“You Need To Get It Out That I’m A Proud Latina!”
Her name is Charisma Carpenter and she’s best known for playing all-American cheerleader Cordelia Chase on the hit TV show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But there’s something many people don’t know about Charisma—she’s Latina! “I think it’s the best kept secret ever,” said the sweet actress, whose grandfather was born in Spain. “You need to get it out that I’m a proud Latina!”
Charisma says she’s been trying to tell people she’s Latina for years—but they don’t believe her. “They’re not buying it,” she says. “I feel a little rejected by the Latina community. I say that in jest—I don’t sincerely mean it. But I mean…a little bit.”
The talented actress, who has a huge fan base for her work on Buffy and its spinoff, Angel, thinks she knows why people don’t believe she’s Latina. “I guess I’m too white, too pale,” she says. “I guess they’ve never seen me tan…I don’t know.”
The 40-year-old actress says she wasn’t raised speaking Spanish—but there’s a reason for that. “My grandfather had a pretty terrible experience being in America and being from Spain,” she says sounding a bit more serious. “He came to this country as an immigrant with his family. He was a crop picker: strawberries, cotton, all that kind of stuff. And what would happen back in those days is that parents would go away and send their small children to a boarding house or an orphanage.”
The rest of the interview can be read here.
