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A vintage television set displays a man in a suit at a microphone against a color test pattern
Art by Randy Pollak
Short Read,

Dreaming In Color

A young Mexican inventor imagined a more vibrant world. Then he created it.

By Mary Kate Frank
From the October 2026 Issue

Learning Objective: Students will read a short informational text, then craft a constructed response that includes a claim, text evidence, and commentary.

Lexile: 920L
Featured Skill: Constructed Response,

Standards

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Every day, colors flash at you from screens: a game character’s electric-blue hair, a flaming-orange sunset in a movie, the vivid red of a football team’s jerseys. 

Color on a screen is so normal now that you hardly even notice it. But today’s displays have come a long way. Not so long ago, televisions were the only screens in many homes. Families gathered around glowing boxes that showed the world only in black, white, and shades of gray.

In the 1930s and 1940s, engineers around the world were racing to do something that seemed magical: bring color to the moving images on TV screens. One of those engineers was a young Mexican inventor named Guillermo González Camarena. He didn’t have a team of helpers or a lot of money. What he did have was determination and a strong belief that Mexico could color its own future.

Little Kid, Big Ideas

González Camarena was born on February 17, 1917, in Guadalajara, a city in Mexico. His family soon moved to the country’s capital, Mexico City. From an early age, he had a gift for mechanics. By 7, he was already building electrically powered devices, including an alarm that warned of earthquakes. 

González Camarena’s family benefited from his know-how too. In the early 1900s, Mexico City’s electricity was unreliable—entire neighborhoods could go dark without warning. So González Camarena built a small generator to provide electricity when the power was out in his home. 

Over the next several years, González Camarena filled his basement with salvaged tools and parts. At 13, he enrolled in a technical school (a technical school teaches hands-on skills for specific careers). Professors there were already experimenting with early TV systems. Inspired, González Camarena ordered TV parts from the United States and used them to help build his first TV camera, a device that captures live images and sends them to a screen. 

“I dream in black and white,” he later remarked. But he was already thinking about how to change that.

Against the Odds

Marshall Woźniak/Visions 4 Magazine

Early color TV sets in the U.S. cost up to $1,000—equal to several months’ salary for most families at the time.

González Camarena was working on improving TV at a time when the technology was new. The first public TV demonstration took place in London in 1926. Black-and-white sets began appearing in living rooms in the U.S. and Europe during the 1930s. Engineers in both places were experimenting with color, but the systems were complex and expensive. 

González Camarena was not an engineer at a fancy company lab. He was a young inventor in Mexico, building with whatever parts he could find. Still, he came up with a cheaper way to bring color to TVs.

His system used spinning disks fitted with color filters. One disk went in front of a TV camera. Another could be attached to any black-and-white TV set. The disks spun so quickly that separate flashes of color blended into a color image on the screen.

In 1940, when he was just 23, González Camarena received a Mexican patent for his invention. His was one of the earliest patents in the world for a color TV system.

Racing Toward Color

Shutterstock.com

Every February 17, Mexico celebrates the Day of the Inventor in González Camarena’s honor.

As González Camarena worked on his invention, engineers in the U.S. raced toward color too. American companies even tried to buy his idea. He turned them all down. He wanted his country to shape the future of TV first.

In 1954, the U.S. became the first country to establish regular color broadcasting. Yet González Camarena was undaunted. He continued pursuing his dream. 

And in January 1963, his hard work paid off. For the first time, a Mexican TV station broadcast in color using his invention. On that day, curious crowds gathered in front of television sets displayed in store windows. The program that afternoon was a kids’ show called Paraíso Infantil, or “Children’s Paradise.” Entertainers burst across TV screens in brilliant hues. 

Mexico’s first color broadcast came just nine years after the U.S.’s. And color TV wouldn’t arrive in Europe until 1967.

The Full Impact

González Camarena died in a car crash in 1965 and never got to see the full impact of his work­—but his brilliance lived on. In 1979, NASA used a color system similar to his to photograph Jupiter. The spectacular pictures showed swirling clouds of warm orange and brown, as well as the planet’s famous Great Red Spot. 

González Camarena, the man who had originally dreamed in black and white, had now helped reveal a universe of blazing color.

Short Write: Constructed Response

How did Guillermo González Camarena show determination and love for his country through his work as an inventor? Answer this question in a well-organized paragraph. Use text evidence. 

This article was originally published in the October 2026 issue.

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