Such “Latin explosions” — or apparent surges in the visible presence of Latinas/os in popular  culture — have certainly happened on TV before. Only a dozen years ago, George Lopez launched his eponymous network sitcom at a time when Latino-themed scripted shows could be found mostly on cable networks like Nickolodeon and Showtime. The 2002 network schedule saw not only Lopez’s show but also second Latino family sitcom as well as a critically-praised Latino family drama. But only The George Lopez Show survived 2002’s mini-boom in Latino TV to endure for five seasons, long enough to share the broadcast schedule with another one or two other successful network shows prominently featuring Latina/o characters and actors on primetime. Still, in 2014, the notable presence of Latina/o performers, characters and themes (on more than one network television show at a time) remains surprising enough to stir media buzz.

On quick glance, 2014’s broadcast network schedule does suggest that there are more Latina/o characters, actors and narrative scenarios this year than, perhaps, ever before. True, most such shows are not about Latina/o characters but rather include Latina/o actors, especially within ensembles featuring kids or cops. This year brings a couple Latina/o kids and a whole raft of Latinas/os enforcing the law in new comedies, thrillers and genre shows. Not infrequently, these Latina/o actors are tasked to play their Latina/o characters “stealth” — embodying what media scholar Mary Beltrán has called “ambiguous Latinidad,” wherein a Latina/o performer’s presence permits audiences to either see or not see the character’s Latino-ness. On ABC’s How to Get Away with Murder, Karla Souza’s Laurel Castillo exemplifies what I call “stealth Latina” casting, for — if you did not happen to know or notice that this established Mexican actress was appearing in her first US show — the show itself would provide few cues hailing the actor or her character as Latina. Likewise, Michael Peña’s presence in the ensemble of FOX’s Gracepoint recasts the family at the center of the show’s murder mystery as a bicultural Latino family, an Americanizing gesture that does circumspectly root Fox’s adaptation (from the British ITV original Broadchurch) legibly on the northern coast of California. Only a few other gestures, most embedded as details within Peña’s performance, confirm that the Gracepoint’s grieving Solanas family is at least half Latino.

But there is nothing “stealth” about the Latinidad staged in CW’s Jane the Virgin, an effervescent dramedy that narrates the unlikely saga of a young woman who is artificially but accidentally inseminated with her boss’s child. Jane the Virgin features a majority-Latina/o cast centered on three generations of Latinas (one of whom speaks almost exclusively in Spanish) in a style as rooted in madcap comedy as it is in sentimental drama. Adventurously adapted from a Venezuelan telenovela, Jane the Virgin relishes the elaborate complexities of the serial romance as source for both comedy and drama, using a deftly crafted voiceover to sustain both narrative clarity and stylistic tone. Though observers have questioned the show’s lack of Latina/o writers, Jane the Virgin and its star Gina Rodriguez have enjoyed an extraordinary first wave of acclaim as the “best” of the new season.

Cristela Alonso has also been anointed as one of this season’s biggest (and most unlikely) breakout stars for her work on the sitcom that not only wears her name in its title but also as the show’s creator, executive producer and star. Where Jane the Virgin has been celebrated by critics for its stylish storytelling, Cristela has been mostly critically dismissed as a middlebrow, retrograde or conservative multi-camera sitcom, with an unfortunate generic reliance on emphatic punchlines, broad stock characters and a prerecorded laugh-track. Some have noted Cristela’s deft combination of tried sitcom scenarios (“fish out of water” and “culture clash”) to create a show centered upon a smart, defiant Latina that somehow still plays as a “family sitcom.” Fewer have noticed the formidable “crossover” veterans inhabiting Cristela’s supporting ensemble (Carlos Ponce, María Canals-Barrera, and Gabriel Iglesias), each signaling Cristela’s potential to speak to major Latino entertainment markets (Spanish language media, tween entertainment, and stand-up comedy, respectively) that US networks are yet hungry to reach.

Yet these shows — one the belle of the critical ball, the other a potentially lucrative commercial workhorse — both place the complex struggles of young Latinas (amidst Latina/o-majority ensembles) at the undeniable center of their show’s narrative. Though both shows are presently among the lowest-rated on their respective networks, Jane the Virgin and Cristela, like their stars, are worth watching, in part because the story of Latina/o presence on US network is a reliably unpredictable one — a story (as Jane’s “Latin Lover Narrator” might remind us) that even this season is still “to be continued…”

While I originally situated this excessive ethnicity firmly within Mama Elsa (whose eccentricity did not disappoint us in the reunion), as the season progressed viewers were introduced to another figure that served the same purpose: Freda.  As the long-term maid of one of the show’s original cast members (Lea Black) this season was, surprisingly, the first time viewers saw any of this woman who is supposedly an integral part of the Black household.  What makes her entrance significant is not that she was absent from the first season, she is significant because she is a representation of Cuban latinidad that is not only based in African descent (a topic that warrants its own essay) but one that further aligns “Old” Miami with a racialized and excessive quality.  Freda is framed as both superstitious and highly religious and her unglamorous body and lifestyle was set is stark contrast to the aesthetically enhanced housewives.  In one scene, Lea (shown with both hair and makeup done, nicely dressed, with the required high heel) exasperated from calling for Freda, huffs up the stairs to her room where Freda is content to ignore her so that she may read her bible.  Lea speaks to her in broken Spanish, making a comment about Freda’s habit of listening to “that religious” music too frequently.  As just one of the many examples of the patronizing manner in which Lea interacted with her, Freda seemed entirely out of place among the cast.  Lea, who talked to her as if she were a child and suggested that she was responsible for styling Freda’s untreated natural hair, treats her domestic worker of many years more like a helpless rescue puppy than an employee.  The fact that Freda cannot (or chooses not to) speak English further Others her and suggests that she is truly a remnant of a Miami that is slowly fading away.  While there are numerous other examples of “Old” Miami’s excessive ethnicity throughout this season, it is the appearance of Freda that stands out most.  I contend that RHOM used Freda as a narrative device in order to make the primary cast members appear more beautiful, eloquent, and, well, white.

While Freda was the figure in the show most marked by difference, the same narrative device was deployed in the story arc concerning Daisy, Lisa Hochstein’s maid, who is one of the other housewives.  Daisy is treated by Lisa as though she were her sidekick and to reward her for being such a loyal friend, has her plastic surgeon husband give Daisy the ultimate makeover.  There is an observable affection towards Daisy from Lisa, but yet again, it is more similar to the affection doted on a pet than a companion.  While such a connection is comical, that is part of its cover.  Shari Roberts (see: “The Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat” 1993), in her analysis of Carmen Miranda, suggests that such comical displays of excess render ethnic subjectivities as harmless and operate as what she terms a “spectacle of containment.”  Therefore, I assert that Freda, Daisy, and Mama Elsa are all deployed within the narrative framing of the show in order to let the producers continue to utilize discourses of the Latin spice while at the same time containing that spice within the bodies of a handful of figures with excessive ethnicity.  Such containment provides the means for a simultaneous indulgence and rejection of what is depicted as “Old” Miami while at the same time heralding the emergence of a newer, brighter, and whiter Miami.