Are we living in the golden age of Tejano documentary filmmaking?

A spate of documentaries focusing on the lives of Tejanos have found platforms over the last six months, showcasing how diverse, nuanced and entertaining our lives can be. You can find the contemplative radicals of “Hummingbirds ” trolling the streets of Laredo over on PBS; the determined detectives of “The Chicano Squad ” solving crimes in Houston on A and a dozen or so student musicians competing in “Going Varsity in Mariachi” on Netflix. On Max, the third episode of the Texas docuseries triptych “God Save Texas” takes an intimate and personal look at border life in El Paso, while Tubi has become the new home for “As I Walk Through the Valley,” an in-depth look at the history of rock ‘n’ roll in the Rio Grande Valley.

And that’s just what you can stream right now . “ The In Between ,” a doc about grief and reconnection set in the small border town of Eagle Pass, is currently making its way through the festival circuit and is set to air on PBS next spring. Even Texas Monthly is executive producing a documentary about iconic Tejano television host Johnny Canales .

(Disclosure: De Los editorial director Fidel Martinez is featured in this project.) As a border native, I’ve become used to a specific kind of narrative when it comes to how my homeland is depicted on screen, so this new wave of Tejano filmmaking is not only remarkable, it’s long overdue. But how did we get here? The mainstreaming of Latino culture within the U.

S. over the past deca.