Back in February, when Time Magazine graced its cover with a group of Latinos and correctly predicted that the Latino voter would define this election, I was hopeful that something in mainstream media might be changing.
That starting then, stories featuring Hispanics would be seamlessly integrated into all other stories. How naïve of me.
Unfortunately, despite the accuracy of its prediction, instead of recognizing that, as a leading news organization it needed to start looking at Hispanics through a different lens, Time continues to look at this population as an abstraction.
“Undocumented Immigrants” are now one of the 40 candidates for Time’s “Person of the Year” cover. Is that all Hispanics are to general market publications? The voter? The undocumented immigrant? The low-paid worker? The sexy Latina?
Read Related: For Latinos, Negative Media Stereotypes Persist
A bunch of stereotypes that don’t deserve sharing the front page, top-50 lists, or individualized recognition side-by-side with non-Hispanic influential people? (And if Time is going to choose an abstraction for this year’s cover, didn’t the Latino voter influence the news more than undocumented immigrants anyway?)
I understand that Hispanics are not a monolithic group and therefore they themselves might be hard-pressed to come up with the name of a leader who they feel represents the entire community. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t a host of well-known, high-achieving, critical players on the world stage that could be part of the list from which voters select the “Person of the Year.”
The fact that there aren’t any individual Latino names at all begets the question, how diverse is the network the Time editors are tapping into for recommendations?
My wild guess: not diverse enough. Read the full article on FOX NEWS Latino.
