Last Friday I sat down to watch the National Council of La Raza's annual ALMA awards ceremony. ("Alma" is Spanish for "spirit.") The awards are intended to be a "tribute to the spirit of pioneering Latinos in television, music, and sports."

The ALMAs have grown up quite a bit. Now they're a glitzy highly-produced show, but I remember when they were hard to even see because they were shown at awkward times. I swear once I saw them on a Saturday at 3 pm. Friday night is a good time to have an awards show. It's not Sunday night like the Emmys and the Oscars, but it is primetime.

It was a great show. The mile-long lists of nominees for each award reminded me how many Latinas and Latinos are on our screens -- some in Latino roles, others in roles that happen to be played by Latinos. It was an opportunity for my husband and myself to debate what it means to be Latino, how we measure positive portrayals and to be amazed at how far we have come from the era of brown-faced Caucasian actors with bad accents.

However, one thing left me a bit stunned: Joaquin Phoenix was nominated for Special Achievement in Film [PDF link].

Huh? In high school I was obsessed with Joaquin's late brother, River, so I know the Phoenix family history quite well. As missionaries, they moved around a lot in Latin America. Joaquin was born in Puerto Rico and lived there for the first four years of his life. However, nothing that I've seen has made me believe that he has embraced the label of "Latino."

Does one become Latino merely by being born in a Latin American country? This question was brought up during the 2008 Presidential election when it was revealed that Mitt Romney's father was born in Mexico. If Romney and Phoenix don't identify as Latino, is it proper for anyone to do it for them? I think not.

The ALMAs have so many achievements and individuals to celebrate. We don't need to create Latinos to honor.

[Image: Wikimedia Commons]