Mi Gente
Photo by Militza Molina
I’m not ashamed to say that I’m partly responsible for the million plus views the Super Bowl LIV halftime show garnered on YouTube after falling in love with the electric performance (and, in my humble opinion, one of the best half time shows ever) put on last month by Shakira, Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, and J Balvin, the quintessential amalgam of veteran and emerging artists, making my screen look like the Latin Grammy’s. I grew up listening to both J. Lo and Shakira, singing and dancing to “Love Don’t Cost a Thing” in my living room alongside my sisters with the music video playing on the television, or attempting and failing to shake my hips like Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie.” I shared my admiration for these two Latinas with my Hispanic friends as well, so it meant the world to me to see two Latinas entertaining the country the way they had done for me my whole life. I couldn’t stop watching their sets on my phone, awestruck by the Afro-Colombian dances Shakira introduced to the stage that night, reveling in the thought that the world had also witnessed this magic, which captured how much Latinos contribute to the world with their talent and art. As a fellow Latina—half Ecuadorian, half Puerto Rican—watching these women perform at one of the biggest and most iconic shows in entertainment filled me with pride, acceptance, and excitement. And it was all happening in Miami! It felt good to see my culture represented in an American space and it gave me chills when my boyfriend pointed out that two of our son’s cultures (my Puerto Rican side, his Colombian’s) were represented that night. I wish my son was a little bit older so he could understand how unprecedented that night was, however, I’m content in knowing that I’ll share with him the video of the first halftime show generated from the deal Jay-Z struck with the NFL, which in part involves curating the entertainment for the games. I’m so grateful to him for choosing two Latin superstars to co-headline the show, two women who are proud of their heritage, who have dutifully represented their respective cultures throughout their storied careers, and who have given us so many great hits over the years. I thought it was enough that J. Lo and Shakira would be performing, and of course, I was imagining who they might bring out on stage, but I wasn’t thinking outside the box, so it was the biggest shock of my life when Shakira began singing the chorus to “I Like It” and Bad Bunny—a phenomenal artist who with his debut album already has a classic—popped up on stage to sing his verse and then later when J Balvin—a global artist who hasn’t faltered in his decision to sing in his native language when collaborating with English-speaking musicians—appeared alongside Jennifer. It made perfect sense that the two biggest Latin superstars right now would be present on such a historical night to help elucidate aspects of our culture; I’m thankful the rest of the country experienced our music, our dances, our language, our flag and the message of bringing our culture to the forefront as J Balvin and Bad Bunny carried their message of “Latino Gang” to the masses. With the fusion of urban, hip hop, and Latin pop on display, the performers took advantage of an ephemeral moment to initiate an impactful and pivotal stand to promote the celebration of our cool culture that will live on forever; it was beautiful to see unity and diversity working in synchronicity and it was emotional because rarely do we see ourselves on screen.
It’s 2020 and I don’t see nearly enough Latino representation in Hollywood as there should be—neither women nor men of Hispanic background are cast in leading roles at the frequency that white actors are hired—and Hollywood, an industry run by white executives, is guilty of white washing Latino characters in past movies like West Side Story, The Mask of Zorro, Scarface, preferring to hire actors that look like them rather than provide a minority an opportunity to work and gain wealth. I found an article in The New York Times, “Latinos Are Underrepresented in Hollywood, Study Finds” that supports the notion that there is a dearth of Latinos in entertainment:
The Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California released a study […] that found that of the 100 top-grossing films each year from 2007 to 2018, only three percent featured Latino actors in lead or co-lead roles. Producers and casting executives fared badly, too, with Latinos making up only three percent. And they were equally rare in the director’s chair, helming four percent of movies studied during the 12-year period. In all, only 4.5 percent of the 47,268 speaking roles studied by researchers went to Latino actors.
The numbers reflected in this study shock and infuriate me and show how little progress there has been in hiring Latino talent in all areas of the entertainment industry, an industry that is responsible for reflecting the experiences of the people that make up this country. The scarcity of roles for Brown people was blatantly obvious by the faces on my screen, but it was nothing I questioned as a teen because I was oblivious to how the world worked, never stopping to think why there wasn’t an array of characters that looked more like me. Growing up in the 90’s and 2000’s, my favorite TV shows were largely Black or white casts, maybe a Latino would pop up here or there to serve a stereotypical role like a maid or a criminal, but rarely did I see a Latino in the lead role, which is why films like Selena which was about an authentic Mexican-American family was so great, but there haven’t been a ton of movies like that since. I only remember the Disney Channel original movie Gotta Kick It Up! that centered around a group of Latinas, and two sitcoms that followed Latino families: Taina on Nickelodeon and George Lopez on ABC. Normally, if I wanted to see Spanish people on my TV I had to switch the channel to Univision to catch my favorite novelas. As a Hispanic born and raised in America, I think it should’ve been common to see people that looked, talked and acted like me, my family, my friends not just for me, but for my white friends so that they might better understand my culture the way I was assimilated into theirs. That’s why watching all those Latino performers at the Super Bowl was important because we haven’t had the opportunity to show up before, and that’s all we need: Opportunity. That also means dispersing the acting jobs, the directing, the writing to different creators because to be Latino means to come from varied backgrounds. We don’t all look and talk the same, but the industry doesn’t foster growth. They don’t want to share their wealth with minorities. In 2014 Chris Rock wrote an essay for The Hollywood Reporter titled “It’s a White Industry” where he discussed being a person of color in the entertainment industry better known as the white industry:
Now I'm not Murphy, but I've done fine. And I try to help young black guys coming up […] I'd do the same for a young white guy, but here's the difference: Someone's going to help the white guy. Multiple people will. The people whom I've tried to help, I'm not sure anybody was going to help them. But forget whether Hollywood is black enough. A better question is: Is Hollywood Mexican enough? You're in L.A, you've got to try not to hire Mexicans.
This was written in 2014 and today the industry repeatedly makes racist choices when they don’t hire us. Racism baffles me. I’ll never understand how someone can hate anyone based solely on the color of their skin; nevertheless, hatred is taught and passed down through generations visible everywhere from minorities having to work twice as hard as their white counterpart and still being overlooked for a promotion, to lacking recognition at award shows, to white supremacists protesting in the streets. The racism and nepotism that runs Hollywood is the reason there is such a vast lack of opportunity. Thankfully, with the expansion of platforms such as Netflix and Hulu we are getting more shows with representation; however, it’s still an extremely slow process for people of color to get on big networks and enter the world of Hollywood. So, the answer to more representation does not lie in waiting for a white industry to see us. We must do the work and write our own stories.
In response to only a handful of English-language programs featuring Latino actors or characters, Isabel Molina-Guzman, a professor of media and cinema studies, explained in “Latinos on TV: Where are they?” that “to create real change, we need to encourage this generation – which is itself extremely diverse and sensitive to these issues – to pursue creative careers, to become writers, directors, producers. That is the change that needs to happen to improve and broaden the representation for Latinos and other minority groups.” I agree. There is power in seeing yourself in stories, there is power in creativity, authenticity, art, which is why we need to not only encourage and suggest, but to urge, empower, inspire and galvanize this generation—especially any individual with a proclivity for creativity— to lend their voices, thoughts, talents to picking up a pen, a camera, an instrument, anything that is going to help channel their vision onto a canvas that can heal, motivate, and provide escapism. I don’t believe this conversation of inclusion for Latinos is loud enough or, most importantly, frequent enough, and I want to see more progress not only in talk but in actions starting with myself in the stories I write, which will always star characters that delineate my culture, forgoing the ideology that has been ingrained in this country that white is best. With a president who wants to “Keep America Great” by keeping minorities out, now is the time to push our cool and beautiful culture forward. We have to create our own stories, and write ourselves in.
Chamberlain, Craig. “Latinos on TV: Where are they? And when should we laugh?” Illinois.edu, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2018. https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/680946.
Holson, Laura M. “Latinos Are Underrepresented in Hollywood, Study Finds.” The New York Times, 2019. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/movies/latinos-hollywood- .
Rock, Chris. “Chris Rock Pens Blistering Essay on Hollywood’s Race Problem: ‘It’s a White Industry.’” The Hollywood Reporter, 2014. https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/top-five-filmmaker-chris-rock-753223.