Lost City of Gold: How Hollywood Can Win Latinx Audiences

It’s too easy to dismiss Hollywood’s chronic lack of diversity in front and behind the camera as a game of numbers. Yes, we know representation matters. But it’s one thing to know it and a wholly different matter to actually understand it. Meaningful change, the kind required by a country whose rapidly shifting demographics have been a battle cry of mass shootings, will only come when the gatekeepers who greenlight projects make business decisions that value nuance as much as they do numbers. What does storytelling that resonates with an ambicultural audience look like? And why does it really matter? I’ve recently shared several tangible moments with my children, who proudly consider themselves “Mexi-Cuban Americans,” a term coined in my household that reflects my husband’s Mexican-American roots and my heritage as the daughter of Cuban immigrants. When Hollywood gets it right, as it has with this week’s release of “Dora and the Lost City of Gold” or Netflix’s “On My Block,” the growing generations of hyphenated Americans like my children can see a slice of themselves on screen. With that comes a sense of loyalty and trust that, if properly tended, can translate into real dollars that boost the bottom...