The Box: Nearly 30 Years- And Counting- Of Hispanic Representation On Television From Eva Tamargo
Eva Tamargo - Albert L. Ortega
As a star of both English- and Spanish-language television programming, Eva Tamargo has carved out two unique spaces within which her career can be categorized: as a Hispanic icon, and as a prominent example of the rich multiculturalism that exists within the United States and continues to play an expanding role in American television. Born in Brooklyn to Cuban journalist Augustin Tamargo and Rosalba Nápoles, the actress honed her craft studying under Sam Waterston, William Hickey and Dorothy Dorff and would go on to work in television, radio, commercials and theatre- most notably with New York’s Repertorio Español- in both English and Spanish. Although Tamargo is an accomplished actress across a variety of entertainment mediums, she is unquestionably best known as a star of daytime television, where she has been a mainstay for Hispanic representation for nearly three decades.
Tamargo originally hit her stride onscreen in Telemundo’s 1992 Spanish-language soap opera, Marielena. The series follows the story of Marielena, a beautiful young woman living in Miami who was born in the Florida Straights while her mother was fleeing from Cuba. As Cecilia, Tamargo played the role of a femme fatale, a categorization that would eventually become a defining feature of many of her characters. One of the prominent storylines in Marielena is that of the crumbling marriage between Marielena’s sister, Yolanda, and Alfredo “Fredy” Minelli, as Fredy leaves Yolanda to be with his secretary, Tamargo’s Cecilia, upon discovering Yolanda’s issues with infertility. Marielena gave daytime television viewers a small preview of what Tamargo had to offer, and in 1999 the actress would go on to star in one of her biggest roles with the quirky NBC soap Passions.
Premiering on July 5, 1999, Passions is like most telenovelas with its focus on a large ensemble cast of characters, which in this case is divided into a set of diverse families residing in New England, including an African American family, two white families and a Mexican-Irish family. What sets this soap apart, however, is that its main antagonist happens to be a town witch who is over 300-years-old. Layered throughout an otherwise conventional soap opera, one that includes familiar themes like betrayal, adultery, pregnancies and motherly love, are fantastical elements such as zombies, magic and an orangutan caregiver. According to Tamargo, her first year on the soap had left her in a recurring state of surprise, one in which her “primary reaction” to the series’ outlandish storylines would leave her thinking “What are we doing again?” The outlandish aspects of the soap are what make it so iconic, though it’s plausible that Passions may have been better recognized for its racial diversity were it not for the distraction of its supreme unconventionality.
While it’s famous for its occult-based storyline, the most important component of Passions was not necessarily the existence of the supernatural, but instead the authentic portrayal of its characters, including Tamargo’s Pilar Lopez-Fitzgerald. Originally from Mexico, Lopez-Fitzgerald is a single mother of five who works two jobs in order to support her family following the disappearance of her husband. As “one of the characters who had a more normal existence throughout the supernatural storyline,” Lopez-Fitzgerald “[brings] normalcy to the show,” creating a “great balance” that helped to blend elements of the fantastic within the core of a soap opera format. Relishing her role on such a unique soap, Tamargo later stated that the “the whole supernatural storyline,” made the cast “pioneers” who were “ahead of [their] time…on soaps.” The actress stated that the challenge in being involved in such a series was that “as an actor, you have to buy it yourself because it’s the only way to sell it…and if [the cast] can do that, then the audience will believe it.” While her more conventional role as Pilar may not have been as flashy as her mystic counterparts, Tamargo was still able to rack up two ALMA Award nominations for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama, first in 2002 and again in 2008, the final year that the soap was on the air.
Tamargo’s character on OWN’s The Haves and the Have Nots may be the role that best fits the categorization of the femme fatale. As Celine Gonzales, Tamargo played the longtime housemaid of the wealthy Cryer family. Having been with the family for so long, Celine doesn’t just know the family’s secrets, but her own presence is part of a larger Cryer family secret, having had an affair with the family patriarch, Judge Jim Cryer, that resulted in two illegitimate children. Speaking of her character on The Tyler Perry Show, Tamargo went into detail on why she enjoyed taking on such a villainous role, and why playing a widely hated character didn’t bother her. For Tamargo, playing a character like Celine was a reminder that “it’s good to embrace both sides of a human being,” even those sides which may seem less desirable to be so open about. She elaborated on this by making the point that it’s difficult to trust a person who is always nice because there is almost certainly something deeper that that person is keeping to themselves. “When you judge someone about the way they’re being, especially Celine, you don’t really know the struggle that woman is going through. Nobody really knows why she’s acting that way… you don’t know where she’s coming from, you don’t know where that hatred is coming from.”
Tamargo’s very presence on television has been and continues to be a boost for Hispanic visibility, but it’s not just her dramatic portrayals that have increased Hispanic representation onscreen. While the actress will always be best known for her work in scripted programming, especially on daytime television, her brief work with unscripted content is monumental in meaning within the broader scope of the portrayal of Hispanic women on television, showcasing everyday Hispanic women without the need of a fictional, scripted context to give reason for their presence. As the host of Telemundo’s 2003 unscripted dating show La Cenicienta, Tamargo brought attention to the cultural nuances of dating for Hispanic women, as the series followed the experience of Minerva Ruvalcaba, a single mother in search of love. Across various Hispanic cultures, there is a high value placed on women remaining abstinent until marriage, so in profiling a single mother, the show navigated the difficulty that falls upon the shoulders of Hispanic women who don’t fulfill this cultural expectation, and as an established actress, Tamargo’s involvement bolstered the show’s credibility. Speaking of the show and its premise, Tamargo emphasized the importance of such a program in showing young Hispanic women that “there is a second chance in life.” La Cenicienta is considered an important series for the representation of Hispanic women on television because of its willingness to explore the breaking of cultural taboos without a sense of judgment, furthering the importance of Tamargo’s career in what it has meant for diverse representation of Hispanic women in both fictional and non-fictional contexts.
Throughout her career, Eva Tamargo has been a mainstay for Hispanic representation on daytime television. Through small roles and iconic ones, as a strongly hated character and as the host of a groundbreaking reality series, the actress has consistently demonstrated her range as a performer. As the industry continues to push for more Hispanic representation onscreen, it can already look back at Eva Tamargo as one of its early trailblazers.
