When film documentarian Maria Agui Carter and other Latino producers banded together 13 years ago to address their underrepresentation in mass media, the mission seemed daunting and desperate, Carter said.

“We used to be few hundred people that started in 1999, very frustrated at lack of access, trying to kick down the doors” of major media and film making outlets, Carter told CNN. “Through our own community building, we finally realized that we are the ones that we were waiting for.”

The National Association of Latino Independent Producers now touts a newsletter of industry trends with 10,000 subscribers, and this week the group will address how the nation’s second-largest group watches more television, buys more movie tickets and consumes more media than any other ethnicity — and yet comprises less than 1% of executives in Hollywood.

“We are celebrating the incredible explosion of Latinos in the media both in front and behind the camera,” Carter, board chairwoman of NALIP, said Tuesday.

“There are great improvements in the representation of Latinos, especially in television, but there are very few directors, vice presidents and above, film and TV executives and very few at the major and mini-major studios and few in the (talent) agencies and the management companies,” Carter said.

“That, of course, affects the opportunities that Latinos in the media are able to take advantage of,” she said.

The group’s efforts have taken on urgency as the latest U.S. census shows that Hispanics have exceeded the 50 million mark and are officially the country’s second-largest population group, surpassing African-Americans.