Why Do Some Of Us Still Not Feel Latina “Enough?”

During a Buzzfeed Pero Like interview, journalist Carolina Reynoso went off-script and told actor Jenna Ortega that she is Latina enough, prompting the Beetlejuice Beetlejuice star to hug the journalist and thank her for her words. 

“Jenna, I just wanted to say from one Latina to another, you’re Latina enough,” Reynoso said in the now-viral video. “I don’t care what anyone else says, especially, like, as someone in the industry. Like, you’ve opened so many doors for people like me, so you are Latina enough. Thank you so much for everything you do. I really appreciate you.” 

As a Latina actor in the public eye, Ortega, who is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, has consistently advocated for more Latine representation in Hollywood, but a 2023 video where Anya Taylor-Joy spoke Spanish and Ortega responded in English sparked discourse about her lack of Spanish fluency. In a separate interview with Vanity Fair in August, Ortega said she regrets not knowing how to speak Spanish as well as she’d like to.“I’m so jealous every time I hear my mom speak perfect Spanish,” Ortega told the magazine.

Ortega is not the first Latina in the public eye to express not feeling Latina enough. Veterans like Rosario Dawson, Jessica Alba, and La La Anthony as well as younger talent like Camila Mendes and Dascha Polanco have shared similar sentiments throughout their careers.

Still, even in 2024, this sweet moment between Ortega and Reynoso has been lauded as healing for all the “no sabo” kids who struggle with their Latine identity inside and outside the community, whether due to where they were born, language fluency, or race. Not being Latine “enough” is, apparently, something many Latine people still struggle with, and many people felt validated by Reynoso’s words to Ortega. But Latine identity has never been, and never will be a monolith, so how can we even quantify the label of being Latine “enough?" 

There is immense pressure on Ortega and other Latina actors to represent a whole community onscreen, something that is pretty much impossible for a community that spans across dozens of countries, cultures, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and hundreds of Indigenous languages. What complicates the matter further is that Latine representation on screen in the U.S. is generally mediated by the white American public and what the American establishment understands as Latine enough. According to a study by McKinsey & Company, Latines account for 4% of on-screen roles in theatrically released films, compared to 68% white American, 16% Asian American, and 6% Black American. For a diaspora that is so diverse, the little representation we have turns the community into a monolith that erases experiences that don’t fit into the white American imaginary.

“Interviewees noted that many of the Latino roles available at auditions continue to be one-dimensional roles associated with immigration, drug cartels, household services such as cleaning or gardening, or inner-city settings,” the 2024 study concludes. “This not only limits opportunities for Latinos in the industry but also has an effect on how the society perceives Latinos, perpetuating stereotypes and biases.”

Additionally, there are the stereotypes and standards that the Latine community imports from Latin America. Colonial histories of blanqueamiento and white supremacy means that Afro-Latine and Indigenous people aren’t widely recognized as part of the diaspora in the U.S. Essentially, being Latine “enough” is an extremely complicated issue that recalls complex histories of violent dispossession, colonialism, migration, and assimilation. 

For Ashley Rivera Mercado, a Puerto Rican in Orlando, Fla, who founded Mujeres in Marketing, there’s no true way to be a Latina woman. Mercado, who has previously been told by Latines and white Americans that she doesn’t act like a Latina, says she has gotten to the conclusion that being Latina “enough” only serves white-centric spaces.

“I don't think there's a way to truly act Latina that somehow doesn't serve white-centric spaces because the concept of being Latina ‘enough’ is to fulfill a stereotype to make non-Latine people comfortable,” Mercado, who specializes in marketing and communications, tells Refinery29 Somos.  “A lot of people are like, ‘oh you don't even seem Latina because you're so calm’ or when I do get upset, they're like, ‘oh see, that's the Latina in you coming out.’ And to me, when people say you're not Latina enough, what they're saying is ‘you're not fulfilling that stereotype of a Latina that is in my brain.’”

It makes sense, then, that Ortega, who has largely managed to not play stereotypical Latine characters on screen, has elicited the not Latina “enough” label online. On the one hand, this is due to her racial ambiguity, which allows her to play characters that could be Latine but don’t necessarily need to mention or care about their Latinidad. On the other hand, as Reynaldo says, Ortega’s success is opening doors for other Latinas, making clear that Latina professionals exist outside of the stereotypes dictated by white American society. 

Still, the “enough” designation continues to be constricting because it is very subjective. The threshold can move at any moment and it is defined by the white American public’s interest in Latine people as a monolith. It reminds me of what Latino director and scriptwriter Julio Torres wrote about queer Latine representation in a 2020 article for Esquire: "I never want to claim to speak for anybody else's experience. I am not here representing immigrants. I am not here representing Salvadorans, or Hispanics, or gay people. I can only share what's in me and that may or may not ring true with people, but I have never wanted to use any of those things as a calling card."

Despite the specificity of the “Latine enough” descriptor, the feeling of not fitting into your own culture is, at the end of the day, an extremely human feeling that isn’t unique to the Latine community. However, these feelings might arise more often for Latine people because we are constantly navigating two (or more) cultures — our family’s culture(s) and U.S. culture. According to Valerie Labanca, a Latina therapist based in California, this feeling of not fitting in is mostly based on stereotypes about the Latine community, but it also depends on how a person processed their identity in childhood and adolescence. 

“You’re in this place where you aren't fully one or the other, but it doesn't happen to everybody, it just depends on a person's ability to work through the identity process,” Labanca says. “Childhood and adolescence have a big impact on how you feel about that, depending on how culture and language is managed inside the home, and then in the community, has a huge impact.”

For Labanca, who has seen patients struggle with this in her clinical work, it takes working on self-acceptance and self-esteem to overcome the idea of not being Latine enough. It’s all about defining what being Latine means to you specifically, rather than relying on other people’s narratives of who you are. “Your identity is yours. It is what you decide that to be. It is your truth and your narrative,” she tells Somos. “People are going to judge us, and that judgment is subjective, based on those people’s experiences. And when your core self is shaky, you are a lot more susceptible to the judgments and pressures of others. And that’s true about all of our identities, whether that is gender, whether that is culture, whether that's ethnicity — these are all facets and parts of us, but they aren't us at the core.”

In Mercado’s self-work journey toward an understanding of herself as Latina — despite other people’s judgements — she figured out that she needed to decide how much time and effort she wanted to invest in her own community. How much time could she devote to practicing her Spanish? How much of her work life did she want to dedicate to her community? These questions centered on Mercado's own desires, needs, and interests rather than other people’s perceptions of her. “For me, it was all about self-acceptance,” Mercado says. “I don't need someone to tell me, ‘oh, yeah, you are Latina,’ because I know I'm Latina.”

To say someone is Latina “enough”  is to validate the concerns of a white American public about a performance of monolithic Latinidad. For Labanca, it’s important to challenge this monolith. “We have to be willing to say: ‘You know, there's so much diversity within the Latine community.’”