Category: Enfoque Las Americas

In the 1960s, when Enfoque cameras were depicting Latin American reality, artistic expression flourished in the region and its performance was gaining worldwide recognition. Creative voices were projecting beyond national borders and shaping the international dialogue in literature, music, dance and the visual arts.

This Enfoque program opens with children eagerly sharing their dreams for the future — a space pilot, a doctor, a nurse like her mother, a professor. Their ambitions—carpenters, actresses, soldiers, parents—reflect our universal longing for purpose and happiness. Our smiles at their answers express a hope that their dreams will come true.

Who decides what news reaches our eyes and ears? This question is at the heart of an ongoing global battle with consequences that shape our lives. Ever since Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized communication with the printing press, the power to spread ideas has shifted the fate of nations. Every choice about what stories are told—or hidden—helps define our society, our freedoms, and our future. 

Step into the world of Latin America in the late 1960s—a time when women began to redefine their futures and break boundaries. While traditional roles in the home, nursing, and education remained respected, a new wave of trailblazers were emerging, taking leadership roles in the arts and journalism. Ambitious female students across Central and South America started pursuing studies in fields once reserved for men, and universities were graduating women in business administration, the sciences, and communications. Women-owned enterprises were capturing new markets, and women-led performance groups were dazzling critics on the international stage. 

MEET “ENFOQUE”

The Enfoque: Las Americas television series, produced by the Television Service of the United States Information Agency (USIA) from 1967 to 1970, consisted of twelve single-theme episodes, each approximately twenty-eight minutes long. The series was distributed in Spanish throughout Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, with a counterpart, entitled As Americas em Foco, for Brazil. Although presented as a series, each episode was individually researched. Completed episodes were pouched to American Embassies in the region for television broadcast and private screenings. Each program was budgeted at $30,000 for production costs, exclusive of government personnel salaries, a dollar amount equivalent to $250,000 today.