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John Leguizamo Upset ‘Latinx’ Talent Not Represented At Oscars

   DailyWire.com
US actor John Leguizamo arrives for the 25th Annual Critics' Choice Awards at Barker Hangar Santa Monica airport on January 12, 2020 in Santa Monica, California.
JEAN-BAPTISTE LACROIX/AFP via Getty Images

Despite the overwhelming diversity present at the Academy Awards on Sunday night, actor John Leguizamo is upset that not enough “Latinx” people were represented, seemingly displeased by the fact that Mexican directors (Alfonso Cuaron, Alejandro González Iñárritu, and Guillermo Del Toro) took home multiple Oscars in the past decade alone.

On Sunday, Leguizamo said “we were excluded again” when he shared a graphic from journalist Jorge Ramos lamenting the lack of “Latinx” representation at this year’s show.

Later, Leguizamo congratulated the blacks and Asians who won the awards on Sunday night while still lamenting the lack of “Latinx” representation. He simultaneously knocked the term “people of color” as something designed to excluded Latin people.

“I am so happy for my black fam, and Asian bros and sistas and women, but I cant help mourn our absence,” he tweeted. “We’ve been here for 500 yrs and before, we are the largest ethnic group 68M. can u imagine the amount of unanswered dreams and wasted talent? I can!”

“And the term POC even though it is so inclusive it has become a weapon to exclude us and erase us better and more effectively! And if you don’t know I’m talking about Latinx!” he added.

Later, Leguizamo posted a quote lamenting the challenge that Latino people face in the broader society. “Latino people face a double challenge, to create our own positive self-image while battling against the way the broader society portrays us. We are changing this.”

John Leguizamo has previously argued that Latino Republicans suffer from self-hatred due to past racism.

“There is that unfortunate self-hate through all my culture, through all South America, Central America and the Caribbean from the Conquest,” said the actor. “And that’s hard to fight. When that beautiful woman from ‘Roma’ [Yalitza Aparicio] was put on the cover of Latin Vogue, people wrote horrible letters. ‘How dare you put such an ugly face on magazines?’ That’s the insidious self-hate. Because like the majority of us are mixed race — Black and Indian and white. And the majority in our countries who run everything are white European. This doesn’t really go away that easily.”

Leguizamo specifically referred to Texas, where President Trump was able to shore up votes in southern border towns.

“Texas is a trippy place. El Paso, Austin, San Antonio — very liberal, very Democratic. But you’re going to have your people who grew up there under hundreds of years of serious oppression: Jim Crow laws against Mexicans; ‘No dogs or Mexicans allowed’ signs; lynchings of Latin people,” he said. “Six thousand Latin people from the 1800s to early 1900s were lynched, shot and burned alive. So there is this continued fear of being other. You can’t discount that, because when I go to Texas and Arizona, a lot of Latin people say to me, ‘Oh, I’m not Mexican. I’m not Latin. My family comes from Spain.’”

RELATED: John Leguizamo: Latino Republicans Suffer From ‘Self-Hate’

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