https://twitter.com/Variety/status/1313957397845737478?s=20
This article makes a very valid point: there are lots of excellent actors in Colombia (and Latin American) actors of every race that should definitely be given more and better opportunities.

However, it also contains some problematic assumptions:

1º Well-known actresses should abstain from roles to give more opportunities to other people. Should the author renounce to write his column in Variety as well to give opportunities to less well-known journalists, I wonder?

2º The author seems to advocate for a Colombian actress for this role at first, but then suggests alternatives from other Latin American countries.

So, is the accent the main objection? If the movie was in Spanish, it might make more sense..

although, if we are doing this we might get lost in nuances. Is it the character from Bogotá, or does she have a paisa accent? Anyway, the movie is in English, so this precision might be overdoing it. It will be mostly lost on the English-speaking audience anyway.

Is the problem then Cruz’s European looks? Well, one of his suggestions, Paola Turbay, has very similar European features. I do not see a lot of a difference there.

So, what is it, that she is Spanish? Are we back to discriminating on the basis of nationality?

What about if it was a black or mixed-race Spaniard? There many good actors in Spain that fit that label already, you know. Or Colombian-Spanish actresses, like Juana Acosta.

Leaving it at the central premise of the article “we want more and more positive roles for Latinos”, would have been best. We can all agree on that.

After all, British and Australian actors play Americans, all the time, Australians play Brits and vice versa, and so on in the English-speaking world. It is weird at times, but it seems to work. Can’t we have something like that for the Hispanic/Latinoamerican world?