Despite enduring stereotypes of Latinx culture seen in movies, on TV, and in every-day life, identifying as Hispanic and/or Latinx looks and sounds different for everyone. These stereotypes suggest all Latinx people should look, act or “be” a certain way, a falsehood that somehow persists even today — and one that many famous Latinx women like Gina Rodriguez and Camila Mendes have spoken out about. Those ideas lead to Latinx people (especially women) being told we’re not Latinx “enough,” or, perhaps, doing it “incorrectly.” But of course, there is no right or wrong way to honor and identify with one’s heritage, no matter what they’re from — and such is the case during Hispanic and Latinx Heritage Month, as well.
To celebrate the wide and varied world of Latinx culture, we’ve compiled our favorite quotes from celebrity women on what their Hispanic and Latinx heritage means to them, with answers that vary as much as the women themselves. From proud Puerto Ricans like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Jennifer Lopez to Afro-Latinx ladies like Cardi B, Zoe Saldaña, and Rosario Dawson, find out what these women had to say about how their Latinx identity influences who they are, how they were raised, and what they hope to accomplish.
A version of this article was released on Oct 2021.
Ana De Armas
Ana De Armas has talked about how proud she is of her heritage and how proud she is that she gets to portray the legend Marilyn Monroe in Blonde. “It’s definitely changing; it’s getting better,” she said to Elle. “I do want to play Latina. But I don’t want to put a basket of fruit on my head every single time. My hope [is] that I can show that we can do anything if we’re given the time to prepare, and if we’re given just the chance.”
Jenna Ortega
Screamstar Jenna Ortega has always been proud of her heritage, telling Deadline in 2022, “Being Latina has always been really, really lovely for me. It’s something that I’m very proud of. I grew up in a community [Coachella Valley, California] surrounded by all kinds of Hispanics, which was really wonderful because I never grew up with any sort of shame or any sort of fear of my culture.”
Rita Moreno
In an essay penned to AARP, Rita Moreno talked about how her role affected her culture, the culture she loves so much. She said, “I’m certain the success of West Side Storymeant something very different to Latinos than it did to the broader community. With greater exposure to that Latin-influenced musical, the larger community had the chance to hear our great music, experience our enormous enthusiasm and see us as a people whose love is deep and passionate. My community, on the other hand, was absolutely jolted to learn we were finally being represented on the big screen.”
Anya Taylor-Joy
Queen Gambit’s star Anya Taylor-Joy said to Marie Claire UK, “I come from many different places, but I think my warmth and my outlook on life are from Argentina. I’m very grateful for that part of my history. I feel very proud to come from Argentina.”
Charisma Carpenter
Buffy the Vampire Slayer alum Charisma Carpenter is a proud Latina, telling Latin Trends, “You need to get it out that I’m a proud Latina!” She added, “I took Spanish since I was in the 6th grade and I lived in Mexico for a couple of years when I was in high school. I went to a school that had a strong Latino environment in Southern San Diego–about six miles from the border, so I grew up in the culture.”
Jennifer Lopez
“As Latinos, we really have to understand that the world is ours and that we matter and that we have worth and value…this is your world too and you should reach as high as you want to reach and go for whatever you want to go for and nothing is out of the realm of possibility,” Lopez said in a 2018 interview with Music Choice.
Lopez also explained why she’s so adamant about regularly recognizing her Puerto Rican identity. “Some people go, ‘Oh, she’s always saying she’s from Puerto Rico, she’s from the Bronx.’ Yeah, because I’m proud of that and there’s no reason for me to ever hide that part of myself to be successful,” she told E! News in 2019. “To the contrary, I feel it’s the secret to my success.”
In her most recent interview in Sept 2022, Lopez also said to People, “And so when I went into these worlds, like Hollywood, where we were not represented at all, I almost felt like a unicorn. ‘I’m Latina. I’m Jennifer Lopez from the Bronx. And my parents are Puerto Rican, I’m Puerto Rican.’ And I think it made me feel special.”
Rosario Dawson
“I think being Latina is about having pride in your heritage,” Dawson told Latina Magazine, per Project Eñye. “Although I am not a fluent Spanish speaker and I can’t make every dish without a recipe, I am 100 percent Boricua and I am proud of that.”
Eva Mendes
“Being Cuban and being raised in a very typical Cuban household influences everything I do. My mom and two sisters — us four girls — all have completely different body types, and I love that about Latin culture,” Mendes told People Chica in 2017. “Under this beautiful umbrella of being Latin, are many shapes, colors, and sizes. I grew up with everyone looking so incredibly different from one another.”
“I grew up with a really heavy Cuban influence, yet I was American. I’m super fortunate to have had the best of both worlds,” she said.
Shakira
“I do feel that I have to use my voice for those that don’t have one. I have to do the best I can in my own work to represent my culture, represent the women of my country, of Latin America. What we stand for. What we’re made of,” Shakira told The Independent in 2014.
Later, as the pop-star prepared to perform alongside Jennifer Lopez at the 2020 Super Bowl, she told Reuters: “I think that being at the Super Bowl is very symbolic in a way. I feel we have a great responsibility with the Latinos around the world.”
“There is a lot to celebrate about our Latin culture, and it is a great opportunity to be on this very important stage.”
Jessica Alba
“I’ve always felt closer to being a Latina than anything else, because I grew up with my dad’s family, who are Mexican American,” Alba told Glam Belleza Latina in 2014. “I never really identified any other way.”
Camila Cabello
“All of the things that were being spoken about hit so close to home, to me being an immigrant and being a Latina,” Cabello said on Lena Dunham’s podcast Women of the Hour of the dialogue surrounding immigration during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. “I feel like in a way that’s just kind of made me prouder of my roots. Now and forevermore, I’m going to stick up for immigrants and I’m going to stick up for Hispanic people and their rights. I feel like that’s just my job.”
Gloria Estefan
“The music is one of the beautiful things that has survived the Castro regime. I have played for audiences all over the world but I’ve never played for a Cuban audience,” Estefan has said. “For [husband] Emilio and me, the music is the one tie to our homeland.”
Salma Hayek
“I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage, to love my first language, Spanish, to learn about Mexican history, music, folk art, food, and even the Mexican candy I grew up with,” Hayek said of how she works to keep Mexican traditions alive at home. “I have tried my whole life to represent my Mexican roots with honor and pride.”
Zoe Saldana
“People think of Latina women as being fiery and fierce, which is usually true. But I think the quality that so many Latinas possess is strength. I’m very proud to have Latin blood,” Saldaña told Cosmopolitan Latina in 2012.
Later, she echoed the sentiment — and addressed the unfortunately-evergreen theme of not embodying the “proper” Latina. “I am proud to be Latina. I will not accept [anyone] telling me that I’m less or whatever, because to me, that is just hysterical,” she told Glam Belleza Latina.
Cameron Diaz
“My Latin roots are very strong. All my life, because I’m blonde and blue-eyed, people who aren’t Hispanic can’t believe I am,” Diaz once said, per Zimbio. “Being Latin is part of who I am and I bring that part to every role.”
Gina Torres
“Usually my identity is chosen for me because of how I’m physically perceived. I’ve often said I didn’t have to be Black until I became an actress,” Torres told Buzzfeed in 2019. “Having grown up Latina, that’s what I was, that’s how I identified. But being brown in the world meant that I was Black, so it was often chosen for me.”
“As women of color, it’s important to be impeccable in our words and in our work since we’re held to a higher standard,” Torres later said in an interview with NBC News. “But we must also be unapologetic about our excellence and not apologize for being awesome.”
Tessa Thompson
“In Hollywood, I don’t think there’s enough real representation and nuance,” Thompson, who is Mexican and Afro-Panamanian, told Remezcla in 2019. “I see a lot of incredible Afro-Latinas working, but I’m not sure that there are enough stories told that speak to that particular experience.”
“I hope we can get to the space in Hollywood where it’s not noteworthy for a woman, and particularly a woman of color, to top line a franchise film,” Thompson reiterated while speaking to NBC News that same year. “I hope we can get to a place where we don’t have to congratulate it, or comment on it because it happens with such frequency. But we are still really far away from there.”
Eva Longoria
“We’re ninth-generation Americans,” Eva told Los Angeles Magazine in 2014. “We never crossed the border; the border crossed us.”
“I’m proud to have a Mexican heritage, and I’ve always deeply rooted my identity in it,” she also told O, The Oprah Magazine, going on to acknowledge that she faces the same cultural dilemma as other Latinx entertainers. “About ten years ago, I went to Mexico…when I got there, I was perceived as American because I didn’t speak Spanish and at the time knew very little about the history of Mexico. Yet in America, I was considered Mexican because of how I looked and my last name. It was confusing. I thought, ‘If I’m not Mexican, and I’m not American, who am I?’”
Rosie Perez
“A lot of Puerto Rican Americans sometimes feel outside of the Puerto Rican experience because their parents didn’t teach them Spanish, and then they get ridiculed from that. Some of them have never visited the island and, you know, and some people may call them a fake Puerto Rican,” Perez told NPR in 2006. “And I don’t think that that’s fair, because they still grew up on rice and beans. They still listen to salsa and merengue.”
“You may not be born in Puerto Rico, but Puerto Rican is definitely born in you.”
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez
“Yes, culture isn’t DNA. But to be Puerto Rican is to be the descendant of: African Moors + slaves, Taino Indians, Spanish colonizers, Jewish refugees, and likely others. We are all of these things and something else all at once — we are Boricua,” Ocasio-Cortez tweeted in 2018 of her Puerto Rican background. “Just because one concrete identity may not be how we think of ourselves today, nor how we were raised, it doesn’t mean we cannot or should not honor the ancestors and stories that got us here.”
The politician has also addressed how the United States often fails to recognize what came before colonization. “We conveniently forget that large, massive swaths of the United States used to be Mexico,” she tweeted. “Latinx people are baked into the land of the Americas and the United States.”
Lastly, AOC famously quipped: “For those who ask how I learned to handle pressure, try being the only daughter in a Latino household.”
Christina Aguilera
“I’ve dealt with that my whole life,” Christina told Latina Magazine in 2012 of the common criticism that she’s not Latinx in the ‘right’ way. “I don’t speak the language fluently. And I’m split right down the middle, half Irish and half Ecuadorean. I should not have to prove my ethnicity to anyone. I know who I am All I know is no one can tell me I’m not a proud Latina woman.”
Selena Quintanilla-Pérez
“I feel very proud to be Mexican,” the late singer said, per Hispanic Mama. “I didn’t have the opportunity to learn Spanish when I was a girl, but it’s never too late to get in touch with your roots.”
Sofia Vergara
“I play [Gloria] the way I see my mother and my aunt behave as Latin women. And now the writers know more about the Latin culture than when I started doing the show, and they know me better, too,” Vergara told Time in 2014, in regards to her family inspiring her Modern Family character.
Vergara has also insisted: “I’m not afraid of anything. I’m Colombian.”
Camila Mendes
“For me, being an ‘American Latina’ means identifying with and being influenced by both my American upbringing and my Latin heritage, and I have so much appreciation for how those two cultures have created who I am,” Mendes told People in 2017.
But like thousands of Latinx actresses before her, this has simultaneously made it more difficult to find her place in the industry. “I’m pretty new to Hollywood, but I’m already starting to see the issues in how some projects are cast. I often hear things like, ‘You don’t look Latina enough,’ and that mentality is so backwards. The fact is: I am Latina, so how are you going to tell me that I don’t look Latina?”
Selena Gomez
“[I represent Latinos] one thousand percent. I’m always very vocal about my background, as far as me talking about immigration, and my grandparents having to come across the border illegally. I wouldn’t have been born [otherwise],” Gomez told Dazed in 2020. “I have such an appreciation for my last name. I’ve re-released a lot of music in Spanish as well, and that’s something that’s gonna happen a bit more. So there’s a lot more I would love to do because I don’t take it lightly, I’m very honored.”
“I’m a proud third-generation American-Mexican,” she told Define American the same year. “When my family came here from Mexico, they set into motion my American story, as well as theirs. My family’s journey and their sacrifices helped get me to where I am today.”
Bella Thorne
“Being Latina means being me. It’s who I am; it’s in my blood and how I was raised. To me, it means being fun; it means the obnoxious laughing, the big personalities, the Latin spice. I definitely have a little bit of the Latin attitude,” Thorne told POPSUGAR Latina in 2015.
Demi Lovato
“I’m really proud of [my heritage], especially the way that the Latin community is kind of taking over and rising above politically,” Lovato told HuffPost in 2014. “Even though I don’t speak fluent Spanish, I love singing in Spanish. I love being able to represent the curvy sassiness of a Latina woman. It’s just a part of who I am, and I couldn’t be more proud to represent that.”
America Ferrera
“[Latinos] are moms and dads, sons and daughters. We are valedictorians and honor students. We are college graduates, bankers, police officers, entertainers, teachers, journalists, politicians, and we are the future of America,” America Ferrera wrote about the Latinx community for HuffPost in 2016.
Separately, Ferrerra has also addressed how torn she feels between American and Latin culture. “There’s this tug-of-war between two cultures. Am I Latin? Am I American? What the hell am I?” she said, per Latin Trends. “I love my culture and I’m very proud of my culture… I want to learn so much about where my family is from and my roots and to know Spanish. But when you’ve lived your entire life in American schools, you don’t get that.”
Aubrey Plaza
“I was winning the diversity awards and people were always calling bullshit on me,” Plaza told Latina magazine in 2014, per HuffPost. “I won the Hispanic teenager of the year and I felt terrible. I always felt like I didn’t deserve to win because I was really half [Latino].”
That said, she still feels deeply connected to her Puerto Rican heritage. “A lot of people don’t assume I’m Puerto Rican because I’m fair-skinned, but I feel very connected to that side of my family. . . . Boricua pa’que lo sepas!” she told Cosmopolitan for Latinas in 2013.
Isabel Allende
“I’m a writer. In Latin America, they say I’m a Latin-American writer because I also write in Spanish and my books are translated, but I am an American citizen and my books are published here, so I’m also an American writer,” Allende once said, addressing the ever common theme of feeling torn between two worlds.
“Language has also impacted me and my writing,” she told AARP in 2018. “Despite cultural differences, we all want the same things and we fear the same things. We dream about the same things. That’s the wonder of literature. It can be universal even if you are talking about one little place. You may be talking about Macondo in One Hundred Years of Solitude. And the whole universe connects to Macondo because, in a way, we all live in our own Macondo.”
Cardi B
“One thing that always bothers me is that people know so little about my culture. We are Caribbean people, and a lot of people be attacking me because they feel like I don’t be saying that I’m Black,” Cardi, who is Dominican and Trinidadian, explained in a CR Fashion Book interview with Zendaya, per The Grio. “Some people want to decide if you’re Black or not, depending on your skin complexion, because they don’t understand Caribbean people or our culture.”
Later, Cardi clarified she never meant to imply she was half “Spanish,” but Afro-Latinx — which, again, is common — you can be Black and Latinx. “Back then I didn’t really used the right terms. I haven’t always been super woke lmaaaoooo.I should have said half Hispanic cause me saying I’m Spanish don’t make sense cause is a language. As we get older we learn the terms better,” she tweeted.
Christina Milian
“Since early, it’d be like, I’m Cuban but [people] didn’t get it because I was also brown-skinned, and you usually see a fair-skinned Latino, so it was just like, ‘Oh, what are you? Are you black? Are you white?’ I didn’t feel like I had to make a choice,” Milian said of coming to terms with her Afro-Cuban identity on HuffPost Live in 2015. “I am what I am. We’re all different, but you have to accept our differences.”
“As far as Afro-Cuban [goes], I’m finding more and more that there’s people opening their eyes to seeing that. Latinos come in all colors, all shades,” she added. “You should see my mom and her brothers and sisters. Same parents, but we just vary in color, shapes and sizes. But we’re still Latinos — that doesn’t change a damn thing. You can tell it’s in the core of our blood.”
Gina Rodriguez
“You want to tell me I’m not Latino enough?…I am as Latina as they come. And I am not defined by anybody’s definition of Latina,” Rodriguez said on HuffPost Live in 2015, per People, addressing Instagram comments that criticized her for not being able to speak Spanish fluently. “I am always Latina. It’s a part of me, just like being a woman is, too.”
Later, per POPSUGAR, she reminded her Latinx community: “We are powerful, and we are passionate, and we are smart, and we are independent, so know that!”
Selenis Leyva
“The reality is that yes it was hard. Did I ever feel like I didn’t want to be Afro-Latina? Absolutely not,” Leyva said during a P&G Orgullosa’s Nueva Latinas Living Fabulosa Forum in 2015. “We come in so many wonderful shades and body types…So whoever said I wasn’t Latina enough, suck it!”
Fergie
“I’m very proud to be part Mexican,” Fergie told Glam Belleza Latina in 2015. “I’m one of a growing number of Hispanics in America, but you wouldn’t necessarily know it. This is becoming the norm, and it’s the beauty of our melting pot.”
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