2 Families Worth Knowing

Ordinary Latinos spent years as one of U.S. television’s invisible minorities, as the Frito Bandito, van loads of illegal immigrants and gangbanger stereotypes were passed off as a majority.

But now it’s 2002. ABC did brisk business recently with its self-effacing, middle-class comedy “The George Lopez Show,” and on Wednesday nights, “American Family” and “Resurrection Blvd.” are making it a good summer for East Los Angeles.

You know, the area where newscasters rarely venture except to chronicle shootings and tykes smacking pinatas on Cinco de Mayo. Yes, the same Latinodom that TV’s entertainment crowd for years mentally segregated behind yellow police tape and dismissed as a wasteland inhabited by human graffiti unworthy of exposure to mainstream America.

Not that some Latinos don’t match their stereotypes, as do some blacks, Jews, Italians, Arabs, you name it. Stories of the vastly more numerous Latinos were rarely told on TV, though.

The industry had its priorities. It was Mafia yes, Morales no. Networks that embraced coldblooded mobsters with thick tongues and necks were terrified by commonplace Latinos living much like other Americans. You say you want a series? Maybe manana.

Only many years later did manana finally arrive.

In 2000, CBS rejected the first-rate pilot for filmmaker Greg Nava’s “American Family,” starring Edward James Olmos as a Boyle Heights barber and Korean War vet who is rigidly conservative. That series is in reruns now, though, after recently ending its first season on PBS as one of TV’s highest-achieving dramas. And best-kept secrets, unfortunately.

Those petite ratings are a mystery, for its well-written characters are appealing, its acting superior, its stories widely applicable, its values universal while shaded realistically by ethnic influences. It’s rich and atmospheric, witty and a major tug on your heartstrings, all with no trace of phoniness. Your loss if you’re missing it.

Created by Dennis E. Leoni, ongoing “Resurrection Blvd.” has merit, too, as it enters its third season on Showtime, where it first surfaced with the continuing African America series “Soul Food.” Credit Showtime for saying yes to “Resurrection Blvd.,” and the series for providing work for so many Latinos, on and off camera.

“American Family” and “Resurrection Blvd.” are both about large East L.A.-based families that straddle two cultures while trying to reconcile tradition with modernism. Each is headed by a high-minded widower. Each has characters easy to like and respect. Family members in each series enjoy success and are sent crashing back to earth by failures and tragedy.

On “Resurrection Blvd.,” it’s the Santiagos. Their stern patriarch is gym owner Roberto (Tony Plana, finally freed from typecasting as a villain) whose prizefighting tradition has rubbed off on his sons. Carlos (Michael DeLorenzo) is middleweight champ. Miguel (Mauricio Mendoza), a former boxer, now promotes fights. And kid brother Alex (Nicholas Gonzalez) was robbed of the title through treachery.

Lou Gossett has joined the cast this season as a mysterious ex-convict and former champ who looks ominously like a low blow waiting to happen. Not that the Santiagos are asking for more problems, notably after last week’s season opener.

It began joyously with Roberto’s daughter, Yolanda (Ruth Livier), about to marry not another Latino, but white-bread Luke Bonner (Brian A. Green). Recalling the family’s initial resistance to the marriage, he compared himself to Tony singing “Maria” in “West Side Story.” Great line.

One moment Luke was assuring Alex that he adored Yolanda; however, the next he was gunned down in a food mart robbery. End of Luke, end of marriage, another instance of the cross-fire of violence--Carlos became champ only after recovering from gunshot wounds--that separates this series from “American Family.”

Yolanda is a USC law student, and Alex is again heading for a career in medicine. Their younger sister, Victoria (Marisol Nichols), has a snazzy boutique job on her resume, and their sexy Aunt Bibi (Elizabeth Pena) holds solid as their surrogate mom. Yet “Resurrection Blvd.” is never quite able to shake the stereotype of Latinos existing on the edge of mayhem. Time after time, life clobbers this family the way Carlos pounds the heavy bag while training. In this context, the show’s signature shot of the downtown skyline in the distance might as well be the Emerald City.

Creatively, “American Family” lives in another neighborhood, from its cinematic look and superior storytelling to the work of Olmos, who’s never been better than here, his raspy whisper resonating uniquely, his great, cratered face a battlefield of emotions.

Jess Gonzalez (Olmos) has two daughters. One is Nina (Constance Marie), a lawyer whose work on behalf of immigrant rights outrages her father (“Keeping illegal aliens in this country? You idiot!”). Another is Vangie (Rachel Ticotin), a fashion designer living in Brentwood with her husband and kids.

One of his three sons, Conrado (Kurt Caceres), is a doctor. Cisco (A.J. Lamas), is a budding filmmaker. Estaban (Esai Morales) is a former gang member on parole after taking the rap for his druggie girlfriend, Laura (Seidy Lopez), with whom he has a son, Pablito (Austin Marques).

Estaban wants to get his life together. But that won’t happen easily, based on a tenderly directed episode that found his ballerina girlfriend (Kate del Castillo) leaving him for New York, and his rescue of heroin-addicted Laura from an overdose appearing to cost him his freedom and son.

Jess is visited regularly by his sister, Dora (Raquel Welch), and visions of his beloved late wife, Berta (Sonia Braga). Those memories induce crescendos of sentiment that come in waves, but never gratuitously.

It’s another difference in the two series. The buttons pushed manipulatively by “Resurrection Blvd.” push themselves on “American Family.”

As they did in an hour recalling the highs of Jess’ marriage to Berta, along with lows that included her learning from him that she had an inoperable brain tumor.

And as they did when “American Family” captured with acute clarity America’s screeching, abrupt U-turn after the terrorism of Sept. 11. The episode began with high comedy, then abruptly went grim, as America did, with the attacks on the twin towers. Seamlessly mingled with that were Jess’ memories of a bloody night in Korea as a GI, when he barely survived in the snow after bundling off a tiny orphan he hoped to save.

In the freezing whiteness, he imagined Berta had come to comfort him. It was poetic enough to stir anyone’s deepest feelings. But short-lived, for a comrade was cut down, and the child Jess fought so hard to rescue died, too. No faux sugary endings here, or in the Sept. 11 calamity whose coverage on the screen kept snapping Jess back to the present.

This was as good as anything on television this year, as “American Family” waved Old Glory from East L.A., reminding those who’d forgotten that patriotism comes in colors other than red, white and blue.

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Howard Rosenberg’s column appears Mondays and Fridays. He can be contacted at howard.rosenberg@latimes.com.