McKay was one of a kind, a leader "who helped secure economic independence for the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation near Sacramento, and whose deep support of cultural causes led to his becoming the first Indigenous chairman on the board of the Autry Museum of the American West," and so much more. - Los Angeles Times
Silver had to forge her own way in the 1970s and 1980s, including with her first feature, Hester Street. "The 1975 independent film ... was the story of a Jewish immigrant couple in the 1890s. The low-budget black and white film, in Yiddish with English subtitles, proved a hard sell to studios." But it won rave reviews, made money,...
Maldonado's family moved from Puerto Rico to New Jersey and then to the Bronx when he was a teenager. "The experience left him with a sense of displacement that would be the driving theme of his art and make him a quintessential 'Nuyorican' — one who straddles New York and Puerto Rico and feels entirely at home in neither."...
Bolling's fusion of jazz and classical made him the most popular pianist, composer, and bandleader in Europe for a time. "A devotee since childhood of Duke Ellington, Fats Waller and other eminences of American jazz, Mr. Bolling grew up listening to their music on the radio until World War II intervened. 'Jazz was all but banned by the Nazis...
