What to Watch on WTTW for Hispanic Heritage Month

Hispanic Heritage Month begins September 15 and runs through October 15. Discover WTTW's programming below that celebrates the contributions of Latinos to history, culture, cuisine, and more. This month also brings a wide array of new programming, including an American Masters documentary on poet and novelist Julia Alvarez, an exploration of Latino history with John Leguizamo, and a new Chicago Stories documentary on the Young Lords Organization and their work in Chicago.

Chicago Tonight: Latino Voices

Thursdays at 5:30 pm on WTTW
Chicago Tonight: Latino Voices presents trusted analysis and in-depth conversation about issues that matter to the Latino community in Chicago. With news and features on a wide range of topics including arts and life, entrepreneurship and innovation, and equity and justice.

La Frontera with Pati Jinich

Sunday, September 15 and 22 at 10:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Savor the sights, sounds, and flavors of the U.S.-Mexico border alongside acclaimed chef and James Beard Award-winning host Pati Jinich as she experiences the region’s rich culture, people, and cuisine.

Revisit our interview with Jinich about La Frontera.

American Masters – Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided to Go For It

Sunday, September 15 at 11:00 pm on WTTW
Discover how Rita Moreno defied her humble upbringing and racism to become one of a select group of Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award winners. Explore her 70-year career with new interviews, clips of her iconic roles, and scenes of the star on set today.

American Experience: Roberto Clemente

Sunday, September 15 at 11:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Baseball great Roberto Clemente's talent and inimitable style drew legions of fans, but as this American Experience production reveals, he was more than an exceptional baseball player. He was also a committed humanitarian who challenged racial discrimination and worked for social justice.

American Masters – Julia Alvarez: A Life Reimagined

Tuesday, September 17 at 8:00 pm on WTTW
This documentary film is about the life and work of Julia Alvarez, one of America's most celebrated Latina writers. Alvarez burst onto the literary scene in 1991 with her semi-autobiographical novel, How the Garcia Sisters Lost Their Accents, to great acclaim, followed by In the Time of the Butterflies. The film explores her childhood in the Dominican Republic; her complex family dynamics; the lifelong impact of their escape from the dictatorship; her feelings of displacement, hybridity and loss; and how she transforms all of this – in a nuanced, complex writing voice – into poetry, essays, and novels.

Weekend in Havana

Sunday, September 22 at 11:00 am on WTTW
Join Geoffrey Baer as he travels to Havana, where dancers, musicians, architects, and writers invite him into their lives to experience the color, culture, and history of a beautiful and seductive city only recently re-opened to Americans.

Further immerse yourself in the Cuban city with our interactive website.

American Masters – Orozco: Man of Fire

Sunday, September 22 at 11:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Follow the life of Mexican muralist Jose Clemente Orozco, a life filled with drama, adversity, and triumph that is one of the great stories of the modern era.

Finding Your Roots: Mexican Roots

Tuesday, September 24 at 7:00 pm on WTTW
Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and guests Mario Lopez and Melissa Villasenor look at the Mexican American experience as seen through the lens of two families.

VOCES American Historia: The Untold History of Latinos

Saturday, September 28, October 5, and October 12 at 10:00 pm on WTTW
Join actor John Leguizamo on a quest to uncover Latino and Latina heroes and their contributions. In this three-part series, Leguizamo takes viewers on a captivating journey, delving into both well-known and lesser-known stories of Latino history, spanning thousands of years, from the ancient empires to the present, and shining a light on the rich and often overlooked history of Latinos.

The 37th Hispanic Heritage Awards

Saturday, September 28 at 11:00 pm on WTTW
The highest honor for Hispanics and Latinos returns to the Kennedy Center for a star-studded celebration of Hispanic and Latino excellence in arts, music, business, philanthropy, and more.

POV: Song of the Butterflies

Sunday, September 29 at 11:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Indigenous painter Rember Yahuarcani pursues a successful career in Lima, but when he finds himself in a creative rut, he returns home to his Amazonian community and discovers why his ancestors' stories cannot be forgotten.

VOCES – Mambo Legends: The Music Never Ends

Saturday, October 5 at 11:00 pm on WTTW
The Mambo Legends Orchestra is committed to keeping the sounds of the great Afro Cuban bandleaders Machito, Tito Puente, and Tito Rodriguez alive for future generations. Comprised of several former members of these legendary orchestras, the Mambo Legends provide a link to the golden era of music in New York in the early 1940s, when the Machito Orchestra fused the big-band sound of popular music with the rhythms of Africa, Cuba, and Puerto Rico to create an enduring musical genre beloved around the world.

Chicago Stories: Young Lords of Lincoln Park

Friday, October 11 at 8:00 pm on WTTW
There was a time, from the late 1940s through the 1960s, when the now-upscale Lincoln Park neighborhood served as the beating heart of Chicago’s huge Puerto Rican community, and the base of operations for a band of Puerto Rican revolutionaries known as the Young Lords. Follow this activist group that evolved from a social club to a street gang to a political force, banding together with the Black Panthers as the Rainbow Coalition to wage war against what they called Mayor Daley’s “urban removal of the poor” and the area’s eventual gentrification.

Nuestra Herencia

Sunday, October 13 at 2:30 pm on WTTW
Nuestra Herencia brings together a series of short documentary films exploring immigration, personal histories, gardens, and legacy through the lives of 10 senior gardeners of El Paseo Community Garden in Chicago's Pilsen neighborhood.

American Experience: Zoot Suit Riots

Sunday, October 13 at 9:00 pm on WTTW Prime
Zoot Suit Riots is a powerful film that explores the complicated racial tensions and the changing social and political landscape that led up to the explosion on LA's streets in the summer of 1943.

Velvet

Sundays starting October 13 at 10:00 pm on WTTW Prime
In late 1950s Madrid, the golden age of haute couture, there was one place everyone would like to shop at least once in their lifetime: the Galerías Velvet. This series follows the love story of Alberto Márquez, heir of Galerías Velvet, one of the most prestigious fashion houses in Spain, and Ana Ribera, who works as a seamstress there. In Spanish with English subtitles.

VOCES: Latino Vote 2024

Tuesday, October 22 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
This new documentary explores the range of issues that matter most to the politically diverse Latino community in the battleground states of Pennsylvania, Nevada, Wisconsin, and Arizona, as well as in California and Florida, two states with large Latino populations. The film also examines the influence of Latino evangelical pastors in shaping community perspectives and the role that Spanish-language media will play in the 2024 election.

VOCES: Our Texas, Our Vote

Monday, October 28 at 9:00 pm on WTTW
On the eve of the upcoming presidential election, acclaimed filmmaker Hector Galán takes viewers inside the largest Latino voter registration mobilization in Texas history, led by a new generation on the frontlines of a growing swing state that neither political party can ignore.