Latinos Are Imprisoned by TV’s Color Barrier, Too

Rick Du Brow’s article (“Breaking Color Barriers,” Calendar, June 6) does a fine job of highlighting the emerging success of blacks on American prime-time television. But this otherwise excellent article about the long-overdue presence of talented African-Americans on television is marred by equating the discussion of the color barriers to the experience of black Americans. Viewing the color barrier in the black and white dichotomy that characterized race relations in the 1960s overlooks the multiethnic realities of the 1990s.

The recent civil unrest in Los Angeles demonstrates how inappropriate it is to look at 1990s America in black and white terms--there were more Latinos arrested during the disturbance than blacks, and Koreans and other Asians were some of the most victimized people.

If we are to truly speak of breaking the color barriers in American television, then we need to also look at the presence of Asian-Americans, Latinos, American Indians and other ethnic groups. When we do, what we find is that the color barrier is still every much entrenched.

The Latino experience, with which I am most familiar, is a case in point: There are no English-language Latino television programs on prime-time television, and only one or two regular Latino leads on existing shows. This, despite the fact that Latinos comprise 9% of the national population (African-Americans make up 12%), more than 25% of the state’s population and more than 40% of the population of Los Angeles, the center of the motion picture and television industry.

A regular viewer of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” I keep waiting for the episode where all the Latinos in the universe are wiped out by some horrible intergalactic disease. I know something like this must have happened, because I’ve only seen one or two Latino walk-bys in all the many episodes I have watched. The sad truth is that when it comes to prime-time television, aliens from outer space, dinosaurs and hand puppets get more air time than Latinos.

Opportunities in American television remain stalled for Latinos (and other minorities), due in part to the fact that they are inordinately underemployed in the television and motion picture industry.

A recent study by the Directors Guild of America underscores this fact. The report (released April 20) reveals that the number of days worked by Latino directors increased from only 1% of all TV and film work done in 1983 to a staggering 1.3% in 1991. An increase of only a third of 1% in almost a decade!

Conditions are not much different in the other two major Hollywood guilds.

In the same period as covered by the DGA report (1983-91), the number of days worked for Latino members of the Screen Actors Guild varied from 4% to 3%. For Latinos in the Writers Guild of America, the percentage of Latinos employed as writers during the period 1982-1987 for any given year was less than one-half of 1%!

Yet, Nielsen’s Hispanic People Meter Survey of TV viewership in Latino households reveals a pattern similar to that of black American viewers, a pattern that should encourage producers of prime-time television to cultivate Latino talent and programs the way they have African-Americans. In the Los Angeles area, Latinos watch an average of 57 hours, 58 minutes of television a week, compared to 47 hours a week watched by viewers overall.

In recent years, films like Greg Nava’s “El Norte,” Luis Valdez’s “La Bamba,” Moctesuma Esparza’s “Milagro Beanfield War,” Cheech Marin’s “Born in East L.A.,” Ramon Menendez’s “Stand and Deliver” and more recently Edward James Olmos’ “American Me” have demonstrated the wealth of talented Latino writers, directors, producers and actors. So why don’t we see more Latinos on prime-time television?

Not until we view breaking the color barrier as something that must cut across all color lines--Latino, Asian, American Indian and black--can we hope to achieve television entertainment that reflects the full spectrum of the American experience.