Hilaria Baldwin insists culture is 'allowed to be fluid' less than a year after her heritage scandal
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Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images Hilaria Baldwin attends the "Blind" premiere at Landmark Sunshine Cinema on June 26, 2017 in New York City.
Seven months after an outcry erupted on social media questioning her heritage, and in particular, her connection to Spain, Hilaria Baldwin says she sees herself as "multi," and believes culture can be "fluid."
In an Instagram post on Thursday, Baldwin, wife to Alec Baldwin, said she recently had an opportunity to have a discussion with family members, now that COVID-19 restrictions have eased.
"We talked about how we grew up, our languages, our cultures-multi& very valid. We discussed belonging& how there are people who want to deny others their right to belong," she wrote, not mentioning the December 2020 scandal when various social media users questioned her Spanish heritage and sometimes use of a Spanish accent (like when she forgot the word for cucumber on Today), forcing her to later clarify that she was born in Boston.
In Thursday's post, Baldwin, who has previously said she grew up in Massachusetts and Spain, lamented labels.
"When you are multi, it can feel hard to belong. You are constantly going back and forth, trying to be more this or more that," the mom-of-six shared. "You feel you have to explain why you are the way you are, trying to fit into a world of labels when there might not be one that perfectly defines you."
Explaining her perspective further, Hilaria discussed not fitting in.
"You will never quite fit in because the other parts of you shape and influence all your parts. Nothing inside you can truly exist in a segregated environment. It's not a light switch that cleanly switches on &off-more of a sliding dial that simply shifts through a rainbow of colors," she wrote.
The social media personality and author said that she believes "we all get to curate our individual expressions of our cultures, languages, who we love, what we believe in, how we dress, present ourselves."
Taylor Hill/WireImage Hilaria Baldwin and Alec Baldwin attend the 2017 Ripple of Hope Awards at New York Hilton on December 13, 2017 in New York City.
In her post, Hilaria employed the word "fluid," and said it applied to culture.
"We need to normalize the fact that we are all unique-our culture, languages, sexual orientations, religions, political beliefs are ALLOWED TO BE FLUID. No two of us are completely alike," she wrote.
The author, who received a handful of comments of support (comments on the post were limited on Instagram), encouraged people to, "Ebb &flow, in your brilliant fluidity, as your very legitimate you."
In a 2018 cover story in Hola! Magazine, Baldwin was identified as Spanish, and the article noted that she and Alec were raising their kids to be bilingual and speak in her native language. Hola! updated their story in December 2020, after the author confirmed she was born in the USA.
Hilaria said in her Instagram-shared clarification video in late 2020 she was proud of being raised in two cultures.
"Yes I am a white girl. I am a white girl," she said. "Let's be very clear that Europe, you know, has a lot of white people in there, and my family is white. Ethnically, I'm a mix of many, many many things. Culturally, I grew up with the two cultures. So, it's really as simple as that."
In February of 2021, she issued a follow-up post, where she said she had been "reflecting," and she apologized for not explaining things better.
"I've spent the last month listening, reflecting, and asking myself how I can learn and grow," she wrote. "My parents raised my brother and me with two cultures, American and Spanish, and I feel a true sense of belonging to both. The way I've spoken about myself and my deep connection to two cultures could have been better explained — I should have been more clear and I'm sorry."
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