Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, July 3, 1993 TAG: 9307030376
SECTION: SPECTATOR PAGE: S-12 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By PATRICIA BRENNAN THE WASHINGTON POST
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
"My mom was divorced, and she did what many Hispanic women of the time did: She was a seamstress and did piece work in a lingerie factory in Manhattan. She got paid by the pieces.
"As a supplemental job, she used to bring home crepe paper and wires from Woolworth, and she and I would make crepe-paper roses to sell back to Woolworth for them to sell," she recalled. "It's a true American Dream story."
Paco Cansino, uncle of Rita Hayworth (who was born Margarita Carmen Cansino), took young Rita Moreno as a dance student. "He knew we were very broke," she said. "He would teach me a dance in one or two or three classes instead of six weeks or so."
She learned well, and at 13, she made her Broadway debut in "Skydrift." Less than four years later she signed a contract with MGM studios and made more than two dozen films.
Then came "West Side Story" and her role of Anita, the Puerto Rican girl whose enthusiastic "America" became a sort of anthem for immigrants. The little girl who began her dancing career entertaining her grandfather in Puerto Rico went on to win all five major entertainment-industry honors: the Oscar, Tony, Emmy, Grammy and Golden Globe awards.
Sunday evening, during the televised concert "A Capitol Fourth" (at 8 on WBRA-Channel 15), Moreno will sing the song that made her a star 32 years ago.
"It will be fun to introduce the number in terms of the Fourth of July and in terms of coming to this country," she said.
"What is America? When we speak of America, people tend to forget what it really means: America is Hispanics, Jews, Italians, blacks. . . . That is what is so thrilling and dramatic about this country. What other country can say that?"
For years, Moreno has supported various efforts of minority Americans to achieve success. "I'm up to my behind in Latino matters or Italian matters or Jewish matters, or anyone who says they're the underdog," she said.
But she also believes that the U.S. government, faced with the problem of increasing illegal immigration, is "caught between a rock and a very, very hard place. We've gotten a lot poorer. We just don't have the kind of money to hand out that we did have. At the same time, we represent something greater and more profound than dollars.
"I want to see America remain that kind of America, but at the same time I can see the problems. I think the administration just doesn't know what to do. I don't know what to do. It's hard to have a cut-and-dried opinion. We talk about it - one day my husband (cardiologist Leonard Gordon) takes a side and our daughter (Fernanda) takes a side, and the next day we take the other side. It is an extremely complicated and complex question.
"I wouldn't be the president at this particular time for anything. All politics aside, Mr. Clinton has inherited some monsters, not specifically of his own making. It is a difficult time.
"And yet history might say that it was a good time. History may say we were forced to face some of our most important problems."
by CNB