The Exoticization of Excellence

When Your Résumé Gets Colonized

“As a published Latina writer, I thought it was conceivable you and Bernadine might have met.”

That’s how it started.

A Taos, NM, man I didn’t know—let’s call him Reed—reached out to me on Facebook. He’d seen my profile through a mutual friend and decided to message me. Not to engage with my writing. Not to introduce himself as a reader. But to tell me I must surely know a different Latina writer—Bernadine—because, in his mind, there just aren’t that many of us. Never mind that she is unpublished and lives hundreds of miles from me.

What he didn’t mention at first—but what came out later—is that he used to date Bernadine.

So this wasn’t admiration.

This was a mating call.

This was "I have a type, and you’re it. Be flattered."

When I gently pushed back—saying that not only did I not know his ex Bernadine but that there are 60 million Latinos in the United States and we do not all hang out on conference calls all day, talking about how great it is that the Amazing Reed Tries to See Us As People—he doubled down:

“Yes, but not that many talented Latina writers living on the east side of the northern mountains of New Mexico.”

Ah. So now I’m regionally rare. A high-desert collectible. A Bernadine-adjacent writing trophy for his personal museum of well-meaning liberal dude conquests of Spicy Othered Chicas.

You and Bernadine are identical in my mind, though I know nothing about you—but I’m absolutely not a racist.

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This Is Not Curiosity. It’s Containment.

This isn’t how you build friendship. This is how you build a cage with compliments.

Reed wasn’t seeing me. He was classifying me. He wasn’t curious about my work—he was performing inclusion. He’d dated one brownlady writer and now felt credentialed to approach another with what I’m sure he sees as his charitable benevolent open-mindedness that will scandalize his parents.

But here’s what Reed didn’t know—because he didn’t ask, didn’t listen, and didn’t care:

My name—Valdes—isn’t even a biological name for me. It’s my Cuban step-grandfather’s name. My mother’s surname is Conant, and the only grandmother I ever knew was a McGrath, straight outta Ireland. Through a patriarchal quirk of surnames, I ended up with a Spanish last name, but genetically I’m more Irish and English than Spanish—though yes, also Spanish. As if that should even matter. I’m a fucking human being. Like Reed.

The point is: I am not reducible to the syllables of my last name.

But Reed doesn’t allow people like me to unfurl naturally. He doesn’t approach new Othered people with openness. He approaches them with a template. He sees a name, and he builds a fantasy—complete with imaginary Bernadine brunches and earthy brown-woman bonding circles that only exist in his mind.

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I Am Not His Type

I’ve written and had published sixteen books.

I’ve sold more than a million copies of my books in 11 languages around the world.

I was a Tom Wolfe Writer in Residence.

I’ve been nominated for the Pulitzer. Three times.

I’m not some poor little brownladywriter needing a Good Hard Reeding to Give Me Confidence. I am, for better or worse, 96% European, according to 23&Me, and Doing Just Fine in Publishing, Thanks Anyway.

But none of that mattered to Reed.

To him, I was just a potential sequel to a story he once told himself about dating someone brown, someone “talented,” someone “Latina.”

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When Progressive Men Perform Inclusion

This wasn’t kindness. This was colonial cosplay.

White liberal men like Reed love to admire us from a distance. They love to sprinkle words like “talented” and “diverse” and “admire” into their messages—until you realize you’re not being seen, you’re being used.

This wasn’t about respect.

It was about ego.

And control.

It was about saying, “Look at how inclusive I am—without actually doing the work of knowing or honoring you.”

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So What Did I Do?

I told him the comment was racist.

I told him the whole interaction was reductive and inappropriate.

Then I blocked him.

And let me be clear: That is not cruelty. That is sacred maintenance.
I am not your syllabus. I am not your check-box. I am not a variation of your ex.

I am a writer. A complicated, seasoned, serious one.

And I don’t need to know Bernadine—or sleep with Reed—to prove it.

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🗣️ Call to Action

Have you been exoticized? Tokenized? Treated like a demographic checkpoint instead of a human being?

Drop your stories in the comments. Let’s name it. Let’s stop softening it. Let’s drag this behavior into the sunlight where it belongs.

And if Reed is reading this?

Don’t worry—I blocked you.

You’ll just have to complete your little redemption arc alone, without the help of another “Latina writer” to make you feel interesting.