Growing up in New Jersey, telenovelas and variety shows connected me to my family and Dominican culture—even when they didn’t tell our exact story.

When I think about growing up Dominican in New Jersey, I don’t immediately remember the big milestones. I remember the television glowing quietly in the corner while dinner was being prepared in the kitchen. Spanish came through the speakers, competing with the steady clatter of pots and pans, overlapping family conversations, and the occasional good-natured argument over who got to choose the channel. More often than not, it was a toss-up between Univision and Telemundo, the twin pillars of Spanish-language broadcasting in American households during the late 20th century.

I remember Marimar, starring Thalía and Eduardo Capetillo—my first television crush—playing against the backdrop of our evening routine. I remember eagerly anticipating weekends with Sábado Gigante and the legendary host Don Francisco, a programme our household looked forward to all week long. I remember watching Selena perform and meticulously replaying her interviews and music videos because my family never seemed ready to let those moments go, holding onto her extraordinary talent and tragic legacy as if she were one of our own.

There was something profoundly powerful about hearing Spanish spoken fluidly in our home, even when the narratives unfolding on screen weren’t specifically Dominican. They still felt remarkably familiar. The regional expressions, the intricate family dynamics, the vibrant music, the sharp humor, and the larger-than-life personalities reflected pieces of a broader culture that we instinctively recognized and embraced.

Watching Marimar with my family was never a quiet, passive affair. My mother would frequently shake her head at a character’s predictably bad decision, and someone else in the room would immediately chime in with, "¡Te dije que eso iba a pasar!"—I told you that was going to happen! Within moments, the room would fill with a chorus of overlapping voices, laughter, gentle teasing, and playful arguments over who had predicted the plot twist correctly.

It was the exact same energy I knew so well from my extended Dominican family gatherings: adults laughing uproariously at old stories and passionately debating everything from local family gossip to whatever scandalous development was currently unfolding on television. Someone was always calling out from another room, and somehow, miraculously, everyone managed to be part of the ongoing conversation. The show didn’t tell our exact story, but watching it alongside my mother and the rest of my family felt entirely like home.

Marimar wasn’t a Dominican production, and Selena was famously Mexican American. But cultural affinity does not always require direct, literal representation. Sometimes, it comes through a deeper sense of recognition—finding the familiar cadence of your own life reflected in the experiences of others across the diaspora.

At the time, I certainly didn’t think of those ordinary evenings as an intentional act of cultural preservation. I was simply a kid growing up in New Jersey, sitting on the living room rug and watching television with my family. Decades later, however, I realize that those seemingly mundane moments were actively teaching me who I was, where my family came from, and how to navigate the complex spaces between two different worlds.

For countless immigrant families across the United States, broadcast media functioned as far more than mere entertainment. It served as a vital bridge connecting the world our parents left behind and the modern American landscape we were growing up in. For my Dominican family, these networks helped us hold onto our native language, traditional music, cultural humor, and a visceral connection to our homeland while we simultaneously built a permanent life in the United States.

That was the unique magic of appointment television. We watched because a broadcast was scheduled at a specific hour, and it organically became part of our daily family conversation precisely because we had all experienced it together in real time. I could navigate English all day at school and then return home to a living room completely filled with the warmth of the Spanish language, growing up firmly rooted in New Jersey while still seeing vibrant pieces of Latin America and the Caribbean illuminated on screen. I never had to choose between being Dominican and being from New Jersey—I could simply, comfortably be both.

Even today, hearing the familiar opening notes of Marimar instantly brings back vivid memories of those evenings with my family. Yet, the fundamental way we consume television and media has changed dramatically over the years. I no longer wait anxiously for a specific show to air at a set hour, nor do I gather in the living room with my family to negotiate what we are all going to watch together. Instead, I stream shows independently on my own schedule whenever I find a spare moment. When something genuinely makes me laugh or vividly reminds me of home, I still share it with my family, though that sharing now typically happens through a quick digital clip or a meme dropped into our family group chat.

The underlying connection remains strong, but it has undoubtedly taken on a completely different shape. When I was growing up, a dramatic telenovela twist, a memorable musical performance on Sábado Gigante, or a poignant song on television could effortlessly become the centerpiece of tomorrow’s family conversation without anyone needing to plan it in advance. Everyone had tuned in. Everyone had an opinion. Today, confronted with endless digital choices and highly personalized algorithmic feeds, we may watch completely different shows, follow entirely different digital creators, and discover culture through vastly divergent pathways. Shared cultural moments have not disappeared entirely, but they have certainly become less automatic.

At the same time, contemporary Latino creators are no longer waiting patiently to be granted representation by traditional media gatekeepers; they are actively creating that representation themselves on open platforms. A young Dominican kid growing up in New Jersey today can simply open their smartphone and instantly find a thriving digital community that explicitly reflects their unique lived experiences. I would never trade that unprecedented access or the immense creative freedom that today’s creators enjoy.

Yet, alongside all of this progress, I occasionally miss the simple, unifying feeling that we were all watching the exact same thing at the exact same time.

The platforms have undeniably expanded far beyond traditional telenovelas and Saturday night variety shows to encompass TikTok, podcasts, YouTube channels, and on-demand streaming services, but my fundamental desire for authentic connection has not changed. I still find myself wanting to encounter something that reminds me of home—and to share that discovery with the people who made it feel like home in the first place.

For those of us who grew up navigating life between two distinct worlds, cultural heritage is passed down through much more than just the formal stories we tell about our ancestral homelands. It lives persistently in our native language, our treasured family recipes, our music, and the ordinary, unscripted moments we spend together in the same room.

For me, that heritage lives on in the enduring memory of a television glowing softly in our New Jersey living room, filling our home with the cadence of Spanish. I once mistakenly thought those broadcasts were simply a way to pass the time. Now, looking back, I understand that what truly shaped me wasn’t just what we watched on that screen, but the fact that we were watching it together as a family.

Today, we have more ways to connect to our cultural roots than at any point in history. The ongoing challenge, however, is figuring out how to keep those connections shared and communal. Culture is never merely something we passively consume; it is something we actively experience, remember, and pass down from one generation to the next.