First Indigenous Woman Nominated for Academy Award

The indigenous Mexican actor Yalitza Aparicio has made history twice in less than two months time – first by being nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress and then for appearing on the cover of Vogue Mexico. It's a first for a country where light-skinned people dominate the media landscape despite an overwhelmingly Mestizo and Indigenous population. She represents an important minority community that isn't always highlighted in the mainstream.

The praise north of the U.S.-Mexico border among fans of Mexican descent comes as Aparicio, who is from the Mexican state of Oaxaca, faces racist attacks online in her homeland and scorn from some Mexican actors. After she appeared on the cover of Vogue México last year, Aparicio was hit with a tirade of online racist comments that criticized her physical appearance.

"I am proud to be an Oaxacan indigenous woman and it saddens me that there are people who do not know the correct meaning of words," Aparicio, who is of Mixtec descent, said in a statement earlier this month.

In "Roma," Aparicio plays Cleo, a domestic worker for a Mexico City middle-class family in the turbulent early 1970s. In the film, Aparicio speaks in an indigenous dialect and in Spanish and works to navigate the different worlds for her own survival.

Aparicio, a 25-year-old primary school teacher, was nominated alongside Glenn Close, Lady Gaga, Olivia Colman and Melissa McCarthy at Sunday's Oscars, with Colman winning the prestigious award.

According to Astrid Silva, an immigrant rights activist in Las Vegas whose parents are from Mexico, many Mexican-American women and Mexican immigrants in the U.S. see themselves in Aparicio for many reasons.

"She's a dark-skinned woman (who) comes from a poor region in Mexico like many of our families," Silva said. "She's not only challenging old notions of beauty that always involved blond hair and light skin. She's threatening them."

Aparicio's popularity is especially strong in California where many Mexican-Americans can trace their roots to Oaxaca, Michoacán and Guerrero. Those states have vibrant, diverse indigenous populations that historically faced discrimination in Mexico.

"We've been working to rediscover our indigenous roots and Aparicio's presence is showing that we matter," said Lilia Soto, an American Studies professor at the University of Wyoming, who grew up in Napa, California. "The racism she's facing in Mexico also is an attack against us."

Soto said Aparicio also is popular among Mexican immigrants in New York City who largely come from Puebla - another Mexican state with an indigenous population.