Thread by @AndreaGompf

This year, @Remezcla was credentialed to cover the #Oscars for the 1st time. It felt meaningful to have a presence there in a year that saw so much LatAm talent celebrated. It felt even more meaningful that our DACAmented correspondent @Carlos_Film could rep for DREAMers tonight.

But I'd like to point out that Remezcla wouldn't have been at the Oscars at all if a Latina Academy voter hadn't fought on our behalf. After our credential application was initially rejected, she advocated for our inclusion as an outlet and got us in the door.

This is an increasingly common struggle for outlets like ours. All too often, we're bypassed by Anglo publicists and predominantly white institutions in favor of more "mainstream" outlets.

Never mind that mainstream America wouldn't be having conversations about diversity & inclusion if it weren't for the hard-fought, dedicated work of so-called "niche" minority publishers, writers and advocates.

Remezcla has spent over 10 years uplifting & advocating for Latinx creators, and we deserve a seat at the table. We've earned the opportunity to tell our community's success stories. Instead, we often find ourselves sidelined from the very moments our work has helped to build.

The gag is, established Latinx talent WANTS to talk to us. I can't tell you the number of times artists have stepped in to override publicists/labels/reps after our interview requests were ignored/declined. But that's if & when we have a direct line to them. Many times, we don't.

These struggles aren't exclusive to Latino media. Across the board, minority journos routinely see themselves shut out from accessing minority talent, even though they're the ones best equipped to understand and contextualize the work.

As just one example, see @midnightrami's recent piece about this in @shadowandact 👇🏽
shadowandact.com/why-is-there-n…

So, as ppl buzz this week about Oscars diversity (or lack thereof), a reminder that the convo on representation is one-dimensional if we're not also talking about how the success of POC artists is still largely mediated by white & male gatekeepers. ✌🏽