US MEDIA AS A WAY OF FORMING AND REPLICATING HISPANIC IMAGES AND STEREOTYPES

Abstract

According to the US census (2010), Latin American population in the country is more 50 million people. It should be mentioned that Latin Americans are not only the largest and the youngest ethnic group within USA, they also represent the most dynamic force shaping country's future. In fact, nowadays every aspect of American culture and society is being changed under Hispanic influence. Thus, new American culture is being formed in the process of mixing the two cultures (Englishspeaking and Spanish-speaking). This new culture is unique because it is rich in traditions and is determined by values created only over several generations. However, the US English-language media portrayed Latin Americans mainly through lens of entertainment, through caricatures and satirical stories that attracted their audience. The most popular stereotypes about Latin Americans created by means of English-language media are lazy Mexican, Latino mistress, servant, but the most widespread and destructive Hispanic image is a brutal Latin American criminal. History of these stereotypes’ creation is deeply rooted in US literature and entertainment media. At the beginning, these stereotypes were created and popularized during the industrial revolution due to cheap tabloid novels’ circulation in which Latin Americans played roles of scoundrels. Then Hollywood started to spread negative images of Hispanics by means of films and TV shows. It should be noted that Hispanic images in films and on television are very important as they shape this ethnic group perception within the country and influence on how Latin Americans are treated in the modern American society. Today, Hispanic social groups mobilize to challenge the limitations of US English-language media that tend to portray Latinos only through the prism of stereotypes. US English-speaking media bias goes very often beyond negative stereotypes due to lack of Latino staff in these media, i.e. despite the growing number of Hispanics within the United States, their employment in leading US media is reduced to zero. So, necessity to resist negative image of Latinos and to get favorable telecommunication policy for them inspired the creation of The National Hispanic Media Coalition (NHMC) in 1986 in Los Angeles. In a relatively short period of time, NHMC got the status of the most popular and authoritative national Latin American media in the United States. One of the main achievements of NHMC was the Memorandum of Understanding. The thing is NHMC together with representatives of African and Asian American communities, representatives of four major television networks signed the Memorandum of Understanding, through which they combined their efforts to diversify US television network staff. All in all, the main purpose of this article is to outline the process of Latino images’ formation by US English-speaking media, because these images are very important as they influence on attitude towards Latin Americans within the country.