Losing Latinidad: The “Immigrant” narrative and a fight for citizenship in Television and Popular Discourse.

• In Event: Precarious Identities: Battling History, Nostalgia, and the State in U.S. Latino/a Literature and Popular Culture

Abstract

This paper examines the context of citizenship in mainstream representations of Latinos/as in the United States. Specifically, the paper examines the way in which Latino/a representation, and by extension, ideas of immigration, legality, and belonging are defined, represented and altered in television and popular culture. In 2009, when Sonia Sotomayor became Supreme Court Justice, there was much controversy surrounding a number of images representing Sotomayor as a Mexican citizen or as someone undocumented, even though she was born in Puerto Rico and therefore a legal citizen of the United States. Additionally, Sotomayor often complicated the discussion by framing herself as an “immigrant” when reflecting on her public role as a Latino “citizen”. And in television, representations of Latinidad become further complicated, as a number of popular narratives (in Ugly Betty, Fairly Legal, Outlaw, Modern Family and many others) negotiate their characters citizenship often, as a way to frame their acceptable citizenship for the audience. In many of these narratives, characters are framed as “legal”, or they have to clarify their ethnic and “authentic” identities for other characters, and the audience watching. In fact, in many mainstream shows, the “immigrant” narrative is a popular boom, as characters become citizens of the United States, in storylines that assume all Latino characters where born outside of the US and appropriately applied and where awarded citizenship the “right” way. This paper strives to examine and understand those representations that frame or complicated ideas of citizenship for Latinos and non-Latinos watching.

Author

• Rosa E Soto, William Paterson University