new genre of film. Using a style and setting similar to that employed by Luiz Valdez in his 1969 documentary Yo soy Joaquin (I Am Joaquin), Morales directed, produced, and edited Chicana! The twenty-three-minute documentary, with script written by Ana Nieto-Goméz, gives a feminine perspective of history. The film begins with stereotypes of Mexican and Chicana women; reviews their history and experiences since pre-Columbian times in Mexico and in southwestern United States; and features women of historical significance.

Life’s Work

Chicana! (1979) is considered to be a milestone Latino documentary as it was among the first in its field. In that same year Morales also created a cultural series entitled El Espejo (The Mirror) for local television. Over the next decade Morales produced many other mostly Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) documentaries. These documentaries include Myths and Visions in Film (1982); The Art and Magic of Rufino Tamayo (1983); Ballad of an Unsung Hero (1983); Los Lobos: And a Time to Dance (1984); MALDEF (1983), a program on the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund; Esperanza (1985; Hope); Vaya con Dios (1985; Go, with God); SIDA Is AIDS (1988); and Values, Sexuality, and the Family (1989). Morales’s films explored current and historical issues in Hispanic American society.

During the 1980’s demand grew for Latino programming, and several Southwestern television stations, in states ranging from Texas to California, united to form the Latino Consortium intended to help reduce programming costs. This consortium eventually grew to include more than fifty stations. From 1981 to 1985 Morales was the executive director of the consortium, overseeing the Latino-themed programs on PBS and also hosting Presente, a weekly national line-up. While serving as director, Morales published a book of her photography, A New View of a Women’s Body (1981); her article “Chicano-Produced Celluloid Mujeres” was published in Bilingual Review (1985); and she coproduced a Latino Consortium talk show, An Interview with . . . (1985). A couple of years later, Morales wrote a screenplay, Hearts on Fire (1987), and formed her own company, Sylvan Productions (1988).

In the early 1990’s, Morales’s work included Faith Even to the Fire (1990-1991); Life and Times (1992); A Century of Women: Work and Family (1994); and Struggles in the Fields (1996), an hour-long episode in a four-hour PBS series Chicano! The Mexican Civil Rights Movement. Morales wrote and produced a short documentary on date violence, La Limpia (1996; The Clean One); Women: Stories of Passion, Angel from the Sky (1997); and Tell Me Again . . . What Is Love? (1998). She also directed several episodes of the televised series Reyes y Rey and Resurrection Blvd. and cowrote the screenplay Real Men and Other Miracles (1998) with Carmen Tafallo.

Thirty years after producing Chicana! Morales produced a fifty-eight-minute sequel, A Crushing Love: Chicanas, Motherhood, and Activism (2009). Morales interviewed five Latina rights movement women, Dolores Huerta, Elizabeth Martinez, Cherríe Moraga, Alicia Escalante, and Martha P. Cotera, who told how they balanced their roles as activist with single parenthood. Morales included responses from some of the activists’ children and added herself and her daughter into the film. Morales, the mother of two children, settled in Los Angeles.

In honor of her work, Morales received the Rockefeller Fellowship Award in Media, the VESTA Award for contributions to art in Southern California, and a fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts. She also earned participation in the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop for Women. In 2009, the Boyle Heights Latina Independent Film Festival honored Morales for her film and video work.

Significance

Morales was one of the original Chicana filmmakers. Her documentaries have explored stereotypes, religion, sexism, violence, and feminism and have focused on gender and race. In her films she has strived to present accurate images of Mexican American women. Her work began in the early 1970’s, continued for over three decades, and influenced her successors.

Her film and production courses also have enhanced education in the field. In 2010, Morales became an associate professor in production film and television at Loyola Marymount University.

Further Reading

1 

Hidalgo-de la Riva, Osa. “Stone Chicana Rap: An Interview with Sylvia Morales. Spectator 19, no. 1 (Fall/Winter, 1998): 92-96. Summarizes Morales’s work and focuses specifically on her work with race and gender in television.

2 

Maciel, David R., Isidro D. Ortiz, and Mariá Herrera-Sobek. Chicano Renaissance: Contemporary Cultural Trends. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2000. Collection examines the changes that have occurred in the Chicano community in cultural forms, including art, literature, music, cinema and television, radio, and theater. Discusses the important work of Morales.

3 

Noriega, Chon A. Shot in America: Television, the State, and the Rise of Chicano Cinema. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 2000. Discusses Chicano cinema in the United States and features Morales as one component in the process.

Citation Types

Type
Format
MLA 9th
Svoboda, Cynthia J. W. "Sylvia Morales." Great Lives from History: Latinos, edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera, Salem Press, 2012. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLL_10013240041401001.
APA 7th
Svoboda, C. J. (2012). Sylvia Morales. In C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Svoboda, Cynthia J. W. "Sylvia Morales." Edited by Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2012. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.