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Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition

Edward James Olmos

by Enrique Garcia

American actor and director

Olmos is one of the premier Latino actors working in Hollywood. Through his performances, he has created more positive portrayals of Latino characters in American entertainment. He also has used his fame to advance social causes and famously took part in the efforts to clean up Los Angeles and heal ethnic rifts in the aftermath of the 1992 riots.

Latino heritage: Mexican

Born: February 24, 1947; Los Angeles, California

Areas of achievement: Acting; radio and television; activism

EARLY LIFE

Edward James Olmos (OL-mohs) was born in East Los Angeles on February 24, 1947, to a Mexican immigrant father and a Mexican American mother. He was initially interested in music but ultimately decided his future lay in acting.

Olmos’s rise to fame began with his role in the play Zoot Suit (1978), which debuted in Los Angeles beforemoving to Broadway. The production dealt with racism against Latinos during World War II; in 1981, it was adapted into a critically acclaimed film of the same name, and Olmos reprised his role. He also starred in the television film The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez (1982), another critically acclaimed film about ethnic tensions. Both films remain important parts of Latino studies curricula in the United States.

LIFE’S WORK

After his roles in Zoot Suit and The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez, Olmos began to be cast in higher-profile roles, such as Gaff in Blade Runner (1982) and Lieutenant Martin Castillo in the television series Miami Vice (1984-1989). The police show gave him a stable job for five seasons, allowed him to portray a character that was widely respected, and made him a wellknown actor in Hollywood.

Olmos’s most famous role is arguably that of award-winning mathematics teacher Jaime Escalante in the biographical film Stand and Deliver (1988), which rewarded his interest in presenting a positive portrayal of a Latino character in a mainstream film. Olmos received an Academy Award nomination for best actor in 1989. In Stand and Deliver, he plays a Bolivian American teacher who believes in his inner-city students’ capacity to learn advanced mathematics. Although his students do so well on a standardized test that they are accused of cheating, Escalante continues training and encouraging them until their innocence is proved when they retake the test. This role was iconic in part because it reinforced a belief in urban education. Among other high-profile Latino projects, he had a supporting role in Gregory Nava’s My Family (1995), about the trials and triumphs of three generations of an immigrant clan, and played Abraham Quintanilla, father of slain singer Selena, in Selena (1997). Made only two years after Selena’s death, the film starred Jennifer Lopez in the title role. Olmos’s interest in Latino issues also is evident in some of his later projects. In 2006, he directed Walkout, an HBO film about the uprising of Latino students in 1968 East Los Angeles.

Edward James Olmos (Wikimedia Commons)

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Olmos’s most prominent role in the 2000’s came in the television remake of the 1970’s show Battlestar Galactica. In the science-fiction series, his character, Adama, is ethnic but is not supposed to be Latino. Instead, he hails from the planet Taurus, whose citizens often suffer injustice based on racial prejudice. Adama ultimately becomes the leader of the military and the character that everyone in the series looks up to. Olmos was the first Hispanic actor to have such a high-profile role in a science-fiction series. The series became a cult hit and attracted the attention of critics and academics because it dealt metaphorically with the social and political climate in America after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After the series ended in 2009, Olmos directed a tie-in television film, The Plan (2009), set in the same universe. From 2010 to 2012, he appeared as a guest star in several renowned series, including CSI: NY, Dexter, Portlandia, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Narcos, and did voice-over work on Elena of Avalor and The Simpsons, as well as the animated films Beverly Hills Chihuahua (2008), El Americano: The Movie (2016) and Coco (2017). In 2018, he signed on to star in Mayans M.C., in the role of Felipe Reyes, which continues to date. He has appeared, as well, in The Green Hornet (2011), America (2011), Filly Brown (2012), Go for Sisters (2012), 2 Guns (2012), Monday Nights at Seven (2016), Blade Runner 2049 (2016), Blade Runner Black Out 2222 (2017), A Dog’s Way Home (2019), Windows on the World (2019), and The Devil Has a Name (2019). In 2014, he narrated the documentary Unity.

Activism During the 1992 Los Angeles Riots

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the city was engulfed in an ethnic revolt that led to widespread destruction and violence among people of different races and law-enforcement officials. Edward James Olmos was one of the local celebrities who sought to bring peace to the city by organizing members of local communities and speaking to the news media in a bid to discourage looters, appease combatants, and save lives. He famously appeared with a broom and organized cleanup brigades for three days to help clean the streets of debris from the riots. Nationwide, the revolt was perceived to be the work of local hooligans, but Olmos saw it as a consequence of the ethnic segregation in the city, the harsh economic climate for the working class, and the government's ineffective attempts to deal with gang warfare and its social roots. His work in the reconstruction of Los Angeles after the riots is one of his most important achievements.

Offscreen, Olmos has continued to promote the Latino community. He cofounded the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, which offers some of the most significant displays of Latin American cinema in the United States. He also is active in encouraging underprivileged youths to strive to overcome hardships and take lives in their own hands. In 1998, he cofounded and chaired Latino Public Broadcasting, a nonprofit organization that funds the creation of programs specifically for the Latino community in the United States. In 2001, he took part in protests against the U.S. Navy practice bombings in Vieques, Puerto Rico. Olmos continues to be active in public issues, including raising awareness among at-risk adolescents and supporting research into aging diseases.

Olmos has been married several times, including an eight-year marriage to actor Lorraine Bracco, whom he divorced in 2002. That same year, he married actor Lymari Nadal.

SIGNIFICANCE

Olmos is one of the most important Latino actors of the late twentieth century. He was able to achieve mainstream success in Hollywood by portraying complex Latino characters as well as characters of other ethnicities in projects such as Blade Runner and Battlestar Galactica. Olmos also has directed for television and participated in important Latino-centric initiatives. Meanwhile, he has expressed and demonstrated his dedication to activism on behalf of the Latino community and underprivileged youths.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Garcia, Enrique. "Edward James Olmos." Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition, edited by Trudy Mercadal, et al., Salem Press, 2021. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLLatin2e_0398.

APA 7th

Garcia, E. (2021). Edward James Olmos. In T. Mercadal, C. Tafolla & M. P. Cotera (Eds.), Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Garcia, Enrique. "Edward James Olmos." Edited by Trudy Mercadal, Carmen Tafolla & Martha P. Cotera. Great Lives from History: Latinos, 2nd Edition. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2021. Accessed October 22, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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