Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slams Fox News for mocking her name, accusing her of doing the 'Latina thing'
A day after Fox News host Laura Ingraham and her guest, lawyer Joe diGenova, mocked Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s name and Latina image, the freshman congresswoman took to Twitter to set them straight.
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On Tuesday night’s episode of The Ingraham Angle, the conservative host accused Ocasio-Cortez, whose family is Puerto Rican, of putting on an accent.
“She does the Latina thing where she does her, you know, ’Anastasio Ocasio-Cortez,’” diGenova responded, botching the politician’s name and adding an exaggerated accent. “And I assume she’s going to love that when I do that.”
Not so much. The lawmaker fired back at Ingraham in a series of tweets posted Wednesday night. She first pushed back against the implication that it’s a bad thing to speak English and Spanish, and defended using the correct pronunciation of her name. The criticism, she claimed, was due to Ingraham and diGenova’s “economic anxiety.”
“How dare they refuse to say their name in a wrong accent and not mangle their own family name so that I can feel more comfortable instead of look inside myself and examine why something as small as *a person’s name* makes me uncomfortable in the first place??” she mockingly tweeted. “This is an outrage!”
Siri, show me the brand of ‘economic anxiety’ that mocks Americans of color as unintelligent + unskilled, while *also* mocking those same Americans for speaking more languages than you: pic.twitter.com/HXBC7Osexu
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
“How dare they refuse to say their name in a wrong accent & not mangle their own family name so that I can feel more comfortable instead of look inside myself & examine why something as small as *a person’s name* makes me uncomfortable in the first place?? This is an outrage!” https://t.co/ArYd28WVcv
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
Noting that Ingraham had incorrectly referred to her as just “Cortez,” she also schooled the Fox News personality on how last names are used in Latinx culture. Ocasio-Cortez is correct, Cortez is not, and her popular nickname, AOC, is totally acceptable.
“It’s not a ‘progressive, new thing,'” she tweeted. “It’s just how some names work. PR [Puerto Rico] hyphenates, others mark differently. Your last name = the families that came together to make you. AOC is also fine though.”
By the way: Fox News likes to say my name (incorrectly) as “Cortez,” which I can only imagine is bc that sounds more ‘stereotypically’ Hispanic + probably incites more ‘anxiety’ for them.
Pro Tip:
My last name is not “Cortez,” just as theirs isn’t “Ingra” or “Carl” or “Hann.”— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
For the curious, in Latinx culture children take *both* their parents‘ names.
It’s not a “progressive, new thing.” It’s just how some names work. PR hyphenates, others mark differently. Your last name = the families that came together to make you.
AOC is also fine though 🙂
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
Your*
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 21, 2019
Ingraham hasn’t responded to Ocasio-Cortez’s tweets. In the meantime, the rising political star has added a new feather to her cap: a spot on the new cover of Time. The magazine dubs her “Wonder Woman of the left, Wicked Witch of the right.”
“Wonder Woman of the left, Wicked Witch of the right.” (h/t @brianstelter) pic.twitter.com/wBJVLRyqKC
— Connor Ryan (@connortryan) March 21, 2019
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