The Loveliest of Latinas by Scott Essman

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Scott Essman has been a regular cinema writer for Nuvein since the late 1990s. His features appear under the CINNEWS section.

Scott started writing about and for entertainment while still at the University of Southern California in the mid-1980s. By 1989, he had created Visionary Cinema in New York to create multi-media projects. Moving back to Los Angeles later that year, Scott developed a team of writers, directors, and craftspeople to work on his projects. In 1996, he created a documentary about legendary makeup artist Dick Smith. That year also saw an explosion of published articles about directors and industry craftspeople in magazines and newspapers that totals over 200 as of the Fall of 2003. In 1997, he organized and produced the 30th anniversary of the production of 'Planet Of The Apes', hosted by Roddy McDowall. It was filmed and released as a documentary in 1998. The next year, Essman and Visionary teamed to create the 60th anniversary of The Wizard Of Oz live on stage, later performed for Warner Bros. at Mann's Chinese Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. This performance included re-creations of the famous characters from the film. The most recent production endeavor by Essman and Visionary was Jack Pierce: The Man Behind the Monsters (2002) (V), a live biography of the man who created all of Universal Studios' classic horror characters. This most recent event has been released as a DVD and is exclusively available at www.jackpierce.com.

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Hispanic-Americans have been a vital part of U.S. culture for centuries. First assimilating in the 1800s as European-Americans moved west, Mexican, Central and South American cultures have long been ingrained in the history, traditions, and customs of the American Southwest. Especially in the period following California’s statehood in 1850, Mexican-Americans are as much as (if not more) a part of Southwestern culture as any other ethnic group. The influence of Mexican-Americans living in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California pervades styles of dress, designs of patterns and materials, and standards of beauty.

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Coming in all colors, shapes and sizes, Mexican-Americans are as racially diverse as their customs indicate. Part European, part Native-American (ostensibly Asian), and potential parts of other groups, Latins and Latinas indicate all manner of the physical human experience. One is as likely to find a Latina with European features, fair hair, skin, and eyes walking around the byways of Southern California as finding a dark-skinned dark-eyed type with Native-American features that mostly fits into a stereotype. Latina beauty is diversified, rich, and varied.

Along with a highly varied type of Latina comes a wide array of beauty palettes. Witness the young lady in the photographs, Maria Matsune (her Japanese surname given by marriage). Ms. Matsune, 28, is 100% full-blooded Mexican, her family coming north in her lifetime and settling in Southern California. Her beauty extends beyond any ethnic or racial boundaries. Both darker-skinned and dark-eyed, with features that can be traced to both Europe and Native America, she exemplifies the most attractive type of Latina, a swatch of looks from a broad body of ancestors.

As evident in the photos, Ms. Matsune is both many things and simultaneously impossible to categorize; she is of many types and thus her looks are impossible to pigeonhole. As such, her makeup, created by artist Nancy Bautista, is a light touch of various color temperatures and subtle stylings. Ms. Bautista’s approach, both spontaneous and skillful, applies both warm and cool colors in equal measure to balance Ms. Matsune’s natural presence. With her hair self-styled and her makeup applied in roughly one hour, Ms. Matsune’s overall impression is one of dignity, grace, and the most inherently beautiful qualities that a Latina can exemplify.

Nonetheless, Latinas of all walks require a necessary array of beautification standards. Like Ms. Matsune, Latinas have an innate beauty that is unequaled by other cultural groups. For the many different types of Latina visages, there are an equal number of makeup and hair stylings that can be utilized to maximize their gorgeous potential.