Latinos Beyond Reel

Challenging A Media Stereotype

One in six adults and one in four children in the United States are Latinos, but their reality is rarely depicted in the mainstream media. Interviews with scholars, actors, filmmakers , and a group of Latino children reveal a striking pattern: in both news and entertainment, Latinos appear overwhelmingly as gangsters, drug dealers, prostitutes, maids, sexy Latinas and welfare-leeching 'illegals.' Most disturbingly, even children's games depict the killing of Mexicans. The film shows how a narrow range of misrepresentation, combined with hate speech against undocumented immigrants and Latinos, had devastating consequences for this nation as a whole.