If you are a movie buff or a music fiend, the NCLR ALMA Awards is just around the corner. “Desperate Housewives” star Eva Longoria Parker and comedian George Lopez will host this year’s ALMA awards, celebrating the outstanding achievements of Latinos in entertainment. The awards ceremony will air Sept. 18 on ABC (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET).

NCLR (National Council of La Raza) President and CEO Janet Murguía and Executive Producer Eva Longoria Parker promised the ALMA Awards will be bigger and better than before. This year, the ALMA Awards will include feature new categories, including one for emerging young talent and a sports award

“If you like the ALMA Awards, you will love this year s show because we re bringing you more of what you love most, unique musical pairings and the best Latino entertainment, said Murguía. The ALMA Awards is one of the few opportunities in primetime to spotlight the Latino presence in entertainment, and we want to celebrate the impact Latinos had last year not only in film and television, but also in music and sports television.”

Eric Ward at Imagine 2050 highlights some of the new development for this year’s award show.

I know, I know, I have been critical of NCLR and this may seem like a puff piece. Some may feel I must have been brainwashed when I went to Chicago for the annual NCLR conference, which is hard to tell since NCLR has yet to mention on their highlight section of their website, such as the blog posts I wrote or the lack of photographs from the panels that my fellow bloggers and I were on. I can assure you I haven’t let them off the hook, and I still keep a watchful eye on them.

I am writing about the ALMA Awards because it was something Eva Longoria Parker and Raul Yzaguirre mention during the NCLR Annual Conference. At the time of this writing, I was hoping to include the video and the excerpt of the speeches made by Longoria Parker and Yzaguirre, unfortunately, NCLR has yet to upload their video on YouTube or posted the full text of their speeches on their website. During her speech, Eva Longoria Parker said there is more to the awards than just the glamour and glitz we see in the media.

The ALMA Awards is to encourage and recognize the positive portrayals of Latinos in the entertainment industry. It is to show people the vast diversity and capabilities of the Latino community and to bring down the barriers that typically typecast Latinos into certain roles that are rigid and secondary in regards to the plot.

Raul Yzaguirre spoke about the history of the ALMA Awards. As a result from a 1994 study by NCLR, Out of the Picture, the American Latino Media Arts Awards was created in an effort to send a message to the public that Latinos can be versatile in different roles while embracing their role as a community role model. The study found that Hispanics were “invisible in both the entertainment and news media” and were negatively portrayed on network television. A year later, FOX aired NCLR’s Bravo Awards (later called the NCLR ALMA Awards). As he spoke about the ALMA Awards, like Eva Longoria Parker, I too remember having a feeling of pride when the Bravo/ALMA Awards was aired.

The ALMA Awards have come a long way since then. Some dub this award as the Latino Oscar. One noticeable difference, for the first time, the ALMA Awards will air during National Hispanic Heritage Month. Hopefully, this will be permanent, instead of being aired in February like it was in the past.

Given the current anti-Latino climate, it won’t be hard to look past the all the glamor and the glitz. I know where I will be on Sept 18. I will be watching the 2009 ALMA Awards with the same pride I had when it first aired 14 years ago. So save the date -

SEPTEMBER 18 (8:00-10:00 p.m., ET), The 2009 ALMA Awards on the ABC.

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Tags: ALMA Awards, Hispanic, Latinos/as, NCLR |  Print This Post |
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