How we lost Shakira

Being Latino in America is complicated. Even more complicated is being an immigrant in a different country with a different culture, values and standards.

No one reminds me of this more than Shakira, the singer from Barranquilla, Colombia. She slayed us with songs like “La Tortura,” “Hips Don’t Lie,” “Waka Waka (This Time for Africa)” and, most recently, “Can’t Remember to Forget You,” a collaboration she did with Rihanna.

In a way, Shakira made it. She was able to conquer the American market, becoming a Latina pop star in her own right. Or so we’d like to think.

What most don’t realize is Shakira today is not the same Shakira that captivated Latin America’s audiences and catapulted her into stardom.

The Shakira I grew up admiring was an alternative singer with all the makings of an indie rockstar. In retrospect, she represented the rebelliousness and the restlessness of Latin America’s youth throughout the 1990s.

Watching the music videos for “Pies Descalzos, Sueños Blancos,” a song criticizing the emphasis on propriety and materialism in Latin American culture, and “No Creo,” a song that mentions Karl Marx, Jean Paul Sartre and Brian Weiss, reminds me of the drastic difference between that Shakira and the Shakira singing about being a sexy she-wolf from a golden cage.

Even physically, the change is dramatic.

Shakira’s long, jet-black hair, which few are aware she sported for most her career, is now just a memory, replaced with the blond bombshell we now know.

So what happened?

The music industry happened. Trying to sell an artist from a non-English speaking country isn’t easy. Just try to remember the last time you listened to artist on the radio not singing in English.

As reluctant as the industry may be to admit it, whitewashing is real. And Shakira is a prime example of it.

One of Urban Dictionary’s definitions of whitewashing calls it, “A term that now has also come to refer to the entertainment industry’s attempt at making ethnic characters more appealing to the white, money-spending masses by making exotic characters less ethnic and more ‘white.’”

Based on the changes to Shakira’s physical appearance alone during her entrance into the American market, the drastic changes only emphasize the tragedy of neglecting a part of someone’s identity for the sake of selling a product.

It’s also a reminder of how difficult it is for minorities to negotiate their heritage while also trying to assimilate into American society.

Bottom line, Shakira has unfortunately given an entirely new meaning to
selling out.

­— edsalas@indiana.edu