Jessica Alba reportedly “cried all night” when the press took her lack of Spanish fluency as a sign she had abandoned her Latina heritage. In order to spare her daughter a similar pain, she has hired a Hispanic studies teacher to help both her and 19-month-old Honor learn Español.
Things did seem to get ugly, as voices seemed to think her lack of interest in acting in Spanish showed a disdain for both the language and her own ethnic background. Is she truly investing in the education of her daughter — or perhaps positioning herself for roles that could propel her to extra stardom in the Spanish-speaking regions of the world? She could also be simply following in the footsteps of another Latina, the once diva-tastic Jennifer Lopez, who has of course has released an album in Spanish, but then allegedly refused to do any in-person promotion for the album in Ritmo Latino record stores — possibly because her actual Spanish ain’t too good.
Do you think Alba’s interest in the Spanish language is indeed for little Honor — or for her career — or for both? And there’s this other trickier question, does speaking Spanish make you a better Latina? We’d like to hear from you.
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Comments
Ashley
February 3rd, 2010 - 3:29:49 PM
Good for Alba, it's never a bad idea to learn a new language, especially from one's own cultural heritage. But who cares if she is doing it for her career, her own personal reasons or for her child (in all likelihood, she's doing it for all three reasons, maybe more). There's no "wrong" reason to learn a language after all. Also, judging if someone is "latina" enough (or "black" enough) or whatever is decidedly stupid. Not all latina's are the same, and judging them all as such seems very narrow minded to me.
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Sherrie Gulmahamad
February 5th, 2010 - 3:55:23 PM
Ashley - thank you for your feedback. I too believe nothing "makes you" a particular ethnicity. It's simply who you are. I think the voices out there calling Alba "not a Latina" are very similar to folks who are angry with actors "who are quite possibly gay" and refuse to come out of the closet. Everything is personal, in the end really - it's just that these people in the end have their personal lives because the stuff of public consumption.
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