Hilaria Baldwin, wife of Alec, being ‘outed’ as not-Spanish is a silly season twitterfuffle. Only in America where ethnicity is as carefully calibrated as caste in India, would it even have surfaced. A celebrity influencer sprinkling a little distinctive glitter on her bio to separate her out from the crowd is hardly pass remarkable. Though her sin appears to be taking away attention from proper Latinas and appropriating what isn’t hers.
She was born in Boston on 6 January 1984, spent some holidays in Spain growing up, maybe more though she’s vague when pushed, and her parents now live on Mallorca. She is the mother of Baldwin’s five children, whose names are Spanish-influenced and she is multi-talented – teaches yoga, podcasts and writes, co-owns a chain of yoga studios, has penned fitness books and has a signature calming ointment to her name.
She’s a Sun Capricorn sextile Saturn in obsessively conscientious Scorpio. What probably draws her to the flamenco-vibe is her four planets in adventurous, far-travelled Sagittarius – Venus Uranus and a fantasy-prone Neptune Jupiter. She also has an ultra-determined Mars in late Libra conjunct Pluto which is sextile her head-in-the-clouds Jupiter Neptune Mercury. Her free-spirited, wild-child Gemini North Node opposes her Sagittarius planets. And she has a loves-to-shock Aquarius Moon.
Alec Baldwin, born 3 April 1958, is an upfront Sun Aries with an excitable and uncompromising Mars in Aquarius opposition Uranus square Mercury opposition Neptune. His Venus in Aquarius resonates with her Moon; her Mars Pluto is conjunct his Jupiter; and her Venus in Sagittarius connects with his Aries Sun. They are both high-octane personalities and both have strong Mercury Neptune aspects which will be no drawback in the showbusiness world of make believe.
I wouldn’t exactly call her “multi-talented.” She’s merely the wife of a celebrity and an IG influencer who poses in her skivvies often.
Spain is ruled by Sagittarius in traditional astrology. The ‘how do you say cucumber in English’ clip, and some of the accompanying comments are hilarious – a frivolous distraction. She has Neptune (deception/ illusion/ escapism) placed in the final degree of Sagittarius. The 29th degree is sometimes referred to as the power degree since it can amplify the manifestation of planets located there. The 29th degree is also seen as a crisis point and can indicate some type of predestined completion/ evolution takes place in a person’s life in relation to the particular planet and sign involved – in this case Neptune and Sag.
Hmm….. interesting. Could the December eclipse have triggered that Neptune at 5 degrees wide?
Grace: Agree. The clip where she asks how to say “cucumber” in English is cringeworthy.
Most Americans are clueless about Spain and Latin American. I’ve seen ignorant comments online about being white versus Spanish or Latino, that Spaniards are or aren’t Latino or Hispanic, that all Latinos are South American (uh Mexico?) etc.
Terms that Spaniards and Latin Americans use to identify a culture and history are used by Americans to construct a Spanish speaking “race”.
It’s really not that hard to acknowledge that Spanish speakers come from individual nations as diverse as Spain, Argentina, Peru, the Dominican Republic and Mexico. All these nations, like the US, are multi-racial and have their own culture. Lumping them together is just plain lazy and condescending. As a dual US/Spanish national I find that far more insulting than anything Hilaria Baldwin has said or done.
Also why is it usually women who are subjected to these social media lynchings while men who do worse are spared. The US is a very racist and misogynistic place.
Wow. Thank you for looking at the chart, Marjorie. Comic relief indeed.
That is a LOT of Sagittarius, intensified by her Jupiter – Neptune – Mercury conjunction. Her South Node in the middle of her Sag stellium seems to be undoing her a bit at the moment.
Mostly, her antics just make me laugh. This 12-second clip where she asks how to say “cucumber” in English boggles. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu5-OqiNO7k
On the other hand, I fear her five Spanish-monikered children face a lot of bullying from jealous schoolmates. No matter how wealthy or privileged (or deluded) the parents, the psychological damage could be real and lasting.
Maybe she knew she was Spanish from 2 years old. Living in a ‘Bostonian’ body. This backlash is bizarre given the gender conversation or bully tactics taking place. Go figure.
I just wonder about how this is affecting the children but maybe they already know the deal.
@ Belle
Eddie clearly states he is happy to be called he / she / her / him.
He has been out forever and has been nothing if not straight forward about who he is since his early beginnings as a street performer in London.
Hilaria I would venture finds her upper middle class upbringing in Boston a tad hum drum. As I said earlier, she wanted to add some European flair to her Hilary. It’s fine. But maybe she was a little disingenuous about it.
@ Suzanne,
I’m familiar with the history behind the terms Morrano, Converso, and Xueta (which is gtga Catalan word) to describe Crypto-Sephardim. However, my family has always used the terms Converso or Morrano interchangeably to describe our ancestry – despite the histories and the meanings behind the words.
My grandmother was born Tenerife, Canary Islands and her genealogical records suggests she’s almost exclusively of Crypto-Sephardi Jewish ancestry (her side of the family was extremely endogamous) and she grew up in an apparent Crypto-Sephardi enclave. Her parents and grandparents were jewelry merchants.
My grandfather, on the other hand, was born in Malaga, Andalusia, Spain. He also had some Crypto-Sephardi ancestry….but not as much as my grandmother (he self-identified as an ethnic Andalusian with a splash of Sephardi heritage).
Both of my grandparents, I assume, referred to their Crypto-Sephardi roots as Converso and Morrano because they wanted to emphasize the Iberian origin of their Jewishness. They were very nationalistic (perhaps even a bit ethnocentric too, lol) and they only left Spain because of the Civil War. They would have stayed had it not occurred and had Francisco Franco hadn’t taken power afterwards.
Another reason I assume my grandparents had no qualms over the terms Converso or Morrano is because they grew up in an era where there was little objection to such terminology and people from their generation were simply used to these terms. They taught all 7 of their children to refer to themselves by these terms as well..so, I suppose it just kind of stuck with us.
I’m 100% with JP and Q : I think there is something very twisted for her to carry on the deception for so long…and it is a deception in my opinion. Speaking of the Jewish diaspora in the Americas – 25% of today’s Jamaicans are practicing Jews some of whose ancestors were sent to the island by Oliver Cromwell before the slaves were sent there. Only DNA testing would give the truer figures as record keeping for slaves and their descendants has been negligible; just thought you might be interested…
Thanks Marjorie for this piece! As someone who has been consumed by politics these last 4 years, the ‘Hilaria’ story has been the comedic relief I didn’t realize I had been yearning for. Hilaria misrepresented herself as a person from Spain in order to exoticize herself in order to better sell her image and products. I just feel bad for the husband.
Intriguing to see these two articles together – Hilaria Baldwin identifying as Spanish and Eddie Izzard identifying as a woman.
Controversial for me to say this I know, but one stirs up condemnation for appropriation, the other celebrated for being true to themselves and authentic.
wow.
all these comments and here I am wading into the mix!
I don’t think this is really about appropriation. I don’t think the original twitterer intended it to be taken that seriously.
I think she was mocking Hilaria
aspirations to guild her bio with some European ‘flair’
remember when Madonna was mocked for her British accent?
any way I thinks possible to laugh and tut about vanity fair and keep focused on politics.
I’m pretty sure a large swath of the world has barely registered this interesting little nugget of human vulnerability!
When I was a kid in Hawai’i, my speech sounded like the local kids’ did. When I moved to the American South at age 13, I picked up a southern accent. Being immersed in a culture, folks generally do pick up some of the characteristics of it (though let it be said that the endemic racism of the South has always stuck in my craw). As a believer in past lives, I often wonder if some people have subtle memories of those lives bleeding over into this life that influence their worldview and decisions in the here-and-now.
She is a bit of a Markle-light character. Don’t forget that even though yoga has become exercise class, it is at its heart a spiritual philosophy for living. It is a shame that someone with four yoga studios has chosen to live inauthentically. With respect to her “talents,” ghostwriters are easily bought when you trade on the fame of whom you have married. This second hand fame resulted in a pretentiousness masked by presenting herself as the earth mother of all time, while surrounded by a bevy of nannies off camera. So much acting! This and the strange late-thirties behavior of certain Millennial women (meaning the Saturn Pluto in Scorpio gals) who are compelled to get naked for the world and display every aspect of their pregnancies nude as Hilaria has done had already made her pretty disliked by the public or they had at least picked up on things being off. The discovery of her strange need to pretend to be Spanish only gave folks an excuse to now laugh at her. It is also ironic that Alec—who is a decades long and very public member of AA, where one of the main tenets is “rigorous honesty”—went along with his wife’s game. So both of them seem to have ignored some basic morality in the philosophies they respectively and so publicly embrace and endorse.
It’s appropriation when the person goes out of their way to assume mannerisms, physical appearances, language accents, and padded biography, done consistently day after day, to provide an intentional misrepresentation. Called false advertising. Claiming to be a military veteran is considered a crime here in usa, but double public condemnation should they wear the uniform and perform the acting well as needed.. Trump has been deemed a fraud for not being that clever billionaire seen on The Apprentice that he wants us to believe is an extension of his biography. How extensively does that person want you to believe they are someone else? Will Smith’s role in Six Degrees of Separation comes to mind.
I agree with Marjorie’s observation. I’m actually Latino myself (Andalusian, Canary Islander, and Morrano [Sephardi Jewish] heritage) and, personally, Icouldn’t care less how Baldwin’s wife chooses to self-identify. I’m surprised by how many people have made such a fuss over this.
Anyone who knows remotely anything about anthropology, human genetics, and genetic genealogy knows that “Latina / Latino” is technically NOT a race – it’s an ethnicity and a cultural identity. A person of ANY race can identify as a Latina / Latino if they have some kind of a connection to Spain, Portugal, Andorra, or Latin America.
Since Hilaria Baldwin lived part of her life in Spaib (which is where my Andalusian Spanish speaking paternal grandparents were from), then she can call herself a Latina if she pleases – it’s really nobody else’s business.
The problem is, many Non-Hispanic Americans have a misconception of what a “Hispanic” or “Latina/Latino” person is or what they think they should be. In other words, when Americans then of Hispanic and Latino person, they tend to think of an olive-skinned Mestiza/Mestizo (mixed European and Indigenous heritage) or a Mulatta/Mulatto (mixed African and European heritage) person. However, people forget that there are millions of Criollos (White Latinos of European or Middle Eastern heritage), millions of Afro-Latinos, millions of full-blooded Indigenous peoples, and….even millions of Asian-Latinos (particularly of Chinese, Korean, Japanese heritage) throughout Latin America.
I mean, Latin America has a similar immigration and colonial history as Anglophone U.S. and Canada.
Costa Rica has the largest Chinese population in Latin America and one of the largest German populations in Central America, Brazil has the largest Lebanese population in the world and the second largest Japanese population outside of Japan, Argentina and Uruguay have some of the largest Ashkenazi Jewish and Italian populations in Latin America, and Mexico still has a large Korean population in the Yucatan. Full-blooded Indigenous peoples actually make up the majority in Bolivia (only country in the Americas where they do).
Anyway, I didn’t mean for ramble on…..but I just felt it necessary to emphasize how this whole Latina / Hilaria Baldwin / Twitter thing has really gotten out of hand and it’s really a waste of time.
Honestly, it’s like a bunch of coach potatoes have suddenly decided they’re going to be the cultural appropriation police on social media..and they’re pushing for political correctness on steroids. I wish these people would make better use of their time – like reading a book or something.
Chris Romero
Jacksonville, Florida
Self-identity is one thing, fabricating and padding that identity is another thing entirely. This is more about lies and deception in how that individual presents themself to others, and the rationale for such.
@ Q,
Regardless, this really isn’t a big deal. It’s pathetic that so many people on social media are putting so much time and energy into Hilaria Baldwin’s embellished bio when there is so many more important things going on right now.
Celebrity culture and pop culture can be fun to engage in…but it shouldn’t consume peoples’ lives.
Hilaria Baldwin is just one of millions of celebrities and she’s probably not the first or the only one to exaggerate or recreate her background and life history.
Totally agree with you Chris, and Marjorie. I can think of others who identify with what they choose to and not what they are, and people are supportive of them. Double standards somewhat? Anyway life goes on!
Happy new year!!
Shalom Chris, I too am of Sefardic ancestry the difference being is my family fled Catalonia during the 14th century rather then convert, after accusations of blood libel. Our family members settled in Germany and Poland and many were rabbis for a few hundred years and are buried in WORMS. They remained Jews even in the face of the last major massacre in 1939 – 1945, during which, most of my family including grandparents were gassed in extermination centers, that is exactly what Auschwitz – Birkenau, Sobibor and Chelmno were. My father, mother and four cousins were the only survivivors of a large family. Which brings me to the use of the word Morrano, was used by Spanish /Portugese Catholics to further degrade those Jews who did convert by force – the Jew was always suspect. The word Marrano means pig or swine, and as both Jews and Muslims are forbidden to eat pork it was the Catholic way of further demeaning we Jews.. In Germany the “Judensau” sculputes were in many cathedrals and churches depicting Jews engaging in bestiality with a Pig. Moving forward, kindly use the word “Conversos” or Anusim in Hebrew, the word “Marrono” should be erased from vocabulary completely , although it is still used prolifically, as is “globalist ” referring back to fictiicious Protocols of the Elders of Zion to further anti-Semitism. Hitler was given a copy of it in 1923, that should be a clue. Incidently, one of my anscestors was in fact Ha’Rav Moshe Ben Nachman (Nachmanides) from Girona Catalonia, who not only was a rabbi, philosopher, physician and Kabbalist he practied astrology. He was thrown out out of town by the Domincans and at age 70 , traveled to Jerusalem and opened a Yeshivah. He died three years later. With all the hatred and conspiracy theories especially in the US – we should all make every attempt to mitigate it and not fall prey to using outdated terms and words that were and still used by the “supremacist” to diminish Jews, Blacks, Latinos, Indians, et al…human beings into sub-humans or vermin, to be enslaved, converted or exterminated. I see you are in FLA, I am at the moment as well due to COVID. I wish you and yours good health and a good 2021. We have a lot of work ahead of us the next four years, and only 18 more days to go.
Mr. Trump is doing everything he can to stay in power, and we are in danger here in the USA. Of course, if everyone is worried about Hilaria (Alec Baldwins wife) of course we won’t be talking about the certification vote and the danger we are in.
This whole appropriation discussion and shaming people for it is the opposite of integration. I don’t get it, and I don’t want to get it.
the criticism i heard was that she faked the spanish background because Alec loves spanish women. if true that is possibly serious for their couple?
@ Liz,
I agree with your annoyance over the ridiculous Hilaria Baldwin Twitter thing and I am just as frustrated with the Republicans as you are. However, it is important to remember that the January 6th certification process is actually more of a ceremonial procedure – the GOP doesn’t have a majority of objectors in the House and Senate to come anywhere near overturning the results of the election.
Even the ones who are voicing their opposition are aware of the fact that they have no power in changing the outcome – they’re only trying to keep face with Trump and his supporters it’s Trump and his most ardent supporters who are foolish and delusional enough to believe they can over overturn the election.
Anyway, that being said, it is infuriating that so many people are making such a fuss over Hilaria Baldwin’s claims of being Latina.
That’s a silly thing going on, but it does take everyone’s eyes off of what the President is doing. Distraction. Alec Baldwin is no fan of the President – so who knows who started this little flame war. He has played Trump on SNL for years. I don’t know who started the whole question of cultural “Appropriation” but it does nothing to build a common culture here in the states. It has gotten to where you cannot say anything to anyone, so many of us don’t. Wierd, wierd times. Instead of building bridges, this type of foolishness builds walls.