SENORA HILARIA

 

     

                                                    BY WILLIAM  JUNEAU

                                 As we sort through all the stories which have made 2020 a year to be forever remembered, the saga of Hilaria Thomas Baldwin is in the pile, but its historical significance is near the bottom.  But it is there to talk about.

                                 In the final month of 2020, it was revealed that fitness expert Hilaria Baldwin, 36, celebrity wife of actor, Alec Baldwin, had been hoodwinking her associates and fans into believing that she was a Spaniard.  She possessed a comely face, charm and athletic curves, and her rhetoric was interspersed with Spanish inflections and colloquialisms.

                                 Usually the aura of Spanish enchantment is most apparent in the  cultured, goateed gentleman with impressive duds and a baritone voice and with an intriguing Latino name, but not always.  A  lady, comely and alluring with broken English and with the name of "Hilaria," will certainly draw attention from the Hollywood crowd and the hoi polloi. 

                                 Seems like that was how it was for Hillary Thomas Baldwin,  who was born in Bean town-- Boston-- in Massachusetts, but then found that her standing as a fitness expert and author of books, could be enhanced if she acquired the distinction of being a Spanish lady.  Step one was to change her  given name of Hillary to "Hilaria,"  and to mix her English with demure Spanish stumbles and expressions.  On one occasion, while being interviewed, she said she did not remember the English word for "cucumber."  

                                  Soon, Hilaria was perceived by her friends as a full-fledged immigrant from Spain, and in fact, she frequently referred to her roots in Spain, on the island of Mallorca, a place well known for its fashionable lifestyle, resorts and beaches. 

                                 In 2011,  she  met Alec Baldwin, an actor in movies and on television, who at 54 was some 25 years her senior. They were  married the following year  and the volatile and boastful Baldwin was enchanted with his beautiful young bride and he often spoke of her intriguing Spanish ways and of the beautiful island of Mallorca where she was born.  In the passing eight years, the Baldwins became the parents of five children,   Carmen,  Rafael,  Leonardo Angel Charles,  Romeo Alejandro David; and  Eduardo Pau Lucas. Beautiful Spanish names and the illusion of Spanish heritage continued to flower.                         

                                 Hilaria's success and reputation surged. She exhibited ambition and business acumen and became admired and widely known as a fitness guru.   She authored several books on staying fit, and appeared in films.  Her winsome face showed up in newspapers and on the cover of periodicals such as Hola, a Spanish language magazine.

                                  In early December of last year as Hilaria's endeavors were making her rich and famous, a twitter posting from a critic put a dent in her success story, and probably in her bank accounts.      

                                  "You have to admire Hilaria Baldwin's commitment to her decades long grift where she impersonates a Spanish person." the tweet read. The castigation promptly went viral and Hilaria was on the defensive.  Husband Baldwin too, was asked for an explanation and he said he considered the social media a bucket of "crap."    

                                   For most of December and into January of the new year, Mrs. Baldwin was busy defending herself against being a culture fake. Her explanations were everywhere, but for the most part she simply denied that it was her intention to pass herself off as a Spaniard.  Since she was a young girl, she said, she had visited Spain with her parents and it was like a second home to her. 

                                But, she declared, "I am a white woman, born in Boston, Massachusetts.  I am who I am and have always had emotional  ties to Spain." She also explained that her stumble on the English word for cucumber was simply a "brain fart," and was not intended to enhance her Spanish personality.  She said that she and her husband are raising their children to be bilingual in the same way that she was raised.                                    . 

                                 Hilaria is a cultural wannabe, no question about that, and it certainly enhanced her bottom line.  According to today's experts, she is worth more than $10 million.  She has much in common with Rachel Dolezal and Jessica Krug, white women who pretended for many years to be black, and rose to positions of  trust and prominence. Krug was a professor at George Washington University in the nation's capital when in 2019 she admitted that she had been living a lie.  

                                 Like Krug,  Ms Dolezal  was the white daughter of Caucasian parents.  She was active with the NAACP and held a high office in that organization in Spokane, Washington. Her pretense that she was a Black woman went on for decades and came to a stop after her White mother and father came forward and declared that Rachel was a white woman and had always been one.  

                                     It is mucho amusing and entertaining to see how easily one can morph from plain old Hilary of Boston to Hilaria exotica de Mallorca, no?  

                                                 xxx