Deploying Latinidad: A Genealogy of Media Advocacy and Activism

The 1980s and 1990s—frequently labeled the "Decade of the Hispanic" and the "Latino Boom"—marked a critical turning point for the formulation of Latinidad in the United States, defined by both the institutionalization of a panethnic identity and the widespread commodification of Latino culture. Yet despite this cultural visibility, Latinx presence in film and television remained restricted to narrow stereotypes of criminality and domestic servitude.

In Deploying Latinidad, Arcelia Gutiérrez offers a genealogy of Latinx media advocacy from the 1980s to the early 2000s, tracing the strategies media activists used to confront and redefine industry representation and employment practices. Set against the backdrop of Reaganomics, neoliberalism, and media deregulation, the book examines diverse forms of resistance: protests against film stereotypes, demands for equitable employment at local television stations, consumer boycotts of talk radio, pushback for an inclusive public television system, and calls for media reparations.

Gutiérrez explores how multiculturalism, the culture wars, and the institutionalization of Hispanic panethnicity informed and enabled varied political deployments of Latinidad. By offering a rigorous consideration of the so-called "Decade of the Hispanic" and "Latino Boom," Deploying Latinidad underscores the ways marginalized groups leverage collective agency to contest structural inequalities and racial oppression within the media industries.