THE LEAD ACTORS of the television show The Broth- ers Garcia are gathered around one of the show's main sets, the kitchen table of a suburban home in San Antonio, Texas, discussing the events of the day. In the show, mother Sonia Garcia is a beautician. Father Ray Garcia is a history professor. The four Garcia children argue, dream about becoming astronauts, fall in love, and sometimes get grounded. But unlike other television families, the Garcias are also devoutly Catholic, keep salsa on the breakfast table, and watch telenovelas, or Mexican soap operas, on Spanish-language television. The Brothers Garcia, which premiered on the Nickelodeon cable channel in the summer of 2000, is the first American television sitcom to profile a middle-class Latino family. It has proven popular with young viewers from a wide...