👨🏻🙋🏽👱🏾👩🏾👧🏻The Latinx Collective - Issue #34

THIS WEEK'S SIX:

I love me some Bad Bunny. 😍With his painted, manicured nails and flamboyant sense of style, Bad Bunny's long been at odds with the machista attitudes often ingrained in Latino culture. He is once again a voice for anti toxic masculinity with the new music video for "Caro" - which opens with him getting his nails painted black (his favorite past time), which quickly switches to the female version of him. Below is a quote from the article -- you should also check out this Rolling Stone piece on the video.

When the camera refocuses on the rapper, he's been replaced by Puerto Rican model Jazmyne Joy, who seamlessly rocks the artist's gender-fluid style. While lip-syncing his lyrics, Joy flexes on the hood of a Ferrari convertible. And in a dream-like fashion show that unfolds in a parallel sequence, women of many sizes, shapes, and age strut the catwalk with confidence. A fierce drag queen, stylish Black man, and young woman with Down syndrome take their strides with pride. Eventually, Bad Bunny reappears during the video’s sunset with people running around him. A man and a woman each jump to kiss him on the cheek, and, Bad Bunny kisses Joy, his copy, in a gesture of self-love. "Caro" is rich with inclusive imagery... All this makes Bad Bunny a sorely-needed Latinx artist — one who understands why representation matters, champions it in spite of his critics, and is hopefully inspiring more Latinx artists to fearlessly align with the LGBTQ community.

This one is for my fellow podcast nerds since it's a 2 hour long episode (!) Michael Peña is an American actor (whose parents immigrated from Mexico) whose been working in Hollywood for over twenty years. His film career includes notable parts in back-to-back Best Picture winners (Million Dollar Baby and Crash) and two Marvel films. He also stars in Narcos: Mexico on Netflix. It was really interesting to hear about his life and what it was like when he was first going for roles 20 years ago when all of the starring roles were only open to white actors - and how that's finally changing in the movie business today. *Thanks to my cousin Dr. Vanessa Montalvo (ahem) for pointing me to the Armchair Expert podcast.*

For owners and friends Julio Robledo and Pedro Rodriguez, opening their specialty wine store, Grand Cata, presented an opportunity to raise awareness about the diversity of Latin American wine. It was also chance to embrace their cultural identity and improve the representation of Latin America in the city. Although wine has been made in Latin America for over 400 years, Latin American wine has a reputation of being cheap or unrefined for certain people in the United States. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. *Thanks to VinePair editor-in-chief Emily Saladino for the submission.*

More and more Buddhist groups are offering programs in Spanish and doing outreach in Latinx communities. After leading zazen instruction (a meditative discipline that is typically the primary practice of the Zen Buddhist tradition) and book groups in Spanish, Ven. Dhammadipa Konin Cardenas, who is Colombian American, has just finished teaching the San Francisco Zen Center’s first online dharma class in Spanish, Imágenes del Ser, or Images of the Self. Her class is one example of the new ways Buddhist leaders, temples, and organizations are reaching out to Latinx practitioners. While it remains unclear how much Buddhism is growing in the Latinx community, many leaders are seeing opportunities to make inroads among Spanish-speaking audiences.

Congrats to high school student Rachel Zegler, who will be making her film debut starring in the role played by Natalie Wood in the 1961 classic. 

When we began this process a year ago, we announced that we would cast the roles of Maria, Anita, Bernardo, Chino and the Sharks with Latina and Latino actors. I’m so happy that we’ve assembled a cast that reflects the astonishing depth of talent in America’s multifaceted Hispanic community,” said Spielberg.

The 91st Annual Academy Awards will air Feb. 24th. There were 10 Hispanics nominated for Oscars this year: Gabriela Rodriguez, Alfonso Cuarón, Yalitza Aparicio, Marina de Tavira, Sergio Diaz, Jose Antonio García, Eugenio Caballero and Bárbara Enrı́quez for ‘Roma,’ Rodrigo Sorogoyen for ‘Mother,’ and Trevor Jimenez for “Weekends’. ‘Roma’ by itself was also nominated for ten awards. This article includes the entire list of nominations.

Appreciate you reading this week’s issue. Forward this to friends or family so they can join you in celebrating the every day contributions the Latinx community is making. You can also:

• View the archive here

• Don’t forget we built this directory. If you're a Latinx creator or small business owner, send me your info to be added. If you're looking to hire or purchase products or services from the Latinx community, check it out.

• Here's a tweet you should post about us.

• If you share any of the articles from the newsletter on social media, tag us! We’re at @latinxcollectiv on Twitter and on Facebook. You can also just click the ‘share’ button under the article you want to share and it will allow you to post the direct link.