Latina Identity Thieves and their Enablers

The latest white woman to pretend to be Latina struck close to home.

On January 7th, journalist Tina Vásquez revealed in Prism that prominent human rights attorney Natasha Lycia Ora Bannan, who claimed to be Puerto Rican and Colombian for almost two decades was, in fact, a white woman of Italian, Irish and Russian descent. Bannan’s response to the initial shock and justifiable anger of many Latinx social justice advocates was to double-down on her appropriated identity. In her first of two statements, she wrote, “I have identified as a Latina for decades, not out of a desire to exploit or take advantage of a community that helped raised me, but rather because I genuinely knew it to be a part of my story even though I do not trace ancestral roots to Latin America.” While Bannan has resigned from numerous positions —many meant for people of color— the readiness of her defenders to center her contributions and dismiss the implications of her charade point to an enduring and more insidious threat.

The Complicity in Latina Identity Theft

On social media, Bannan’s defenders applauded her contributions as if “good work” is limited to one’s public acts of advocacy, instead of it also encompassing behavior and treatment behind closed doors. With comments akin to You were more Boricua than most, these defenders make plain the cleavages festering in our movements because of anti-blackness, internalized colonization, machismo and elitism. A formally educated white woman like Bannan can don a phony accent and serve as a spokesperson for the movement without question. We praise her performance for the white gaze because it is confrontational, yet, at the same time, “respectable.” Meanwhile, we will subject a Black Latina with both lived experience and grassroots expertise to identity tests she can never pass. I wonder how many brilliant Latinas have been shunned every time we allow a Natasha Bannan to slip through our unchecked isms and exploit the nuances of cultural identity?

“How many brilliant Latinas have been shunned every time we allow a Natasha Bannan to slip through our unchecked isms and exploit the nuances of cultural identity?”

White women who appropriate marginalized identities and usurp positions of influence in social justice circles do not embed themselves through sisterly means.

I recall when scholar-activist Rosa Clemente publicly shared that at a faculty dinner in Spokane, racial cosplayer Rachel Dolezal questioned the legitimacy of Afro-Latinx people in Black Lives Matter. An African American professor recounted a list of the ways Dolezal violated her to perpetuate her ruse. Jessica Krug, another poseur, only came clean because three Black Latina scholars did the actual labor of protecting our movements by conducting due diligence. After she published her confession on Medium, several Black women testified on social media how she had challenged not only their Blackness, but also their social justice bona fides.

When we hear all the stories, we learn that alongside strident expressions of cultural affinity by these manipulators are efforts to gatekeep, sabotage and police BIWOC who embody the identities that they are performing. This abusive behavior is arguably more traumatizing than the jobs, scholarships, and opportunities they stole from women of color. As a follow up to her exposé, Vásquez wrote a piece that included anecdotes from Puerto Rican woman calling out both Bannan’s behavior towards them and the complicity that facilitated it. This complicity includes the attacks lobbied against Vásquez. “It was brought to my attention that Latinas in Bannan's life who continue to stand by her side are questioning my ethnic/racial origins, my motives, and the ‘real intentions’ behind my reporting,” Vásquez posted on Twitter. “I guess it's easier to question me than the person who deceived them and their movements.”

For others, there is a rightful desire to hold these poseurs accountable. However, this often veers into endless deconstruction of the behavior of these pretenders. Should we be extending this level of emotional labor to people who were seasoned activists, attorneys and academics steeped in social justice language and frameworks that they so deftly weaponized against BIWOC (Black, Indigenous and Women of Color)? This Rubik’s Cube puzzle-solving mission only serves to re-center these transgressors and silences those from whom we most need to learn.

Bannan was close personally and professionally to numerous women I love and respect. I was content to just hold space for my colleagues until Bannan posted her second statement. While gentler than the first, she remained unrepentant and some of her supporters continued to insist she had no need to apologize. Posting on the thread beneath her statement, I wrote “At this point, it would serve the community and Natasha herself for her to say less… I only want to hear from those who Natasha has harmed. You can't love the culture if you don't love the people, and if you ever took anything from a Latina —from material resources to a sense of safety and belonging in their own community— you don't love us.

“The ones we most need to hold accountable are ourselves”

Where do we go from here?

The survival of our movements from these infiltrations does not hinge on securing apologies and reparations from Bannan, Krug, Dolezal, et al. The ones we most need to hold accountable are ourselves. We do so by restoring the Latinas they harmed, treatment facilitated by our own oppressive praxis. These Latinas are not limited to those who lost fellowships, scholarships, and other material opportunities. They include those who were not Boricua enough because they were Black and the ones whose contributions we valued less because they were working poor or lacked a formal education. And if we truly aspire to a restorative politic, let’s begin with extending grace to those the imposters befriended who are reeling from the deception and grappling deeply with what the revelation means personally for them.

*Editor's note