Lupe Ontiveros Talks To NPR About Playing The Maid

Lupe Ontiveros, who you might remember as the maid in The Goonies or a few hundred other films, sat down with NPR to talk about the legacy of immigrants, which is, namely, to play the maid. But isn’t referring to Lupe as the daughter of immigrants another tired stereotype Latinos in this country get saddled with?

Lupe was interviewed as part of the “Immigrants’ Children,” series on NPR, the full title of which is, “Immigrants’ Children: A foot in two worlds.” But she’s, what, 66? At that rate, why not interview Kirk Douglas? His parents were illiterate Jews from Russia. It seems that even NPR is stuck in the mindset that brown Americans must come from somewhere else.