I don’t know why people don’t seem to get that folks don’t think its okay to attack a woman of color because someone assumed she was Latinx and cast her as such. They’re mad that a white Italian woman was cast as an explicitly non-white Latinx woman (and she calls herself non-white on the damn show) and we’re tired of Europeans (many who are brown because they…tan…just like white girls in America do) and Americans taking much needed representation from people of color who are desperately underrepresented and we’re fed up with other people using the experiences of actual people of color to deflect from any criticism. In what world do you say that its wrong to criticize Floriana Lima’s casting because white people somewhere, probably were mean to her because of her tan just like they’re mean to Brown Latinx all of their lives…how do you even do that? Just because someone might assume she is Latinx, because they think all Latinx are lightly tanned with dark hair, doesn’t mean every Italian woman who fits the bill is entitled to take Latinx representation. Did Angelina Jolie get a pass for playing a woman of color because she has “exotic features” and can tan? Floriana Lima is NOT a woman of color, she is NOT Latinx and has no ties to anything Latinx. And people are frustrated that, yet again, a show played up their dedication to diversity and added yet another white woman.
And if people want to excuse the show saying that its illegal to ask ethnicity if they’re casting a specific part (not exactly true but whatever helps them sleep at night) then you still have to criticize Floriana for walking into that as a white woman and getting that role. And you can still criticize how their assumption of what a “proper Latinx” looks like led them to cast a white woman with no Latinx heritage anyways and think of what brown and black Latinx were passed up for that.
I don’t know how it became “the mean fandom wants to take away queer representation and attack a brown woman” (in a fandom that’s usually notorious for being hyper critical of women of color…until now…odd) when the woman isn’t Latinx but was cast to play one. And you know they’d never cast a black woman as Latinx even when she actually IS one (ask Gina Torres about that…). So maybe people have a reason to be perturbed by this. Because this isn’t the first time someone has done that.
And I don’t know, maybe its because I’m a queer woman of color, but I’m not interested in defending whitewashing just because the woman in question is our lesbian representation at the moment.
Tl;dr: The issue isn’t whether or not she’s brown enough to play a Latina. The issue is that she isn’t Latinx at all but was cast because she looks like a “true Latinx” should look (slight tan with dark hair and certain features). And “she could be maybe, sorta, kinda” isn’t enough of a justification..
Edit: The other issue is that her character explicitly says they’re not-white. So they cast a white woman with a tan to play non-white person, which is whitewashing.