Julie Garcia is a third-year journalism student at the University of Texas at Austin, and she comes from the town of Center in East Texas. She grew up watching telenovelas in her small town, and says she took the Spanish-language TV soap operas for granted – until she moved to Austin.
“I never really thought about the influence that telenovelas had on the Hispanic community,” Garcia says.
She says even with all the streaming services like Netflix and Hulu, families she knows still tune in to the TV lineup of telenovelas – especially families that recently immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico.
“That’s how it is; if you go into their homes, they’re always gonna have Direct TV, Dish Latino on,” Garcia says. “Everyone else has moved on but they’re still turning the TV on at 7 [p.m.]”