My Beef With Latina Magazine

I got my first subscription to Latina magazine as a gift. I liked the mag and when that gift subscription ran out, I paid to renew it. About 2 months into my paid subscription, Latina magazine fired their editor and hired a new one. I certainly don't know anything about the world of magazines or journalism, but I've seen enough episodes of Ugly Betty to know that a new editor likes to make a splash.

The new editor's splash was to put Jessica Alba on the cover. Throughout the interview, the editor danced around those anti-Latino comments Jessica made and tried to spin it as if it were some misunderstanding. The whole interview felt like the editor was bullying the reader into thinking she was at fault for wrongly judging Jessica. I was ready to cancel my subscription but decided to give the magazine a fair chance.

Things were going ok until the September 2008 issue with Eva Longoria on the cover. In the interview -which felt more like an Eva infomercial- Eva described herself by saying, "I'm a 1950s housewife." I call bullshit. Eva is not a housewife - she is employed full time with no children. Eva is a DINK: double income, no kids. (And that income happens to be in the millions.) The whole interview was a sales pitch. They were spinning it to paint her as Angelina-in-the-orphanage and Eva is much more like Gold-digger-at-the-country club.

I was glad when one of my favorite blogs, Guanabee, called Eva out on that stupid comment and the many asinine things she said in that interview. As Guanabee said, many women in the 1950s were not even given the opportunity to have a career. Women of color in the 1950s had even fewer opportunities. Also, for someone in Eva's position to make comments like that is an insult to the women I know who really are housewives and mothers - which is the hardest job on the planet and they do it without millions and without outside help.

But Latina Magazine struck back in the November 2008 issue in the "Letters to the Editor" section. The mag brought up Guanabee's insightful comments but they also threw in that "Latina readers had nothing but love" for Eva and quoted a reader who wrote in about "lovely" Eva's "humility." I guess it was her humility that made her showed off her ring for a Microsoft commercial. (:30 into the clip)

I don't like being bullied into liking Jessica Alba. I don't like an interview that turns out to be a commercial for a fake product. Those are good tricks but they should save it for somebody else that is stupid enough to fall for it. And clearly, that's not me.

My Nieces

When my brother told me he was going to fight for full custody of his two daughters, I thought he was in for the fight of his life. In Texas, as in most states, it's extremely difficult for fathers to gain full custody. Plus, proving a mother is unfit is no small thing.

But after several years, several court hearings and several thousands of dollars he WON! (And it is totally true that his lawyer's name is Sharpie.) My brother now has full custody of my two nieces and my former sister-in-law doesn't even have visitation rights anymore. Which is a GREAT thing because my nieces would have been safer with Amy Winehouse than with their own mother.

Anyway... that awesome news called for a family party complete with Celebration Chicken. (Our family tradition of celebrating with a little pollo from the Azteca Meat Market.) It's so great to think that my nieces now have a real chance at a more stable, normal life and they can complete a full year of school without having to move at all.

I feel really blessed to be able to call them anytime I want, visit them, celebrate holidays with them, buy them clothes, spoil them, and all the other things aunts do. I could never even have a relationship with them before and now I get to have ALL of that and I just can't wait. My first mission for them: Halloween costumes! And to convince one of them to be Wonder Woman.