A Quote by Meghan Markle
Being 'ethnically ambiguous', as I was pegged in the industry, meant I could audition for virtually any role. Morphing from Latina when I was dressed in red, to African American when in mustard yellow, my closet filled with fashionable frocks to make me look as racially varied as an Eighties Benetton poster.
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There couldn't possibly be a more label-driven industry than acting, seeing as every audition comes with a character breakdown: 'Beautiful, sassy, Latina, 20s'; 'African American, urban, pretty, early 30s'; 'Caucasian, blonde, modern girl next door'. Every role has a label; every casting is for something specific.
I am African-American, and I am a proud African-American. I just don't like to put myself in a box and say, 'I'm an African-American actress.' I am an American actress, and I can do any kind of role.
I am Indian-American, but I often play ethnically ambiguous roles.
I wanted to show that an African-American artist could make it in this country on a national level in the graphic arts. I want to be a strong role model for my family and for other African Americans.
I often hear things like, 'You don't look Latina enough,' and that mentality is so backwards. The fact is, I am Latina, so how are you going to tell me that I don't look Latina?
For me it's hard, especially being a young African-American woman. My dad doesn't look like what you might call the 'safe' African-American male that America would accept, if you know what I mean.
I enjoy having the ability to play a variety of ethnicities. Being ethnically ambiguous allows me to explore many roles, and I enjoy being free to be whoever I want to be.
Why aren't there films being made that tell ethnically diverse stories? Or why is it so impossible to allow a person of color to add their texture and their essence to a role that is not ethnically specific? I don't know why it's a novel or risky idea to consider making a film look like how our world actually looks today.
Any photographer worth his/her salt - that is, any photographer of professional caliber, in control of the craft, regardless of imagistic bent - can make virtually anything look good. Which means, of course, that she or he can make virtually anything look bad - or look just about any way at all. After all, that is the real work of photography: making things look, deciding how a thing is to appear in the image.
The writer in me can look as far as an African-American woman and stop. Often that writer looks through the African-American woman. Race is a layer of being, but not a culmination.
I wish everybody was just ethnically ambiguous. It would make life a lot easier.
When you graduate is when you start to find yourself looking at the information in the audition breakdown and it says tall black African - or African-American built such and such. And you start seeing these character descriptions and seeing that, oh, you're only going in for the ones that are described as your look.
Since I don't feel like I belong solely to any one of them I find that it makes me even more interested and open to other cultures as well. It's also fun looking ethnically ambiguous because no one can quite put a finger on what I am and it's very entertaining to me!
I'm bicultural, and everyone sees me as a Latina, but in my head I see myself as both Latina and American.
My African-American friends thought it was cool that I was racing. It's not like we had any role models out there to look up to, so everyone understood I was doing something very different.
That's why there's lots and lots of kinds of hot sauces, and not so many kinds of mustard. Not because it's hard to make interesting mustard - you could make interesting mustard - but people don't, because no one's obsessed with it, and thus no one tells their friends.
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