One of Ontiveros' most prominent early movie roles was in the 1983 Gregory Nava film "El Norte", in which she played a seamstress and maid who acts as mentor to a newly arrived immigrant girl from Guatemala. In a 2004 interview with the Dominican newspaper "Listin Diario", she called "El Norte" "the film that always will remain in me... tells the immigrants' story" when asked to name her favorite film from her long career. She played the housekeeper, Rosalita, a Spanish maid hired to assist in the packing and moving of the Walsh family in the hit adventure film "The Goonies" (1985) and a housekeeper in "Dolly Dearest" (1992). She also had a cameo appearance in "Blood in Blood Out" (1993) as Carmen, a