Caitlin Henke

MSC 06 3910.
1 University of New Mexico.
Albuquerque, NM 87131.
crhenke@unm.edu
March 4, 2016.
Dear Caitlin Henke,
I am pleased that you have considered working on and I issue that I find to be of great
importance. Therefore, I am writing this report about the media portrayal of Latin woman, with the
main focus of finding how it affects the way the are treated in the U.S. specially the Albuquerque
area.
In the report you will find a compilation of research explaining the issue, along with surveys
and interviews that support the information, and a list of recommendations that should be taken
into account in order to help reduce the problematic. I truly appreciate you time and hope that you
find this work helpful.

Sincerely,
Mara Jos Gil
El Bosque, Tamarindo Street, I20.
MajoGil95@unm.edu

Media
Portrayal

How does the media portrayal of Latin Women affect

the way they are treated in the USA?

of Latin Women

Mara Jos Gil.

Introduction
The media constitutes a big part of the American culture, especially in later years and with
the advance of technology, people seem to be more attached to it than ever. Some of the most
common ways of media are the audiovisuals we know as Television and Movies, and they have a
great impact in our society. Since the early years of these means, they have created certain images
of Latinos that have become rather stereotypical, especially for Latin women. Images regarding the
hypersexualization of their personalities and bodies, among other characteristics like their average
income are the most emphasized factors by the media. So it is not hard for society to create
stereotypes based of this portrayal. With that in mind, the main goal of this report is to explore the
correlation that might occur between the media portrayal of Latin women and the way they are
treated in the United States.
It is important to touch on this subject because everyday, Latin women in the US have to
face incidents about the matter. Numerous studies have stated this as a fact, so in order to address
this problem we should touch on how, or why exactly, Latina woman are affected by these images.
This report tries to answer those questions or at least find a correlation between media and
treatment of Latin woman. Apart from that it gives recommendations on how to improve this
situation in order to avoid incidents.

Methods
For this report various stages of research were done. Starting with secondary research in
which information relevant to the subject was acquired by recurring to peer reviewed academic
journals, articles, books and certain websites. After enough material was compiled and analyzed, I
moved to the formulation of the surveys and interviews that constituted the primary research. For
the surveys, I used a sample of 53 people whom I personally asked the questions. The locations I
visited were the Duck Pond, Students Union Building, and La Posada Dining Hall, all of them part
of The University of New Mexico Main Campus (UNM). Also, I interviewed two Latina Women,
both Albuquerque residents and UNM students. Followed by that, the results of the primary
research were analyzed and compared to those in the secondary research in order to support them
and find an answer to the research question. Finally, after examining the outcome of the report,
recommendations were made in order to properly address the issue of the portrayal of Latina
women by the media.

Limitations
A limitation that might have affected my primary research was the fact that I am Latin
women myself, and since English is not my first language, a noticeable accent can be heard when I
speak it; meaning that when I was asking the questions, people could easily identify me as Latina,
some of them even asked if I was, so I think this could have created some sort of bias. Additionally,

I knew some of the people I interviewed, they were my friends and so they know how passionate I
feel about the subject, this as well could have been a source of bias.

Secondary Research
Marianismo Vs Machismo Vs the Media
Two basic concepts that need to be taken into account are Marianismo and Machismo,
they both give some background on why the media portrays Latin woman the way it currently does.
First we have Marianismo, a passive, nurturing role for women (Villegas, 329). It should be noted
that Catholicism is the most followed religion is Latin America, according to the Pew Research
Center, Historical data suggest that for most of the 20th century, from 1900 through the

1960s, at least 90% of Latin Americas population was Catholic. (2014). So this concept
comes from the idea that women should act in an almost saint-like or biblical way. The word itself
comes from the Spanish name Mara, which translates to virgin Mary.
On the other side, we have the term machismo, an exaggerated masculinity for men
(Villegas, 329). This term is more known than Marianismo, and it can be compared to the concept
of misogyny in the English language because of the way machistas think about women. Men and
women that support the machistas lifestyle tend to think that the only way a woman should behave
is the marianista way, therefore, if a woman does not fit into these extreme parameters she should
be addressed as a bad woman and categorized as lowlife or promiscuous. As explained by Vera
Lpez: race, ethnicity, gender and class often inform the classification of girls as either "good" or
"bad." (2014)
These concepts can be problematic, because the media has somehow embraced the machista
ideals and mostly portrays Latin women in this binary way. They are usually shown as either the
religious virginal girl whose goal in life is to find her prince charming, or the hypersexualized

woman with a voluminous body and a fiery attitude. Of course, the problem lies in the way society
can stereotype this look and leave aside the real aspects of a person that should actually matter,
like their goals, values and achievements. Research performed by Robert Lichter, Professor of
Communications at George Mason University, show that About one-third of those with an opinion
say that the ethnic characters they see on television affect their attitudes toward ethnic groups in
real life. (Robert) Because of these stereotypes, society tends to see Latin women as objects rather
than humans, especially when it comes to their bodies, and forget that they are more than what TV
and movies portrays them as, they are just like any other woman and by any means should they
have to fit into any of these highly unrealistic good woman parameters.

Where are the Latinas?

It has been stated that the media represents Latin women in a binary way, but in fact this is
not far from how it portrays women in general. The issue is that Latin actors, actresses or figures,
are quite scarce in the media, therefore the few ones that actually get TV or movie appearances,
have a very strong impact in the stereotypization of the Latin image. So by only exposing Latin
women as good or bad the media creates a window for society to stereotype them, and of
course, the negative image sends a stronger message and therefore leaves a bigger influence in
people, reason why this bad image is the most prominent of the two and the one the public is
mainly exposed to. In her book, Latin Looks: Images Of Latinas And Latinos In The U.S. Media,
Clara Rodrguez touches on this subjects and explains: what makes Latina images so different is
that there are so few images, that they are so narrow, and that lately they are so consistently
negative and lower class. To a degree, this may reflect a general perception of the position of
Hispanics in the U.S. Society.
We can resort to numbers in order to support this information, for example, according to
the census published in July 1, 2014, by the U.S. Census Bureau , 17% the country is composed by

Latinos. However, statistics by the Center of Media and Public Affairs, show that since early years,
the numbers of Latinos in the media has always been low:

Figure 1: TV Ethnic Portrayal Over Time.

We can narrow this numbers even further and separate them by gender if we pay attention
to the results showed by Frances Negrn-Muntaner in her report The Latino Media Gap (2014):

Figure 2: Percentage of Latino Actor Lead Appearances in Ten Highest-Rated TV Shows by Gender

Figures 1 and 2 clearly show the discrepancy between the Latin population and their
appearances in the media, supporting the previously stated argument.

Primary Research
After gathering information about my subject I formulated 4 survey question in order to
further investigate and find answers to the research question.
1. What is the first thing/word that comes to your mind when you think about Latin women?
2. How would you describe the stereotypical Latin Woman?

Figure 3: Compilation of words gathered for questions 1 and 2.

Figure 3 shows the words I got the most in response to questions one and two, they are
organized in order in repetition, the words bigger in size where obtained the most. Based on this we
can see a pattern in which elements related to body image, attitude and income are the main
characteristics. The word with the most repetitions was fiery, and related to it, I also got words like
outspoken, attitude, bitchy, angry, shallow, among others. This gives us an idea on what people
think about Latinas and their personalities types, these words are all related meaning that a specific
attitude is expected from Latinas. Followed by that we can see words like hot, sexy, beautiful,
promiscuous; showing that Latin women are believed to have a certain body image and therefore to
act a certain way (promiscuous) because of it. Word like poor, lowlife and cholas, also came into
the picture, demonstrating that the stereotype of a low income or a not so luxurious lifestyle is
attached to Latin Woman as well. Finally, the names of famous Latin women entertainers, JLo
(Jennifer Lpez), Selena and Sofia Vergara were mentioned at least one. This is interesting because
the fact that these women are immensely related to media, and are often portrayed in the binary
way previously mentioned, shows a clear correlation between stereotypes and the media.
3. Where did you get this image from?
Where did you get this image from?
Media

Hear around

Personal experince

6% 3%

91%

Figure 4: Where did you get this image from?

In figure 4 we can see that the majority of the people interviewed (91%) stated that the
stereotypical image they have in mind, comes from things they have seen on the media. I was
pleased to see the results the surveys coincide and reinforce the ones of my prior research.
4. Do you think Latin women tend to be treated differently because of this image/stereotype?
Do you think Latin women tend to be treated differently because of this image/stereotype?
Yes No

15%

85%

Figure 5: Do you think Latin women tend to be treated differently because of this image/stereotype?

In figure 5 we can see that 85% of the people interviewed agree that Latin women
tend to be treated differently because of certain stereotypical images. However, I did want to go a
step further and interview the real people that experience this mistreatment, therefore I went
ahead and asked 2 Latin woman if they had ever experience any incidents regarding these
stereotypes, to which I have attached their interviews bellow:

23 years old, Venezuelan

Since I moved here when I was little I dont have an accent; people usually think Im
American. But when I tell them Im Latina the say things like: Oh but you dont look Latina, you
are quiet and shy, you dont act like a crazy Latina like if Latinas had to fit in that I have an

attitude because Im Latina stereotype; what even is considered a crazy Latina? I have even heard
things like: Oh you are Latina that is so exotic I mean, I am not exotic; I am a human being.

21 years old, Ecuadorian

Once I was at a souvenir store in Old Town and everything was going great until my friend
started speaking Spanish to me. The owner, a white man maybe in his 50s, heard us switching to
Spanish and then told us that his store had expensive things, for people with money. He repeated
the word money a few times before he kicked us out of the store

Discussion
After all of the research and results had been analyzed, it was clear that there is a big
correlation between the Media portrayal of Latin women and the way they are treated in the U.S.
These results illustrate the things and situations Latin woman in the U.S have to deal with every
day. As reflected on the interviews, incidents regarding what people think Latinas should act like,
how their personality should be like, or even what their monetary income is; have become normal
and acceptable, when the truth is that they should be inexistent. Regarding the surveys, it is clear
that people have a certain level of awareness of what is happening to Latin women, they
understand there is a stereotype, and they know where it comes from, but they do not pay attention
to the effects this has on them because it has become a natural thing.

Recommendations
So now that we know what the issue is, and how it is affecting Latin woman, it is
almost mandatory that we do something in order to address it. One of the things that could
be done is to demand more Latin characters from the media, since we know the lack of them

highly affects our problem. But not only do they need to be introduced, they should also be
portrayed in a different way, rather than using the same old good vs bad image. By
introducing a broader and more realistic spectrum of Latin characters, with different
personalities, body images and characteristics, stereotypization of Latin woman could be
avoided.
Likewise, education could have a tremendous influence on the problem. If our
society were to be more educated about different cultures, these images about people from
different ethnicities could be avoided. By using cultural education as a base to minimize our
problem, we could also make it media proof in a sense. By educating society, the media
would not have such a strong effect on stereotypization, because even if they kept portraying
Latin woman the way they do, people would probably not agree with what would be shown
on screen, because they would have a better and more realistic sense of reality.

Works Cited
Census.gov. Census.gov. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.
2016.

"Does TV Shape Ethnic Images?" Does TV Shape Ethnic Images? N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar.

Lpez, Vera, and Meda Chesney-lind. "Latina Girls Speak Out: Stereotypes, Gender and
Relationship Dynamics." Latino Studies 12.4 (2014): 527-49. ProQuest.Web. 2 Mar. 2016.

Negrn-Muntaner, Frances. "The Latino media gap." The Center for the study of ethnicity
and race Columbia University. Retrieved from:
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cser/downloads/AdvancedExectutiveSummary. pdf (2014).
Religion in Latin America. Pew Research Centers Religion Public Life Project RSS. N.p.,
12 Nov. 2014. Web 02 Mar. 2016.
Rodriguez, Clara E. Latin Looks: Images Of Latinas And Latinos In The U.S. Media. New
York: Westview Press, 2008. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 2 Mar. 2016.
The Center of Media and Public Affairs. The Center of Media and Public Affairs Home
comments. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.
Villegas Jorge, Jennifer Lemanski, and Carlos Valdz. Marianismo and Machismo: The
Portrayal of Females in Mexican TV Commercials. Journal of International Consumer Marketing
22.4 (2010): 327-46. Web.