Will American teens ever get a "Manny Santos"-type on television?

Gossip Girl, The New 90210 and The O.C. portray a homogenous set of characters who deal with the trials and tribulations of being an American teen. But while it can be fun to watch high school being rule by Blairs, Annies and Summers, what would American audiences think of a Manuela Santos?

 The Canadian show, Degrassi: The Next Generation actually has such a character. Manuela “Manny” Santos is played by Pilipino/British-Canadian actress Cassie Steele, and Degrassi: TNG writers have no qualms about inserting storylines in which Manny deals with being a first-generation Pilipino-Canadian. After the excitement over seeing banana ketchup on their kitchen table wears off, a Pilipino-American like myself begins to really appreciate how Manny is treated. She’s not exoticized, nor is she the stereotypical Asian braniac. She does deal with the desire to be in the performing arts, which her father particularly dislikes because he wants her to be in the sciences. There’s a classic episode where Manny reluctantly agrees to have a debut, the perennial celebration of a Pilipina’s eighteenth birthday, but tries to sabotage it by choosing an escort her parents would disapprove of. She gripes to her best friend, who sometimes just does not understand, “That’s so fifth-generation Canadian of you.”

America has had its share of teen actors and actresses of Pilipino descent, but when ethnicity comes up, the character is often relegated to being Chinese or some other Asian ethnicity. And while it’s great that Pilipino-American performers can play a wide range of characters, it gets to a point where you wonder if mainstream television writers even recognize that Pilipino-Americans even exist—let alone make up one of the biggest immigrant communities in this country. 

Maybe someday a character like Manny Santos will appear on a popular television series here in America. In the meantime, you can watch episodes of Degrassi: TNG (check local listings or stream them on www.the-n.com) to see how they do it Pilipino-Canadian style.