NHMC Fights For Positive Media Portrayals of Latinos

[SOURCE: Latin American Herald Tribune, AUTHOR: Yasmin Rincon] 7/23/10

No longer just the bad guys, criminals or drug traffickers, "We're still not where we want to be, but we have changed the numbers and the realities, we have Agreements of Understanding with the CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX networks, and every year there are more Latinos in front of and behind the cameras."

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA -- Alex Nogales, president of the National Hispanic Media Coalition, has battled for more than 20 years to raise the image of Latinos in public opinion.

"It was always unacceptable to us that, with Hispanics making up 15 percent of the country's population, we didn't have more of a say in U.S. television network programming. If they did include us it was generally with negative stereotypes - we tended to be the bad guys, criminals and drug traffickers," Nogales said in an interview with Efe.

Born to a family of poor Mexican immigrants who picked and packed cotton, melons and tomatoes in California's croplands, Nogales was aware of discrimination from the time he was a tot.

"My father was a dreamer and my mother the general's wife, and as the years passed I became my father, who always told me that to achieve real progress it was necessary to make changes in society. He told me that the foundation of everything was in education and knowledge," the 66-year-old activist said.

"I also have a lot of my mother because I learned to turn those dreams into reality," he said.

After feeling the rejection of Latinos on California farms, where he grew up reading signs that said "No Mexicans, No Dogs," or at school, where the whites got ready for college and the Latinos prepared to be carpenters, Nogales found himself in a permanent struggle to find his place.

He worked as a fruit packer, a house painter and a carpenter's assistant. He enlisted in the U.S. Army and spent three years at a base in Germany.

While he was a soldier he also belonged to a theater group.

"When I came back from the Army I didn't know what to do. I finally took up my studies again and graduated from UCLA in 1973 as a movie and television writer," he said.

For 13 years he worked as a producer at CBS television network. "But one day I knew I had to do something more," he said.

That was why in 1983 he launched, together with other Latinos, a movement to pressure the networks into hiring more Hispanics for work both in front of and behind the cameras.

"We're still not where we want to be, but we have changed the numbers and the realities, we have Agreements of Understanding with the CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX networks, and every year there are more Latinos in front of and behind the cameras. Our stereotype has been changing too," Nogales said.

"Having Latinos on national news programs, or series like 'The George Lopez Show' and 'Ugly Betty' didn't happen by accident - it took a lot of pressure and we're going keep it up," he said.

The goal for this fighter now is to eliminate the hate speech against Latinos that is heard on radio and television.

"I continue to believe, as my father said, that it's necessary to change society to have a better world. And I go on doing, as my mother did, all that I can and all that's necessary to achieve it. I'm not going to give up in the attempt," he said.