In the summer of 1955, Hollywood movie crews rolled into the small, West Texas town of Marfa to film, Giant, based on Edna Ferber’s best-selling but controversial novel. Children of Giant illustrates how Edith Ferber’s personal experience of discrimination, stemming from her intersecting identities as a Jewish woman, and her collaborative research into the lives and experiences of Mexican-Americans and Anglo-Americans in Texas, influenced her development of complex characters such as Juana and Leslie. It also reveals the Intersectionality of discrimination behind the lens through the experiences of the citizens of Marfa as well as the actor Elsa Cardenas, who played Juana.
