Jenna Ortega On The “Shame” Of Not Speaking Spanish
And Jenna has now opened up about the “shame” of feeling like she’s “just not good enough” to represent her heritage in a new interview with Vanity Fair.
The publication explains that Jenna’s father is of Mexican descent, and her mom is of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent. Jenna was raised in La Quinta, CA, which has a large Latinx population, and “grew up smashing piñatas and making tamales at Christmas with her Mexican American and Puerto Rican family.”
“I think there’s a part of me that carries a bit of shame,” she added. “For a second, I was almost nervous to speak about my family’s background because… I feel like I was made to feel like it wasn’t…” Vanity Fair note that they believe Jenna was going to use a variation of the word “valid” before trailing off.
There is also irony in the way that Jenna is now facing accusations of not being Latinx enough after she endured years of being deemed too Latinx to book acting roles as a child.
In the same interview, Jenna also reflected on not feeling “worthy enough” to be a “proper representative” of the Latinx community as she wasn’t born in a Spanish-speaking country, has spent limited time in Mexico, and has never been to Puerto Rico.
Jenna finally broke into the mainstream in 2022 after she was cast in the titular role of Wednesday Addams in the Addams Family Netflix series spin-off, Wednesday.
