#I’m Mexican and grew up in SoCal and just assumed all the latine peers I had were Mexican unless I knew otherwise

[combustion-man]

One trope that super annoys me in a lot of tv shows (mostly) and movies (not as often) of the past idk decade or so is when some white character experiences an Accidentally Racist Moment and assumes the Latine* cast representative is Mexican, and is rudely corrected that “I’m not Mexican, I’m [insert any other LatAm ethnicity]” and the white person has to backtrack

I’m not mad bc of the correction or representation of other Latin American ethnicities. I think it’s really great and important to highlight different cultures from the whole Latin American region, there’s a HUGE range of diversity in culture and language and food and customs that most definitely need to be represented and explored in American media.

My problem is this happens to almost every nice, fun, personable, well rounded character. Which leaves the only Mexican representation to be cartel, coyotes, and undocumented migrants/domestic workers. Again, these stories can be super important to tell and represent (if done correctly which honestly I have seen very very few times, at least in more Hollywood/studio productions)

Also often the character correcting the white people are offended at the idea of being Mexican. It’s implying “how rude of you to just assume I’m Mexican, you racist!” Bruh if they’re racist against Mexicans they’re racist against you too, you just caught them off guard

Idk in general I just want this post to be calling for better Latine rep and especially Mexican rep. And like, Latines of all colors, we got light skinned folks and black folks. We have the range darling, it’s time we showed off

* Latine (LAH-teen-ey) is being used here rather than Latinx or Latin@ for:

1. Gender neutral language that also includes non-binary Latin American folks

2. Speakability for Spanish speakers; “Latinx” (or so I recall) was meant to be a figurative placeholder in writing until a better option was found (we found it!) and while in English it’s fairly easy to adapt to “Latinx” in speech, it does not work well for Spanish speakers, and has no way of translating into other gendered vocabulary or work as a usable word in speech. “X” as a letter is pronounced differently in Spanish, and simply just cannot lingually exist well at the end of a word to

#I’m gonna bring back nightblogging and it’s gonna be me posting essays at 1am #it’s so annoying watching something bc i know it has some good latine rep and I just once want them to be Mexican #and they’re all enjoyable shows and I don’t want to negate them bc they are adding something good! #but like y’all are using PR actresses to be Cuban or Mexican actresses to be Honduran or whatever tf #like they’re coming from all sorts of places it’s not a stretch to throw in some Mexican rep #also the Big Stat is that the latine pop in the US is the second highest demographic #and within that guess which LA country has the highest pop in the US #surprise we share a land border with them it’s ¡México! #like guessing Mexican is statistically a good guess #I’m Mexican and grew up in SoCal and just assumed all the latine peers I had were Mexican unless I knew otherwise #just once I wanna see a family party for like thanksgiving with the normal food and #huge plates of carne and pollo asada and tacos and salsa that one aunt made too hot for even most of the fam but your dad can handle it #and like meeting a new person when you’re 24 at a party and somehow that’s your cousin apparently #Mexican stories don’t need to be sad sob stories or day of the dead stories #oh god I forgot about coco #and book of life #but there’s more to Mexican culture than day of the dead and undocumented immigration #Allison night logs #apparently