Mary Beltrán is a Professor of Radio-Television-Film and a faculty affiliate of the departments of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies. She writes and teaches on U.S. Latina and Latinx representation and media making, diversity and inclusion in the U.S. television and film industries, and mixed race representation and ethnic ambiguity in U.S. media culture. Her research, driven by questions regarding self-representation, cultural citizenship, and social hierarchies, is located at the junctures of television and film studies, Latina/o and critical race studies, and gender and sexuality studies.
Dr. Beltrán’s scholarship has explored such topics as the evolution of Latina/o film and television production and stardom since the 1920s, the implications of the media industries’ inclusion of mixed-race actors and characters since the 1990s, and strategies on the part of television networks and streaming outlets to appeal to more diverse audiences.
Dr. Beltrán’s most recent book is Latino TV: A History (NYU Press, 2022). Latino TV provides a pioneering exploration of key moments in the evolution of Latina and Latino narratives and authorship in U.S. English-language television, with a focus on Latina/o writers and creators in recent decades. In a study that spans series from The Cisco Kid (1950-1956) to Vida (2018-2020) and combines archival research, interviews with creative professionals who worked on or performed in these series, textual analysis, and discourse analysis of news media coverage, she illuminates how television has been central to both the marginalization and the growth of Latina/o cultural citizenship in the United States, as well as how Latina/o creatives are beginning to impact these dynamics.
Dr. Beltrán previously published Latina/o Stars in U.S. Eyes: The Making and Meaning of Film and TV Stardom (University of Illinois Press, 2009), and co-edited with Camilla Fojas the anthology Mixed Race Hollywood (NYU Press, 2008). She also is the author of journal articles and book chapters in a variety of venues; some of her recent publications include “Action Latinas in an Era of Precarity,” “Fast and Bilingual: The Fast Franchise’s Lucrative Embodiment of U.S. Borderlands,” and “Hip Hop Hearts Ballet: Utopic Multiculturalism and its Limits in the Step Up Dance Films.”
Dr. Beltrán was the founding director of the Moody College of Communication’s former Latino Media Arts & Studies program, from 2017-2020, and currently serves as the faculty advisor to the college’s Latino Media Arts & Studies undergraduate minor.
