Latino

The more you listen to it, the worse it gets.I’m talking about the leaked audio of an October 2021 conversation between three Los Angeles City Council members and a prominent labor leader. Their ostensible purpose was to strategize about drawing council districts in a way that would give more power to Latinos.“If you’re going to talk about Latino districts, what kind of districts are you trying to create?” City Council President Nury Martinez said to Councilmembers Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo and Los Angeles County…

Right in the middle of Latino Heritage Month, Amazon Studios has announced partnerships with Latino Film Institute and LA Collab, two community organizations working to boost U.S. Latino representation in the entertainment industry. For the Edward James Olmos-founded LFI, the studio will serve as the exclusive sponsor of its Youth Cinema Project Alumni Program for the current 2022-23 school year and also fund the first-ever YCP Fellowship, which will give 15 aspiring film school students, aged 14 to 18,…

KTLA-TV Channel 5 is defending its handling of the departure of two popular anchors amid calls by viewers to boycott the station and criticism that station executives have been insensitive to concerns about a shortage of Latinos on air.For nearly two weeks, KTLA has endured a backlash from angry viewers over the exit of Lynette Romero — the station’s most prominent Latina — and her co-anchor on weekend morning shows, Mark Mester. He was fired last Thursday after an emotional on-air appeal, accusing his bosses of cruel…

Latinos are the second largest demographic population in the United States, but they are vastly underrepresented on corporate boards, according to a new report by the Latino Corporate Directors Association."Sixty-five percent of Fortune 1000 companies lack Latinos, and Latinos are seeing the least growth of any other group," Esther Aguilera, CEO of LCDA, told CNBC at this week's L'Attitude Conference.It's even worse for women. According to the report, Latinas are have just 1% of board seats on Fortune 500 companies…

Legendary music producer Emilio Estefan weighed in with his take on how to boost Latino representation in showbiz. Latinos, he said, should be true to their identities."I feel proud that I didn't have to change my last name I didn't have to change my sound because people liked it," he said. "We bring something a little bit different and that's what makes America."The Cuban-American Estefan, who is married to superstar singer Gloria Estefan, has endured one of the relatively few key figures in American show business. He's…

WASHINGTON —  Democrats and Republicans each have a narrative they tell themselves about how to build a long-term, stable majority after decades of agonizingly close elections. Both stories depend on winning over the nation’s Latino voters. Realignment is the great GOP hope — the forecast that millions of Latino voters, particularly blue-collar voters and young men, will switch allegiance to the GOP, much as many blue-collar white voters have done. That theory got a boost after the 2020 election, when former President…

Robert Luna showed up to his debate with Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva at the Skirball Center 2½ hours early. The challenger showed up so early that the security guard didn’t have the VIP parking list yet. The tech people in the auditorium were still doing audio checks.Luna walked to his green room — a closet compared with Villanueva’s spacious suite two doors down. His footsteps echoed through the emptiness of the Skirball’s courtyard. That’s when I noticed Luna’s shoes.They were brown, with thick white…

Credit: CC0 Public Domain A new study led by a North Carolina State University researcher found that a group of predominantly Black and Latino sixth-graders reported they were more likely to pay attention, work hard and participate in class discussions when they felt a greater sense of belonging in those classes. …

John Leguizamo has called out the “F’d up” news that James Franco has been cast to play Fidel Castro in a forthcoming biopic.Earlier this week, Deadline reported that Franco would star as the Cuban leader in Miguel Bardem’s independent film Alina of Cuba.The film is based on the real life of Alina Fernandez (Ana Villafañe), a Cuban exile who learned aged 10 that she is Castro’s daughter. Mía Maestro has been cast as Natalia “Naty” Revuelta, a socialite he had an affair with.The news of Franco’s casting was met with…