Carmen Miranda is Not Hispanic

I had not seen Turner Classic Movies' promo for Hispanic Heritage Month when my friend Beth, who is Portuguese in descent, noted that they included Carmen Miranda. Now that is a bit problematic, as the term "Hispanic" refers to people and cultures related to Spanish speaking countries.Carmen Miranda was Portuguese in descent and spoke Portuguese. She was not from a Spanish speaking country and did not speak Spanish.

Indeed, Carmen Miranda was born on February 9 1909 in Marco de Canaveses, Kingdom of Portugal. Her father had moved to Brazil, which had been a Portuguese colony, in 1909. Her mother followed her father in 1910 after Carmen Miranda's birth when the child was less than a year old, along with Carmen's older sister (who would have been around two at the time). Carmen Miranda then grew up in a former Portuguese colony speaking Portuguese, not a Spanish speaking country speaking Spanish. Quite simply, she was not Hispanic.

I can only assume that TCM's error in including Carmen Miranda in their 2024 promo for Hispanic Heritage Month may have been due to confusion between the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino." Many people think the terms are synonymous when in fact there are differences between the two. While Hispanic refers to people and cultures related to Spanish speaking countries, Latino refers to the people and cultures of Latin America. Even though the national language of Brazil is Portuguese, they are still Latin as they are part of Latin America, but they are not Hispanic because they don't speak Spanish.

While Carmen Miranda grew up in Brazil and was fully immersed in Brazilian culture, there are those who would debate whether she was Latina or not. While some use the term "Latino" to refer to anyone from Latin America, there are those who use the term to refer only to those of Indigenous descent. If one uses the term "Latino" to refer to anyone from a Latin country, regardless of ethnicity, then Carmen Miranda would most certainly be a Latina. If one uses the term "Latino" to refer only to those of Indigenous descent, then Carmen Miranda, as a European born woman of Portuguese descent, would not be a Latina.

In addition to individuals confusing the terms "Hispanic" and "Latino," much of the confusion may be due to Carmen Miranda's career itself. She not only played Brazilians, but in Week-End in Havana (1941) she even played a Cuban. In most of her roles Carmen Miranda her character's nationality might be unclear beyond that the roles were supposed to be some sort of Latin American. Her performances were often a mishmash of Latin cultures, from Argentina to Cuba to Mexico. Of course, failing to recognize the distinctions between various Latin cultures was par for the course for Hollywood during its Golden Age, and actresses of Latin American descent could often find themselves playing a variety of Latin American ethnicities. Estelita Rodriguez was a Cuban born in Cuba, but over the years she played everything from Cubans to Mexicans.

As to why it is important to realize that Carmen Miranda was Lusitanic and not Hispanic, it seems to me that, at least in the United States, the Portuguese are an under-recognized ethnicity. In fact, to this day Carmen Miranda may be the most famous person of Portuguese descent in the U.S.. Labelling her as "Hispanic" when she was actually a Brazilian born in Portugal who was thoroughly immersed in Brazilian culture, erases her actual identity to a degree. I have no doubt that many of Portuguese descent take great pride in Carmen Miranda, and they deserve to have her recognized as one of them, not something she was not and never had been.