An Open Letter to Lucasfilm and the Story Group

Dear Lucasfilm:

I write to you as a long time Star Wars fan. Not a Star Wars fan since 2015, not a fan since 2012, but a fan since 1993. I grew up on Star Wars; the saga has been a cornerstone of my childhood. I wanted to be like Luke Skywalker, wielding a lightsaber and fighting the Empire. That said, I never saw anybody who looked like me in Star Wars until 2015, when you introduced Poe Dameron. I was happy at first, to see Latino representation on screen in the biggest movie franchise of all time. But now, in the year 2020, I find myself regretting your story decisions to the point that I wish you’d never introduced any Latino characters to Star Wars.

From 2015 to 2020, you’ve introduced no less than six Star Wars characters portrayed by, and/or coded as Latino. You’ve got Poe Dameron, Casian Andor, DJ, the Mandalorian, and the Martez sisters. Now I want answers as to why, of six Latino characters, three of them have a past running illegal drugs and four of them are/were criminals.

Your treatment of your Latino-inspired characters is truly abhorrent. Let’s go over them one by one.

First you’ve got Poe Dameron. In The Force Awakens, the character of Poe was intended to die in the first quarter of the movie, only saved by the grace of Oscar Isaac’s natural charm and charisma. In The Last Jedi, you turn Poe into a hothead who needs a white woman’s guidance in order to cool off and become a better person. In Rise of Skywalker, you make him a former drug runner.

In Oscar Isaac’s own words, you should have left him die in the first movie. Do you have ANY idea how horrendously racist it is to depict Latinos as hot heads who run into conflict and NEED to be reigned in by a WHITE woman? Here’s a hint: it reinforces the notion of the White Man’s Burden, which is the idea that White People need to “civilize” non-whites and teach them how to better themselves.

And then in Rise of Skywalker, you make Poe a former drug runner? WHY!? Don’t you know that this is one of the WORST stereotypes that we Latinos face!? It’s the biggest stereotype that Republicans invoke to justify building Trump’s wall! Oh, but hold that thought, because I’m not through with you yet.

You made DJ a criminal scumbag. You cast Benicio del Toro in the role of a stuttering, back stabbing thief. Now, I get what you were going for: you were trying to give the character of Finn something of a foil to get him to reconsider his allegiance to the Resistance, tempt him into becoming a self-serving man like DJ was. But casting a Latino actor into such a role is never an accident.

What makes matters worse is the context that DJ is one of TWO Latino-portrayed characters in The Last Jedi, the other being Poe. In your movie with only two Latino characters, you portray one as needing a white woman to teach him how to be a leader, and another as an unrepentant, untrustworthy thief.

Then there’s your most recent characters, the Martez sisters. Again you fall back onto the stereotype of Latinos being involved with drug trades and the criminal world, this time with the added bonus of using blue collar jobs as a front for criminal activities. I’m willing to grant that Trace Martez is a good character in her own right, a blue collar worker making her way in the Galaxy, earning an honest buck with her own sweat and tears. But whatever good will you gained from Trace is completely evaporated by Rafa, the aforementioned crook.

I’ll be honest when I say that Rafa Martez is an interesting character on paper; a woman with ties to the criminal underworld so she can provide a better life for her sister. But again I call into question the decision to make this character Latina-coded. Her family name sounds Hispanic, for goodness’ sake! This was no accident, this was a DELIBERATE decision! What’s worse is that the character in the original story reel was an Asian-presenting male, but was changed to Latina!

None of this was an accident; the first Star Wars characters with Hispanic sounding names are portrayed as CRIMINALS! If you didn’t want an Asian male to have a romantic character arc with Ahsoka, there were innumerable alternatives. You could have made the character of Rafa a Twi’lek, a Togruta, a Zabrak, ANY alien race! Do you have any idea what a bad look this is!?

And what’s worse is that this all came at a terrible time for Latinos in the US. While you were making Poe Dameron a hothead who gets slapped across the face by a white woman, the children of undocumented immigrants were being locked up in detention centers that have been, with reason, compared to concentration camps. Lord knows how many kids had to put up with seeing Poe Dameron get denigrated by a white woman just days after they themselves were shamed for speaking their native language at school! And lest we forget about all the young Latina fans of Star Wars; three years ago there were no Latina characters in Star Wars, but now we have an ignorant teenager and a drug runner!

What bothers me most is that you’re well aware of the power of representation in media. One of my all-time favorite stories was the story of Whoopie Goldberg and how she got into acting. One fine evening during the early sixties, Whoopi was watching TV in her house. Within minutes, she was screaming “there’s a black lady on the TV and she ain’t no maid!” She was referring to the character of Nyota Uhura, a character who needs no introduction to sci-fi geeks like myself. Seeing a black lady on TV in a dignified role, one that wasn’t a maid or a servant, inspired Whoopi to pursue a career in acting. Whoopi’s career in turn inspired Lupita N’yongo to also pursue a career in acting and entertainment, which led to the latter be discovered and declared one of the most beautiful women in the world, landing her many magazine covers. And it was THIS that led to many black girls to stop bleaching their skin and accept the beauty of blackness! Representation matters because representation changes lives!

And when you had the opportunity to represent us Latinos, what did you do!? You portrayed us as criminals! As drug runners! And all for what? FOR WHAT!?

You have done nothing but to contribute to the atmosphere of hostility towards Latinos. You have portrayed us as criminals and drug dealers when you could have portrayed us as literally ANYTHING ELSE! How dare you!? How dare you do this, right after making such a big deal about giving the spotlight to minorities!?

Ya know what? I’m done writing. Life’s hard enough for us these days; we’ve got a pandemic to worry about, jobs to protect lest we lose our income. I was just hoping to be able to enjoy some Star Wars, get away from this mess, but instead I and innumerable others got slapped in the face with this racism.

There will be no apology expected, or accepted. The damage is done. It’s out there for the world to see, and it won’t be erased anytime soon. The Internet never forgets.