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EXCLUSIVE: Charisma Carpenter: "You Need To Get It Out That I'm A Proud Latina!"
EXCLUSIVE: Charisma Carpenter: "You Need To Get It Out That I'm A Proud Latina!"
By Lee Hernandez | 07/20/2011 - 20:10
Her name is Charisma Carpenter and she’s best known for playing all-American cheerleader Cordelia Chase on the hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But there’s something many people don’t know about Charisma—she’s Latina! “I think it’s the best kept secret ever,” said the sweet actress, whose grandfather was born in Spain. “You need to get it out that I’m a proud Latina!”
Charisma says she’s been trying to tell people she’s Latina for years—but they don’t believe her. “They’re not buying it,” she says. “I feel a little rejected by the Latina community. I say that in jest—I don’t sincerely mean it. But I mean…a little bit.”
The talented actress, who has a huge fan base for her work on Buffy and its spinoff, Angel, thinks she knows why people don’t believe she’s Latina. ”I guess I’m too white, too pale,” she says. “I guess they’ve never seen me tan…I don’t know.”
The 40-year-old actress says she wasn’t raised speaking Spanish—but there’s a reason for that. “My grandfather had a pretty terrible experience being in America and being from Spain,” she says sounding a bit more serious. “He came to this country as an immigrant with his family. He was a crop picker: strawberries, cotton, all that kind of stuff. And what would happen back in those days is that parents would go away and send their small children to a boarding house or an orphanage.”
Charisma says it must have been a crooked operation because her abuelo was smuggled out of the orphanage in the middle of the night, with his aunt, and adopted out to an American family who mistreated, mocked, and humiliated them. “{They} thought it was so precious and adorable that they spoke Spanish. They would make them sing in Spanish in front of their friends. Their friends would come over and they were the entertainment, so to speak,” she says.
Charisma says the ordeal was very painful for her grandfather. “He was embarrassed by it, so he chose to forget the {Spanish} language,” she says. “He refused to speak it. So my parents weren’t raised speaking Spanish.”
Still, Charisma says she managed to learn Spanish on her own. “I took Spanish since I was in the sixth grade and I lived in Mexico for a couple of years {her dad relocated there for work} when I was in high school,” she says. “I went to a school that had a strong Latino environment in Southern San Diego—about six miles from the border, so I {grew up} in the culture.”
This weekend, Charisma says she’s attending a Latino film festival in support of the new film, Without Men, which stars Latinas Eva Longoria, Judy Reyes, and Kate Del Castillo. “I’m going to support Eva!” she says enthusiastically.
By Lee Hernandez | 07/20/2011 - 20:10
Her name is Charisma Carpenter and she’s best known for playing all-American cheerleader Cordelia Chase on the hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But there’s something many people don’t know about Charisma—she’s Latina! “I think it’s the best kept secret ever,” said the sweet actress, whose grandfather was born in Spain. “You need to get it out that I’m a proud Latina!”
Charisma says she’s been trying to tell people she’s Latina for years—but they don’t believe her. “They’re not buying it,” she says. “I feel a little rejected by the Latina community. I say that in jest—I don’t sincerely mean it. But I mean…a little bit.”
The talented actress, who has a huge fan base for her work on Buffy and its spinoff, Angel, thinks she knows why people don’t believe she’s Latina. ”I guess I’m too white, too pale,” she says. “I guess they’ve never seen me tan…I don’t know.”
The 40-year-old actress says she wasn’t raised speaking Spanish—but there’s a reason for that. “My grandfather had a pretty terrible experience being in America and being from Spain,” she says sounding a bit more serious. “He came to this country as an immigrant with his family. He was a crop picker: strawberries, cotton, all that kind of stuff. And what would happen back in those days is that parents would go away and send their small children to a boarding house or an orphanage.”
Charisma says it must have been a crooked operation because her abuelo was smuggled out of the orphanage in the middle of the night, with his aunt, and adopted out to an American family who mistreated, mocked, and humiliated them. “{They} thought it was so precious and adorable that they spoke Spanish. They would make them sing in Spanish in front of their friends. Their friends would come over and they were the entertainment, so to speak,” she says.
Charisma says the ordeal was very painful for her grandfather. “He was embarrassed by it, so he chose to forget the {Spanish} language,” she says. “He refused to speak it. So my parents weren’t raised speaking Spanish.”
Still, Charisma says she managed to learn Spanish on her own. “I took Spanish since I was in the sixth grade and I lived in Mexico for a couple of years {her dad relocated there for work} when I was in high school,” she says. “I went to a school that had a strong Latino environment in Southern San Diego—about six miles from the border, so I {grew up} in the culture.”
This weekend, Charisma says she’s attending a Latino film festival in support of the new film, Without Men, which stars Latinas Eva Longoria, Judy Reyes, and Kate Del Castillo. “I’m going to support Eva!” she says enthusiastically.
no subject
Anyway, I know what you are saying about the Census categories, I recently visited an exhibit about Race at the National Museum of Natural History that talked about that, and I was kind of outraged then too about the fact that (at least the most recent census form) singles out Spanish people as a separate racial/ethnic category, but not any other European people (I didn't know at one time French and such had to mark "Latino" as well)...because it just doesn't make any sense to me. Like, racially speaking a good portion of Spanish people are as "white" as many in the British isles...though all that category stuff is so muddled and messed up.
Basically, I know why she might have said that, but just speaking as someone who has lived in Spain in the past, I know that Spanish=/=Latino culture (though obviously there are many parallels thanks to colonization), since there was plenty of indigenous influence and all the baggage of the colonization, etc. So I find it kind of confusing/weird to group them all together like that...
EDIT: Oh and as far as your Spanish part do you know where in Spain that heritage is from, by any chance? :) (Sorry I'm just always interested in all things Spain!)