Of course, Vanessa Marquez was not only my most beloved friend, she was also a talented actress. She made her film debut in the classic Stand and Deliver (1988), and it was a most impressive debut. She had a recurring role on Wiseguy, and was a regular in the first season of the sketch comedy show Culture Clash. She appeared in such movies as Twenty Bucks (1993) and Father Hood (1993), and guest starred on such shows as Seinfeld, Nurses, and Melrose Place. Aside from Ana Delgado in Stand and Deliver (1988), her most famous role may have been Nurse Wendy Goldman on ER. She appeared in 27 episodes of the hit show in its first three seasons.
While Vanessa displayed a good deal of talent throughout her career, she was also something of a trailblazer with regards to Latinas in Hollywood. When Vanessa's career began in the Eighties, Latinas, particularly Chicanas like Vanessa, were rarely seen in film and on television. When they were, they were often stereotypes. As late as the Eighties and Nineties,the highly sexualized, hot-tempered Latina stereotype was still commonly seen in movies and on television shows. Starting with Ana in Stand and Deliver (1988), Vanessa Marquez broke with that stereotype in the roles she played in films and on television. As her friend Edward E. Haynes, a production designer on the TV series Culture Clash, said of her, "In the world where there was such little representation for people of colour, she always represented the strong, educated, and centred Latina character." What is more, Vanessa possessed considerable talent. In a recent article in the San Antonio Current, her Stand and Deliver (1988) co-star Daniel Villarreal said of Vanessa, "The first time I met Vanessa during the casting of Stand and Deliver, I knew the movie couldn't be made without her," and "She was a special human being. She was vulnerable but very powerful."
Certainly Ana Delgado in Stand and Deliver (1988) was an example of the "strong, educated, and centred Latina character" that Vanessa Marquez would play, and her very first at that. Ana was the timid and soft-spoken, but scholarly daughter of a restaurateur who excels at mathematics and wants to go to medical school. Despite this, her father wants her to go to work in his restaurant, just as her siblings do. He even insists that she drop out of her classes so she can work in the restaurant. That Ana returns to her math class shows that she apparently did stand up to her father and insisted on getting an education. The character of Ana broke with previous portrayals of Latinas on screen. She was not a Mexican spitfire or chola. She was instead a quiet, intelligent student who wanted to make a better life for herself.
What makes Vanessa's performance as Ana all the more impressive is that, as mentioned above, this was her very first professional acting job. She had never appeared on screen before, not even on television or in commercials. Making this all the more impressive is that Ana was the only one of Jaime Escalante's students in the movie based on an actual person. While the other students in Stand and Deliver (1988) were composites of the various students Jaime Escalante had taught through the years, Ana was based on Leticia Rodriguez, the daughter of the owner of the restaurant El Farolito. The major difference between Ana Delgado and Leticia Rodriguez is that while Ana wanted to major in medicine, Leticia Rodriguez became an electrical engineer for Honeywell Corp.
Nurse Wendy Goldman on ER was another intelligent, strong Latina character that Vanessa played. While Wendy usually appeared in humorous subplots on the show, there was no doubt that she was both intelligent and competent. She corrected Dr. Lewis in the episode Luck of the Draw when the doctor tells her to give her patient 350 milligrams of dopamine, telling Dr. Lewis, "I think you mean micrograms." In the episode "House of Cards" it is Wendy who figures out that a drug addict needs a central line, stating, "He hasn't any veins left," and goes to get Dr. Lewis to perform the procedure. In addition to being very intelligent, Wendy was also compassionate, and there are several instances throughout the first three seasons in which Wendy comforts patients and shows concern for her co-workers. While Wendy does have a temper (she yelled at desk clerk Jerry more than once), like Ana in Stand and Deliver (1988) she was a far cry from the stereotypical Latinas who had appeared in movies and on television before the Eighties.
While Vanessa played a nurse on ER, in the BET television movie Fire & Ice (2001) she played Wanda Hernandez, a security technician at a firm owned by Holly Aimes (Lark Voorhies) and Pam Moore (Tempestt Bledsoe). While to a degree Wanda serves as comic relief (and possibly eye candy as well) in Fire & Ice, there is no doubt that she is both intelligent and competent at her job. She is also a bit of a romantic, and along with Pam roots for the lead characters of Holly and Michael Williams (Kadeem Hardison) to get together. As recently as the Sixties and Seventies, it would have been unthinkable in a movie or TV show that a technician at a security firm would be a Latina (or that a security firm would be owned by two Black women, for that matter). Fire & Ice (2001) was certainly a mark of how far television had come with regards to diversity.
Vanessa Marquez played a variety of roles on Culture Clash, some of which were intelligent Latinas. Notably in a parody of the game show Jeopardy, she played an exceptionally smart contestant. She also played a poet who recites a rather uncomfortable (at least for men) poem about castration. In the episode "The One After the Earthquake" of the TV show Nurses, she played Angelica, a high school senior who wants to become a nurse. Fittingly enough, her next role would be Wendy Goldman on ER. On Wiseguy she played Conseulo "Connie Burns," the scholarly niece of lead character Michael Santana (Steven Bauer). Her time in the Seinfeld episode "The Cheever Letters" is brief, but she played the receptionist at the Cuban diplomatic mission at the United Nations, a position of some responsibility.
Of course, Vanessa played other roles beyond intelligent, scholarly Latinas. Even then she gave remarkable performances and the characters were not stereotypes. In the television movie Locked Up: A Mother's Rage she played Yo-Yo, a pregnant prison inmate convicted of killing her boyfriend when in all probability it was self-defence. Vanessa was remarkable in the role, particularly given she had never been pregnant nor was she ever in jail. In Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992) she played a pharmacy clerk. In Twenty Bucks (1993), she played one of her best roles, that of teenager Melanie. In the movie Melanie's under-aged boyfriend wants to get wine for their dinner. To this ends she flirts with two guys in an attempt to get them to buy them the wine. In each of these cases Vanessa's characters were not stereotypes, and she played all of them well.
So far I have only covered Vanessa's career on film and in television. Vanessa also acted on stage, where she also played characters who defied stereotypes. She played multiple roles in Jose Rivera's play Street of the Sun, and she so impressed the playwright that he named a character for her in his play Sonnets for an Old Century. In the play August 29 Vanessa played the militant Lucy. Vanessa also appeared in such plays as Demon Wine, Women and Wallace, Anna in the Tropics, and yet others.
In playing Latina characters that were not stereotypes, Vanessa Marquez would have an impact. During her lifetime Vanessa received letters from people who had gone into mathematics or the sciences because they had been inspired by the character of Ana Delgado in Stand and Deliver (1988). I have to think that there may have been individuals who became nurses all because they saw Vanessa as Wendy Goldman on ER. Her performances on television, in movies and on stage certainly inspired people. Since her death I have heard from various people who were touched by one or more of her performances. In a time when Latinas, particularly Chicanas, were rarely seen on television or in films and, when they were seen were generally stereotypes, Vanessa Marquez was playing intelligent, strong-willed, well-developed Latina characters. In this respect, she was something of a pioneer.
Of course, for me Vanessa was not simply a well-known, talented, and pioneering actress, but the one person who meant more to me than anyone else. Vanessa was intelligent, warm, sweet, loving, and beautiful, and she possessed a great sense of humour. She certainly had her problems, but I could never have found a better friend than her. On this day, her birthday, then, I find myself missing her more than usual. Vanessa Marquez was very special, both as an actress and simply as a human being.
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