Hispanic issues

Actor Raul Julia. His films include "Kiss of the Spider Woman," "Moon Over Parador," "Tango Bar" and the recent "Tequila Sunrise." His latest film, "Romero," is based on the life, and assassination, of the Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.

Writer Oscar Hijuelos. His new novel, The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, is the story of Cuban immigrant brothers who work by day at grimy, exhausting jobs in a meat-packing house, but by night, in silk suits and lace ties, play the mambo, the vibrant, footloose music of Cuba. Surrounded by musicians wearing vests decorated with sequined palm trees, the Castillo brothers try to secure their own version of the American Dream. Their lives climax when they appear on the "I Love Lucy Show,".

Cinematographer Nestor Almendros. The films he has photographed include "Sophie's Choice," "Kramer vs. Kramer" and "Days of Heaven," for which he won the Academy Award. He has directed the photography for films by Eric Rohmer and Francois Truffaut. Almendros worked in Havana in the early years of the Castro regime before he had a falling out with the authorities.

Tango innovator Astor Piazzolla. Since the early 60s, Piazzolla has been leading groups that play an updated tango that connects this Argentinian form with the musical innovations from Europe and America, both classical and contemporary. The adjustments have earned him the enmity of Argentinians, and for most of the 70s he lived in France where he wrote film scores. Piazzolla is a classically trained composer who wrote symphonies and studied with Nadia Boulanger, the renown French instructor of composition.

Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa. He is one of the leading figures in the recent boom in Latin American fiction. His novels include Aunt Julia and The Scriptwriter and The War of the End of the World. The latter won the Ritz Paris Hemingway Award. Vargas Llosa's books were banned and burned in Peru by the military in the late 60s.

Edward James Olmos. He plays Lt. Castillo in the popular television series "Miami Vice" and is now starring in a soon-to-be released film "Stand and Deliver." Olmos also starred in the films "Zoot Suit" and "The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez" and "Blade Runner."

Writer Joan Didion. Known for her self-reflective essays and reporting, Didion is one of America's most important writers. Her books include A Book of Common Prayer, Slouching Toward Bethlehem and Salvador. With her husband John Gregory Dunne, she co-wrote the screenplay for "True Confessions." Her new book is titled Miami.

Juan Gonzalez has just returned to the Philadelphia Daily News after taking a year's leave to found and serve as the first president of the National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights. Enrique Arroyo is the director of the Puerto Rican Congress of New Jersey. They join the show to discuss Latino issues in the Delaware Valley.