At the turn of the century, data from the 2000 U.S. Census announced an emergent population of 35 million Latina/os, and focused the attention of journalists, media producers, politicians, and marketing demographers on Latina/o individuals and Latinidad as a coherent structure of feeling that might unite a disparate group who share a common ancestry. Since then, Latina/os have garnered an extraordinary amount of attention from cultural producers and audiences alike. This essay conducts a dual analysis of the textual and extratextual features of Americanos: Latino Life in the United States/La Vida Latina en Los Estados Unidos, a coproduction of Olmos Productions, Time Warner, and the Smithsonian Institution, that presents a generous vision of both Latina/os and America. While Americanos does indeed display affirmative representations of Latina/o life, the conditions of its production yield a text that adheres to the dominant ideologies of multiculturalism and the American Dream. By articulating Latinidad without oppositional politics, Americanos cannot fully address the relations of power that define both lived experience of Latinidad and minority representation in the United States.
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