It is no secret that Latinos are incredibly underrepresented in the entertainment industry. We are less than 6% of what is seen on television, film and in popular music which is ridiculous seeing that we make up the second largest percentage of people in the United States. In these turbulent times, it is important to be on the lookout for excellence within the Latino community and to be supportive of their work; which is why last week, nothing turned my head quicker than a BuzzFeed article with the subtitle “‘Let's support Taylor Swift on Friday only to save Mariah Carey's record and destroy 'Despacito.'”

In 1996, Mariah collaborated with Boyz II Men on the song “One Sweet Day” which broke the record for the longest-running No. 1 single on the Billboard Hot 100. The song held its No. 1 status for an astounding 16 weeks, a record she has maintained for 20 years. Now, with the success of “Despacito” continuing to climb, people have shared their desire to find a savior who will stop the Spanish song in its tracks. Several eyes have turned to Taylor Swift’s new single “Look What You Made Me Do” in hopes that she will “dethrone,” “destroy,” and “snatch” the honor from the reggaeton hit who needs approximately one more week to surpass the previous record holder.

This type of refusal towards Latino excellence in the music industry is incredibly toxic. In a business that has already divided pop music by the ethnicity of its creators and the language in which the song is written in, it is unbelievable that some people cannot find it in themselves to celebrate the strides being made by those in the Latino community. The fact that the Daddy Yankee/Luis Fonsi hit has been able to compete and conquer in the mainstream media is incredibly important in regards to both visibility and exposure. The last time a Spanish song was close to this amount of success was in 1996 with Los del Rio's "Macarena” which still sits on the Billboard Hot 100. This kind of attitude towards Latino artists, however, is not only evident among music listeners as was proved by the conduct leading up to the 2017 VMAs.

The “Despacito” music video was released, if you can believe it, on January 12th. In approximately eight months, the video broke records as the most-viewed video on YouTube and the first to surpass 3 billion views. So when the VMA nominations were released, viewers were confused as to why “Despacito” was not being considered for an award.

MTV’s answer? That the video had never been submitted.

When you have a music video like “Despacito” which has garnered so much of a following, broken new records, and continues to be played repeatedly on radio stations, the question in my mind becomes how could MTV not take the video into consideration? The Universal Music Latin Entertainment (UMLE), the label under which the song was produced, released a statement sharing that MTV had not asked for the “Despacito” submission until two weeks after the nominations had been announced.

It seems as though the success of the song may have not been enough to open every door to encourage exposure to all viewers. MTV has yet to play the music video (which is completely in Spanish and does not include the Justin Beiber remix) on their main channels MTV and MTV2. It has been aired on MTV Tres, the networks Latin channel, but when questioned by the Associated Press on why the video had not been aired on the primary channels, MTV did not respond.

MTV eventually announced that the song alone would be a nominee in the song of the summer category. Without the video, however, the song was excluded from other possible nominations such as video of the year, best editing, best collaboration, as well as a number of others.

This act of exclusion did not go unnoticed as was seen in actor John Leguizamo’s (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge, Ice Age) powerful essay with Billboard.com regarding the VMA debacle. He goes on to write about how he once thought the absence of Latinos from film, television, and music would disappear once people managed to educated themselves. These last VMAs have shown that instead “It’s an unconscious choice to ignore our talents and achievements and trump it up to a ‘limited market,’ but that’s what happens,” sharing that “we [are] still subjected to the ‘Latin only’ corner of the room.”

Reading a thread of tweets that discourage the success of reggaeton and Latin music is disappointing enough without the music industry seemingly excluding and ignoring excellence among Latin artists. It creates a division among people who should be working together to help one another make the industry a better and more inclusive place. Instead, artists like Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee are being forced to reside in an “other” category that treats them differently than the Taylor Swifts and the Katy Perrys of the industry. “Despacito” has proved through its countless successes that Spanish music is not solely for one audience and, no matter the outcome of the next week, this song will continue to set a precedence; proving that Latin excellence should be treated equally and with the respect it deserves.