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Who do you think we are?

Mainstream media seems to assume Spanish-speaking Latinos are fools — and if we buy into the ready but demeaning narrative they present, they'll be right.

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Mainstream media seems to assume Spanish-speaking Latinos are fools — and if we buy into the ready but demeaning narrative they present, they'll be right

Like every news media organization, we start and end our days with news. We check in with our most respected and favored sources for what's happening in the city, the nation, the world. It's good to know, and good to see. There is some astonishing work out there, upholding the ideal of the fourth estate — a journalism beholden to none and bought by none; a journalism that informs and holds accountable. 

But too often what we see, in particular when it comes to mainstream media's bid to appeal to Latino and Spanish-speaking readers and viewers, has nothing to do with fourth estate. It has to do with a very mainstream segregation of news and information — and an imposition of a kind of hierarchy of depth and interest. As you might have guessed already, Latinos — especially Spanish-speakers — don't rank high in their estimation. In fact, we are catered to as fools.

As we're writing this, the top stories HuffPost Voces (the Huffington Post's Spanish-language "authentic voice and point of view of the Hispanic community in the United States") is pushing through its social media are: 1) a funny video of a soccer player and his coach; 2) the TV appearance of popular Mexican singer and telenovela star Lucero; 3) the Brazilian model who has been nicknamed "the girlfriend of the World Cup"; 4) a blog post by another well-known soccer personality; and 5) a piece about the training regimen of a boxer. 

So, five featurish and light stories about sports personalities and celebs. No news of what is happening in the world or nation, no opinion pieces, no analysis, no features about people we don't already know about but who we might want to.

The top five stories being pushed by HP LatinoVoices (the Huffington Post's venue catering to Latinos in English) are: 1) a Victoria's Secret model on how "a perfect butt doesn't make an amazing person"; 2) a piece about the vocal ranges of pop singers; 3) a story about California Latinos rejecting the war on drugs; 4) actor Zoe Saldana talking about the films she'd like to direct; and 5) a story about DREAMers and immigration politics. So, we fared a little better in English, with two news stories amid the three celebrity-driven pieces.

It is grotesque really, how narrowly these big, general interest media organizations define the information they believe Latinos need and want to know. No estate in this, just a trash heap of low expectations. 

Latinos in the United States have long known we have to write our own stories if we want to see an accurate representation of who we are and what matters to us. For us here at AL DÍA, what we believe about ourselves as journalists we believe also about the Latino community we cover locally and nationally — we are engaged, informed and unapologetic about being Latino.

And with this, we are driving a new American narrative. One that says, sure, we're interested in the light fare of sports and entertainment, but we're interested in stronger meat as well: politics, scientific discovery, art and literature, technological innovation, business trends .... You know, the stuff of life beyond the boundaries with which Univsion and web sites like HuffPost Voces and HP LatinoVoices have circumscribed us.

As Eleanor Roosevelt wrote in This is my Story: "no one can make you feel inferior without your consent," though they can — and most certainly will — try to do so. And they will sell their low expectations to those who don't know us and are all too willing to believe us "less than."

As Latinos we must hold media organizations accountable — as we do politicians — for word and image; for what they do, and what they fail to do, in depicting us to ourselves. We must be willing to demand that the narrative be written with us in it as full, whole protagonists, not caricatures.

And if we don't ... well, then we deserve to be treated as fools.