For Hispanic and Latin American Heritage Month, Carlos Miranda, writing at StarWars.com, spoke with Star Wars authors Daniel José Older and Zoraida Córdova.
While promoting Andor, series star Diego Luna was asked about his accent on ABC’s Soul of a Nation. “I love my accent,” Luna said, “and my accent, no one else can bring it.” Luna’s intentional use of his native Mexican inflection — particularly when he first played the role of Cassian Andor in 2016’s Rogue One: A Star Wars Story — was to many a notable choice worth celebrating.
“A lot of my family members speak with an accent,” Zoraida Córdova, author of the upcoming Star Wars: The High Republic: Convergence, tells StarWars.com, “and though we are Ecuadorian and Diego Luna is Mexican, it just felt like home in a way.”
Andor’s premiere has brought Hispanic representation specifically, and diversity at large, in Star Wars into focus — something worth noting as we celebrate Hispanic and Latin American Heritage Month. Not only is Luna headlining the show, with a cast that also includes Puerto Rican actress Adria Arjona, he is also an executive producer on the series.
Building on the foundations laid by Jimmy Smits’ Bail Organa and Oscar Issac’s Poe Dameron, Luna’s Cassian Andor — and his accent — has helped to usher in a new era of Hispanic representation in our beloved galaxy. Since Rogue One’s premiere, Pedro Pascal’s Mandalorian has become almost ubiquitous and Rosario Dawson has brought fan favorite Ahsoka Tano from animation into live action.
“I love that The Mandalorian, Andor, and Ahsoka have Latino leads. For me it says that the Latin American diaspora extends to even space, even a galaxy far, far away,” says Córdova. “Latinos are a group of people stereotyped by Hollywood into specific roles, so these Star Wars shows are refreshing.”
“The talent behind and in front of the camera, the talent on the keyboard matter — and that’s what’s really exciting about this era of Star Wars,” says Daniel José Older, author and a story architect of Star Wars: The High Republic. “We’re seeing different forms of storytelling, different rhythms of storytelling. When you bring in different cultures you get a diversity of stories, not just of faces. It’s a really exciting time.”
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