ÿþ<HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Indigenous reality TV star sparks race debate </TITLE> <BODY LINK="#808080" VLINK="#808080"> <CENTER><P> <TABLE> <TBODY> <TR> <TD width=500> <CENTER><B>Indigenous reality TV star sparks race debate</B> <BR>By Jonathan Clark<P> <FONT color=#808080>This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of <I>The Miami Herald</I> on June 4, 2005.</CENTER></FONT><P> During a March 20 episode of La Academia, a Mexican TV reality show in which would-be pop stars join a talent school and perform weekly concerts in hopes of winning a record contract, a participant named Erasmo Gonzalez took the stage and began belting out an inspired rendition of "La Manzanita" by the legendary norteno group Los Tigres del Norte. <P> At her home in Mexico City, Alejandra Rangel had tuned into the top-rated reality show for the first time in this, its fourth season. The child therapist was immediately impressed by Gonzalez's performance, but a comment by her her sister's boyfriend, who was watching with her, took her aback. <P> "He said, 'He sings well, but he'll never win - he's brown-skinned and not very good-looking," Rangel said. <P> Gonzalez, a stocky 27-year-old with a round face and a broad smile, is indeed an unlikely figure to fill a Mexican TV screen during prime time. Although 90 percent of Mexicans claim some level of indigenous ancestry, people with strong indigenous features are rarely seen on Mexican television. Members of the nation's indigenous communities - some 10 percent of the population - are especially scarce. But Gonzalez speaks Nahautl, the most common of Mexico's 60-plus Indian languages, and gives classes in the language in the rural town of Xalpatlahuatl, Guerrero, where he works as a teacher in the nation's indigenous education system. <P> Perhaps it's his powerful singing voice, or perhaps it's his image as a plucky underdog, but something about Gonzalez has struck a chord with Mexican TV audiences. Fan clubs dedicated to Erasmo, as Gonzalez is more popularly known, have sprung up from Baja California to Tabasco, and his performances on La Academia are greeted by enthusiastic studio audiences waving banners reading, "We love you, Erasmo!" and, "Guerrero for Erasmo!" <P> Ultimately, it is the public and not television executives who decide Gonzalez's fate on La Academia. The show's format asks viewers to call a 1-900 number and vote for their favorite participant. At the end of each program's finale concert, the contestant with the least number of votes leaves the show. Fourteen concerts into this season, Gonzalez is still a member of La Academia. <P> Rodolfo Hernandez, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, says the support for Gonzalez is part of a larger cultural phenomenon. <P> "We are seeing in Mexican and Latin society that the ethnic component is becoming a fashion," Hernandez said. "It's becoming 'authentic' to confront the conformist trend of globalization. (Gonzalez's success) is part of this effort to provide the self-identification that Mexican and Latin American cultures are striving for." <P> AN UNDISTINGUISHED TRACK RECORD <P> Eighteen-year-old Ailsa Casiano, also from the state of Guerrero, has started a fan club to support Erasmo, in large part because she identifies so strongly with him. <P> "My parents, just like his, are indigenous," she said. "And so I know how the indigenous people have been working to carve out, little by little, a space in society where they are recognized and not marginalized." <P> For Casiano, La Academia has provided a rare opportunity to see a person from an indigenous background succeeding as a popular culture star. When asked to think of another indigenous protagonist from Mexican or Latin pop culture, she came up empty. "The only person I can think of, though she's not really what you would consider a 'star,' is Rigoberta Menchu," she said, in reference to the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Guatemala. <P> Xochitl Galvez, director of the National Commission for the Development of Indigenous Peoples, says that her agency has long been critical of the Mexican media for its poor representation of indigenous and indigenous-featured people. <P> "Mexican television, for a long time now, has only portrayed indigenous people in roles that would be considered servant-class. And in those roles they have often been associated with laziness, stupidity and drunkenness," she said. "So to see this indigenous young man from Guerrero succeeding on La Academia is a very positive thing, because it develops within the collective conscience the idea that an indigenous person can be successful in whatever work he or she undertakes." <P> Juan Carlos Alonso, director of La Academia, says he recognizes the past failings of his industry in promoting diversity. But he lays the blame primarily at the feet of rival network Televisa, which, until the 1990s, enjoyed a virtual monopoly over the domestic television industry. Alonso says that his program and its parent network, TV Azteca, are operating with a more enlightened philosophy. <P> "The image you often see (on television) is very U.S.-influenced: the people are light skinned, they have blue eyes, etc.," he said. "But speaking for TV Azteca and La Academia, we don't have any interest in looking for people with pre-determined physical characteristics. We give opportunities to the people that have talent, regardless of where they come from, regardless of their social class or ethnicity." <P> While La Academia's cast is still dominated by light-skinned participants, it also reflects a refreshing diversity. In addition to Gonzalez, the show's original cast of 18 also included an African-Mexican youth. And in a reflection of new demographic realities, three participants were drawn from the Mexican diaspora in the United States. <P> SKEPTICS IN THE MIDST <P> Karina Morales, a Spanish language teacher from Mexico City, says that while she advocates the advancement of indigenous people, the first time she saw Gonzalez on La Academia, she was left feeling uneasy. <P> "He just seemed too perfect. He was nice, he was polite, he was a teacher in the indigenous school system, he sang a song for his mother; I felt like they were trying to make him into Juan Diego," she said, in reference to the sainted Mexican Indian. <P> A subtext-heavy moment from a recent show illustrated the delicate cultural tightrope walked by Mexico's new indigenous TV star. One of La Academia's judges, music industry executive Arturo Lopez, took Gonzalez to task for losing his "humility." Lopez noted the way that once-shy Erasmo had confidently joked with the show's host, and he criticized the high production value of the musical number he had performed that evening. <P> "You've changed," Lopez said. "What happened to the humble guy from Xalpatl'e1huatl, Guerrero, who we all knew and liked before?" <P> <I>Follow-up news brief from July 5, 2005:</I> <P> <B>Indigenous teacher wins reality show</B><BR> THE HERALD MEXICO <P> Erasmo Gonzalez, a teacher at an indigenous primary school in Guerrero, was chosen by a TV audience as the winner of the top-rated "La Academia" musical reality show late Sunday night. <P> Reality shows enjoy tremendous popularity in Mexico, and this season, the TV Azteca network's "La Academia" established itself as the king of Mexican reality TV. It routinely doubled the ratings of rival show "Big Brother," which appeared during the same Sunday night time slot on the Televisa network. <P> Some observers attributed the show's boom in popularity to its decision to rely on a cast of "real" Mexicans. Television programming here often prefers to draw its stars from the nation's privileged, mostly white, social class. But in addition to Gonzalez, a Nahua Indian who occasionally spoke in his Nahautl language on the program, "La Academia's" original cast of 18 participants included an African-Mexican teen and several contestants from working class backgrounds. <P> "Big Brother" opted for previously established popular culture figures. But some viewers were turned off by the pettiness and ego-centrism of the cast, which featured, among others, a TV starlet who hopes to break the Guinness World Record for the largest breast implants. <P> Similar in format to "American Idol," "La Academia" is a weekly concert program in which would-be pop stars perform musical numbers for a live television audience, after which they receive brutally honest appraisals from a panel of judges. TV viewers call a 1-900 number to vote for their favorite contestant, and each week the participant with the fewest votes leaves the show. <P></FONT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE> <P><A href="../stories05.html">back to stories page</A> <div id="footer"> <div id="footer-nav"> <a href="/">Homepage</a> <a href="/stories/stories09.html">Mexico Stories</a> <a href="/border/border.html">Border Stories</a> <a href="/awards/awards.html">Awards</a> <a href="/resume/resume.pdf">Resume</a> <a href="mailto:jonclark500@yahoo.com">E-mail me</a> </div> <!-- Site Meter --> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://s18.sitemeter.com/js/counter.js?site=s18jonclark500"></script> <noscript> <a href="http://s18.sitemeter.com/stats.asp?site=s18jonclark500" target="_top"> <img src="http://s18.sitemeter.com/meter.asp?site=s18jonclark500" alt="Site Meter" border="0"/></a> </noscript> <!-- Copyright (c)2009 Site Meter --> </div> </body> </html>