Editor-in-Chief: @autostraddle | opinions my own | carmen@autostraddle.com | Black 
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I loved Anthony Ramos as Usnavi, and also Jharrel Jerome played the character in his high school production of In the Heights. There’s a famous video of him actually doing the opening number with Lin. We can open our imaginations.https://youtu.be/klH-9-nlDHk
Dark skinned Afro-Latinx actors are put into boxes where they can’t even audition for Latinx roles. I’m so proud of being Black, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt when we are literally written out of the narrative of our own communities’ stories b/c we aren’t in the room.
Personally speaking, I cannot get past the storytelling decision of In the Heights to cut the plot about Nina’s dad being anti-Black towards Benny, a key part of the play. If we’re going to tell Latinx stories, we should be honest about colorism and racism in our communities.
The decision to cut the plot of Nina’s dad being anti-Black from the play and the online conversations about colorism in the movie are of the same coin; In the Heights had an opportunity to say something important about race in our communities and it didn’t. Flat out.
I’ve also struggled because it appears that In the Heights wants a lot of credit for its queer inclusion (l I loved Daniela and Carla, and the work Stephanie Beatriz and Daphne Rubin-Vega put into those roles), but it barely passes the bar.
Every straight person I know who saw In the Heights didn’t clock Daniela and Carla as gay unless they knew to look for it. And not everything needs to be a Pride parade — but if the majority of your audience can’t tell your characters are gay, you shouldn’t get credit for it.
It would have been very easy to write in one definitive line of dialogue that established Daniela and Carla as a clear couple, instead of relying only on background moments. They could have kissed on screen. They only share a bed, briefly, before the In The Heights title card.
By relegating Daniela and Carla to background sweetness, In the Heights asks queer Latinxs to settle. By not casting dark skinned Afro-Latinxs in speaking roles and cutting the ONLY plot directly addressing racism, it asks Afro-Latinxs to settle. We are worth more than settling.
Thank you for this important thread.
Stop calling us Latinx please
Lol you guys are insane. “We are made because just rather then add Afro Latino Americans in this film. They instead have an all Latino based cast. Where to just so happens they are light skinned. You guys are quite the speculators.
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on In The Heights, Afro-Latinxs and queerness.
