The "Latino Vote," as the media dubbed it, will almost certainly play a critical role in this year's elections.
But did you ever think that it would be a determining factor at this year's MTV Video Music Awards?
The Viacom-owned network recently announced its five nominations for the so-called "Tr3s Latino Artist of the Year" award, a prize that'll be handed out during a live telecast of the VMAs and serve as a reminder that America's still incredibly divided.
Stylizing the Spanish word for three (you know, tres) isn't progress. And neither is an award that's only open to folks who meet a certain ethnic criteria.
Moreover, it's the Music Video Awards. Yet none of the nominees' videos are even mentioned on the voting site.
The "Latino" artists who earned nominations for having ethic names and enough crossover marketability to satisfy advertisers are Pitbull, Jennifer Lopez, Juanes, Romeo Santo, and Wisin y Yandel.
Collectively, they're the face of diversity for Middle America. Ironically, none of them represent Mexico.
But why would they? It's not like the U.S. has more Mexicans than any other country in the world except Mexico. And they only make up more than half of the Hispanic population in the country.
Perhaps it's why Camila's been on the Billboard Latin Album Chart for 126 weeks, longer than J-Lo, Pitbull, or the rest of this year's nominees.
C'mon, MTV.
If you want to celebrate diversity, invite everyone to the party.
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