There Are Literally No Asians Or Latinos Nominated For Acting Oscars This Year

This year’s Oscar nominations, which were announced Tuesday morning, had some significant gaps.

Headlines touted the nominations as “diverse,” as several black actors received well-deserved recognition. However, no Asian or Latino actors snagged any nods for their acting this year.

Many actors of color and social media users, including Gina Rodriguez and Constance Wu, were not pleased, and called the Academy out on its lack of representation.

This will be the sixth consecutive year that no Latino actors have been nominated for an acting Academy Award. Last year, Dev Patel was the sole actor of Asian descent who received a nod.

Throughout its history, the Academy has been notorious for overlooking both Asian and Latino talent. Actors of Asian descent have nabbed just 1 percent of all Oscar acting nods, while a similar percentage of Latino actors snagged nominations.

What’s more, white actors have been nominated several times for playing characters of color, including Luise Rainer, who portrayed Chinese farmer O-Lan in “The Good Earth,” and Greek American actor George Chakiris, who played Bernardo, leader of the Puerto Rican gang The Sharks in “West Side Story.”

Hollywood’s representation problem extends far beyond the awards ceremony, though. The industry has long struggled to represent marginalized voices in both its storytelling and casting. The majority of 100 top films in 2016 didn’t feature any Asian or Latino characters at all, a 2017 study showed. It also found that over approximately the last decade, there’s been no “meaningful” increase in how many people of color are portrayed in popular film.

The director’s chair has also remained dominated by white men. Of 900 high-grossing films the study analyzed, three were directed by black women and two by Asian women. Only one was helmed by a Latina.