Kids and Culture: How Wisconsin Latinx Youth See Themselves on Screen
- dowdyeayanah
- Mar 25
- 3 min read
by Harsimar Kang, Contributing Author
In this third installment of the “Kids and Culture” series, let’s explore another vibrant racial and ethnic community within Wisconsin and throughout our nation. The Latinx community makes up a significant portion of the Wisconsin population leading to a need for appropriate screen representation for and about Latinx Wisconsites. As with our previous articles, PBS offers a great start to educational content for minority youth. The site primarily offers documentaries, such as Latino Wisconsin, which discusses the economic, cultural and emotional impact of Latinos in the state. And as part of Hispanic and Latine Heritage Month earlier this year, PBS Wisconsin hosted many historical videos for older kids and teens that touched on Latinx history, including Milwaukee’s first Mexican community. And with concerns of anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise, their virtual lecture series explores how discrimination in Milwaukee workplaces and neighborhoods against Mexican-Americans led to increased sense of community and ethnic pride. The website also touches on other aspects of Latinx culture including food and music. In the show Re/sound, local Wisconsin musicians perform a song entitled “El niño que quiere jugar”, which translates to The Child That Wants to Play, which touches on children’s “instinctual sense of play.”
There are also a great number of national children’s based shows for children with Latinx representation in both English and Spanish. Online blogs from parents have discussed their favorites of these bilingual shows. For those who are toddler and preschool-aged and love shows like CoComelon for their nursery rhymes, Canticos offers a similar style of sing-along hits on YouTube that may allow parents a moment to take a deep breath. For elementary-school-aged children, shows like Nina’s World on Peacock or Rosie’s Rules on PBS have characters that are growing up in a bilingual, multicultural family. Common Sense Media offers further show reviews, with age suggestions based on content.
The previous articles of this series delved into why screen representation is important for children and adolescents. Interestingly, McKinsey & Company also investigated this issue earlier in the year, in an article entitled “Latinos in Hollywood: Amplifying voices, expanding horizons” the authors discuss that while the US Latino population makes up 19% of the country’s population, Latinos make up less than 5% of leading on-screen and executive leaders in US media. This leads to aspects of the Latinx identity to be either “unseen or misrepresented” on screens. What this entails, in actuality, is that this low representation of Latinx stories reinforce negative stereotypes about the population. One example provided is that 27% of stories that depict Latinx characters or cultures that are created without Latinx directors are crime-themed. This is opposed to only 13% of these movies being crime-themed when created with Latinx writers and producers. Youth may consequently internalize these stereotypes, leading to low self-esteem, wherein they believe these negative traits actually apply to them. They may also then experience identity conflict with feelings of shame or disconnection from their Latinix identity.
These detrimental effects from poor screen representation can also negatively impact mental health. The Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health published a report in October 2022 about Hispanic Mental Health. They discovered that, during the pandemic, 76% of Hispanic high schoolers had experienced poor mental health, more than any other racial/ethnic group.
There are also socio-economic effects at play as half (51%) of Latinx youth in Wisconsin live in low-income families and the 14-24 year old age group is less likely to be insured. This brings up great concerns for access to mental health care services.
While screen representation alone will not fix the mental health crisis among Latinx youth in Wisconsin, it at least provides an avenue towards greater resilience about oneself and one’s culture. More mental health resources with culturally-sensitive providers are needed in Wisconsin to increase access to healthcare. NAMI Wisconsin offers mental health resources for Latinx populations. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention also lists national mental health resources for youth and adults.
References:
Becdach, C., Lajous, T., Lyn, S., Pérez, L., & Toussaint, T. (2024, March 7). Latinos in Hollywood | McKinsey. McKinsey & Company; McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/technology-media-and-telecommunications/our-insights/latinos-in-hollywood-amplifying-voices-expanding-horizons
Celebrate Hispanic and Latine Heritage Month with PBS Wisconsin - PBS Wisconsin. (n.d.). PBS Wisconsin; https://www.facebook.com/WisconsinPublicTelevision. Retrieved November 25, 2024, from https://pbswisconsin.org/article/celebrate-hispanic-and-latine-heritage-month-with-pbs-wisconsin/
Supporting Child Well-being Through Hispanic Mental Health. (2022, October). Wisconsin Office of Children’s Mental Health. https://children.wi.gov/Documents/ResearchData/OCMH%20Fact%20Sheet_October%202022_Hispanic%20Mental%20Health.pdf
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