Jessica Alba: ”I Can’t Wait For My Baby to be Brown”
In Latina’s March 2008 cover story, Jessica Alba gets personal with Editor-in-Chief Mimi Valdés Ryan and directly responds to the rumors that have resulted in her now-commonly used nickname, “Jessica ‘Don’t Call Me Latina’ Alba.” Check out some of her revealing answers below, and don’t forget to pick up the full story when the issue hits newsstands on February 19!
On her reluctance to walk the red carpet at Latin events: “I’ll support those shows, but I can’t go on the press lines and have people make me feel bad about myself. Life is too short. I can’t change how I grew up, and I shouldn’t have to apologize for it. I know I feel close to the Latin community, because that’s what I grew up with.”
On claims that she’s proud to have cut loose from her Mexican roots: “I never said that. Cut loose from what? What the hell are they talking about? Why would I want to cut loose from the only family I know?”
On not learning to speak Spanish as a child: “I wish to God that my dad spoke Spanish to my brother and me, but he didn’t grow up with it.”
On confusing other men for her dad as a kid: “When I was little, I used to go up to black men and hold their legs, thinking it was my dad all the time. I’d wrap my arms around them, then look up and be like, ‘Oh my God!’”
On being accepted for who she is in Hollywood: “I was always trying to figure out: How the hell am I going to be mainstream? How are people going to accept me? When are the going to get a clue that I am American, that this is what America looks like–people like me who are mixed, have different blood, mixed with different ethnicities? When are the people who are hiring for these jobs and writing these screenplays going to realize that?”
On what she wants her baby to look like: “I’m excited for my baby to be brown. I just have to believe the dark gene is going to survive. Cash and I are like, please!”
