This article analyzes some of the ways in which media professionals involved in Mi Familia’s production re-articulate Puerto Rico’s mestizaje and racial democracy discourses. The essay argues that although Mi Familia was influenced by US black-oriented programming, its conceptualization responded to Puerto Rico’s racial, cultural, historical, and social ideologies, and subsequently re-articulated the differences between Puerto Rico and US hegemonic discourses on ‘race’. Finally, the essay examines the erasure of blackness in Mi Familia and its possible implications for other locally produced programmes.
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