Hijas Americanas

Why did you feel that Latinas’ body image, beauty perception, and ethnic identity needed to be explored in this form?  I initially saw the themes of body image, beauty perception, and ethnic identity emerge in my work while I was in graduate school for an MFA in creative writing.  I was surprised by their prevalence and the impact these concepts clearly had on my own development.  In conceptualizing Hijas Americanas, I wanted to look at how Latinas who grew up in a culture that had one idea of beauty, femininity, and gender roles reconciled those expectations with both what they heard from mainstream America and with what they wanted for themselves.  The stories shared show the significance of each individual’s unique coming-of-age experience, but they also examine the universal truths that are part of all our experiences.  These aren’t questions that are only Latino or female in nature.  We all must face our personal challenges, and sometimes our impenetrable insecurities, with an individual honor and dignity that allows us to define who we are in the context of so many things: family, community, ethnicity, race, religion, culture, and more. 

The general world-view is that Latinas do not suffer from body dissatisfaction.  Is that accurate?  Every day, those of us not rooted in the dominant culture in some way navigate a society that was not created with us in mind. We confront our two cultures, our varying traditions, the different values before us—and we try to carve out a place for ourselves.  Given that so many people are on the margins once you really look at their situations, how many people can really be completely immune from the possibility of body dissatisfaction?    So, no Latinas are not universally some Teflon-coated group who are able to absolutely dodge the body dissatisfaction bullet.  It would, however, be amazing if we could create a world where individuals in general felt empowered to revel in their bodies.     

How did the women in your research view beauty?  One of my favorite moments in the interview was asking the women what they considered beautiful because it was often so enlightening.  Almost unanimously, they described beauty as confidence, as a comfort within one’s own skin. They didn’t say tall, blond, and thin.  They didn’t say rocking a hard body.   And in that moment of truth, they often realized that they were judging themselves based on perceived pop culture standards, even though what they considered beautiful was more soulful.  Several  interviewees e-mailed me later to say how liberating that realization had been.  As women come to recognize the disparity between the mainstream perception of beauty and their own sense of beauty, they will be inclined to more adamantly embrace their own view of beauty.      

There are so many more Latinas working in Hollywood today.  What kind of a difference does that make for the young women growing up today? Latinas really entered the Hollywood scene in a noticeable way in the mid-1990s.  Since then, more and more Latinas have made a name for themselves in Hollywood.  But there is a mixed message since so many of the depictions of Latinas in Hollywood are stereotypical in nature.  I initially believed that growing up Latina today would almost be easier on one’s beauty perception as there are so many role models—Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek, Cameron Diaz, Jessica Alba.  But what I found was that, instead, it created a standard for which young Latinas could be measured.  When I was fifteen and told a classmate in South Carolina that I was Puerto Rican, there was no expectation for what that meant, what that might look.  Today, someone might look at a 19 year old Puerto Rican girl who is black in color and say, “Why don’t you look like J.Lo?”  There is a standard for measurement all of a sudden.  We are slowly seeing more and more real Latinas represented, such as America Ferrerra in the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants or Real Women Have Curves.  Judy Reyes as Carla on Scrubs and Sara Ramirez as Dr. Callie Torres on Grey’s Anatomy.  But even the brilliant writers at Grey’s had a scene where one of the other doctor’s called Callie’s character so sexy that she was dirty sexy.  Perhaps it sounds innocuous to those who listen to the words with an  ear different from my own.  But when I heard those words while I was watching one of my favorite television shows that happens to have such a diverse cast, I audibly gasped.   There is still a significant amount of diversification that needs to take place in Hollywood and not just on the screens.  For lines like “she’s dirty sexy” not to be written, there needs to be a diversification among the writers, producers, and directors.       

You say in one of your presentations that before the media will change, we have to change.  What do you mean by that?  Take the Grey’s Anatomy example.  If I were sixteen, a young
Latina, and watching, I could have internalized the message of “dirty sexy” as something that I should embody.  In an ideal world, that stereotype wouldn’t be used in the media, but marketing, almost by its very nature, revolves on stereotypes.   For us to break that mold, that tendency, we must show that we are resistant to the message.  If we reward the ads that use fear or stereotypes or manipulation to encourage us than those marketers receive positive reinforcement.  In order for the media to change, we have to resist the inappropriate messages.  If looking through a beauty or fashion magazine hurts your feeling and lessens your self-confidence, then you have to stop looking.  If a particular products’ campaign offends you, then you certainly don’t buy it.  Once you quit taking in the verbal and visual clutter of what society says is beautiful, you can make room for what you think and feel is beautiful.  Eventually, if enough of us do it, we change the media.   

Why do you think so many women volunteered to share their stories for this book?  Hijas Americanas exists because Latinas share an understanding of the tension and complexities that result from the duality in our experience, and because there is a range of truths and experiences among Latinas in America that is not often explored by mainstream media and culture.  Over 500 women participated in my research.  These women volunteered because they sensed that this information would have been valuable to them when they were coming of age, and they knew their contributions would help someone else—some wonderful girl who is just approaching adolescence somewhere in middle America—know that she is not alone in her struggles. These are women who see the world evolving and have something meaningful to contribute to that evolution.