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      A Music Career Is a Risky Bet. In ‘Mija,’ the Stakes Are Even Higher.

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      A new documentary follows Doris Anahi Muñoz, the daughter of undocumented Mexican immigrants, as she balances the needs of her family with artistic dreams.As a middle schooler with big dreams living in San Bernardino, Calif., Doris Anahi Muñoz made her bedroom walls a canvas. She painted her hands on the back of her door, with the words, “These are the hands of Doris Anahi Muñoz, and they’re going to touch the hearts of millions.”As the main subject of the Disney original documentary “Mija,” Muñoz, an artist manager-turned-musician, aims for her story to do just that: connect with children of immigrant families who are yearning to pursue a career in the entertainment industry, yet who may feel alone or guilty about their desires when their households face urgent daily struggles.The film’s director, Isabel Castro, follows Muñoz as she works to catapult the careers of Latin musicians including Cuco and Jacks Haupt while helping her undocumented Mexican family navigate the green-card system.“A lot of us, we carry the weight of our families, and I needed a film like this growing up,” Muñoz said in a recent video interview from Boyle Heights, Calif., where wooden bookshelves outlined with cascading foliage and porcelain vases filled the room. “So, I’m just glad that being in this seat as a protagonist allows other people to see themselves.”Muñoz, the only of her parents’ three children who was born in the United States, grew up playing saxophone and violin in a family of Evangelicals who hoped she would use her talents to become a worship leader. During the summer after her sophomore year of college, Ed Sheeran, with a nod, invited her onstage to sing along to his hit single “Lego House” at a radio event, reigniting her passion for music.She wrote songs and performed live for a while, but she realized that she was uncomfortable in the spotlight and would rather work behind the scenes. Her first major project on her own was managing Cuco, a bedroom-pop artist who broke out by staying true to his Mexican American heritage and making music for Latino kids who felt unseen.Muñoz and the musician Jacks Haupt in a scene from “Mija.”DisneyThe film traces Muñoz’s early work with Cuco as she orchestrates his sold-out concerts and helps him land a seven-figure record deal, a success that helped fund her parents’ application to become permanent residents of the U.S.When the pandemic hits and (spoiler alert!) Muñoz must cope with the pressure of splitting with Cuco, she rediscovers her purpose in Jacks Haupt, an indie singer-songwriter from Dallas who, like many young artists, has struggled to find a wider audience.Haupt, 22, grew up listening to Joe Bataan’s “Mujer Mía” and other Latin soul classics in her Chicano household, and also took inspiration from Amy Winehouse, Aretha Franklin and Janis Joplin. Haupt’s bilingual music has since pivoted to a more electronic, trip-hop sound, and she often sings about heartbreak and mental health.Haupt calls music her diary, and it has been a support system for her over the years. But at the beginning of her musical career, she said she lacked the support of her family. “Working in the arts as a photographer, videographer, immigrant, POC parents are more like, ‘This isn’t making money,’” Haupt said in a video interview from Dallas.Building a career in the arts can take money and time — resources that are in short supply for immigrant families facing challenges like navigating the path to citizenship and finding financial footing. The film documents Muñoz’s tight-knit bond with her family: expressing gratitude during a Thanksgiving meal, taking trips to visit her brother, who was deported to Tijuana, Mexico, and the ongoing battle for her parents’ green cards.“For those who feel alone in their process, I want this film to hold them,” Muñoz said. “I had big dreams about my family reuniting and coming together and hopefully telling their story one day as a kid.”Haupt called music her diary.Victor Llorente for The New York TimesThe “Mija” director Castro’s credits include the documentary shorts “USA v Scott,” about an American geographer facing prison time for aiding migrants in Arizona, and “Darlin,” a New York Times op-doc about a Honduran mother’s fight to reunite with her son after they were divided by the U.S. border detention policy. Castro said she was drawn to Muñoz and Haupt’s stories as an indie music lover who recognized a lack of representation for Latin artists in that world.“I just became really interested in the ways that Doris, Cuco and the entire community were really trying to figure out a place for themselves in this exact musical space that I had grown up listening to,” Castro said.The film shifts from Haupt’s dreamy onstage performances and Los Angeles recording sessions to a heated phone conversation with her mother about what is traditionally considered profitable work. Castro said the conversation was reminiscent of ones she had held with her own mother, in moments when she felt guilty for not living up to expectations.“My ambition and my career is rooted in a sense of responsibility for the sacrifices that my parents made for me,” she said.“I hope people, especially Latinx viewers and viewers of color, will come away from the film feeling a sense of hope,” Castro added, “feeling a sense of security that pursuing creative careers is a worthwhile ambition, and that it can pay off with hard work and tenacity.”In the time since “Mija” was filmed, Muñoz has closed her management company and has begun releasing her own music under her artist name, Doris Anahí. Last week, she performed at the film’s premiere in Central Park, as did Haupt. (The film opened in theaters in New York and Los Angeles on Aug. 5, and will come to Disney+ on Sept. 16.)“Our parents come from a generation of survival,” Muñoz said, “and we are a lucky generation that gets to think about thriving rather than surviving.” More

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      in Movies

      ‘A Cops and Robbers Story’ Review: Keep Your Enemies Closer

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      This documentary follows a police officer who rose through the ranks while concealing his criminal past.Corey Pegues, the subject of the slim and sober documentary “A Cops and Robbers Story,” started in law enforcement in 1992, eventually becoming a commanding officer in his 20-year career with the New York City Police Department. But as a Black officer, Pegues was often treated with suspicion by his fellow policemen, who would snidely comment that he was too close to the community he was patrolling.What these officers didn’t know was that Pegues had once been part of a drug gang in Queens known as the Supreme Team. When he trained new officers, his presentations included criminal data on his own friends and former associates. Pegues was, in effect, living a double life.Pegues’s story is told through photographs, home videos and, most significantly, through present-day interviews with him, his family, friends and former contacts in both the police department and among members of the Supreme Team. The director, Ilinca Calugareanu, also includes re-enactments to stage the dramatic episodes from Pegues’s life, such as his failed attempt to shoot and kill a man.The re-enactments are attractively filmed, with stark cinematography and colorful costume choices. But their inclusion disrupts the flow of the narrative, often looping back to demonstrate scenes that have already been explained.The repetition of verbal and visual storytelling points to the limited scope of this film. “A Cops and Robbers Story” explores Pegues’s split loyalties, but the talking head interviews tend to isolate characters whose very intimacy is the subject of the film. If the central problem of Pegues’s life was that his past and present could never interact, the documentary replicates rather than resolves this tension.A Cops and Robbers StoryNot rated. Running time: 1 hour 24 minutes. In theaters and available to rent or buy on Apple TV, Google Play and other streaming platforms and pay TV operators. More

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      Give Phoebe Robinson the Title She Deserves: Boss

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      The comic has a publishing imprint, TV deals, even a primer on leadership she wrote after noting the absence of Black women’s perspectives in business books.Mention “The Devil Wears Prada” to the comic Phoebe Robinson and she’ll lean forward and tell you she has some opinions. The real villain in the tale of an ultra-demanding fashion magazine editor and her assistant is the assistant’s boyfriend, played by Adrian Grenier, for complaining when she has a work event. “Do you know centuries of women stood by their men pursuing careers?” Robinson said over lunch. “Adrian, calm down.”As for the title character — Miranda Priestly, the Anna Wintour-type boss — Robinson, 37, has more mixed feelings. “It’s easier to judge someone from afar,” she said, adding that women of her generation had to be tough to get ahead. “At the same time, you don’t have to be a monster.”In a time when pop culture and the news are filled with portraits of bad bosses, Robinson has been thinking a lot about what makes a good one. In the past few years, she has evolved from a hustling stand-up into a mini-mogul with a staff, a production company and myriad projects. This year alone, she released a Comedy Central series, “Doing the Most With Phoebe Robinson”; shot her debut hour special (“Sorry, Harriet Tubman,” premiering Oct. 14 on HBO Max); started a book imprint, Tiny Reparations; guest-hosted for Jimmy Kimmel; sold a half-hour sitcom; and wrote her third book, “Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes,” which is, among other things, a primer on leadership. If that’s not enough, she’s in the process of moving.Robinson backstage before filming her new comedy special, “Sorry, Harriet Tubman.”Sabrina Santiago for The New York Times“It’s a lot, not going to lie,” she said, pointing out that her career models have shifted from comics like Wanda Sykes to multihyphenates like Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling.Robinson’s style has always been down to earth, self-deprecating, with proudly basic music taste (U2 is a lodestar). Her instinct was to be the cool boss, she said, but the uneasy looks on her employees’ faces after she asked them to go bowling on a Friday night taught her a lesson: “I was like: ‘Right right right right right, I get it. If my boss asked me to hang out on a Friday I’d be like, no, I see you every day, I’m good.’”The first time I saw Phoebe Robinson was a decade ago. She had been doing stand-up for a couple of years, typically in vests, jeans and a T-shirt. “I dressed so nothing would signal I’m a woman,” she said, adding that she was hyperaware of being the only female comic in the room. “I was so insecure and nervous.”Even then, she had an ingratiating voice that cut through the clutter of competition, often playing with language, tweaking words, showing signs of a literary bent that would eventually lead her to publishing. When I reminded her of a joke she told about movies that cast handsome people as rapists, she cringed, saying she would do that in a more nuanced way now. At that moment, the sunlight shifted and she grabbed her sunglasses. Before putting them on, she said: “I don’t want you to think I’m doing this to look cool.”In early August, a week before shooting her new special at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Robinson walked onstage at Union Hall in a headband and comfy dress. The Delta variant had forced audiences to put their masks back on and she wasn’t hearing the explosive laughter that she had only weeks earlier, even though the crowd immediately responded when she started talking about her relationship, which has become a regular part of her act. “I’m the Rosa Parks of the bedroom,” goes one line aimed at her British boyfriend. “I’m not getting up for any white man.”Robinson decided to write about leadership after realizing there were a dearth of business books with a Black woman’s perspective.Penguin RandomhouseA week later, Robinson said she was too in her head in that show, that she needed to remind herself to have fun. “It’s hard to stay in the moment for someone like me who is always thinking about the next 20 moves,” she said by phone.Robinson had done a chunk of material about the difference between her 20s and 30s, including one bit about being more concerned with frivolous things earlier, like shaving body hair, which she did so much, she said, “that she didn’t read a book for 10 years.”Now she’s an author and publisher who tries to read a book a week. “I miss that innocence a bit,” she said, explaining that she didn’t have to worry about her employees or brand back then. A few years later, her profile would grow thanks to a regular show with Jessica Williams called “2 Dope Queens” that moved from small rooms to HBO. In the years since, she said, their paths have diverged. “It’s one of those things where you meet for an amount of time and then you grow in different ways.”A multitasker at heart, Robinson has juggled writing, performing and podcasting. She even recently joined Michelle Obama on her book tour, interviewing the former first lady, a major career turning point for Robinson, one that also provides the set piece closing out her new special.An imprint that would let her champion writers of color had been a longstanding dream that Robinson pitched over the pandemic. She said her first book, the 2016 best seller “You Can’t Touch My Hair,” was rejected by every publisher except Plume (which now runs her imprint), and the reason she heard was that books by Black women don’t sell. That stuck with her. Following the September debut of “Please Don’t Sit,” Tiny Reparations has two releases set for the spring, both debut novels by authors of color: “What the Fireflies Knew,” by Kai Harris, a coming-of-age story, and “Portrait of a Thief,” by Grace Li, about an art heist. “I don’t want to read trauma all the time. That’s something I have been particular about,” Robinson said. “I really want hopeful stuff.”Robinson filming her special at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.Sabrina Santiago for The New York Times“Please Don’t Sit on My Bed in Your Outside Clothes” is filled with thoughts on management and work, the product of an immersion in business books, podcasts and personal experience. The book is in part a response to the absence of Black women’s perspective in this genre. She writes: “Where’s ‘Lean In’ for us?”Robinson calls herself a “reformed workaholic,” but she’s not short of plans: an idea for a romantic comedy, a talk show, specials she would produce and, perhaps the most challenging one, a two-week vacation. Meanwhile, she must manage a growing business. With the pandemic, people are questioning how they work, and while Robinson understands balking at excessive hours, she insists there’s a middle ground that involves working more efficiently. She has cut down on meetings, for instance. “I love Zoom but I don’t need to see your face,” she said.Robinson said she knew that stereotypes about Black women might get her judged more harshly, but she had learned that one of the hard things about being a boss is asking your employees to do things they don’t want to do. “As someone who does comedy where you want everyone to feel good, you’re like, oh, I’m the problem?” she said, laughing at herself.Miranda Priestly isn’t as far from her as she used to be. “It’s really tough to be a boss,” she said, “because you have to accept you are going to piss people off.” More

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      in Music

      A Violinist on How to Empower Asian Musicians

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      Jennifer Koh, an acclaimed soloist, calls on classical music to make space for artists of Asian descent, who remain marginalized in the field.I have not been surprised by the recent violence toward Asian Americans. I palpably remember being afraid when I was a child in Illinois, in the 1980s.At that time, Japan was seen as a looming economic force invading the United States. In 1982, Vincent Chin, a Chinese American man, was beaten to death by two white men who thought he was Japanese, here to steal American jobs. The perpetrators received a $3,000 fine and probation for killing a man who looked like my father. The message was clear: Asian American lives had little value.This message trickled down to my elementary school, where my classmates broke eggs into my hair and hit me on an almost daily basis for five years because I was not white. And yet I was grateful to be Asian American. After all, we were the model minority.This myth that all Asian Americans are quiet, diligent and successful was invented to pit minority groups against each other, making racism palatable by giving Asians distorted praise and falsely promising them access to the white American dream. The myth defers the kind of solidarity between minorities that could threaten entrenched racial power structures.This myth also hides truths: Currently in New York City, nearly a quarter of the Asian population lives below the poverty line; Asian immigrants have among the highest poverty rates in the city.A beneficiary of changes to American immigration policies that had placed quotas on nonwhite immigrants, I am the daughter of Korean War refugees. During her childhood, my mother witnessed horrific violence and experienced overwhelming fear and hunger. Although my family’s history is a common one for Korean Americans, it is a part of Asian American history largely ignored in this country. But perhaps even less known is what it is like to be an Asian American woman in classical music.“In the beginning of my career, I was told by an influential conductor — who had never heard me play — that I could never be a true artist.”Caitlin Ochs for The New York TimesHaving had few opportunities in their childhoods, my parents provided me with numerous extracurricular activities, one of which was violin lessons. But when I was growing up, I saw very few people in music who looked like me. In 1980, according to the League of American Orchestras, 96.6 percent of orchestral players in the country were white. At that time, the “Oriental presence in classical music,” as a New York Times article put it, was a topic of discussion.These days, Asians are often referred to as overrepresented minorities. In the League of American Orchestras’s most recent data, 86.8 percent of orchestral musicians are white and 9.1 percent are of Asian descent. Among executives in classical music, 91.7 percent are white. The percentage of ethnic Asians in these management positions is too small to be included.It is highly misleading to say that Asian Americans are overrepresented in what remains an overwhelmingly white and male field.Classical music is often called “universal,” but what does universality mean when the field was built for white men who still hold much of the power? In my nearly 30-year career, I have seen not even a handful of ethnic Asians — much less Asian American women — ascend to executive or leadership positions.I have witnessed throughout my career that those of us who are ethnically Asian but were born, raised or trained in America and Europe, are burdened with the belief that musicians of Asian descent are diligent, hard-working and technically perfect — but cannot understand the true essence of music, have no soul and ultimately cannot be true artists. In the beginning of my career, I was told by an influential conductor — who had never heard me play — that I could never be a true artist because he did not understand Chinese music and therefore Chinese people could never understand classical music.The American historian Grace Wang uses the term “innate capacity” to describe the belief that different types of music originate from, and therefore belong to, specific groups of people from specific places. The assumption that a musician can be a great interpreter of a composer because he or she is from the country where the composer once lived is often expressed, both implicitly and explicitly. Technique can be learned, according to this perspective, but the ability to truly understand the essence of classical music can only be acquired through bloodline and race.In 2007, it was revealed that Joyce Hatto, a white British pianist, had stolen recordings of other pianists — including those of Yuki Matsuzawa, a Japanese woman — and released them as her own. Tom Deacon, long considered a gatekeeper in classical music, a former record executive and a well-traveled competitions judge, had written on a classical music message board about both Hatto’s and Matsuzawa’s recordings, without knowing they were the same.Of what he believed to be Hatto, Deacon wrote: “My oh my, this is a beautiful recording of Chopin’s music. The pieces flow so naturally and so completely, without precious effects.” Hatto, he added, played “the octaves so incredibly smoothly that they seem to flow from her fingers”Of what was labeled, correctly, as Matsuzawa: “Faceless, typewriter, neat as a pin but utterly flaccid performances with small, tiny poetic gestures added like so much rouge on the face of a Russian doll.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1jiwgt1{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;margin-bottom:1.25rem;}.css-8o2i8v{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-8o2i8v p{margin-bottom:0;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-1rh1sk1{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-1rh1sk1 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-1rh1sk1 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1rh1sk1 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;text-decoration-color:#ccd9e3;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:visited{color:#333;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#ccc;text-decoration-color:#ccc;}.css-1rh1sk1 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Aside from the obvious contrast between his praise of Hatto and his loathing of Matsuzawa for the exact same performance, what fascinates me is the language. Deacon encapsulates nearly every stereotype of Asian musicians: He writes that Matsuzawa’s performances are “faceless,” while a white woman’s “flow naturally”; the Asian pianist is technically “neat as a pin,” a “typewriter,” not organically creative and only able to copy a European’s innate capacity.Classical music continues to perpetuate these and other stereotypes, including through the continued use of yellowface — white performers painted with yellow makeup and slanted eyes — in opera productions. Yellowface normalizes caricatures of Asians and fetishizes Asian women, exoticizing them through stereotypes of them as alternately submissive and hypersexual.So how can classical music empower and create space for all members of our community?Ask Asian Americans to curate programs and create work — not just about Asia, with token Lunar New Year concerts, but about our unique experiences and contributions as Americans of Asian descent.Hire and commission Asian and Asian American singers, instrumentalists, conductors and composers to break stereotypes and amplify our individualities and complexities.Mentor Asian Americans at the beginning of their musical careers. Sponsor and promote Asian Americans in arts management and administration. Recruit Asian Americans onto the boards of arts organizations.And, when you have Asian Americans on your boards, listen to them — empower them to reframe discussions about inclusion and equity, and give them the freedom to issue statements about violence against those who look like them. Learn the histories of Asian Americans and create paths to engage with all members of your community.My mentors fought for my inclusion in the classical world. It is now my responsibility to help build a more inclusive field for future generations. I invite musicians and musical institutions to create these new spaces with me and my forward-thinking colleagues. More