Greenlighting Latinidad
From left, Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón, Rubén Albarrán, Alex Cuba, Pedrito Martinez (center, back), Tito Puente, Jr., Milly Quezada and Leslie Grace during the 36th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards at the Kennedy Center on September 7, 2023 in Washington, D.C. Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images, courtesy of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation
Leading Latino politicians and artists call for a Hollywood reckoning
Words by Marisa Arbona-Ruiz, @MarisaArbona. Edited by Ricardo Sandoval-Palos, @ricsand.
Outside it’s a classic, balmy summer night in Washington, D.C. Inside the capital’s landmark Kennedy Center, the cool marble halls are lit up by the electric energy of Latino artists and entertainers.
Luminaries and changemakers in the arts, food and culture are working the red carpet of one of the nation’s most prestigious Latino cultural events of the year, the 36th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards, celebrating their trailblazing, international impact.
I’ve been to countless awards shows in the many years I’ve reported on Latino culture, and there is something inherently thrilling about the Hispanic Heritage Awards: The night moves on a collective brilliance of the guests and honorees; and the show entertains, inspires, and feeds the soul. On this night, colorful figures in film, music, media and the culinary worlds share their talent, and stories of hope and perseverance.
Mexican rock band Café Tacvba, from left, Enrique Rangel Arroyo, Emmanuel del Real, Joselo Rangel and Rubén Albarrán in the back, at the 36th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards. Photo by Leigh Vogel/Getty Images, courtesy of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation
Among them: rapper "Wisin" (Juan Luis Morera Luna), the iconic Mexican rock band Café Tacvba, the director and cast members of the Latino-centric movie “Blue Beetle,” NBCUniversal News Group chair Cesar Conde; chef Pati Jinich of PBS’ “Pati’s Mexican Table;” the Garza clan of Siete Family Foods fame; and a roster of musicians and actors including Omar Apollo, Leslie Grace, Milly Quezada, Alex Cuba, Richard "Crazy Legs" Colón (who couldn’t help but dance through interviews); John Leguizamo, Francia Raisa, Constance Marie, Annie Gonzalez, and the sensational percussionists Tito Puente, Jr. and Pedrito Martinez.
Beating the odds and stepping it up
Tonatiuh Elizarraraz at the 36th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards. Photo by David Garza, courtesy of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation
Because of the Writers Guild and SAG-AFTRA strikes, nobody talks about their current production projects, and that leaves ample room for another, critical conversation: “Representation in Hollywood is very much needed, and Latin talent, and Latin stories,” actor Tonatiuh Elizarraraz, of ABC’s “Promised Land” told palabra. “We’re not a monolith. We’re not a genre. We’re fully formed people who love, who dream,” he added, turning on a wide smile. “And we don’t all have quinceañeras!” Jokes aside, he calls out what he says is a devaluation of Latinos and excuses by studios and networks. “I don’t know how much more we can prove to them. Every time we do it, we break box offices. So, they have to take leaps of faith and not market things as strictly Latin shows. We are people who just happen to be Latin.”
You wouldn’t know by our representation in Hollywood (and other cultural centers) that Hispanics/Latinos are about 19% of the United States population — or, nearly one in five U.S. residents. Think about it: In every U.S. film and television series, how many Latinos can you count among the principal and supporting talent? And, how many Hollywood films and TV series are actually about Latinos, and/or written with Latino perspectives? Not even close to that one in five.
“Blue Beetle” director Ángel Manuel Soto tells me he’s struck by “the resistance to see us, to have us be heroes, to tell our stories the way we want.” Growing up without seeing Latino role models on screen, he never imagined somebody like himself could ever make Hollywood movies.
Ángel Manuel Soto at the 36th Annual Hispanic Heritage Awards. Photo by David Garza, courtesy of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation
“It doesn’t compute… You have a movie where in half the movie they’re speaking Elvish, a made-up language with subtitles, and no one cares. But, if it’s a Latino movie, you’re throwing a fit. It’s very telling, and it’s unfortunate … We can find intersectionality between us. We’re more alike than we think.”
A recent study by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office (GAO) on underrepresentation that was requested by Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) reveals that Latinos represent a dismal 4% of media management positions. That leaves little opportunity for accurate and authentic Latino storytelling.
“Our stories have been systematically excluded from Hollywood and the American media, which are the dominant image-creating and narrative-defining institutions in our nation,” Castro said upon the report’s publication. With Latinos being avid movie-goers (42% saying they "go to the movies sometimes" compared to 31% whites, 33% Blacks and 26% Asians, according to Statistica), there are no excuses.
Findings by University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, reported that “across 1,300 top grossing films from 2007 to 2019, just 3.5% of lead roles went to Hispanic or Latino actors or actresses” with Latinas faring poorly. And, in more than 40% of those films there were no Latino characters at all. Castro, like others, knows how images drive public perception. He calls this invisibility a “black hole” in a narrative “where stereotypes and bigotry can fester.” To his point, of the 100 top box office films in 2019 where Latinos were represented, “nearly 40% of top-billed Hispanic and Latino characters were depicted as criminals or ex-convicts.” Furthering the trend in invisibility is the Library of Congress’ National Film Registry. This year Castro submitted 27 Latino film recommendations to Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden. The registry selects 25 films each year “showcasing the range and diversity” of American filmmaking. The LA Times reports that out of 850 titles, only 24 are Latino films. That's 2.82%.
Mass dehumanization is a social justice issue
Latinos are not alone in this void. How many films have you seen where the criminals, pimps, drug dealers and gangbangers are not just Latinos, but Blacks and Asians? Conversely, the same communities are more likely to be portrayed as subservient workers including gardeners, maids and nannies. Women are meek or they’re prostitutes. Asian characters also are often killed off by violence; and like Latinos, depicted as a foreign peril. Portrayals of Indigenous peoples abound as wild and unintelligent savages lacking civilizations — or sadly, as a people of the past (implying extinction). Symbolic annihilation and mocking, and disparaging portrayals have been tools of a toxic, racist trade.
The data company behind the Billboard charts, Luminate, publishes its own Entertainment Diversity Progress Report. Of all films released in 2022, “Everything, Everywhere, All At Once” increased Asian main actors to 7.7%, yet Asian narratives were just 1.8% of films. Only three films centered on Indigenous stories “in a way that wasn’t exploitative or tokenized” and 1.7% of main actors were Indigenous. While films with one main Black actor increased by 30.1%, Black narratives decreased by 16.7%. And, worse, Latin/Hispanic acting roles decreased to 7.7%, and only 0.9% of films centered on Latino narratives.
‘It was hard to believe; pitching it to people who were saying things like they thought Colombia was a TV detective.’
In television and streaming series, 15 centered on the Latin/Hispanic experience — close to just 3.1% of all such shows in 2022. Among Spanish-language series, 10 out of 11 on Netflix were imported from other countries, illustrating Hollywood’s “inability” to create roles “that aren’t tokenized or relegated to Latin/Hispanic audiences.”
Castro compares the use of repetitive, negative political campaign ads that discredit opponents to how Hollywood and the mainstream news media continuously saturate the public with harmful messaging depicting Latinos as criminals and “illegals.” There are words for that: Indoctrinating, propagandizing and negative conditioning come to mind. But Castro summed it up with just one: Dangerous. All this grooms discrimination and hate crimes.
Indeed, social neuroscience experts David Amodio (Amodio Lab, University of Amsterdam, New York University), Mina Cikara (Harvard University) and Susan Fiske (Princeton University) say prejudice affects different regions of the brain by encoding, activating and storing in memory the emotional reactions to group stereotypes. Fiske found that the act of dehumanizing activates the region in the brain associated with disgust and turns off empathy. There is good news, they say: De-conditioning is possible.
John Leguizamo’s superpower: Latinidad
After more than 100 film acting credits and his one-man Broadway show, “Latin History for Morons,” the spirited Colombia-born actor, comedian and producer is championing Latinidad, loud and proud, with his hit MSNBC docu-series “Leguizamo Does America.” His goal: Make people want to be Latino. “It took me six years to get my idea from telling the story of Latin excellence to being greenlit,” he tells the awards show audience. “It was hard to believe; pitching it to people who were saying things like they thought Colombia was a TV detective.”
John Leguizamo, left, with Cesar Conde after Conde receives the 2023 Hispanic Heritage Media Award at the Kennedy Center. Photo by Willy Sanjuan, courtesy of the Hispanic Heritage Foundation.
NBCUniversal News Group Chair Cesar Conde gave Leguizamo the green light. “With Cesar I didn’t have to explain 500 years of our history and contributions in 20 minutes … No, because he is part of that history.”
Conde was honored at the awards ceremony for his own contributions to the media landscape.
Leguizamo said the show became “the most-watched MSNBC series in its time slot...And it was the most-watched show by me in 20 years! You know why? Because it attracted broad audiences and proved what we already knew - that there is a big audience for excellent content.”
“Leguizamo Does America” has been renewed for a second season.
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Marisa Arbona-Ruiz is a bilingual Emmy and Telly Award-winning producer, journalist, and voiceover artist working in long-form storytelling for news magazines, documentaries and educational media. She has been a long-time arts and culture contributor to NBC and NPR Music and a contributing co-host of NPR's Alt.Latino podcast. Marisa advocated diversity, equity, and inclusion in her roles as Vice President of Women In Film & Video of Washington, D.C., and a Communications Co-Chair of Women in Film & Television International (WIFTI).
Ricardo Sandoval-Palos is an award-winning investigative journalist and editor whose career has spanned four decades. In May, Ricardo was named Public Editor – ombudsman – for PBS, the nation’s leading public media outlet.