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Reality TV star sparks race debate
by Jonathan Clark This story was originally published in the Mexico edition of The Miami Herald on June 4, 2005. 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 González took the stage and began belting out an inspired rendition of “La Manzanita” by the legendary norteño group, Los Tigres del Norte. At her home in Mexico City, child therapist Alejandra Rangel had tuned into the top-rated reality show for the first time in this, its fourth season. And as she watched, she found herself impressed by Erasmo’s performance. “He sang really well, and he was singing a song that I like,” explains Alejandra. “Plus, it seemed like the audience was really supporting him.” Alejandra’s sister and her sister’s boyfriend Odín were watching as well, and Odín made a comment that took Alejandra somewhat aback. “He said, ‘He sings well, but he’ll never win: he’s brown-skinned and not-too-good-looking,’” she recalls. “He thought that just because he wasn’t considered attractive, he wouldn’t win. And that seemed really unfair to me.” Indeed, Erasmo, a short, stocky, young man with a round face and a broad smile, was an unlikely figure to fill a TV screen during Mexican prime time. Although 90 percent of the population claims some level of indigenous ancestry, people with strong indigenous features rarely grab the spotlight on Mexican television. Based on the nation’s TV programming, a naive observer might well conclude that Mexicans are a predominantly European people — fair-skinned, fair-haired, and often with blue or green eyes. But not only is Erasmo heavy on indigenous physical features, he is also linguistically indigenous. He speaks Nahautl, the most common of Mexico’s 60-plus Indian languages, and gives classes in the language in the village of Xalpatláhuatl, Guerrero, where he works as a teacher in the nation’s indigenous education system. While only about 10 percent of the nation’s population is culturally and linguistically indigenous, government census figures have shown that as many as 30 percent of Mexicans claim a purely indigenous ethnicity. And in a country where more than half the population lives below the poverty line, there are many people who can find something in common with plucky underdog Erasmo González, indigenous school teacher from the impoverished southern state of Guerrero. That kind of identification with viewers, combined with Erasmo’s powerful singing voice and strong stage presence, might help to explain why such an unlikely TV star has emerged as one of the most popular of La Academia’s participants. Erasmo fan clubs 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!” Ultimately, it is Mexico’s public and not its television executives who decide the winner of La Academia. The show’s format asks viewers to call in to a 1-900 number and vote for their favorite participant. At the end of each program, the contestant with the least number of votes leaves the show. Fourteen concerts into this season, Erasmo has yet to be voted out of La Academia. Rodolfo Hernández, director of the Center for U.S.-Mexico Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, suggests that the public’s support for Erasmo González might be viewed as part of a larger cultural phenomenon. “We are seeing in Mexican and Latin society that the ethnic component is becoming a fashion; it’s becoming the authenticity to confront the conformist trend of globalization,” he says. “I wouldn’t be surprised if (Erasmo’s success) is part of this effort to provide an element of the self-identification that Mexican and Latin American cultures are striving for.” AN UNDISTINGUISHED TRACK RECORD 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. “My parents, just like his, are indigenous,” she says. “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.” For Ailsa, 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 comes up empty. “The only person I can think of, though she’s not really what you would consider a ‘star,’ is Rigoberta Menchú,” she says. Xochitl Gálvez, 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. “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 says. “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.” Juan Carlos Alonso, the director of La Academia, 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 insists that his program and its parent network, TV Azteca, are operating with a more enlightened philosophy. “The image you often see (on television) is very U.S.-influenced: the people are light skinned, they have blue eyes, etc.,” he says. “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.” And though La Academia’s cast is still dominated by light-skinned participants, it does more than most other TV programming to reflect the reality of the Mexican people. In addition to Erasmo González, the show’s original cast of 18 contestants 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. SKEPTICS IN THE MIDST Karina Morales, a Spanish language teacher from Mexico City, says that while she is a strong advocate for the advancement of indigenous people, the first time she saw Erasmo González on La Academia, she was left feeling ambivalent. “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 says, in reference to the sainted Mexican Indian. “With Erasmo, it almost seems like they’re presenting us the ‘safe Indian,’ or Rousseau’s ‘noble savage,’” says Karina. “If they want to show us reality, they should give us the guy who is so poor and desperate for work that he’s out on the street selling pirated DVDs.” In a subtext-loaded moment from last Sunday’s show, one of La Academia’s panel of critics, music industry executive Arturo López, took Erasmo to task for losing his “humility.” He noted the way that once-shy Erasmo had confidently joked with the show’s host, and he criticized the high production value of the sassy musical number he had performed that evening. “You’ve changed,” he said. “What happened to the humble guy from Xalpatláhuatl, Guerrero, who we all knew and liked before?” While López appeared to be chastising Erasmo for overstepping the role of the timid Indian, at least one viewer, Leticia Cardosa of Mexico City, wondered if perhaps the message was more of a warning against “selling out” to the mainstream. “I hadn’t seen the show in a while before last week,” she says, “and when I saw Erasmo, I also thought that he had changed. He had shaved off his little moustache, and he wore fancier clothes. It seemed like maybe this very authentic guy was trying to become part of the slick, show business world.” “But I know that it’s the producers who often tell them what to wear and how to act, so maybe he is the same down-to-earth guy he was before,” she adds. “I guess he is really the only one who can decide that.” Here's a brief follow-up story from July 5:
Indigenous teacher wins reality show Erasmo Catarino González, a 27-year-old teacher at an indigenous primary school in Xalpatláhuatl, Guerrero, was chosen by a TV audience as the winner of the top-rated "La Academia" musical reality show late Sunday night. Reality shows enjoy tremendous popularity in Mexico. Television and radio programs have popped up for the sole purpose of analyzing the latest happenings on "La Academia," "Big Brother" and "Fear Factor," and especially notable reality show occurrences can even make their way onto nightly news broadcasts. 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. Part of the show's popularity may have come from 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 González, a Nahua Indian who occasionally used his Nahautl language on the program, "La Academia's" original cast of 18 participants included an African-Mexican teen and three contestants drawn from the Mexican diaspora in the United States. Many of the participants came from working class backgrounds. "Big Brother," on the other hand, 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. 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. This seasons' version was so popular among audiences throughout the Americas that TV Azteca has announced plans for a new version of the program called "La Academia Hispana." featuring Latinos in the United States. Casting and production will begin shortly, the network says.
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