Robert Rodríguez On Keeping His Name, Creating A Star System Of His Own And Using El Rey To Realistically Represent Latinos On Television

Filmmaker and El Rey network co-founder and chief Robert Rodríguez was honored recently with a Corazón de Oro award from the San Antonio Association of Hispanic Journalists (NAAHJ). During his acceptance speech, he emotionally recounted how his older sister (who had moved to New York to be an actress) told him and their family that she was thinking of changing her name because she "couldn't get work as [someone named] Rodríguez".

I remember being really upset by that. Not upset with my sister, but upset about an industry where you would be denied work because of your name. And I was very determined from that day forward to change that. I’m not going to change my name.

Listen to the rest of his inspiring speech by looking at the video below (the speech starts at about 09:10 of the video).