Credit: David Shankbone, licensed under Creative Commons 2.0
The Oscar-nominated actor is Spanish and White, but his name has Americans doing all kinds of things with his identity. Technically, the term Hispanic refers to people from Spanish-speaking countries, which Spain is. Further leaps have taken people to terms including Latinx and “person of color.”
National Public Radio has a good examination of the Banderas backlash. The issue was a sore point around the time of the Oscars. Filled with predominantly White actors again, organizers were looking for any straw they could grasp at to show some color.
Banderas does not have it and the complexity of labels in the Latino/Hispanic spectrum got run over in the rush to demonstrate inclusive casting.
Read about the labeling issue in “100 Questions and Answers About Hispanics and Latinos” is available from Amazon or the Front Edge Publishing bookstore.
