“Damn! You don’t even pick up Puerto Ricans here either.”
The trailer for “Puerto Ricans in Paris” is here and it looks like a hilarious, action-packed comedy. Two detectives from New York are asked by Paris police to help them track down a very expensive and rare handbag. Why a handbag? Because a handbag of that caliber in the wrong hands could really spell disaster for the fashion industry. The two Boricua detectives cover the entire city of Paris hunting down this handbag while their relationships back in the States hang in the balance. Think of it as a Boricua “Bad Boys.”
Armando Christian Pérez is an executive producer for the film. You know him as Pitbull.
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan is the outgoing president of the National Lawyers Guild and her departure has taken a sudden turn. After years as an attorney, many are now accusing the attorney of posing as a Latina.
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan is facing mounting scrutiny and backlash for her claims that she is Latina.
NEW: For more than a decade, prominent human rights attorney Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan has presented herself as a Latina of Colombian & Puerto Rican heritage. She was heralded as the National Lawyers Guild's first Latina president. But she is a white woman. https://t.co/9wY0GyPtTUhttps://t.co/0cNzoQesaZ
According to a post on Prism, Bannan has a history of claiming her Latinidad. The post points out several interviews the attorney has given over the years with different publications where she explicitly claims that she is part of the Latino community. In one YouTube video with ¡Voice Latina!, Bannan explicitly says that “as a woman, as an individual, as a Latina” she is inspired to do the work she does because of her hero Oscar López Rivera.
People are calling on others to do better about who they choose to represent various communities.
I have said over and over again: when speaking about matters regarding Puerto Rico – speak to boricuas who live in the island. Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan has been posing as a pro independence boricua in the diaspora for years. She has been taking up a space that is not hers.
Representation matters, especially when it comes to the issues that are facing our various communities. It is important to make sure that the representation reflects those being represented. According to Prism, Bannan has been pushing a narrative that she is of Puerto Rican and Colombian heritage for over a decade. She has even spoken out as a Puerto Rican woman that is fighting for the island’s statehood.
There are multiple media moments when Bannan claimed Latino heritage, according to reports.
Dear White People,
Which apparently includes Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan
* Being an ally is not cosplaying as an oppressed person *
No matter what work you do? That is NEVER "the work."
Prism points to an interview conducted in 2007 where she allegedly told “El Diario” that her heritage was “a little bit Spanish, a little bit Colombian, and a Sephardic Jew.”
“I am racially white, and have always said that. However my cultural identity was formed as a result of my family, both chosen and chosen for me, and that has always been Latinx,” Bannan wrote on Facebook Monday following the story. “My identity is my most authentic expression of who I am and how I pay honor to the people who have formed me since I was a child.”
The story is garnering so much attention because of Hilaria Baldwin and her claims of being Spanish.
🤬🤬Another white woman masquerading as a woman of color…..
Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan pretended to be a Latina woman of Colombian & Puerto Rican heritage.
Baldwin misled people into believing that she was of Spanish descent when she was a white woman born in Boston. Prism was able to decipher that Bannan is a white woman born in Georgia whose family immigrated from Ireland, Italy, and Russia.
Credit: felineastronaut/Twiiter; theguyinthechair18/Instagram; Star Wars/Twitter
Recently, news broke that beloved Mexican-American director Robert Rodriguez is set to executive producer Disney+’s new Star Wars series, The Book of Boba Fett. This news broke at the same event that Disney announced that Rosario Dawson will be getting her own Star Wars series on Disney+, a Mandalorian spinoff entitled Ahsoka.
Pair these events with Pedro Pascal headlining The Mandalorian, and it appears that Disney is making some real and concerted effort to hire Latino talent.
And the pattern didn’t just start this year. Since the franchise’s reboot in 2015, Disney has consistently hired Latinos to take part in Star Wars Universe in front of and behind the camera.
In light of this, we’ve compiled a definitive list of all of the Latinos that have been involved in the Star Wars Universe. Take a look below!
1. Oscar Isaac as Poe Dameron
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Guatemalan-American actor Oscar Isaac was one of the first Latinos to set off Disney’s streak of hiring Latino talent for the Star Wars franchise. Isaac (nee Óscar Isaac Hernández Estrada) played Poe Dameron, a fighter pilot who rose in the ranks to become General of the Resistance. He appeared in all three movies of the Star Wars reboot trilogy: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
2. Pedro Pascal as Mando
Credit: theguyinthechair18/Instagram
Chilean-American actor Pedro Pascal plays the titular character in The Mandalorian (his true name is a spoiler), a solitary bounty hunter who travels to the “outer reaches” of the galaxy in order to protect Baby Yoda.
3. Rosario Dawson as Ahsoka Tano
Credit: Star Wars/Twitter
This season, Rosario Dawson played Ahsoka Tano in The Mandolorian–an alien of the Togruta race who is also a Jedi knight and army commander. It was also recently announced that the actress of Cuban and Puerto Rican descent would be headlining a spinoff series on Disney+ entitled Ahsoka.
4. Diego Luna as Cassian Andor
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Mexican actor Diego Luna played Rebel Alliance soldier Cassian Andor in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. Luna will also star in his own standalone series revolving around Cassian Andor on Disney+ called Andor.
5. Lupita Nyong’o as Maz Kanata
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Mexican-born actress Lupita Nyong’o played alien pirate queen Maz Kanata via motion capture in all three of the Star Wars reboot trilogy: The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and The Rise of Skywalker.
6. Benicio Del Toro as DJ
Credit: ComicBookNOW/Twitter
Boricua actor Benicio Del Toro played the villainous hacker DJ in The Last Jedi.
7. Jimmy Smits as Senator Bail Organa
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Brooklyn-born Boricua actor Jimmy Smits played Bail Organa in two of the Star Wars prequel movies, Attack of the Clones and Revenge of the Sith as well as reprising his role in Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
8. Horatio Sanz as Mythrol
Credit: TheSWU/Twitter
Although you might not recognize him through such heavy character makeup, Chilean-America comedian Horatio Sanz played Mythrol, a wanted fugitive that was carbon-frozen by Pascal’s character in the first episode of The Mandolorian.
9. John Leguizamo as Gor Koresh
Credit: TheRoninNews/Twitter
Again, you’d be hard-pressed to recognize John Leguizamo amidst all the heavy alien makeup, but the Colombian-American actor played the character Gor Koresh in The Mandolorian–boastful forager of the Abyssin alien race.
10. Robert Rodriguez
Credit: Getty Images
As we reported above, Robert Rodriguez is a legendary Mexican-American director who helmed a popular episode of The Mandolorian entitled “The Tragedy”. He is now set to executive produce a new Disney+ Star Wars series called The Book of Boba Fett.
11. Adria Arjona
Credit: adriaarjona/Instagram
Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona has not officially appeared in any Star Wars properties yet, but it was recently announced that she will be appearing in Diego Luna’s Star Wars spinoff series Andor as a yet-to-be-named character.
12. Pablo Hidalgo
Credit: pabloarteche/Twitter
Pablo Hidalgo is the definition of behind-the-scenes talent. The Chilean-Canadian LucasFilm creative executive is in charge of keeping narrative and creative cohesion between all of the stories within the Star Wars Universe. In essence, he is the definitive Star Wars expert.
