White, attractive, blonde, and extraordinarily skilled, Marilyn Monroe was the prototypical All-American bombshell. Why, then, would Ana de Armas, a Latina actress, feature as Marilyn in a film about Monroe’s life? Surely, there are plenty of white American actresses appropriate for the role?
Ana de Armas’s portrayal of Monroe is outstanding, and she has earned the praise and Oscar buzz she has received for her work.
It’s not her performance that we’re interested in so much as her casting.
Perhaps Andrew Dominik, the director of Blonde, cast Ana de Armas as Marilyn Monroe’s love interest as a subtle nod to Monroe’s Mexican ancestry.
Gladys Baker, Marilyn’s mom, was born to White Parents in Mexico
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After the Great Drought of the 1890s devastated the Midwest, many Americans fled to the south, primarily to Mexico.
Her paternal grandfather, Otis Elmer Monroe, was from Indianapolis, and her paternal grandmother, Della Mae Hogan, was from Bentonville, Arkansas.
Otis and Della eventually made their home in Piedras Negras, Mexico, which is just across the border from Eagle Pass, Texas today.
For a time in the 1890s, Piedras Negras was known by the name Porfirio Diaz.
As their Mexican hosts, the family learned about ranching and farming and embraced Mexican culture. To make ends meet, Otis painted trains for a Porfirio Diaz-based railroad company.
Gladys Pearl was born to Otis and Della in 1902, one year before the family relocated back to the United States. They moved to Los Angeles in 1903, where Otis found work with the Pacific Electric Railway Company.
Gladys Monroe, who was raised bilingually in Spanish and English, is proof that the Monroes never lost touch with their Latinx roots. It was on June 1, 1926, when Marilyn Monroe was born to parents Gladys Pearl and Charles Stanley Gifford.
Gifford was a white Rhode Islander who hailed from Newport County. Gladys’s ancestry was Latino, although she herself was of European heritage.
Since Marilyn’s mother was not Latina, even though she was raised in a Latino household, Marilyn Monroe was not Latina.
Monroe began to openly embrace her Mexican roots
Most Americans in Monroe’s day were white, and they didn’t like diversity on the silver screen or anyplace else. Hollywood adapted by changing the public’s perception of celebrity personas. Names that seemed too foreign were altered to conform to the American lexicon, for instance.
Monroe knew that if she was going to be successful, she would have to conceal her Mexican heritage. Marilyn hid her Latina heritage in public but secretly studied the language.
Studio executives were concerned that a trip to Mexico might cause her to break character and reveal her true identity as a “California Girl” who speaks only English.
Monroe established Marilyn Monroe Productions in 1955 to handle her professional life. Once she was released from the clutches of the Hollywood elite, Marilyn turned her attention south of the border and began proudly embracing her Mexican heritage.
She used to hang out at the same Mexican border towns’ nightclubs as famous people like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. Monroe ate tacos in Mexico City to the accompaniment of mariachis in February 1962.
Monroe told a reporter in Spanish at the Continental Hotel that she was willing to fall in love with a Mexican once she ascended to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun. Marilyn kept her pledge and began a rapid-fire romance with the writer/director Jose Bolanos.
Marilyn donned a sweatshirt she bought in Mexico City for her final photo shoot. The police discovered the sweater strewn across a shipment of Mexican furniture she had brought to Los Angeles.
Monroe’s Paternal Ancestor was a member of the Scottish Munro Family
An article from The Scotsman in August 2019 states that Monroe’s grandpa, Otis Elmer Monroe, was a member of the Scottish Munro clan.
The article asserted that John Munro, “a prisoner of war deported to America after the Battle of Worcester during the English Civil War in 1651,” was the ancestor of Otis.
According to the Scotsman, the Clan Munro DNA research established that Marilyn’s ancestors came from the small Moray town of Edinkillie, not far from Forres.
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