View Poll Results: Do you consider Kyle and Kendra Hispanic/Latino characters?

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  • YES

    37 39.78%
  • NO

    24 25.81%
  • Only Kyle is Latino/Hispanic

    9 9.68%
  • Only Kendra is Latino/Hispanic

    23 24.73%
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  1. #1
    Mighty Member Samm's Avatar
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    Default Do you consider Kyle and Kendra Latinos/Hispanic?

    I realized that there is always a bit of controversy when discussing Kyle Rayner and Kendra Saunders, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, and whether or not they are Latino/Hispanic characters. Some say they are, hence they were used in the Latinos of the DCU thread over lesser known Latino characters, while another group of fans seem to consider them White characters that were reconed into being a minority (adding the suenames Vasquez and Munoz to Kyle and Kendra respectively).

    So what do all of you say?

  2. #2
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    You're talking about Earth 2 Hawkgirl not the JSA Kendra or the TV one? Isn't she supposed to be mixed race rather than outright Latina? Like Miles Morales?

    And all I've ever considered Kyle Rayner to be is a waste of printing.

  3. #3
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    I'm going with no for Kyle (and I accidentally voted wrong).

    You can't just retcon somebody to have a Latina mother long after the character was created, change absolutely nothing else about how the character is presented and written, never mention said parent ever again, and expect people to roll with that.

  4. #4
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    I've voted no in both cases, I know Kyle is supposed to be of mexican decent, but there is just nothing about him when I look at him that makes me naturally think he is anything but a white american, it always has to be tagged on 'and he is half mexican'.

    Hawkgirl... no, in all cases, the name simply isnt enough and he the hue of the E-2 versions skin makes me more inclined to think african american than I am thinking latino (like she could have come from Barbados for all I know).

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by Carabas View Post
    I'm going with no for Kyle (and I accidentally voted wrong).

    You can't just retcon somebody to have a Latina mother long after the character was created, change absolutely nothing else about how the character is presented and written, never mention said parent ever again, and expect people to roll with that.
    Wasn't it his father that (I believe) Judd Winick retconned as being Latino? I'd stopped reading GL long before then, for reasons mostly to do with money and a sudden change in my employment.

    Back when Judd first appeared as a cast member of the third season of The Real World, along with Pedro, Puck, and Pam whom he'd later marry, I actually liked the guy. I loved The Adventures of Barry Ween, I ordered the Oni Press collections of his newspaper strip and found them funny (they certainly were never carried in any newspaper I could find where I lived at the time he was doing it), and hell, I certainly find myself closer to him on the political spectrum than, say, Steve Ditko. But I found his tendencies to put his political messages, or hell, just his messages, over the story or characterization just annoying. (Didn't he also try to retcon Jade's history from early adoptee to girl-who-grew-up-in-an-orphanage just so he could do a story about Young Jenny-Lynn Vs. the Pedophile Janitor?)

    At least it wasn't as bad as Devin Grayson trying to retcon Dick Grayson into being Romani in Nightwing. The cynical side of me suspects that was her attempt to still change Dick Grayson into something other than "heterosexual white male" when DC wouldn't let her retcon him into being bisexual. Besides, did any writer afterwards refer to it ever again?

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timber Wolf-By-Night View Post
    At least it wasn't as bad as Devin Grayson trying to retcon Dick Grayson into being Romani in Nightwing. The cynical side of me suspects that was her attempt to still change Dick Grayson into something other than "heterosexual white male" when DC wouldn't let her retcon him into being bisexual. Besides, did any writer afterwards refer to it ever again?
    The Grayson writers did mention it in Secret Origins. But that was probably more done to please certain parts of the fandom than to do anything with it.

  7. #7
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    Uhm.... Yes? How can earth 2 Kendra not be Hispanic, also Kyle is half Hispanic. Like it or not if the writers say he is, he is.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by nightrider View Post
    Uhm.... Yes? How can earth 2 Kendra not be Hispanic, also Kyle is half Hispanic. Like it or not if the writers say he is, he is.
    Well, thats not the question whenever they are or not, it is if we readers actually consider them as such.

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by Samm View Post
    I realized that there is always a bit of controversy when discussing Kyle Rayner and Kendra Saunders, Green Lantern and Hawkgirl, and whether or not they are Latino/Hispanic characters. Some say they are, hence they were used in the Latinos of the DCU thread over lesser known Latino characters, while another group of fans seem to consider them White characters that were reconed into being a minority (adding the suenames Vasquez and Munoz to Kyle and Kendra respectively).

    So what do all of you say?
    Pre-flashpoint kendra did not look white to me.
    Last edited by mace11; 07-18-2016 at 09:08 AM.

  10. #10

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    This thread is the reason i don't have patience to discuss race with americans.
    You people will never learn.

  11. #11
    Fantastic Member hammergiant's Avatar
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    Kyle is my favorite character, and I guess he could fit a half-Irish, half-Latino mold, but his father was never a part of his life and none of his Latino heritage ever made an impact on him as far as I can remember. So, I don't think it matters to the character. DC may be using it to promote diversity, which frankly, is quite a stretch.
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  12. #12
    Always Rakzo
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    Kendra definitely yes.

    Kyle? Well, he does have a Hispanic father but I don't think he considers himself Hispanic unless you count the horribly stereotypical portrayal that King gave him in Omega Men.

    I still don't know what was happening in his head:

    "Oh, he's half-Hispanic? Well, of course he must be a committed Catholic then! I'm also planning to make him pray in Spanish and eat enchiladas at night! You don't think is going to be too subtle right?"

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by Timber Wolf-By-Night View Post
    Wasn't it his father that (I believe) Judd Winick retconned as being Latino?
    It was definitely Judd winick, and I don't think it matters which parent.

    At least it wasn't as bad as Devin Grayson trying to retcon Dick Grayson into being Romani in Nightwing. The cynical side of me suspects that was her attempt to still change Dick Grayson into something other than "heterosexual white male" when DC wouldn't let her retcon him into being bisexual. Besides, did any writer afterwards refer to it ever again?
    This was something else if I recall correctly. This was some old Roma who tried to con Dick into believing he was his grandfather, which turned out to be a lie at the end of the story.

  14. #14
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    This is always tough at least in far as depiction/representation. Like, how do we know that Batwoman is a Jewish superhero? Is there anything in her art depiction that somehow announces or distinguishes her as Jewish? All we have to go on is that the writers tell us, "hey, she's Jewish, her mom, Gabrielle Such-and-Such, is a Jewish woman who married her (presumably) Irish pop, from the bourgeois Irish Kane family with their ginger hair.)

    There are cases where it's a tough sell. There are cases where it's easier. It was easy, (for me at least!), to get behind darkening up Helena Bertinelli's Sicilian skintone. Easy representation of a much more Mediterranean look that isn't as depicted in superhero funnybooks as it should be. Easy to darken Damian Wayne's skintone to indicate his Middle-Eastern heritage - even if he's only like, a quarter Middle-Eastern (Talia's mother appears to be French) and Ra's al Ghul's origin is like "Parts Unknown ..." Ironically, easy, and perhaps a bit cliched, to say someone in Dick's circus-folk ancestry is gypsy in origin. But that's a dash of ancestry more than an ethnic culture he grew up in.

    Writing Kyle Rayner's mom, a blond woman called Maura (Moira?), to be Latina, is pretty silly. I've always been pretty okay with Kyle being half-Mexican. He's from California, a state that used to be part of Mexico and still has a massive Latin population. I'd also been under the impression it was his dad that was Mexican and that he had his mom's surname because she didn't want him to have anything to do with that guy. But I realize now I'm just not that up on my Kyle Rayner classics.

    Anyway my head is getting spinning when thinking about the topic of representation, ethnicity vs. ancestry, and assimilated "American" culture. Or even just comic colorist skintone representation. Kyle's not a particularly "notable" example but I think he's still an example. He's no Jaime Reyes.
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  15. #15
    Astonishing Member Sodam Yat's Avatar
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    I never viewed Kyle as a person of half-Mexican descent and there's other readers who haven't viewed him that way either. He was never created to be half Hispanic in the first place, which is one of the reasons why his race never seemed to really make such a big impact among some readers. Some parts of Judd Winick's GL run has never seemed to carry over among other writers. I don't know whether it was because what Judd Winick did with the character didn't seem to go anywhere or whatnot. Justin Jordan seemed to erase most of Kyle's family's history in New Guardians, which gave me indication that Kyle was never half-Mexican in the first place. And Tom King didn't seem to do any research on the character's past. Kyle certainly never spoke fluent Spanish and didn't know anything about his heritage at first. I guess writers/editorials decides what race these already existing characters should be.

    About Kendra, I never viewed her as a latino, either. She was never seemed to be depicted as such. As what someone has already said in this thread, I always had the impression that she was an African American. I did like the TV version of Kendra, though.

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