Rita Moreno is awesome!

I'll follow up this post with my best and worst wines of the week but I had to comment on last night.

We had the privilege of attending the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Awards Ceremony and Gala last night. First, it was at Starlight......and no it wasn't outside like one reader thought. It was on the stage which was closed off and heated. It was a cool venue for an event.

Anyway, the event was nice but the special guest was Rita Moreno. What an amazing woman!

She told us her story which probably isn't all that uncommon of coming to the United States from Puerto Rico. She talked about how she worked around the stereotype of being a Latina in Hollywood and how she overcame it and paved the way for lots of people that have come since. This woman......at 78 years old had lots of energy and really looked amazing! I mean truly she was beautiful and it doesn't look like she "had work" done. She has been married to the same man her whole life and she still works.......she played a nun/psychologist on the HBO show Oz most recently. They introduced her with a collection of clips of her work which was incredible. She is amazingly talented and you can tell a consummate pro. I also didn't realize how much she means to the Hispanic community in show business. She is their Jackie Robinson or Curt Flood.


I'm telling you. This woman blew me away. She was so friendly, so funny and so appreciative of her life. I had the chance to speak with her briefly and I thought she was incredibly genuine. It was refreshing to see. I lamely took a picture with my cell phone while she was giving her speech.

There were a few but not many gringos in the room last night and when she mentioned President Obama I expected the room to erupt but it was faint applause showing me as a bunch of small business owners you can't say all Hispanics support him. Not. Even. Close. However, the mention of Justice Sotomayor brought the thunderous applause. Appropriate for sure.

This one guy, a gringo I might add, made a gratuitous comment about immigration reform that was rewarded with lots of clapping and hoots. That one still baffles me. You can tell these people are incredibly proud to be Americans and proud to be here and to contribute. I'll never understand why we look like bad people for controlling the sovereignty of our borders. Every other country does it. We welcome all. It is who we are but I'll never understand why it is okay to break the law and sneak in and why I'm a racist for being against it.

Anyway, it was a good night and I felt blessed to be there and see it.