Low Key, Low Key Latinidad is Changing
How Singer Ally Brooke Epitomizes Univision’s Acceptance of a Cultural Shift
“I’m so thankful that I’m Latina.” That’s what Fifth Harmony’s Ally Brooke Hernandez said as part of Entertainment Tonight’s segment “My Life as a Latina.” Following nearly five years as one-fifth of pop girl group Fifth Harmony, Ally Brooke has broken out as a solo artist and has asked fans to “really get to know” her by tapping into a side not many got to see while she was making hits such as “Worth It” and “Work From Home” in the group: her Latina identity. In Latinx media, there exists a prevalent, yet unexplored stigma for Latinxs who do not speak Spanish. That stigma is perpetuated harshly on Latinx television, where speaking Spanish is often the sole identifier of Latinx heritage. However, Latinx identity is changing generationally. Many Chicano and Latinx scholars have acknowledged the eurocentric superiority propagated by television networks, but few have explored how mainstream Latinx outlets like Univision have left out English-speaking Latinxs from the conversation — and now, are beginning to accept English in its mainstream. While the Latino-serving network has expected perfect Spanish on its network for decades, it is now allowing itself to present Latinxs whose identity as such does not revolve around Spanish as a principal marker of Latinx identity. This shift demonstrates the network’s conscious push toward accepting the change in landscape of Latinx culture in the United States. Whether its featuring diverse accents, darker skin tones or even English, the network’s openness to welcoming artists such as songstress Ally Brooke — who does not speak Spanish but has gotten in touch with her Latinx roots — on its airwaves, proves that Univision’s idea of Latinx is changing, too.
Much of the scholastic conversation relating to representation on networks like Univision centers around the lack of diversity in skin color and how that relates to Latinidad, or Latinx identity, but few have added the importance of language acceptance to that conversation. There, Univision has fallen far behind the trends of Latinxs in the United States. Established in the early 1960s as the Spanish International Network, it’s clear why the channel features virtually all of its programming in Spanish. However, Latinx viewers are changing their consumption habits: a 2013 study by the Pew Research Center found that 82 percent Latino adults consume news media in English — compared to a mere 68% of Latinos who receive news media in Spanish. Many, still, are accustomed to understanding and conversing in Spanish with family members, however, those same individuals lean on English to read and consume media and news on a daily basis. At the same time, Latinos are speaking Spanish much less on a national scale. In fact, between 2006 and 2015, the share of Latinos who speak Spanish in the United States dropped five percentage points, according to data from the Pew Research Center.
So why hasn’t Univision adapted its content to better appeal to its ever-changing audience? By offering programming exclusively in Spanish, Univision neglects a large portion of the Latino population it serves — but the Spanish language approach is understandable given the network’s history and the lower levels of competition among Spanish networks. Only three networks (Telemundo, Univision and Azteca America) exist as the top networks offering programming in the language. These channels also feature programming created for and by the Latin American media, some that migrants consume as a way to connect to their roots back home. This inter-culturalization builds a transnational media relationship between Latinx Americans living in the U.S. and the countries they left (McAnany and Wilkinson 1996). By adding English, Univision would also be forced to compete with the media monsters in the English market.
And though its programming must continue to be in Spanish to further its current business model and continue serving its original audience, Univision must stray away — and is straying away — from the perfect, accent-free Spanish known as “Walter Cronkite Spanish” (Davila). Referring to the historical CBS journalist, this term describes the style of Spanish most commonly utilized on screen: one that’s accent-free, easy to understand and sounds closest to Mexican Spanish (since Mexicans make up the majority of Latinxs in the United States, according to the 2010 U.S. Census). With this approach to language on television, Latinos with accents — whether it be from different countries Latin American countries or American-born Latinxs — “has led to the inauspicious containment of language difference” (Davila 85). Univision is already changing their approach to this. In 2017, Ilia Calderón became the first Afro-Latina to anchor a primetime newscast in the United States by joining heavyweight Jorge Ramos on Noticiero Univision. Her Colombian accent, though somewhat neutralized, notably differentiates from that of her co-anchor Ramos and her predecessor María Elena Salinas, who anchored the show for nearly three decades. Additionally, Univision’s signature morning show Despierta América welcomed host Francisca Lachapel, a Domincan beauty pageant winner who had been criticized for her thick Caribbean accent, to the show in 2015. While she has been open about her struggle with proper diction, Lachapel has been welcomed by both viewers and the network for her authenticity and connection to her Dominican roots. By no longer subjugating Latinxs to a neutral accentuation, Univision opens the doors for more viewers to identify directly with TV personalities who not only look, but also speak like them. As it is doing with other Latin American countries, Univision must continue to also provide a national platform for American-born Latinxs in order to create cross-generational connections with U.S. Latinxs, while keeping up with trends of language use in the country. Katie Coronado and Erica Kight’s book LatinX Voices: Hispanics in Media in the U.S delves into the media’s relationship with Latinidad. In it, they write, “Language is power, which means that individuals who have added resources often maintain the power to set standards in what is considered neutral or appropriate language,” (Coronado and Kight 260). In the same way that the neutralization of Spanish accents leads to the exclusion of diverse cultures, excluding narratives of Latinxs who don’t speak Spanish gives into the construction of panethnicity, which then leads to the erasure of subcultures (Dalleo 2008).
Singer Ally Brooke Hernandez (who will be referred to by her stage name Ally Brooke in this piece) is an especially illustrative example of a change in Latinx expression. Born in San Antonio, Texas — a metropolis where the share of Latinxs who speak Spanish has decreased by nine percentage points between 2006 and 2015, according to Pew — Brooke was raised in a Mexican American household, inspired by the likes of Selena Quintanilla. For many, Ally Brooke’s Latinidad was not seen as sufficient to be featured on a network like Univision since she isn’t fluent in Spanish. However, to StyleCaster, Brooke spoke candidly about her Latinx identity, explaining that she didn’t learn to speak Spanish because her parents were discriminated against for speaking the language growing up. “You can’t erase what’s in your DNA,” Brooke said. “[My parents’ teachers] would come up to the students and slap their wrists because they thought they were speaking behind their backs in Spanish. That was something ingrained in my parents’ minds.’” And now, Univision is beginning to understand that thousands of Americans like Hernandez subscribe to the Latinx label without speaking Spanish. The network has featured the songstress on Despierta América and the network’s version of Dancing With the Stars, Mira Quién Baila as a performer. Most recently, she was interviewed on Despierta América about her new music. During the conversation, the interviewer asked his questions both in English and Spanish and followed up her answers with a Spanish translation. This approach to featuring English on the network not only validates Brooke’s Latinidad, but also allows English-speaking viewers to understand the interview directly.
The aforementioned show Mira Quién Baila, which airs during a prime time slot for Latinx audiences, serves as an optimal example of Univision experimenting and allowing for the normalized usage of English on the network. Choreographer and dancer Casper Smart appears weekly as a lead judge on Mira Quién Baila. Smart’s comments to the show’s competitors, which are always in English, are simply subtitled in Spanish. The inclusion of his actual voice with simple subtitles (as opposed to dubbing) further proves that Univision recognizes how a large portion of its viewership speak and understand English as well. Non-Spanish-speaking Latinxs like Smart and Ally Brooke must continue to be included in Univision’s core demographic to ensure that the entire Latinx community is being served and understood by the network.
The pan-Hispanicity perpetuated on Univision for years continues through the network’s notorious spotlighting on white-passing actors on its networks — all of whose Latinidad has never been put into question, proving that there’s clearly a double standard when it comes to Latinx identity. This phenotypic hegemony unequivocably divides Latinidad based on both skin tone and and language comprehension — although neither are “more Latinx” than the other. White-skinned actors appear raceless and set an ideology that, thanks to their whiteness, allows for a sense of “relatability” or applicability in storytelling (Doane 2003). Their Latinidad (despite their lighter complexion) is never put into question. Their Spanish fluency saves them from this exclusionary narrative that affects darker-skinned Latinxs. A similar scenario transpired with Ally Brooke’s group Fifth Harmony. Fellow Latina members Lauren Jauregui and Camila Cabello present as white, but due to their Spanish-speaking skills, their Latinidad was always highlighted. Brooke, on the other hand, was often left out of that conversation. As Jauregui once told Latina Magazine, “I have not gotten that I’m ‘not Latina enough’ from the Latin community because I am fluent in Spanish.” Unlike Ally Brooke, whose brown skin visually made her unmistakably Latina, it was her two bandmates whose Latinidad was highlighted on Univision and in other media as well. The more white passing, the more “invested he or she [is] in highlighting the Latino/a part of [their] background” (Rentería 71). At Latinx-focused awards shows, both Jauregui and Cabello led conversations and emphatically took pride in Latinidad. For Brooke, following the disbandment of Fifth Harmony, the now-soloist was forced to reinvent herself as an artist whose roots are deeply cemented in her Latinidad, while both Cabello and Jauregui were able to continue highlighting their ethnicity through their Spanish songs and collaborations without question.
Latinidad isn’t homogenous. The beauty of being Latinx stems from its different versions, layers and experiences. For many, it could be speaking Spanish, but for Ally Brooke and others, it’s embracing their roots and culture without speaking a language that their ancestors were subjugated to by colonizers. If there’s no invalid way of being Latinx, then forcing and expecting all Latinxs to subscribe to a singular, homogenous identity perpetuates the same erasure Latinxs hope to avoid as productive members of the United States. Univision, as a leader in Spanish language media, is beginning to recognize this changing landscape by featuring diverse entertainers and journalists on its networks. This new diversity, whether it comes in different accents or subtitled translations on television, better aligns with the trends of new generations of Latinxs in the United States. Instead of frowning upon these changes, networks like it must embrace them as a symbol for acceptance and increased, more diverse viewership.