In the Instagram video, she addressed her seemingly changing accent — saying that it came from being raised bilingual. “It’s one of those things that I’ve always been a bit insecure about […] If I get nervous, or I get upset, then I start to mix the two.”
As for her name, she conitinued, “In this country, I would use the name Hilary. In Spain, I would use the name Hilaria […] I identify more with Hilaria, because that’s what my family calls me.”
“Yes, I am a white girl. Let’s be clear that Europe has a lot of white people in there. My family is white. Ethnically, I am a mix of many, many, many things. Culturally, I grew up with two cultures. So, it’s really as simple as that.”
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“In the past, I would get very frustrated when reporters would report this or report that, and I’d try to be very clear — and they’d be like, ‘Oh, you were born in Spain.'”
Hilaria then followed up on her story, where she said, “I’m so tired. I’m going to go back to my family because I’ve been not a very good mommy, spending a lot of time focusing on this and I just want to be left alone. So I love you, and I’m going to sign off for a long time.”
Looking through Hilaria’s tweets, it does seem like she’s gone to great lengths to never explicitly say that she’s Spanish — but she has gotten pretty close:
The whole thing has sparked a conversation as to why pretending to be an immigrant, especially one from a non-English speaking country, is problematic:
@honigmaydl I don’t think it’s harmless – she’s pretending to have the experience of an immigrant who doesn’t speak fluent English and is leaning into a sexy Hispanic stereotype that harms Hispanic and Latina women
@lenibriscoe To me it’s less about race and more about pretending to have gone through the challenges of being an adolescent or adult immigrant like learning English. As an educator Ive seen kids through this sort of challenge without wealth, and she didn’t.
