The Olmos / Brewer Photo – No context

By Victor Landa, NewsTaco

My Dad once told me a story about the village milkman in the place where he grew up, Agualeguas, Nuevo Leon, México. He said the lechero was a pillar of his community, well respected and never spoken of in an ill manner. But one day, while running his route in the early morning hours, his horse drawn cart accidentally ran over and killed a dog. “From that day on,” he said, “everyone called him el mata perros.” The dog killer.

Context in a story, is everything.

It’s the same when context is missing, as in the story behind the now infamous picture of actor Edward James Olmos, beaming a smile next to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. The photo was taken aboard a private jet en route from the recent Superbowl in New Orleans, Louisiana. Olmos had gone to the game as a guest of the jet’s owner and was returning when the festivities were finished. There’s nothing particularly menacing in that. But the picture has created an online uproar, causing many people in the Latino community to tag Olmos as a sell out, a traitor, an other such things.

From what those close to Olmos have told me, Brewer’s presence on the jet was a last minute thing. Olmos was already on board when the Governor entered and found a seat. Moments later they were taking off.

I imagine there was a moment of reckoning on Olmos’ part. A few minutes where he could have considered Brewer’s presence and decided to leave the jet because of the negative things that the Governor represents to many people in the Latino community. There’s no need to make a list of the issues, they are well known. So on that count you can blame Olmos for not acting in a way others, with the benefit of detachment from the moment, say they may have acted. The truth of the matter is that as respected as he is in the Latino community, Olmos found himself sitting with Jan Brewer in a confined circumstance for a five hour flight.

According to a source close to Olmos who recounted the events of the trip, at some point during the flight Brewer’s son struck up a conversation with Olmos, asking him how he got into acting. Olmos “saw an opening for dialogue” and began to tell the story of his father coming to the United States as an immigrant and how that inspired his profession. That conversation expanded into a larger discussion about immigration that lasted for two hours, with the Governor included in the discussion. Someone snapped a shot with a camera phone, Olmos smiled, the picture was posted on Twitter.

Context.

Whether you choose to believe the story or not is secondary. That Olmos has not provided first hand context is important. I heard the story second-hand, from a source within Olmos’ most intimate circle. I asked to interview Olmos, offered to record the interview, to give him a chance to tell his own version of the context.  I was told that the actor was on a “long trip to Europe.”

Be that as it may, it doesn’t change some basic facts: Olmos did have his picture made, smiling widely, sitting newt to arch-Latino nemesis Jan Brewer; given the chance, Olmos did not accept the opportunity to set the record straight; Olmos has been widely and severely criticized for what amounts to a photograph with no context; in this age of instant publication and mass dissemination of reckless opinion, Olmos should know better than to let this controversy go with no response. Or maybe no response is his planned response.

All we have is a picture, an avalanche of criticism and silence from Olmos himself.

My Father was a very wise man, he died when he was 92 and answered difficult questions with illustrations of the vast grey area where most of life unfolds.

“The milkman never lived it down,” he told me. “No one but he knew how it happened; but he was always called el mata perros.”