Date: 21st December 2000

On Camera Diversity: Not Yet


Latino actors accounted for 4.4 percent of all Screen Actors Guild members who had roles in movies and TV last year, the union reported Wednesday.

Although the figure represented a record percentage for the industry, the union observed, Latinos actually make up 11.5 percent of the population. Responding to the numbers, Cecilia Muņoz of the National Council of La Raza told today's (Thursday) Washington Post: "Hopefully this is the beginning of a response, but no one should take from this that we're done."

Moreover, since the overall number of acting jobs declined 12.4 percent last year, the actual number of Latinos who landed those jobs increased only slightly -- from 1,985 in 1998 to 2,185 in 1999. In the case of African-American performers, the number of jobs for them actually decreased slightly in 1999 although they accounted for 14.1 percent of all roles, up from 13.4 percent in 1998. And while women make up 52 percent of the U.S. population, they received only 38 percent of all acting roles in 1999 -- 73 percent of which went to women younger than 40.

Source: Studio Briefing