Beyond The Color Lines in Hollywood: Juano Hernandez (1896-1970)
- jacquelinehamilton6
- May 9, 2021
- 4 min read
Updated: May 12, 2021
Throughout the years, Hollywood has become a melting pot for diversity with directors, actors, and actresses, but before Hollywood was just Black and White, but that changed when an Afro-Latino actor named Juano Hernandez took Hollywood by a storm. Juano Hernandez's roots can be traced back to San Juan, Puerto Rico, where he was born on July 19, 1869. Juano Hernandez's IMDb mini-bio comments, "He was the son of a Puerto Rican seaman. He was self-educated and spent much of his childhood in Brazil singing on the streets to raise money for food. He became an actor after having been a circus performer, radio actor, and vaudeville performer. He worked in the chorus of the 1927 stage production of the musical "Show Boat." Black American film historian Donald Bogle considers Hernandez's early success in films during the early twentieth century to have been an event that paved the way for the high visibility and success of Black Actor and Academy Award winner Sidney Poitier." Juano Hernandez's childhood shaped him into a star, even though his light was not shinning yet; like many actresses and actors, their humble beginnings set them up for stardom Juano Hernandez had the voice and drove to become an actor. Oscar Micheaux has given many actors and starlets a chance to become Hollywood royalty on my blog. He was different from most directors because he wanted to uplift the African-American community, so he used all-black casts to convey race and overcome setbacks that Black Americans faced. Using the same evidence, "Hernandez's first talking pictures were "race films" produced by Oscar Micheaux. His first speaking part was in Micheaux's "The Girl From Chicago," a 1932 talkie. He became well-known as a radio performer, and also acted on Broadway. His breakthrough role was "Intruder In The Dust" (1940), directed by Clarence Brown from the novel by William Faulkner. As a poor farmer unjustly accused of the murder of a white man, Hernandez was nominated for both Golden Globe and New York City Film Critics awards. Bosley Crowther called it "one of the great cinema dramas of our times." As for Hernandez's performance, Crowther wrote: "The staunch and magnificent integrity that Mr. Hernandez displays in his carriage, his manner and expression, with never a flinch in his great self-command, is the bulwark of all the deep compassion and ironic comment in this film." Juano Hernandez worked with one of the greatest: Oscar Micheaux; Juano Hernandez was not only an actor, but he was also a Broadway star. Like Hattie McDaniel, Juano Hernandez's achievements paid off when he was nominated for not only a Golden Globe and New York City Film Critics awards. Hernandez was not only making history in Hollywood but also worldwide because he paved the way for other Afro-Latino actors and actresses to become Hollywood legends. Like most stories that are out there wanting to be told, Juano Hernandez's tale should have been already spoken about to scholars and historians, so the question is, Why didn't any of us know about Juano Hernandez in Hollywood? Angelica Jade Bastien's Vulture article, "Juano Hernandez Should Have Been the First Afro-Puerto Rican Screen Legend," communicated her disappointment about Juano Hernandez not being recognized as a Hollywood legend. Bastien utters, "I was first introduced to Afro–Puerto Rican actor Juano Hernández in the uneven, treacly 1950 drama Young Man With a Horn. It may have been top-lined by icons like Kirk Douglas, Lauren Bacall, and Doris Day, but it is Hernández's eyes — luminous, soulful, warm — that have singed themselves into my memory. He has a somewhat thankless role as the mentor and father figure who nurtures Douglas's character's musical gifts, but his greatest strengths as an actor can be found within the folds of this role: the ability to reveal untold depths in characters positioned more as narrative devices than as full-fledged human beings, a palpable sense of warmth, and the determination to take up space even when he isn't afforded any." Angelica Jade Bastien brings to light that Juano Hernandez was failed by Hollywood's structure when it came to race because she lists stars that are icons but are also White. Hernandez was different because he lived out his characters; you could feel the emotions when Juano Hernandez would get into character. Moreover, "Black artistry within film history is most often defined in terms of loss — we talk about what was withheld because of racist strictures more than the work that glimmers onscreen. As an Afro-Latino, Hernández occupied an even more confined place in film, with an inability to find stature in Latin American cinema and a lack of opportunities to play Latino roles in Hollywood due to the industry's myopic understanding of that identity. (Hernández played a Latino character in film just twice: in the 1932 Oscar Micheaux–helmed The Girl From Chicago, as the Cuban racketeer Gomez, and in 1958's Machete, as a majordomo on a Puerto Rican plantation.)." Due to Juano Hernandez being an Afro-Latino many felt that he had to be confined into those roles, but he c broke out of those characters by being himself and an artist. Also, "Like many actors of color, Hernández presents an intriguing what-if. What if he had been given lead roles that matched his talents? What if he were truly given the star treatment that his brushes with fame, including that Golden Globe nomination, would have you expect? What if Hollywood ever knew what to do with an Afro–Puerto Rican like him? But Hernández is more than an emblem of the painful limitations that have prevented black actors across the diaspora from realizing the full breadth of their gifts in film." As we have seen repeatedly, many Black actors and actresses had to settle for stereotypical roles as servants and maids, but not Juano Hernandez. He saw beyond his roots as an Afro-Latino in Hollywood to define the racial lines much more than Black and White. Juano Hernandez died in his native hometown of San Juan, Puerto Rico, on July 17, 1970, days before his 74th birthday. Juano Hernandez was ahead of his time when it came to acting; he would not settle into roles that told the point of view of an Afro-Latino, only he was willing to crossover to different parts. The career of Juano Hernandez should have made him into a Hollywood legend, even though that did not happen. Hernandez paved the way for other Afro-Latinos and Latinas to become Hollywood stars, but also he broke the color line of Hollywood that went beyond Black and White.
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