After 20 years, org says Latinos still underrepped

Kudos represent the best of more than 145 submissions

By ADDIE MORFOOT

Imagen Foundation founder and president Helen Hernandez hopes that one day there will be no need for the org's annual kudofest.

"I think the goal in the future is not to have an Imagen Awards because you want everyone to be hired as an actor, director, writer and/or producer based on their talent and what they bring to a project, not necessarily because they are Latino," she says.

Now in their 21st year, the Imagen Awards represent the best of more than 145 submissions, the most the org has ever received. And yet Hernandez says the foundation still sees plenty of room for improvement.

"All you have to do is look at the primetime television schedule for the new fall season and you don't see any minorities -- forget Latinos -- that are on any of the new series," she explains. "If you look at the numbers in terms of population, in all fairness, it really warrants more representation of Latinos in front of and behind the camera."

Freddy Rodriguez, a three-time Imagen winner and a 2006 supporting actor nominee, feels that setbacks to the community are precisely why the awards are so important.

"Latinos need an organization that recognizes their own," Rodriguez says. "It would be nice in 20 years if we got together not for the purpose of trying to shed light but simply for the purpose of celebrating each other.

"If Imagen doesn't, who will?"

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