“Creating
Opportunities, Rewarding Excellence”
Actors Jimmy Smits, Esai Morales and Sonia Braga, along with attorney Felix Sanchez, created the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts in 1997 to advance the presence of Latinos in the media, telecommunications and entertainment industries. The Foundation has concentrated on increasing access for Hispanic artists and professionals while fostering the emergence of new Hispanic talent.
The Hispanic community -- which makes up 16 percent of the U.S. population – has become the nation's largest ethnic minority group and is increasingly recognized for its potentially enormous consumer and political power. The entertainment industry has been making progress, but an enormous gap still exists before the Hispanic community – 50 million strong – is adequately reflected on stage and on both the small and big screens.
Paradoxically,
while the entertainment industry and its advertisers tap into
the Hispanic community’s resources, programming still
falls short of the need to expand and present U.S. Latinos
in a more modern and contemporary manner. This omission deprives
an entire community of a source of cultural pride and reality
and the country-at-large of a true picture of the American
mosaic.
The
Foundation's mission has two principal goals:
