Aparicio, the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, responds to Sergio Goyri’s ‘fucking Indian’ remark

This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

The Oscar-nominated Mexican actor Yalitza Aparicio, who stars in the critically acclaimed film Roma, said on Saturday she was proud of her indigenous roots, after a soap opera star used a racial slur to describe her.

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“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 became the first indigenous woman to be nominated for a best actress Oscar, said in a statement.

On Friday, video surfaced on Twitter in which the Mexican actor Sergio Goyri, 60, can be heard criticizing the film community for nominating “a fucking Indian who says, ‘Yes, ma’am, no, ma’am’.”

Goyri quickly apologized.

“It was never my intent to offend anyone. I apologize to Yalitza, who deserves [the Oscar nomination] and much more,” he said in a video posted on Instagram. “For me, it is an honor to see a Mexican be nominated for an Oscar.”

Aparicio, 25, starred as a domestic worker in director Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, which chronicles the life of an upper-middle-class family in the Mexico City neighborhood where Cuaron was raised.

The film, which was released by Netflix, has been nominated for 10 Oscars at the Academy Awards, to be held in Los Angeles on 24 February.