Could 2021 Be a Breakout Year For Latinos at the Emmys?

Hollywood is in the midst of coming out of a 16-month long hiatus. The reemerging includes movies in theaters, red carpet premieres — and a long-awaited award show season. While there were attempts to continue the age-old tradition of “the award goes to” during the pandemic, it’s been a minute since we’ve seen a punctual and solidified award show season. 

That goes without saying that while the production cadence has changed, the conversations stirring around these award shows remain the same, including the topic of diversity. As we look to this year’s Emmys nominations — which will be announced tomorrow, July 13 — it could be noted that some notable strides were being made last year across its categories. In fact, last year had a record-breaking number of Black nominees. With a total of 102 nominees across various categories, 34.3% of those were Black compared to the previous year’s 19.8%, according to Variety. Among the Black nominees were Latino talent like Queer Eye‘s Karamo Brown — who is Jamaican-Cuban — actress Lupita Nyong’o, nominated for Outstanding Narrator, and Becoming‘s Nadia Hallgren for documentary directing and cinematography nominations. As for non-Black Latino representation, Alexis Bledel was nominated for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for her role in The Handmaid’s Tale.

With that being said, 2021 looks to be more promising for representation given all the diverse talent in television, including for Latinos, where many contenders are in the noms chatter for several categories. Let’s take a look at some of the Latinos who experts are suspecting will hear their names called on July 13, ahead.