Opinion: Why isn't Disney's Princess Sofia Latino?
Editor's note: Ruben Navarrette Jr. is a CNN contributor and a nationally syndicated columnist with the Washington Post Writers Group. Follow him on Twitter: @rubennavarrette
San Diego (CNN) - The breathtakingly incompetent way that Disney handled the introduction of what was thought to be the Magic Kingdom's first Hispanic princess has me wondering: What kind of Mickey Mouse operation is this?
Given that Hispanics spending power is worth $1.2 trillion, it's not surprising the media and entertainment behemoth wants a slice of it. But Disney's attempt has turned into a case study of how not to market a product to any group, let alone Hispanics.
Talk about magic. Apparently, Disney has the power to take Hispanics and "de-Hispanicize" them. You start off chocolate, or cafe con leche. Then, suddenly, abracadabra, you're vanilla!
The first casualty is Princess Sofia.
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Cherokee, white Hispanics are in their majority descendants of Spanish settlers who came to the Americas along the course of five centuries (except for Brazil), but they are not the only non-Native American Hispanics. Spain imported black slaves into the Americas and the Caribbean until the late 19th century, when it was finally abolished completely by royal decree. The influence of combined African, Spanish and Native American heritages is mixed into the culture of the Spanish-speaking Americas in different proportions depending on the country, but to such a degree, that it differentiates us from any group on any other continent. Mexicans know that, Colombians, Cubans and Peruvians know that, independently of the color of their skin. Mexicans who have descended from Aztecs know they have different degrees of mixed blood, and they have MUCH more culturally in common with "white Mexicans" as you say, than with their pureblood ancestors. You seem somewhat of a racial purist, the exact opposite of the average Hispanic, who historically sees beauty in the culture and complexion of different races.
Cotez and the Spanish did more damage to the Americas than the rest of Europe combined outside of maybe Portugal. Mexican Indians do not speak Spanish...they speak tsalagi.
Spanish people are white and so is Spanish culture. Spain is in Europe not south America and its ties are no different than north Americas ties to English culture.
Wrong. if your from Mexico you are one of three things...you are a Mexican Indian, a white Hispanic, or you are biracial between the two.
Ruben, what do we care how an American fairy-tale factory (one among many) depicts us?? We are within the definition of Latino so diverse and tied to our particular roots (Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican, etc.) yet so unified within them by our 500 year-old history in the Americas that no Madison Avenue job-security invention within a Disney-style budget could ever define us, no fiction fantasy could ever outmatch the true historical accounts of the Spanish Americas.
Because this is America not Mexico.
White is right