Como Debe Ser (How it’s supposed to be): Tanya Saracho

Photo via Latino USA

An icon on the rise — Tanya Saracho is setting the bar for the portrayal of unique Latinx identities.

For many creatives, it is reassuring to know that someone they relate to is making waves in the media industry. This is even more exciting for the Latinx queer community, who have not had a queen bee to admire (yet).

Minorities in the media have a smaller opportunity to find role models or organizations that speak to their identities and help shape their professional lives. With the future of the media industry left up in the air due to the COVID pandemic, there’s little for media creatives to look forward to or be inspired by. 

Alas, it’s time to introduce an icon who has emerged from a long career of theater to help shed light to underrepresented identities in the television space. Tanya Saracho is a Mexican-American director, producer and playwright from South Texas. Throughout her career, she has always honored the unique intersectional identities in the Latinx community. From co-founding the all-Latina theatre ensemble Teatro Luna to contributing to shows such as HBO’s Looking, Girls and Devious Maids, Saracho is on the rise to become a much-needed force towards Latinx inclusion in the industry. With her latest series Vida (which airs on STARZ), she has created a new wave of possibilities for different kinds of Latinx inclusion — whether it be acting, producing or even writing.

Tanya Saracho was able to showcase her initiative to serve a neglected audience and industry creatives with three successful seasons of Vida. The groundbreaking series was unapologetically queer, featured the special touch of fully developed characters and received a whopping 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. It also employed an all Latinx writers room for its full run, including a riveting final season where all writers were Latinx Women. Vida was the most recent, but certainly not last, testament to Saracho’s embrace for the slogan: “no stories about us, without us.”

Given the initial yearning for a role model for young professionals, Saracho’s presence is so important when it comes to inclusion. In the all-consuming world of entertainment, Saracho’s former experience in television was that like many other minorities in the industry. Before she earned her acclaimed titles as creator, showrunner and executive producer, she once filled the dreaded position of ‘diversity hire’ as a TV writer and had a “not-cute” time surviving the politics as a queer Latina. Having gone through many rejections and going against many obstacles as a minority in the media, it is amazing that Saracho was able to reach a platform to tell her stories and create opportunities for self representation.

Taking from her long career of exploration of the diversity within the Latinx label, her recent success in TV is not coincidental. With Saracho’s Vida, it’s clear to see that writers can reach target audiences when they are able to identify with them.

With Pride month underway, it is exciting to know there is a refreshing Latinx queer story to rewatch in celebration of the uniqueness in the community. The latest update on Saracho’s slate is a pilot she spent five months of quarantine writing for a story “about a Mexican in London who falls in love with a British folk musician.”

Everyone should feel blessed to witness Saracho’s zeal for reflecting Latinx stories to reach a greater audience, which will hopefully continue to appear in her future projects. Saracho’s initiative and drive to implement changes within the production hierarchy inspires the younger generation of media professionals and gives them permission to dream up their own series with exploration of identity at the forefront.