Must Reads: ‘Roma’ star Yalitza Aparicio is so much more than her Oscar fairy tale

It’s a story that reads like a fairy tale: Yalitza Aparicio, a young teaching college student, attends a casting call in her hometown of Tlaxiaco, Mexico, at the urging of her older sister. ‘Roma’s’ Alfonso Cuarón shows us the Mexico City streets that shaped his Oscar-nominated film » Since the announcement, Aparicio has been on a whirlwind of red carpets and press appearances in both Mexico and the U.S. “This was something,” she says, still looking as if she’s absorbing the news, “I just never expected.” The narrative that has largely come to define the actress in this avalanche of media coverage has been that of small-town innocent who is plucked from obscurity to the great acclaim of Hollywood. “If I could get a child to really love what they do, and then when I meet him again, he says, ‘Hello, Teacher, I’m a doctor,’ or ‘I’m an engineer,’” she says, “it would bring tears to my eyes to know that I was part of that process.” In August 2016 she received her pedagogical degree from an area teacher’s college, Escuela Normal Experimental Presidente Lázaro Cárdenas in Putla, about an hour’s drive from Tlaxiaco — just one month before Cuarón invited her to appear in the film. In fact, in the nearly 90-year history of the Academy Awards, only two indigenous actors have been nominated for acting awards, both as supporting actors: Chief Dan George, who played the kindly Old Lodge Skins in the 1970 Dustin Hoffman farce “Little Big Man,” and Graham Greene, who portrayed Kicking Bird, a curious 19th-century Lakota holy man, in Kevin Costner’s 1990 drama “Dances With Wolves.” The only known indigenous person to win an Academy Award is singer Buffy Sainte-Marie, who won for original song in 1983, for co-writing “Up Where We Belong,” the theme from “An Officer and a Gentleman.” Films produced and starring indigenous people — among them, well-known indies such as Chris Eyre’s 1998 tragicomedy “Smoke Signals” and the critically acclaimed “Atanarjuat,” Zacharias Kunuk’s 2001 family drama inspired by Inuit legend — have been largely overlooked. “I don’t have children,” says Aparicio, “but you try to have an understanding of that pain.” Oscar nominations deliver milestones for Netflix’s ‘Roma,’ Marvel’s ‘Black Panther’ » Yalitza Aparicio has been on a whirlwind of red carpets for “Roma.” She marked her 25th birthday at a Hollywood premiere last year, as Alfonso Cuarón watches.