LISA TIMMONS

One of the first jobs I ever got after moving to Los Angeles to pursue my big, bad dream of writing for television was that of a television extra. All it took was a simple trip down to the Central Casting offices one afternoon to fill out a brief survey and have your picture taken and the following day, you could start calling the phone lines for casting information.

This would be the first time since filling out scholarship applications that my Hispanic heritage would come in handy in a way that I could measure monetarily. Often mistaken for Jewish, Italian or occasionally in Glendale, a tall Armenian girl, I practically needed to carry around a picture of my Colombian-born mother in my pocket to convince people that I really, truly was a first-generation American, bonafide Latina. The fact that I’m too embarrassed that my Spanish is less than fluent to attempt to speak it with anyone outside my family also doesn’t help. Oh yeah and neither does the name “Lisa Marie Timmons.”

I realized that attempting to book myself for both white and Hispanic and sometimes “other” gigs would increase my chances at getting work, i.e. my ability to pay my rent. So that is exactly how I ended up getting arrested on The Shield twice.

It wasn’t too often that I’d have to take advantage of my “ethnic flexibility,” but it did come in handy when I noticed that certain jobs weren’t filling up as quickly as others. For example, when I phoned in about the gig looking to hire “cholas, 18 to look younger,” my phone call surprisingly went through on the first ring. “Trust me,” I said when the casting agent hesitated after pulling up my picture, “I really am Hispanic and when I put on my clothes, jewelry and makeup, it will look good.”

The next natural step was, of course, getting on the Internet to research what exactly a “chola” was. I wasn’t from the West Coast and grew up on an army base in Germany, where we had one channel for nearly ten years. Most of the other Latino kids on base were Puerto Rican, many of whom sported colored contacts and severe highlights. Luckily, Google was already being widely used and I had plenty of black eyeliner.

I woke up that morning, dutifully ironing creases into my boyfriend’s borrowed khaki pants, applied my make-up and whipped out all the jewelry ever given to me by my Abuelita since I had turned thirteen. With my hair still wet, I ran some gel through my long, brown, naturally wavy hair and carefully applied my makeup, which consisted of lots of carefully drawn black lines.

The hustle and bustle of getting ready had kept me preoccupied so that it wasn’t until I was driving to the set location that my nerves started getting the best of me. This was Los Angeles, full of real Mexicans—some of whom were real cholas—who would probably take as kindly to me, a posturing half-Colombian “white girl” stealing jobs that should rightfully be reserved for them and theirs, as less recent immigrants to this melting pot of a country often exhibit towards migrant workers from south of the border. At least I felt a little better knowing I had no ambition of actually becoming an actor, which for some reason, made my current employment seem less permanent, and therefore less presumptuous.

Upon my arrival, I was instructed to head to wardrobe, where I was asked if they’d given me my clothes. At least I had done my research in the fashion department. A quick stop to hair and makeup resulted in the addition of a little more gel and a few more black lines, but apparently, I’d done a good job. For once in my life, I looked convincingly Hispanic enough so that someone walking down the street might actually speak to me in Spanish, which would be an unique experience. I felt a glimmer of possessing my specific cultural identity by embracing a stereotype that was somewhat universally recognized. At least it was easier than walking around with a bunch of fruit on my head, leading a burro by my side as he carried huge sacks of coffee beans.

Walking toward the other girls cast for the scene, I noticed that they were darker-skinned than me and possessed decidedly more native South and Central American features, with their sharp cheekbones and enviably (well, to me, at least) flatter noses. My honking schnazz of a nose hung in the air like a red flag signaling my European ancestry and I felt my anxiety slowly returning.

“Oh my GOD! You look amazing!” one of my cohorts blurted out once I introduced myself. I smiled shyly, “I’m actually half-Colombian. I wasn’t really sure what to wear, so I just put on my boyfriend’s clothes.” Her “valley girl” accent became more obvious as she continued talking, “I know, right? I had no idea what to wear! I had to look it up on the Internet. I mean, I’m Mexican, but I’m from Fresno. I don’t know what a ‘chola’ looks like.”

And with that, I smiled and felt an immediate kinship in our shared identity of ethnic confusion.

I’ve always held that declaring your pride in your heritage, however removed the connection, is a very tricky practice because it means that you should also be prepared to bear the burden of the sins of the very people you’re attempting to venerate. I prefer to use it as an anthropological tool, a cultural context. Like how my boyfriend of Irish-German descent thinks it’s insane that my ears were pierced at 3 mos. of age. Maybe it’s because I wholeheartedly embraced the “melting pot” concept from a young age and from having lived overseas, that I’ve realized first and foremost, I’m an American.

Once in Germany, a fellow pupil of mine at the off-post high school I attended as a guest student—a German boy—told me that he wasn’t surprised to find out that I was American because “all Americans look alike, except the movie stars.” Back then, I bristled at the comment. But now, I just laugh. Because maybe it’s true and that’s why everyone tries so goddamn hard to become famous. Perhaps being famous has managed to become the ultimate coveted minority identity in the United States. Or maybe I’ve just been working in the entertainment industry for far too long.

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