Filmmaker Gregory Nava crafts a multi-generational epic in My Family, Mi Familia, a film that follows nearly 60 years in the life of a Latino family whose roots in the United States date back to the 1920s. Released in 1995, Nava's film addresses themes central to the immigrant experience. The financial success of My Family, Mi Familia demonstrated that audiences—specifically Latino audiences—were hungry for positive cinematic representation. Nava's insistence that an entirely Latino cast play his characters (as opposed to bankable Anglo stars) was a victory not only for independent filmmakers working within the Hollywood system but, more importantly, for greater verisimilitude and diversity in filmmaking.

Although he was born and raised in San Diego, Nava's own family tree has its roots in Tijuana. Nava has said that he was raised in a border world that experienced a "tremendous clash between the...