Jennifer Lopez and Her Contribution to Uplifting the Latino Community
(Photo : Reuters)

Jennifer Lopez has reached multiple milestones in her fifty years of existence. She celebrated her 50th birthday this year in July. Her being a successful dancer, singer, businesswoman, and actress is not the only thing that makes her deserve praise and admiration. Her impact on the image of the Latin community is as great as her achievements in the different fields where she achieves in.

Known also as J.Lo, this Latina icon proves that Latino blood can be a worldwide sensation. She had also helped change the scene on how Latinos are represented in Hollywood films through improving how Latinos are presented in movies, fashion, and TV.

She had greatly influenced how Hollywood sees Latinos in modern culture. And she had positively helped change the difficulty of Latinas were experiencing in Hollywood projects.

Before Jennifer Lopez's rise to fame, some other personalities before her had also helped lift the name of Latinos in the entertainment industry. Some of them were Carmen Miranda, Freddie Prinze, and Mario Lopez.

According to the University of Pittsburgh, from 1995 to 2004, less than a percent of storylines in movies and TV shows were about Hispanics. The majority of the topics involved with these are illicit immigration and Latino crimes.

In the present, the roles of celebrities of Latino origins in movies and TV shows had increased to 5.80 percent. This is according to the study conducted by the Media, Diversity & Social Change Initiative of USC's Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Regardless of the slow increase of the Latino representation in movies and TV shows, the main idea should be the continuous increase of Latino presence in these media. This is due to the three decades of involvement with the show business of Jennifer Lopez. 

She began her career as a dancer in a comedy show called the In Living Color. The comedy show ran on TV for four years starting the year 1990.

The show had to become her major stepping stone in show business that led her to multiple projects in the entertainment industry. In 1997, she played the lead role of slain Latino mega-star Selena. The movie had earned an approximate amount of $12 million during its first week of shows. This movie had made Hollywood realize the power of Latinos in the showbiz industry.

For those Latinos who grew up during the '90s to the early years of the 2000s, Jennifer Lopez had made a great impact on their movie and TV experience.

She was an important instrument of change for the Latino community in the country. She had broadly showcased the Latino culture through her passion. The empire she had created, where Latinos are rising for their contributions to society, was all because of her passion and dream to showcase her talent, not only to the country but also to the entire world.

Just like J.Lo the others who were in the entertainment industry before her, some of the other Latinos who had also helped the community are Wilson Cruz, Tatyana Ali, John Leguizamo, Stacey Dash, and Lauren Vélez.