TV REVIEWS : ‘Dawn’ Profiles Latino Radio Personality

Pedro J. Gonzalez is one of the remarkable stories of our century--Pancho Villa’s telegrapher (1910), an illegal visitor (1920s), singing host of his own widely celebrated radio show on KMPC (1930s), victim of a phony rape charge when he displeased the Los Angeles political powers (1934), guest at San Quentin before the “rapee” recanted (1940), border radio star for the next 30 years.

Gonzalez, now 96, who lives with his wife of 70-some years in Lodi, Calif., was the star of stars in the Latino community, and “Break of Dawn,” running on “American Playhouse” tonight at 9 on KCET Channel 28, can’t quite do him justice, as, you wonder, whatever could.

San Diego filmmaker Isaac Artenstein made a documentary on Gonzalez in the early 1980s and made this feature for about $1 million. It had a brief theatrical run.

The gut of the film is racism of the most obvious breed. Politicos in the Southwest were railing away that Mexican migrants were stealing Depression jobs from American workers. And half a million people were deported in a fury of hateful retaliation.

Gonzalez’s show congealed the diverse Spanish-language audience, effectively creating a political force. When he railed back that this deportation policy was a phony issue, the power structure fought back.

The film, starring Mexican singing-acting star Oscar Chavez as Gonzalez, employs simple blacks and whites for its villainy but it has a charm to it, and especially some affecting music from Chavez.

The lessons on racism aren’t new, of course. Considering that there are newer, more clever, more deadly strains of the virus around today, this familiar old strain is almost (dare we say it) quaint.