ABSTRACT
A major distinguishing characteristic of American-Latino youngsters, so many of whom are first-or second-generation on the Mainland, is that they are from monolingual Spanish-, predominantly Spanish-, or bilingual-speaking homes. ESAA-TV came into being because it occurred to one senator, Walter Mondale that TV could help to further inter-group relations. The political necessity and eminently positive outcomes of letting people run their own show, the most valuable lesson which we learned from ESAA-TV was that producing high-quality, high production-value television that people will watch costs lots of money. TV, beyond the level of simple teleconferencing, costs big bucks. Any programming produced in America may, for various reasons, be considered suspect. It would be even more suspect where TV production utilizes government funding.
