Latino Awards Battle Stereotypes

Jimmy Smits, the actor who plays the dashing Det. Bobby Simone on the popular TV drama “NYPD Blue,” doesn’t mince words.

“The representation of Latinos in the media today is abysmal,” said Smits, a half-Puerto Rican actor who is active in the Latino entertainment community.

But that’s not what he wants to talk about.

After all, the disproportionately negative images on TV of Latinos and other minority groups has been common knowledge for years now. Study after study has shown that minorities have been under-represented when it comes to TV programming.

The 1998 fall season’s announced lineup left little room for doubt. Once again, Latinos are going to be a rare commodity on prime-time TV, despite efforts by a number of Latino TV writers and directors to get their projects on the air.

Language and cultural differences among U.S. Latinos are sometimes cited as reasons why Latino-centric programming can’t achieve the critical mass of viewers required for a hit TV show. The diverse Latino culture--including the disparate backgrounds of Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cubans and Central Americans--also makes it more difficult to distill for mainstream America.

Meanwhile, TV executives and advertisers continue wrestling with an already large Latino population that is the fastest-growing of any ethnic group in the U.S. and has vast purchasing power. Latino actors are making inroads in supporting roles, but most depictions continue to paint a mostly one-sided picture.

A recent study, released last month by the Oakland-based children’s advocacy organization Children Now, found that children of all races say the media tends to portray blacks and Latinos more negatively than whites and Asians.

To Smits and others who are actively trying to address that issue in the Latino entertainment community, that’s old news. The real news is what some Latinos are doing to change that.

Enter the ALMA (American Latino Media Arts) Awards, a televised ceremony to honor the achievements of Latinos in television, film and the music industries, as well as TV programming and feature films that accurately portray the U.S. Latino experience.

“The ALMA Awards deal with the fact that the Latino performer and the Latino in this country is a significant part of the mosaic of what this country’s all about,” said Smits, who co-hosts the awards with Daisy Fuentes. This year’s event marks the third year for the program, moving to ABC after last year’s stint on Fox. (The two-hour show airs tonight at 8.)

“Our goal is to mix entertainment with mission by underscoring the need to change current media perceptions and representations of Hispanic Americans,” said the show’s producer, Grammy Awards veteran Ken Ehrlich.

Raul Yzaguirre, president of the National Council of La Raza, a Washington-based civil rights and advocacy organization that founded the ALMA Awards (formerly the Bravo Awards), said his organization created the program for a number of reasons, one of which is building bridges between Latinos and non-Latinos in the U.S.

“This show is not just for Hispanics,” Yzaguirre said. “We’re saying, ‘This is who we are as a people,’ and it behooves Joe Average to know the Hispanic community, because we’re going to be your neighbor, your employee, your customer.”

U.S. Latinos suffer from a serious public relations problem, Yzaguirre said, citing a recent poll conducted by the University of Michigan.

“Americans perceived Hispanics to be lazy when in fact we work harder and longer than any other group in the U.S.,” he said. “They also perceive us as being less patriotic, when we spill more blood and receive more Medals of Honor, proportionately, than any other group in America.

“There is a direct link between civil rights, politics and entertainment,” Yzaguirre continued. “One of the reasons we got into this arena is that when we were trying to move a civil rights agenda forward, we noticed that no matter how many facts and figures we brought to the table, the myths and stereotypes were roadblocks.”

It’s a sobering realization that other minority groups have had to make, as well.

African Americans have been battling negative media images for nearly 30 years now, through its own televised awards program, the NAACP Image Awards, which salutes musicians, actors and fiction writers. Other Latino organizations have also hosted smaller entertainment and image awards dinners in the past. And last month marked the first Native American Music Awards.

But the television industry follows the mandates of capitalism, not equal representation--which may be why the NCLR had trouble finding a home for the program on network TV. After approaching CBS, NBC and ABC about airing the program and finding a decided lack of interest, the NCLR ended up buying a block of time on ABC, and selling the advertising itself to cover the cost. Sponsors include AT&T;, PepsiCo and FritoLay.

“It was a tough sell,” Yzaguirre said of his efforts to attract major advertisers. In fact, one major roadblock Yzaguirre says he repeatedly confronted was the perception that most Latinos watch only Spanish-language TV, or that if they are already watching English-language programming, advertisers don’t have to make a special effort to reach them.

“Don’t assume general English-language ads have any relevance to most Hispanics,” Yzaguirre says he told them.

By extension, he said, just because the top-rated programs in Latino households often mirror the most popular programs in the country, it shouldn’t be assumed that Latino viewers are happy with the current state of programming.

It’s a sentiment Smits shares.

“I’m not saying everybody needs to be this PC shining knight,” said Smits. “But we need to level the playing field so that we are not solely getting negative stereotypes.”