Latino Programming

Roger E. Goulet’s Nov. 27 response to Dana Calvo’s article (“Applying the First Light Coat,” Nov. 20) is remarkable in that it illuminates the depth of his ignorance regarding the subject of Latino underemployment by the “Hollywood” industry.

The Spanish-language television stations he refers to mainly target viewers in Mexico, Central and South America and, to a lesser degree, immigrants from those countries living in the U.S. Americans of Latino heritage by and large do not regularly watch this programming.

Latino Americans have contributed greatly in making America what it is today. Americans of Latino heritage are part of the American fabric, and their concerns about the lack of diversity in Hollywood are very much legitimate. The basic problem with Goulet’s rationale is also reflected by the Hollywood powers that be in that they don’t consider Latino Americans as real Americans; rather, Latinos are just another bunch of foreigners.

It is that malignant mind-set that has to be abolished if there is to be equal employment opportunities by Hollywood’s present-day employers.

DAVE SILVA

Tarzana

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Just to set the record straight: 65-year-old King Leopold met his mistress--16-year-old Caroline Delacroix, already mistress of a former French army officer--in 1900, not “the 1850s.” She later became Baroness de Vaughan, proving yet again that sex is the express lane of upward mobility. Neither she nor King Leopold ever visited Africa.

This story is marvelously recounted in Adam Hochschild’s book “King Leopold’s Ghost,” along with other incidentals of King Leopold’s career--the plunder of the Belgian Congo, the related deaths of 10 million Africans in the ivory and rubber trade. Obviously, the Hollywood producer casting a “very young, very hot” babe as Leopold’s mistress decided to laser in on the really important stuff.

ROBERT W. SAWYER

Long Beach