With its second season out on April 29, Amazon’s “Undone” is again following Rosa Salazar’s Alma as she time travels, addresses her personal inadequacies, and tries to heal her household. She’s not alone due to a largely Latina help system that features her sister Becca (Angelique Cabral) and her mom, Camila (Constance Marie). This season, we additionally meet her abuelita Fabiola (Renée Victor) and tia Monse (Ana Ortiz), who additionally play vital roles in her life.
This season addresses what having so many Latinas in a single solid does, which is proves there is no a technique of being Latina. Let’s begin with what aspect of the border they’re on. Within the new season, Alma and Becca go away their residence in San Antonio to go to their abuela and prolonged household in Mexico. Alongside the way in which, we study it was their mother who crossed and began an EEUU-based household. So in “Undone,” we’ve got Latinas born within the US and born in Mexico, those that’ve immigrated and those that have not. They usually’re all a part of the identical household, all portrayed by Latina actresses, all in a position to entry elements of Mexican and US tradition.
I additionally recognize how every character has a special model. This issues as a result of it exhibits the way you costume would not essentially correlate to “how Latina you’re.” It would not even outline how fascinating you’re. There’s a lot freedom within the vary of costume sported by the Latinas of “Undone,” and it is so totally different from what we usually see — the place there are the “fairly women” (who’re thought of fairly by Eurocentric magnificence requirements) who get the blokes and the wallflowers who do not. That female lure is especially chopping for Latinas who face the added expectation of being tremendous attractive and punished in the event that they conform to or resist that stereotype.
The opposite stereotype that looms giant for Latinas is about motherhood. We’re purported to have 1,000,000 children (due to Catholicism), and we’re purported to sacrifice the whole lot for our children whereas holding them to extraordinarily excessive requirements. I am Chicana, and I consider movies like “Like Water For Chocolate” and “Actual Girls Have Curves” as definitional, and the Mexican/Mexican American mother shouldn’t be look in any of them. Even “Gentefied” dipped into this trope, with the one onscreen mom being Ana’s harsh however well-meaning mother, Beatriz.
In “Undone,” Latina motherhood shouldn’t be like that — or it isn’t simply like that. We see the normal, trauma-based love from Abuela Fabiola. And whereas her decisions have adverse ripple results, it seems like she’s largely patched issues up with Camila. Because the central mom of the present, Camila can also be imperfect however not out of the standard need to own her youngsters. As an alternative, she retains an excessive amount of distance, believing her youngsters can be higher with out her when maybe they want her greater than ever. Even Becca will get a motherhood plot this season. Her new husband needs to have children immediately, and she or he’s not prepared. The reluctant mother, the aloof mother, the mother who’s erred and repaired — these are usually not the standard Latina tales. However they’re what actual mothers seem like: imperfect however striving, loving however flawed, human.
It is such a refreshing departure from the standard narrative of what it’s to be Latina. And having a number of departures all in the identical present makes every one even stronger. Add in the truth that “Undone” is not even about id — it is a time-traveling, grownup animation that is about destiny, household, and the bounds of our minds — and it simply will get higher. “Undone” is a present that takes its characters’ Latinidad as truth, builds our tradition into its material, and places us on the middle of its exploration of the human situation. And I am right here for it.
