Imagen Awards President on Improving Latino Representation  – MASHAHER

 For nearly 40 years, the Imagen Awards have shone a light on Latinos in film, television and streaming media. 

But back in 1985, the first year for the ceremony, Imagen Foundation president Helen Hernandez remembers she and her team “trying to figure out who to honor, because there really wasn’t much out there.” 

“We’re looking at the different levels of entertainment,” Hernandez tells Variety, comparing now to back then. “It’s not just talent, because we want to look at also executive producers, directors, writers, composers. All of those are elements that are critical and important to any project.”

The Imagen Awards, now in its 39th year,  will hold its ceremony Sept. 8. The idea for an awards show was first conceived in 1983, while Hernandez was working alongside legendary television producer Norman Lear. They enlisted the support of the National Conference for Community and Justice (formerly the National Conference of Christians and Jews), before later branching off on their own. 

This year, Latino creatives earned 152 Imagen nominations across 30 categories. Netflix received 14 noms, including accolades for “Griselda,” “The Lincoln Lawyer” and “El Último Vagón,” as well as for “Cobra Kai” star Xolo Maridueña, who nabbed a nod for actor in a feature film for his role as Jaime Reyes in DC’s “Blue Beetle.” 

Mayan Lopez, co-creator, writer, co-executive producer and star of “Lopez vs. Lopez” and the daughter of comedian and actor George Lopez, says her parents had been involved with the Imagen Foundation since she was very young. Lopez was herself nominated this year for actress in a comedy TV show for the series. 

She describes her experiences at previous Imagen Awards as “electric,” saying that taking a stage for and by Latinos helps not just to celebrate but reinforce a thriving presence from their community across the entertainment industry. 

“I think that’s so important to support, and to know that you are in a room with people that have the same vision and are fighting the same fight as you,” Lopez says. “Sometimes you can kind of forget that there’s other people around … but when you’re in those rooms, you feel the love, and I think it really recharges you. At least for me, it recharges me to go.”

As in 2022, the awards ceremony will take place at LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, a Mexican American museum and cultural center near Olvera Street, one of the oldest parts of downtown Los Angeles. Hernandez describes the historic area as an “amazing place unto itself.”

“What better place to be than a facility that really celebrates our cultures, there at LA Plaza,” Hernandez observes. “It exposes a lot of people in the entertainment industry to another area of Los Angeles that they may not necessarily
go to.” 

In addition to appearing on screen, Hernandez underscores that it’s important for Latinos to be represented in leadership positions across all aspects of entertainment  to ensure that their voices get heard. Hernandez says that having individuals behind the scenes to advocate for Latino talent in the industry is “when the change is really going to come” in terms of representation. 

She pointed to “A Million Miles Away,” starring Michael Peña as real-life astronaut José M. Hernández, as an example of movies that can inspire Latinos to continue having “ganas,” or more loosely translated, tenacity. “We just keep going,” Hernandez says of the Latino community. “Just like those kids in [feature nominee] ‘The Long Game,’ or the astronaut Hernández, he didn’t give up. And those kids didn’t give up.”

“But that’s any kind of a story,” she says. “It could be about anybody, and that’s what the message is: our stories are like everybody else’s.”