Oscars 2022: Latino Moments that Made Us Proud

The 94th Academy Awards ceremony took place on Sunday at the Dolby Theatre and it was a Hollywood night to remember —especially for Latinx artist whose performances, speeches and overall presence will stay in our hearts forever.

Ariana DeBose won Best Supporting Actress for West Side Story.

The proud Afro-Latina became the first openly ‘queer’ woman of color to get a golden statuette. Among DeBose’s viewers were, the great Rita Moreno, the first Latina to win an Oscar, also for that role in the famous musical. “I’m so thankful that your Anita paved the way for lots of Anitas like me,” DeBose told Moreno from the stage.

​​“You know what, now I see why that Anita says, ‘I want to be in America,’ because even in this weary world that we live in, dreams do come true. And that’s really a heartening thing right now. If I took the time to say thank you to every single beautiful person who has lifted me up on this stage, you fine people would be sitting here until next Oscars, so I’m not going to do that. But just allow me to say that it was the summer of a lifetime and I am the most privileged and grateful to have spent it with all of you.” 

Listen to Ariana’s full speech here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqeXEgZO_II

A huge night for Disney’s Encanto

The animated film based on Colombia’s culture won Best Animated Feature Film. Although it was not nominated for Best Original Song, there was more than a minute reserved for “We don’t talk about Bruno,” voiced by Carolina Gaitán and Mauro Castillo, the hit among hits from the Encanto soundtrack. Becky G and Luis Fonsi, Diane Guerrero and many other artists took the stage along the cast members, but the appearance of Megan Thee Stallion to add ‘swagger’ hip hop caught us all by surprise. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SY5-V3Xdzb8

And we can’t forget Sebastián Yatra‘s performance of “Dos Oruguitas,” also from Encanto‘s soundtrack that had the singer (and all of us) in tears as soon as the show started.

Eugenio Derbez proudly joined the cast of CODA on stage to accept the Academy Award for Best Feature Film. The mexican actor took his reaction to Instagram with a heart-warming message.

Rachel Zegler’s witty come back

It couldn’t be a Hollywood big night without a little controversy. This time the Colombian-American actress Rachel Zegler, the lead on Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story, proved she can take everything with a little sense of humor, as she joked about not being invited to the Oscars… initially.

“And I never thought I’d be here six days ago,” said the actress responding to his co-presenter, the Euphoria star Jacob Elordi. Last Saturday, Rachel revealed on her social media that she had not been invited to the Academy Awards despite West Side Story garnering several nominations.

And speaking of taking controversies with a grain of salt, we Will, we Will, Rock you on the next post on LATV.com, but for now, Lupita Nyong’o is all of us after we saw what went down.