BIG IDEAS

I was intrigued by a recent article comparing the ratings for CNN’s “Black in America” to CNN’s “Latino in America”. It may have been a surprise to some, given the demographics, that Black in America did much better than Latino in America. Part of it, as Geraldo Rivera suggested, may have been the Hispanic community’s reaction to Lou Dobbs strident attacks on immigration and what was viewed as CNN’s hypocrisy in saluting the Latino impact on America while paying the salary of a guy trying to keep them out. I can’t speak for that community so I can’t say if that’s true or not, though it certainly makes sense.

Nevertheless, the results are not a surprise to me at all. There’s a precedent for all this, also at Time Warner, and in which I was personally involved. 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the publishing of AMERICANOS, a book you may or may not know about. The book, a photo essay using 30 prominent Latino photographers, documented over a Summer, the breadth and depth of the American Latino experience. It was also an exhibit that opened at the Smithsonian and traveled to 20 cities in the States. A documentary version launched the HBO Latino cable channel. The actor Edward James Olmos was the most visible lead on the project, but the concept was guided initially by journalist Manny Monterrey. It did OK numbers, but not off the charts, at least not in comparison to its inspiration, SONGS OF MY PEOPLE, a similar book on black life in the US.

The connection here is that both were sponsored by Time Warner (which owns CNN) and that I worked on both, on the latter as a creator and on the former as guru/editor/project director. But to the point of this post, here’s why I think there was a substantial difference in the results both times.

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Despite the size and increasing influence of the Latino community, aside from the issue of immigration there has not been the common experience or common political agenda historically that has connected that community psychologically in the same way thhe Black community is connected. As disorganized as Black folk perceive themselves to be, the Latino/Hispanic community can be even more disjointed. And having been on both sides, I can attest that we take what little unity we do have for granted.  The black fraternity system, the HBCU system, multiple natinal civil rights organizations, the Black church - these are all institutions that exist because of our unique history but do not exist in the Latino community or many other communities.

In regard to AMERICANOS, this became an issue in even figuring what workd to use, HISPANIC or LATINO? Also, which communities to cover. Are Brazilians Latinos? Should Chicanos get more weight than Cubans because of numbers? What of Dominicans, Panamanians, Puerto Ricans?  Which photographers do we use, and what is their nationality? Can a Cuban shoot the Puerto Rican community and do it justice culturally?

And then, what of Black Latinos? Do you include them in the general mix of photos or do you lump them together in the final edit as an anomaly (which was done to my great protest)?

These were all questions that were asked during the process of putting together AMERICANOS. That is in marked contrast to SONGS OF MY PEOPLE, where the concept of who was Black and who was not was never an issue. America had already made it clear that skin color gave us a rallying point around which we could unify. As a result the course of the project was clearer, the stories were clearer and most importantly the marketing mission was clearer. We knew who to reach. how and where.  The result: a book, exhibit and documentary that traveled to 200 cities globally and did much better in bookstores that its Latino-focused counterpart.

If you follow the two communities, that dynamic seems pretty simple but TV programmers and marketers never quite seem to get it. Of course now the dynamic is reversing. Black folks are losing the “common rallying point” and dividing into interest and demographic areas that are disjointing the community while Latinos in turn are slowly developing pan-cultural institutions and finding glimpses of unity within the broader nationality-focused culture. That change is going to play itself out in some very very interesting ways in years to come.