Desperate Housewives: Best Image of Latinos – Really?

A couple of activist groups based in Arizona, Phoenix to be exact, say that Desperate Housewives is the television show that best portrays Latinos. I’m assuming they mean the show with Eva Longoria in its cast, and not the other so called reality TV shows that have sprung from places like Beverly Hills, Orange County, Atlanta and Miami.

The groups, Chicanos Unidos Arizona, Take Back Aztlán and Nuestros Reconquistos, say, according to examiner.com, that

“Desperate Housewives” portrays Latinos, documented and undocumented, in a very positive way,” claims Cecilia Maldonado of Chicanos Unidos Arizona.

Is that really the best that Hollywood can do?

If you’ve watched the show you may have noticed that  Eva Longoria’s TV kids are the only chubby kids on the show. And this is where I inject the obligatory disclaimer – Not that I have anything against chubby Latino kids. I don’t, but all of the other kids on the show are slender, athletic and rambunctious – the Latinos are overweight sofa-crushing whiners.

I’ll admit that if a TV character were to be molded after me he might be a nit-picking blogger, but then again, am I the only one who noticed this?

Is this what the casting folks and producers think of Latino children? Does it matter?