Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

5-24-2019

Media’s Negative Stereotypes on Latinos: An Autoethnography

Marilyn Perea Sanchez

Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, mperea100736@laleadership.org
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Senior Capstone ℅ 2019

In this essay I wanted to be able to answer the question, how do negative stereotypes affect the

way Latino’s view themselves and how others view them? Media’s negative stereotypes on

Latinos influence self hate, discrimination, and oppressive immigration policies.

Keywords: tokenism, discrimination, stereotypes, oppressive

Acknowledgements

I want to thank my father and my mother.

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Media’s Negative Stereotypes on Latinos:An Autoethnography

Marilyn Perea Sanchez

Los Angeles Leadership Academy HS, Los Angeles, California, USA

In this essay I wanted to be able to answer the question, how do negative stereotypes affect the

way Latino’s view themselves and how others view them? Media’s negative stereotypes on

Latinos influence self hate, discrimination, and oppressive immigration policies.

The Incident

In the current time, I feel as if we are making more progress with giving

underrepresented groups an opportunity to be in the media. However, when I was younger, I

always noticed how characters in shows that I would watch had few people of color in it. For

instance, when I was six years old, I remember this day in particular because my mom had

accidentally left me by myself at home. She was in a rush because my sister had a doctor’s

appointment that morning. As soon as I heard the front door slam, I woke up and began to look

for my mom and sister. I remember waking up and being confused on why my mom had not

woken me up. Since I was six years old at the time, I had felt nervous and thought of odd

reasons why they could have not been there. For example, maybe they had disappeared or

someone had kidnapped them overnight. Eventually I realized that this could be an opportunity

for me to do whatever I want. I headed to the living room and laid on the long brown couch that

my brother usually sleeps in but he was not there to tell me to get off. I turned on the television

with the black remote control and started channel surfing. Even though I usually watch tv in the
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morning in the living room, this time it was different because there was no one to limit me from

the channels I could watch. Usually, my mom would make my sister and I watch LeapFrog

movies.

I noticed that the show Dora the Explorer was on and decided to watch it. I had heard

about this show before, but I had never paid much attention to it. Even though now it seems

silly to think that a kid’s show would had a profound impact on me, at the time I was excited to

see that a character on a kids T.V. show was bilingual, able to speak Spanish and English. I also

noticed that her skin color was different from the majority of other characters I saw on

television. I was so interested in these observations, that I decided to participate in the dynamics

of the show; I would respond to her when she would ask a question to the audience. My mother

came home fifteen minutes later, looking like she had ran a mile, and apologized for leaving me

at home. I was so entertained by the show that I completely forgot that neither of my parents or

siblings were home.

After this day, I made it my priority of mines to never miss another episode of the show. I

even made my siblings and parents watch it with me. Eventually, I found more animated kids

shows that had characters who were Latinos: Handy Mandy, Go Diego Go, Maya & Miguel, etc.

I forgot when was the last time I saw the show Dora the Explorer ; however, the show it

remains something that I cherish.

Analysis

Introduction
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Even if someone has just met you, they will most likely judge you based on your looks,

race, or gender. Though some might not like admit to doing this, it is a common habit that

people do without much second thought. Stereotypes will most likely never disappear because

each individual we meet is different from each other. I remember that I started to be more

interested in researching about this topic when my sister had randomly started ranting on about

how shows sometimes put Latino characters in their shows to pretend they are diverse (basically

tokenism). A question that emerged from my thoughts is how have stereotypes for certain

groups of individuals became so well known. Most likely through the use of media.

What exactly is media? Media is a way to communicate with others through the use of

news, television, internet, radio,etc. Anybody can get there hands on some sort of media

because it is everywhere.

Study of Focus

This essay has four key terms: discrimination (treating a certain group of people unjust

based on race, age, or sex), tokenism (the act of hiring or appointing someone from a minority

group to avoid disapproval), stereotypes (a set of characteristics that people believe represent a

certain group of people), and oppressive (unjustly harsh). Dr.Matt A. Barreto and Dr.Gary M.

Segura wrote, designed, implemented, and produced “The Impact of Media Stereotypes on

Opinions and Attitudes Towards Latinos”; Dr. Sylvia Manzano helped write and produced it.

“The Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in U.S. Media” by Frances Negrón-

Muntaner with Chelsea Abbas, Luis Figueroa, and Samuel Robson, details how the number of

people working in the industry of television or movies is low. In addition, it also talks about

how they get stereotypical roles. Jessica Sierk is a professor at St. Lawrence University. From

examining the over sexualization of Latinos and the tokenism of “the poor/ gang related” Latino
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in the media, it is clear that media’s negative stereotypes influence discrimination against

Latinos, oppressive immigration policies and self hate.

Some example of these stereotypes are “the “Latin Lover”(male) and “Harlot,” who are

sexualized, fiery, and sexually aggressive characters; the (male) criminal” (Behm-Morawitz,

2013, p.254).

Oppressive Immigration Policies

Immigration policies have been getting more strict the past couple of years. One of the

reasons for this is due to how certain groups of media portray immigrants. As indicated by Arias

& Hellmueller (2016), “News media content featuring Hispanics and Latinos not only affects

general public perception but also provokes discrimination against Hispanics-and Latinos such

as unfair immigration policies…” (p.35) The current President of the United States has said that

immigrants are criminals, rapist, and other negative things. The President is one of the most

influential people in the United States and his standpoint on immigrants has been seen by

anyone who have access to the news.

Depending on what type of news people listen to, they could be hearing these

stereotypes from news that is inaccurate. For example, “...Lou Dobbs Tonight had become a

central source for anti- immigrant and racist rhetoric, often passing o exaggeration for fact...”

(Negrón-Muntaneret al.,2014). Sierk (2015) states that the “Media is becoming increasingly

central to our collective culture as a society; therefore, it is vital that media consumers possess

the skills to critically examine it as a source of potential stereotypes and misconceptions” (p.70)

Unfortunately, some people are gullible or small minded enough to believe any news that is

being told to them and based their opinions on immigrants or any minority group because of

this.
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Discrimination

Due to ignorant and small minded individuals, Latinos face discrimination in the

workplace, and public places. For example these type of people listen to, “Conservative radio

listeners and Fox News program viewers are less familiar and less favorable toward

Latinos”(Tukachinsky et al., 2015, p.8)

According to Professor Jessica Sierk , “Metonymy – profiling or highlighting certain

aspects of an event, action, or person while back-grounding other elements – also influences

media consumers’ opinions of Latinos”(p.71) Instead of wanting to focus on the righteous

things that Latinos have done, some people focus only on the negative things. They feel like this

is an excuse for them to use to treat Latinos’ differently.

Self Hate

Media brings self-hate to minorities which still is disappointing to see how the news can

easily make a group of minorities hate themselves. Even though there are characters in TV who

are Latinos, the majority of time they are playing stereotypical roles. Some Latinos’ do not care

about what the media is stereotyping them as, there are still some who take it to heart and start

believing all the negative stereotypes that is being said about them.

In the image below is comparing the media representation of Latinos and the actual

percent of latinos by occupation. Being a maid is not a job someone should be embarrassed

about; however, roles for Latinos should be more diversify. For example, the creative Latinos

are not put television as much as they should be.

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Figure 15. A comparison between media representation of Latinos and the actual percent of

latinos by occupation. (Negrón-Muntaner et al., 2014, p.19)

According to Barreto, Manzano, & Segura (2012), “Stereotypes people believe to be true about

immigrants and Latinos reflect the images, characters, and stories they commonly encounter in

news, television, film, and radio programming” (p.2) Stereotypes stick to people even if they

don't want them to. A young child could start believing that they are meant to be end up in jail,

being a maid, or a stripper.

Opinion

I am grateful that my younger cousins will grow up with shows that have Latin

characters as the leads and hopefully won't follow these stereotypes. Even though stereotypes

will most likely not be leaving anytime soon, the numbers of characters like these will slowly,

but surely drop.

The media is one of the greatest influences of our generation. I have not hated myself for

being Latina but I have felt overwhelmed with the way people talk about Latinos in the media.
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My parents have faced discrimination in the US because of the way the media portrays

immigrants.

Conclusion

The media has the power to influence anyone who is paying attention to it. Depending

on what the people are paying attention to, it can have a negative impact on certain individuals.

Negative stereotypes that are placed on Latinos by the media hurts them because people start to

discriminate against them, start making immigration policies stricter, and make them hate

themselves. Even though it is not Latinos fault that people believe these negative stereotypes,

they should continue to persevere and prove them wrong,

“In order to counteract the negative portrayals of Latinos perpetuated by the media

through the use of genericization, appraisement, passivation, categorization, metaphor,

metonymy, and other rhetorical devices, we must also socialize media consumers to be

aware of these rhetorical techniques and their effects.” (Sierk, 2015, p.71)

Although it's not Latinos fault that some people are ignorant, we should try to educate them on

why judging someone based on their skin color or race is an ignorant act and should be stopped.

Since not all sources are reliable, it's important that the information someone is getting is

reliable and is not using their own personal judgement.

A person could argue that these stereotypes are true because of one terrible person or one

horrible event. This happens regularly because people want a reason to discriminate others and

bring them down.

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Reference

Arias, Santiago & Hellmueller, Lea (2016). Hispanics-and-Latinos and the U.S. Media:New

Issues for Future Research. Retrieved from

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308786208_Arias_Hellmueller_2016_Hispani

cs-and-Latinos_and_the_US_Media_New_Issues_for_Future_Research

Barreto, Matt A., Manzano, Sylvia & Segura, Gary (2012). Opinions and Attitudes Towards

Latinos. Retrieved from

http://www.latinodecisions.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/RevisedNHMC.Aug2

012.pdf

Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth & Ortiz , Michelle (2013). The Oxford Handbook of Media

Psychology. Retrieved from

https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=NB7YNxOVRjgC&oi=fnd&pg=PA252

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LQIzn_Mo#v=onepage&q=latino%20representation%20in%20media&f=false

Negrón-Muntaner, Frances ., Abbas, Chelsea ., Figueroa, Luis., & Robson, Samuel (2014). The

Latino Media Gap: A Report on the State of Latinos in U.S. Media. Retrieved from

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5549deace4b0d0dbb4ff6aee/t/555cef81e4b0758cc

854dc23/1432153985653/Latino_Media_Gap_Report.pdf

Sierk, Jessica (2015). Latinos in the Media: The Value of Critical Media Literacy. Retrieved

from http://cambio.missouri.edu/Library/2016/2016_sierk.pdf

Tukachinsky, Riva & Mastro, Dana & Yarchi, Moran (2015). Documenting Portrayals of

Race/Ethnicity on Primetime Television over a 20-Year Span and Their Association

with National-Level Racial/Ethnic Attitudes.

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Retrieved from https://www.csus.edu/faculty/m/fred.molitor/docs/re2.pdf