TV’s Ethnic Blind Eye

Rick Du Brow’s excellent plea for more dramas about black family life on TV (“TV’s Shame: Lack of Dramas on Black Life,” June 9) brings to mind an even more pressing need. While Du Brow is able to list some black series, I can only recall one series in the history of television that focused on Hispanics and none on Asian-Americans.

With Hispanics the dominant minority group in Los Angeles and almost as numerous as blacks in New York, how come television’s portrayal of Hispanics is minimal? I can remember a series with Hector Elizondo called “Popi” back in 1976, and in 1955 “Our Miss Brooks” featured little Ricky Vera as a schoolboy. But, unless you count “The Cisco Kid” and Ricky Ricardo, where are the Hispanics?

As for Asians, there has never been a series focusing on that rapidly increasing ethnic group unless you count James Hong as “No. 1 son” in the syndicated TV version of the old Charlie Chan movie mysteries.

RICK ROFMAN

Van Nuys