Latino creators: ‘Just open the door’
Hollywood groups foster solidarity and bridge talent, execs
The outrage was instant and loud. And warranted.
No Latino creatives appeared in any of the major categories when nominations for the 72nd Emmy Awards were announced last week. How is that even possible, people raged, especially given “One Day at a Time’s” tongue-in-cheek laughs, “Vida’s” queer joy and “Los Espookys’” oddball humor?
The erasure of Latinos is not exactly news, though. Over the last five years, 82% of nominees in 19 Primetime Emmy categories were white. A mere 1% were Latino.
As the subsequent backlash to this year’s nominations reignites debate about Hollywood’s failure to represent Latino characters on-screen, a movement toward inclusion behind the camera is taking place behind the scenes.
One morning in 2015, about 20 Latinas took up every single chair on Gloria Calderon Kellett’s patio — and she had made turkey burgers for everyone.
The Latina TV Writers Brunch Group began that very day at the “One Day at a Time” showrunner’s house, and today it includes about 155 members. Co-founder Judalina Neira is amazed that the group has multiplied fivefold.
“I think that’s such a testament to the explosion of growth and the representation that we’re gaining,” she said. “It’s still not enough, but we’re gaining.”
Neira’s group, which she co-founded with fellow TV writer Diana Mendez, was inspired by Black Women Who Brunch and a similar group for Black men in the industry. In turn, La Lista, the Latina TV Writers Brunch Group’s online talent directory, inspired the Latinx Directors co-founders who recently launched their own database.
From La Lista to the Latinx Directors
database to the inaugural Latinx TV List, the vastly underrepresented community is collaborating throughout Hollywood to bridge Latino talent with executives and producers — and to foster solidarity among one another.
“Our purpose is really to get us into the rooms where our voices can be heard, where our unique point of views can be heard, where our experiences can be heard,” Mendez said. “And keep us in those rooms and keep us moving up the ranks long enough to take ownership of those stories and be in charge of the rooms.”
La Lista answers the question “Where are the Latino/a writers?,” which the duo often hears floating around the industry. The list began as an internal resource to keep the group organized, but soon enough others began to ask for it.
Although the list has led to getting Latina writers in front of showrunners, the women still see a trend: Black and brown writers are asked to repeat the same level over and over. That is, they’re barred from climbing the ladder toward becoming showrunners.
At the same time, just 4.7% of screenwriters are Latino, even though Latinos make up 18.3% of the U.S. population. A solution to that disparity lies in who’s hiring.
“We feel that putting writers of color in positions of authority, and in hiring positions specifically, leads to more people of color being hired regardless of their ethnicity,” Neira said.
Neira works as a co-executive producer on the upcoming Netflix show “Girls on the Bus.” Mendez is a coproducer on “The Rookie.” Neither one is interested in perpetuating Latino stereotypes on-screen. According to a USC Annenberg report, 24% of all Latino characters in the top films of 2017-2018 were depicted as lawbreakers. “The whole reason why I wanted to become a writer was because I was sick of seeing the same cholos, vatos, the maid, and that’s it, as far as Latino characters, Latinos being the criminals,” Mendez said. “There is a very strong activist blood running through the veins of all of our members.”
Latinx Directors co-founder and “Arrow” director Joel Novoa pointed out that, because the LA Latino community spans so many cultural identities, those differences can cause friction at times.
“It’s such a diverse culture that I think that’s one of our strengths, and at the same time, it’s one of our weaknesses,” he said. “Because what can become a strength of all of us being united, at the same time, makes us all work separated.”
But those facets are beginning to draw together. When writer and producer Carolina Paiz, the wife of Latinx Directors co-founder Diego Velasco, showed him La Lista’s website, the “Orange Is the New Black” TV director was inspired. He took the idea for a related database to Anthony Belli, the third co-founder, and Novoa in April 2019, and Latinx Directors was born.
“Just open the door,” Velasco said. “I’m not asking for anything extra. Just give us a shot, and I promise you will not — you won’t realize the spice you didn’t have in your life until you work with us. And let us bring our spice to the work that we’ve done.”
One way to crack that door ajar is through amplification — and tantalizing deals. Hulu, the Black List and an array of partner organizations did just that with the inaugural Latinx TV List, which was announced at the end of June.
Writer and producer Paloma Martinez’s script, “El Borde,” or “The Edge,” — a story about the environment, mutation and cultural fusion — was one of 10 selected. Beatrice Springborn, Hulu’s vice president of content, reached out to propose that the streaming giant meet with all 10 writers — and offer a script deal to two of them.
“The first word that comes to mind is recognition,” Martinez said. “We’ve been there: We’ve been writing, we’ve been hustling, we’ve been working our way up in the ranks, from assistants up to executives. Especially being a woman of color, being BIPOC, LGBTQIA, is like when if you’re not what the industry is used to, they tend to want someone to vet you.”
And vet the scripts they did. Latino writers submitted scripts through the Black List, a screenplay-rating platform, which read them for quality then passed on a select group to the Latin Tracking Board, the National Association of Latino Independent Producers (NALIP), Remezcla and the Untitled Latinx Project (ULP) to evaluate.
“Boom,” said Black List founder Franklin Leonard. “Here’s a bunch of great scripts. Not only can the Black List validate their quality, but these other organizations in the Latinx community can vouch for their excitement about this version of representation in the community.”