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Jenny's Image On
The Block: Lopez Shifting Latino Culture  |
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Last year,
Kimlan Fong Wong
and boyfriend
Anthony Taveras
stopped talking
to each other
for three days
after she threw
a vase at him
during an
argument. The
subject:
Jennifer Lopez.
"He kept calling
her J. Ho," says
Wong, 29, an
office manager
and college
student in
Queens. "He
knows I like
her. I felt like
he wasn't
respecting me."
From his
apartment in
suburban
Washington,
Ramon Rivera
wages his own
defense of the
singer/actress/entrepreneur
in his case,
against his
grandmother in
Miami.
"Some of the
older people
have more
traditional
views," says
Rivera, 22. "So
the way she
dresses, or the
fact that she's
been married
three times,
those things
make people like
my grandmother
say, 'Oh, no, I
don't like her.'
But I say, 'Look
at everything
she's
accomplished.' "
Lopez's latest
movie,
Monster-in-Law,
a romantic
comedy
co-starring Jane
Fonda, opened
two weeks ago as
the nation's No.
1 film, grossing
more than $23
million at the
box office.
Lopez mounted a
tireless
publicity blitz
to support it.
She appeared
everywhere, it
seemed.
This, for some
Latinos, is how
Lopez's presence
always feels, as
she straddles an
amazing number
of Latino fault
lines, areas of
often-vehement
disagreement
about what is
and isn't
Latino.
The price of
ambition? Check.
The importance
or not of
being identified
as Hispanic?
Check. Of
speaking
Spanish? Check.
Of a bodacious
booty? Check.
Dating white?
Check. Dating
black? Check.
The politics of
going blond?
Check. And so
on.
"People argue
passionately
about her," says
Michelle Herrera
Mulligan,
co-editor of the
essay collection
Border-Line
Personalities: A
New Generation
of Latinas Dish
on Sex, Sass,
and Cultural
Shifting. "She's
a lightning rod,
a catalyst and
representative
for everything."
For Latinos who
take their
entertainment
primarily in
Spanish, she's
far from the
biggest star in
the firmament.
For others
especially those
who, like the
Nuyorican
actress herself,
are strivers
moving through a
predominantly
English-speaking
world talking
about her is
irresistible.
"She's the first
icon that
generationally
fits" the
changing profile
of young
Latinos, says
Christy
Haubegger,
founder of
Latina magazine.
In the survey,
young Latinos
chose Lopez as
their favorite
female
celebrity. In
discussing her
the U.S.-born
daughter of
Puerto Rican
parents, who
understands
Spanish but
speaks it
imperfectly, who
defied her
family to
fulfill her
ambition but
still sings her
pride at being
"from the block"
Haubegger
says: "They're
talking about
themselves. It's
an enormous
burden to put on
one woman."
But it seems to
be a burden
Lopez undertook.
Raised in a
working-class
part of the
Bronx by a
computer
technician and a
kindergarten
teacher, Lopez
started out as a
backup dancer
and became a
powerhouse a
$12
million-a-picture
film star, a
recording artist
who's sold 35
million CDs, an
entrepreneur
whose clothing
line and
fragrance
businesses
People magazine
estimated to be
worth $350
million.
"What Latina
performer has a
story as great
as J. Lo?" asks
Michael Joseph
Gross, who
penned
Starstruck: When
a Fan Gets Close
to Fame. "Salma
Hayek turns in
good
performances in
good movies. How
boring is that?
"Stardom takes
much more."
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