I loved
Jennifer Esposito’s article on Ugly Betty and the text’s discussion of the
topic of “postracism/postracial” or it’s synonym “color blind.” I thought that
Esposito made an appealing connection to how the politics of broadcast TV play
into the presidential election, i.e. Obama winning the executive branch seat.
The most
intriguing thing about the article to me is that Esposito cites the few Latin
American scholars that are in the media studies discipline in the U.S. Mary
Beltrán and Charles Berg from Texas (I believe that Beltrán was at Wisconsin,
Madison, at the time this article was written (2009)) and Chon Noriega from
UCLA. All three are a part of the Latino/a SCMS Caucus. Berg and Noriega are the founders of
the caucus. I am a part of the caucus as a member. Obviously I am not a caucus
officer. Here is the list of officers: https://www.cmstudies.org/members/group_content_view.asp?group=66723&id=512857
Here is a video about the forming of the
caucus: https://vimeo.com/135666194
The article
spoke to me on questions about affirmative action. It has to be in place for
the difficulties that other minorities have had earning a place in the academy.
My Abuelo moved here in the late 50s after being a fisherman in Chile for
several years. He worked at LAX during the day. Loading and unloading and baggage.
He attended night classes. The professor at one of the night classes told him
that he would do everything in his power to make sure that my Abuelo did not
pass his class. He did not complete the course, nor did he graduate from the
community college. My Abuelo was regularly called a “spic” in LA. Ironically, a
lot of this happened in and around the academy.
It is
incumbent upon Latinos who have made it in the academy to help one another and
that is why the SCMS caucus has been created. For mentorship. They are
currently pairing up graduate students with other mentors. I know this post may
seem like a tangent, but I found it interesting that as a whole there is not a
lot of scholarship on American TV that is written by Latina/os or at least from
a Hispanic perspective. I think that the citations may indicate this.
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