Hilaria Baldwin is doubling down! And positioning herself in a real mixed-race debate she kiiiiiinda has no effing place in.
Alec Baldwin‘s wife has been a figure of ridicule since it was revealed a couple years back she was NOT a Spanish immigrant as she came across. The Spanish-speaking, exotically named yoga instructor was in fact a girl who was born and raised in Boston. Her name was actually Hillary Hayward-Thomas, and multiple folks who went to school with her explained they were confounded she suddenly had a thick accent and was forgetting English translations of words.
“Hilaria” was accused of faking her Spanish heritage, being some kind of culture vulture who decided to start wearing the accent as if it were a new… how you say… hairstyle. It was a scandal we knew she’d have to face eventually once it was announce she and Alec were doing a reality show. And on Sunday night’s new episode of The Baldwins, she finally faced it head-on. And made it worse!
She defended herself by saying:
“Growing up in a way where you have multiple cultural influences on you means that you’re never going to be able to fit in. You can try. You can chameleon. You know, people who code-switch, we’re very good at chameleoning… and you don’t even think, you’re not even thinking about it. It’s just normal. It’s just natural.”
Wow. So much to unpack there.
Let’s start at the beginning — her childhood. Saying she grew up with “multiple cultural influences” is a real stretch. Her rich, white, American family visited Spain a couple times on vacation. Her parents eventually moved there after she was an adult. It’s hardly the same thing as growing up in a multicultural household, like she’s making it sound. It’s more like when someone goes on vacay to Jamaica and comes back with their hair braided, saying “irie.” Only she did it for like, maybe two weeks total when she was younger. She didn’t even study abroad there like her brother did.
Related: Hilaria Says Alec Wanted to Take His Own Life After Rust Shooting
And remember, that wasn’t some influence that took hold like crazy back then. People who knew her in school — high school, mind you — came out saying she never had that accent until she was an adult. So yeah, “growing up”? Sorry. No.
And the way she described what she’s doing? She compared it to speaking to an elderly person:
“They say that it’s like communication, if you ever talk to a really old person who cannot hear, and I’m gonna emphasize, I’m gonna speak slower. And you’re not even really thinking about it. You just start to do it. You know what it’s called? Code-switching… I had to learn about it because the whole world was mean to me, and so I had to learn it. It’s code-switching.”
She’s calling what she’s doing “code-switching”? Y’all. Oof. OK. This is absolutely a real thing… that she read about. Kids who grow up in immigrant households and even in households with a strong distinct American culture can end up tailoring their accents, expressions, etc to their environment. For instance, Black kids sometimes train their brains to drop the AAVE used in their largely Black neighborhoods when surrounded by white people. Chinese kids will speak Chinese at home, then switch to fluent English with American accents at school. It happens in lots of cultures as kids try — often subconsciously, just like Hilaria said — to try NOT to stand out. And it becomes habit that sometimes lasts a person’s whole life, slipping back into your surroundings.
Let’s all note that this is the exact opposite of what’s going on with Hilaria. She’s not code-switching to be a chameleon and not stand out. She’s not speaking with an American accent in America and then going into Spanish when visiting her family who do now live in Spain (but, again, moved there in 2011). No, she’s using the Spanish accent and words when surrounded by white people, like on cooking shows. She’s doing it for the opposite reason — because it does make her stand out! It makes her special. That’s why she likes it. It’s attention.
At least, that’s what she’s been accused of by all the people she’s now saying were being “mean” to her.
About that… In a confessional, she lamented the downside of fame:
“Being in, the spotlight, as people like to call it. People say, ‘Oh, don’t you get used to it?’ No, you don’t get used to it. You never get used to people being mean. But you take a deep breath, and I think you learn to distance yourself from it, and so, you know, you just try turning down the volume in my head a bit… and I’m not gonna take it personally.”
Well, frankly… she should take it personally.
This isn’t some attack on code-switching or multiculturalism, quite the opposite. Everyone calling out Hilaria is defending the actual multicultural folks out there from, well… what they see as imposters and grifters. And yeah, she should take that personally.
What do YOU think of Hilaria’s latest defense?
[Image via TLC/Hulu/NBC/YouTube.]
Related Posts
