While it's unlikely that the White House coordinated with the makers of Grand Theft Auto, the two parties managed to make May 26, 2009 a significant date for Latinos.
Today saw the announcement not just of the first Latino protagonist of a Grand Theft Auto adventure but the nomination by President Barack Obama of the woman who could be the first Latino Supreme Court Justice.
The newly-announced Ballad of Gay Tony, coming this fall, will star Luis Lopez. His presence as the episode's lead will further the diversification of the series' string of white and black protagonists that most recently saw the inclusion of its first Asian lead, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars' Huang Lee. (Full list here.) Lopez is believed to be of Dominican descent.
Obama's nomination of judge Sonia Sotomayor for the United States' highest court, also announced today, would, if confirmed by the Senate, give America its third female supreme court justice in its history and the first of Hispanic descent. Sotomayor is of Puerto Rican heritage by way of New York City.
We're not saying whether anybody should or shouldn't play their games or think about their Supreme Court Justices with regard to what ethnicity those people are.
But the parallel milestone announcements, coming in the same day, can't be ignored.