Marilyn Monroe’s mother was born in Mexico, which means by heritage, Marilyn Monroe was a Latina.
When Marilyn Monroe wanted to become a movie star, she had to reinvent herself. The first thing, she was told, was her name.
It wasn’t glamorous. The name that appears on her birth certificate would never be in bright lights on a theater marquee. Norma Jeane Mortenson thus became Marilyn Monroe.
Marilyn Monroe’s maternal grandparents arrived in Mexico after a series of droughts in the 1890s created hardships for grain farmers in the Midwest. Otis Elmer Monroe and his wife, Della Mae Hogan, Marilyn Monroe’s grandparents, settled in the border town of Porfirio Díaz, today known as Piedras Negras.
The family assimilated to the northern Mexican life of ranching and farming. The Mexican vaquero tradition, which evolved in the nineteenth century, and became the origins of the American cowboy, was familiar to them. The Monroe family prospered in the rugged desert town. They built decent lives for themselves, embracing the regional border culture. Gladys Pearl was born in 1902, Marion three years later. Gladys Pearl and Marion grew up speaking English and Spanish, fully assimilated into the Mexican norteño life along the border. Gladys Pearl was Marilyn Monroe’s mother.
Marilyn Monroe, discreetly, embraced her Mexican heritage, which she kept secret from the public. She became conversant in Spanish, though not fluent, a fact that made handlers at 20th Century Fox nervous; on her many trips to Mexico they wanted her to pretend she didn’t understand the language, lest there be a newsreel of her speaking Spanish, an event that would spoil the fantasy of who she was to the American people.
She visited Luis Buñuel on the set of “El angel exterminador.” She was serenaded by mariachis while enjoying tacos at El Taquito restaurant. She visited the pyramids of Teotihuacan and climbed to the top of the Pyramid of the Sun.
When a reporter at the Continental Hilton Hotel asked her if she could fall in love with a Mexican actor, in flawless Spanish, she replied, “¿Y por qué actor? ¡Con un mexicano basta!” (“Why an actor? A Mexican is enough!”)
