TV has a new kind of heroine: The Latina genius. Here’s why it matters

The new year has already given viewers not one but two TV shows featuring Latina leads. Elena Alvarez, of Pop TV’s “One Day at a Time” is a top student, champion debater and outspoken activist who’s dating a nonbinary partner who shares a mutual love of “Doctor Who.” It’s a sudden growth spurt of on-screen representation for Latinas, a vastly underrepresented group in both TV shows and movies. That bias can be found in previous shows about child prodigies such as “Doogie Howser, M.D.,” “Dexter’s Laboratory,” “Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius” and “Young Sheldon,” which center the adventures of very smart white boys, with few alternatives featuring black and Latino characters. In “Diary of a Future President,” Elena Cañero-Reed is a type-A, straight-A student whose dedication to school has already cost her a close friend who doesn’t want to appear uncool. Alongside timely, immigration-themed reboots of “Party of Five” and “Roswell, New Mexico” bubbly, aspirational shows such as “Diary of a Future President” and “The Expanding Universe of Ashley Garcia,” offer hope that TV of the future will finally look like its audience, and combat the hateful rhetoric that has been increasing across schools and playgrounds of late.