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It’s National Superhero Day. Whether you’re a fan of superhero comics, movies, or TV shows, you’ve probably noticed there isn’t much Latino flavor to speak of. That’s not because Latino and Latina superheroes don’t exist, it’s simply because their stories don’t get much of the spotlight. Things are changing on that front as audiences seek more diversity in their media. To highlight that, here are 15 Latina superheroes you should know about:
Elena Rodríguez aka Yo-Yo or Slingshot
Character of Marvel
Elena Rodríguez, also known as Yo-Yo or Slingshot, is one of Marvel’s superheroes. She appeared for the first time in 2008 in the comic “The Mighty Avengers” and then she was interpreted by Natalia Cordova-Buckley in the show “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” This character is of Colombian descent and she’s kind of a reluctant hero because she’s much more interested in helping her community than the world at large. However, she has a compelling journey where she becomes one of the best S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Inspiring, especially for Latina girls!
Yolanda Montez aka Wildcat
Character of DC Comics
Yolanda Montez, also known as Wildcat, was part of DC’s attempt to diversify its lineup of superheroes in the 80s. In the comics, she’s a legacy superhero and took up the mantle of Wildcat after the death of Ted Grant. However, there was no consistent place for the character in the comics, and she was eventually killed off. Wildcat was brought back for DC’s “Stargirl,” a 2022 show where an unlikely group of young superheroes come together to defeat a villain. Montez’s character battles with Catholic guilt and gets caught between her Mexican culture and her friends’ culture; a struggle that many young Latinas in the U.S. can relate to.
Anya Sofía Corazón aka Spider-Girl
Character of Marvel
We know that with great power comes great responsibility. Of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, Anya Sofía Corazón was the first Araña and the third Spider-Girl in the Marvel comics. As Spider-Girl, she got her powers after being caught in a fight between two mystical clans called The Spider Society and the Sisterhood of the Wasp. She was fatally wounded, but a sorcerer from The Spider Society transferred some of his powers to her, which included enhanced strength, agility, and the ability to grow a blue exoskeleton to protect herself. Anya briefly appeared as Spider-Girl in “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” and most recently, she had her first live-action appearance in the film “Madame Web,” played by Peruvian-American actress Isabela Merced. We hope to see more of her in future films.
Kendra Saunders aka Hawkgirl
Character of DC Comics
Kendra Saunders, also known as Hawkgirl, is another DC superhero and she comes from a line of reincarnations from the angel Shrra. Kendra is a Latina (rebooted as Afro-Latina in 2011) who gets her powers after she dies by suicide and becomes a vessel for the soul of Shiera Sanders Hall, the Golden Age Hawkgirl. When Kendra comes to, she has all of her memories but none of Sheira’s memories, only her powers. She was brought to life by Ciara Renée in “DC's Legends of Tomorrow,” and Isabela Merced will play her in James Gunn’s “Superman: Legacy.” It will be fun to see another Latina superhero on screen!
Molly Hernandez
Promotional image of Runaways (TV series)/Season Three
Molly Hernandez is a character in “Marvel’s Runaways,” and she’s a reimagined version of the comic book character Molly Hayes. This new version of the character makes Molly Latina, but her exact ethnicity is unknown because her parents died when she was young and then she was adopted. It’s important to acknowledge the lack of effort put into her Latinidad for “Marvels’ Runaways,” but there’s potential for development in future projects. Molly is played by Allegra Acosta and she has superhuman strength and durability. She’s as strong as the Hulk or Thor, and her story is very compelling because she joins the Runaways, a team of fugitive superheroes, after discovering her adoptive parents are villains. Because she doesn’t know anything about her origins, the theme of connecting with her Latina culture and navigating her duality is a big part of her character arc.
Marisol Ríos De La Cruz aka La Borinqueña
Character created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez
Marisol Rios De La Luz is a Latina superhero created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez. Marisol is a Columbia University undergrad student majoring in Earth and Environmental Sciences. While she takes a semester abroad at the University of Puerto Rico, she explores the caves of Puerto Rico and finds five crystals that untimely give Marisol her powers — strength, the power of flying, and control of storms. Her story is one of self-discovery as she connects with and embraces her Afro-Puerto Rican identity. As a superhero, she focuses on solving environmental issues in Puerto Rico and the people embrace her as their vigilante.
Claire Temple
Character of Marvel
Claire Temple is a character from the show “Marvel’s Daredevil” and she’s played by Rosario Dawson. She’s loosely based on Night Nurse, a character from the Marvel Comics. In the show, Claire Temple is a former night shift nurse of Cuban descent. She provides medical assistance not only to Daredevil but also to Jessica Jones and Luke Cage, other characters who also defend and protect the city. She doesn’t only provide medical attention, she’s also the moral backbone of the group, helping characters be better. She’s a kind of quiet hero and she represents all those people who work late hours to make sure we get help when we need it most.
Renee Montoya aka The Question
Character of DC Comics
Back to the DC Universe, we have Renee Montoya, one of the most interesting Latin superheroes in recent years. Her journey began on “Batman: The Animated Series” and she became so popular that she was introduced to the Batman comics as well. She’s a great detective, but there’s a dark side to her due to her destructive behavior. Following the death of a work partner, she seeks spirituality with The Question, a mystical entity. When The Question dies, he leaves the costume and name to Montoya. She provides representation for queer Latinas and is quite a complicated character in her ambiguity.
Jalisco
Character of Latinasuperheroes
Jalisco is one of the more creative Latina superheroes on the list because she’s a crime-fighting folklorico dancer on a mission to save her mom from the violent femicide happening in Mexico. Created by Chicana writer and Director Kayden Phoenix, Jalisco is a graphic novel that follows a young girl as she’s taken under the wings of a band of Adelitas, who prepare her to fight against Malinche, the fictional character behind the femicide. Phoenix has created an entire universe of Latina superheroes, the first of its kind, where each Latina superhero fights for a specific social justice cause. They also band together and create the “A La Brava” team. Kudos to Phoenix for bringing much-needed diversity to the space of graphic novel superheroes!
Jessica Cruz aka Green Lantern
Character of DC Comics
Jessica Cruz is half Mexican-American and half Honduran-American, and she’s one of the sworn protectors of the Earth. She's the first female representative of the Green Lantern Corps on Earth, which is pretty cool. Jessica’s story is quite compelling because she deals with intense PTSD due to a traumatic incident in her past and her character arc is all about overcoming that fear so she can do good for other people. It’s a very inspiring story in DC comics, and we hope it gets an adaptation someday.
Maya Lopez aka Echo
Character of Marvel
Maya Lopez, also known as Echo, from the Marvel Universe. She’s one of the few deaf characters and her powers are pretty cool because she can mimic any physical action, hence her name. She’s a highly adaptable character, so she can take on powerful enemies by adopting their fighting style. Her mother is Latina while her father is Cheyenne, representing Latino and Indigenous communities, as well as the deaf community. Echo will have her own series on Disney+ later this year, so keep an eye out for that.
Supergirl
Character of DC Comics
Supergirl is a DC superhero and she was introduced to the universe in 1959. Supergirl is not Latina, but one of her precursors was. In the comic Superboy #5, Superboy meets Queen Lucy, a monarch from Borgonia, a fictional South American country. She flees to Smallville to escape the control of Count Norvello. There, Superboy befriends her and one day she helps him handle some crooks, prompting people to believe there’s a Supergirl. The story takes off in the newspapers, so Superboy uses his powers to make her seem superhuman. Eventually, she goes back to Borgonia to reclaim her throne. Most recently, Supergirl was portrayed by Colombian-American actress Sasha Calle in the film “The Flash,” a refreshing break from the white blonde women who usually bring the character to life in adaptations.
America Chavez aka Miss America
Character of Marvel
Miss America, Marvel’s lesbian Latina superhero, first appeared in 2011 in a limited series titled "Vengeance." Born in a Utopian Parallel outside of time and reality, Chavez was raised by two superpowered mothers. By absorbing the energy of a being called the Demiurge, Chavez can travel in time and to different dimensions, fly, and enjoy super speed and strength. After her mothers were killed protecting Utopia from destruction, America ran away to Earth, where she was adopted by a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx. Miss America is one of the most powerful female superheroes in the Marvel Universe and she provides representation for queer Latin Americans. She was brought to life for the first time by Mexican-American actress Xochitl Gomez in the film “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness,” and we can’t wait to see more of her.
Lúz La Luminosa
Character created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez
Lúz La Luminosa is a Chinese-Dominican superhero, and she’s La Borinqueña’s best friend. Also created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez, this character goes on solo adventures and has the power of bioluminescent energy, which allows her to create force fields. Lúz also has endometriosis, a condition that affects 1 in 10 women and is characterized by symptoms like pelvic pain, painful periods, pain during sex, and even infertility. We see Lúz managing her condition as she goes about her life and patrols the streets to protect people, making her a symbol of resilience and female empowerment. Her endometriosis is a big part of her identity, providing much-needed representation and visibility for a condition that’s often misunderstood and overlooked.
Bonita Juarez aka Firebird
Character of Marvel
Last but not least, we have Bonita Juarez, also known as Firebird. She’s one of the most notable Latina superheroes in the Marvel Universe and one of the most prominent Latina characters in the comics. Bonita is a social worker and a devoted Catholic who comes into contact with a radioactive meteorite while walking the deserts of Albuquerque, New Mexico. She survived the encounter, but the radiation altered her DNA, giving her the ability to fly and the power to generate heat and flames. Believing her powers were a gift from God, she named herself Firebird and dedicated her life to protecting people in the Southwest.
Latinas have been influential across many different fields, from politics and activism to entertainment and business. However, some remarkable Latina women haven’t been given their rightful place in history and in U.S. culture, despite being amazing examples of strength and empowerment. It’s time to correct that, so here are 10 Latina role models you may not know about:
Sylvia Mendez
Photo by Los Angeles District USACE on Flickr
Sylvia Mendez, of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent, is often overshadowed by other civil rights icons, but she played an important role in the fight for school desegregation. Her family's lawsuit against a California school district paved the way for the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case, leading to the desegregation of schools across the U.S. To this day, Mendez is an advocate for educational equality and social justice, so her work continues to bring positive change to the world.
Dolores Huerta
Photo by Tom Hilton on Wikimedia Commons
While Cesar Chávez is widely recognized for his work in the labor movement, Dolores Huerta's contributions are often overlooked. As a co-founder of the United Farm Workers Union, now the United Farm Workers, Huerta fought tirelessly for the rights of farmworkers. She advocated for fair wages and better working conditions by organizing collective actions like boycotts, banding the community together, and creating social justice initiatives. She’s also a champion of women’s rights and immigrants’ rights, so Huerta is the ultimate fighter for underrepresented groups.
Carmen Yulín Cruz
Carmen Yulín Cruz is a Puerto Rican politician who served as the mayor of San Juan, the capital, from 2013 to 2020. During the devastating Hurricane Maria, she gained international attention due to her fierce advocacy on behalf of her people and her vocal criticism of the Puerto Rican government’s response. Cruz is known for her fierce leadership and has inspired many with her boldness.
Julissa Reynoso
Julissa Reynoso is a Dominican-American with a thriving diplomatic career that has taken her from the United Nations to her current role as the U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Andorra. She’s been a tireless advocate for human rights, women's empowerment, diversity, and economic development. Reynoso is known for exemplifying the importance of diplomacy in response to global issues and challenges.
Sandra Cisneros
Photo by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons
Sandra Cisneros, of Mexican descent, is a renowned writer who has made important contributions to literature with her portrayals of the Latina experience. Her most well-known novel “The House on Mango Street,” was groundbreaking, and it’s become a classic in contemporary American literature. The book was also subsequently added to banned book lists throughout the country as right-wing extremists continued on their quest to make diverse perspectives and history illegal. Cisneros has a bold voice and presents a unique perspective, which resonates not only with readers of all backgrounds but also with aspiring writers who are heavily inspired by her.
Isabel Allende
Photo by Jroses on Wikimedia Commons
Isabel Allende is a Chilean-American author known for her work in magical realism. Her novels are often based on her own experiences, mixed with historical events and elements like myth and realism. Allende is a world-renowned author known for overcoming challenges and breaking barriers in the industry. Moreover, her work champions strong female characters and often explores themes like social justice and political oppression, inspiring millions of people to speak up for what they believe in.
Zoe Saldaña
Photo by Gage Skidmore on Wikimedia Commons
Zoe Saldaña is an Afro-Latino actress of Dominican and Puerto Rican descent. She’s become a role model for Latina women due to her successful career in Hollywood and how proudly vocal she is about her Latinidad. Saldana is mostly known for her role as Gamora in the “Marvel Cinematic Universe” and Neytiri Sully in the “Avatar” movies, though she has been acting since 1999. She has starred in 4 of the highest-grossing films of all time, which is an impressive feat, especially for an Afro-Latina because Afro-Latinos are notoriously pushed aside in Hollywood.
Rita Moreno
Photo by John Mathew Smith on Wikimedia Commons
Rita Moreno is a well-known Puerto Rican actress, singer, and dancer. She’s the only Latina who has obtained EGOT status, which consists of winning the 4 major entertainment awards in the U.S.; the Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony. Despite facing racism in her Hollywood career and being held back by it, Moreno has found great success and continues to work to this day, proving that one’s passion and perseverance can defy the odds.
Sylvia Acevedo
Photo by Avery Jensen on Wikimedia Commons
Mexican-American Sylvia Acevedo was one of the first Latinas to earn a master’s degree in engineering from Stanford University and one of the few female astronautical engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. She’s an entrepreneur, businesswoman, investor, and rocket scientist known for championing STEM education for girls, and encouraging them to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Her efforts have inspired countless young women, especially Latinas, to dream beyond the stereotypes and limited cultural expectations and pursue their passions.
Ana Maria Archila
Ana Maria Archila is a Colombian advocate for women’s rights, worker justice, immigrant rights, and LGBTQ+ rights. She gained a lot of attention for confronting Senator Jeff Flake during the confirmation hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh after being accused of sexual assault by several women. Archila is the co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy and a passionate advocate for immigrant rights, economic justice, and political reform. Her courage and activism have inspired civic engagement as a way to shape society.
These 10 Latinas represent just a fraction of the countless women making a difference in their communities and beyond. Latinas deserve to see role models who look like them and understand their culture, and these role models deserve public recognition just as much as their white colleagues and counterparts.
- Why is Latina Representation in Toys So Important? ›
- 5 Latina Superheroes You Need To Know About ›
- Why We Need More Latina Lawyers Breaking Barriers ›
This Latinx Geologist and TV Show Host Is Disrupting Stereotypes of Who Can Be a Scientist
On a sunny day, perched on slanted beige rocks of the San Andreas Fault line, Michelle Barboza-Ramirez is dressed in a white sun hat, with retro sunglasses and dangly flower earrings, discussing how plate tectonics transformed the Los Angeles landscape as the camera rolls.
“Take a look behind you. These rocks are tilted. Like hella tilted,” they tell Blake de Pastino, a fellow host of the popular PBS show “Eons.” The camera pans to the background. “If you didn’t know anything about geology, you’d see them and you’d be like, ‘Wow, that’s so weird that these rocks formed sideways.’”
This conversational tone makes Barboza-Ramirez, who is a paleontologist and geologist, relatable to viewers. They go on to explain how all rock formations at one point lay flat on the ground and how tectonic activity at the San Andreas Fault line, where the North American and Pacific plates slide past each other, has caused the rocks to push upward.“We say that Californians live on a different plane of existence, we’re on a different tectonic plate, Blake!” they say with excitement. While the rest of North America is on the North American plate, “We, right now, our butts are on the Pacific plate.”
“ Eons,” which is usually anywhere between 10 to 15 minutes long, is streamed on YouTube to over 2 million viewers made up of hardcore paleontology and geology nerds, high school and university students, and everyday people who are curious about life on Earth.
In the comments section on this particular episode, people gush about Barboza-Ramirez’s charisma, expertise and ability to communicate in a way that feels easy to understand.
“Michelle’s enthusiasm and knowledge throughout their explanations was really inspiring. It almost makes me want to consider doing something where I can get to geek out and explain things that surround us!” one commenter wrote.
Another spoke directly to Barboza-Ramirez: “I just want you to know that your relaxed approach acts as a welcome sign for people who’d like to know but feel as though they are not allowed to ask.”
Barboza-Ramirez’s wardrobe bucks expectations of what a scientist should look like. At times, they dress like a modern Latinx goth Miss Frizzle — with an earring collection that includes tiny dinosaur skull replicas as well as amber-encased mosquitoes.
And as a queer nonbinary Latinx person, they are bringing representation and visibility to a profession that for a long time has been depicted as stuffy and out of reach, and dominated by white men.
“It’s not that I’m a scientist and I’m Latinx,” Barboza-Ramirez, who also goes by MB, said about how their identity intersects with their profession. “It is that I’m a Latinx scientist and it is important and actually a benefit to use my identity and my perspective in STEM fields.”
Their presence on the show, and their Instagram account, Latinxnaturalist — a mix of science factoids and outdoor adventures that has over 13,000 followers — has made Barboza-Ramirez somewhat of a celebrity for geology and paleontology students, in particular those who didn’t see themselves represented in the field.
Michelle Jimenez, one of their former interns for a community ambassador program at the National Park Service affectionately calls them profe — a Spanish nickname for professor. She knew Barboza-Ramirez from their Instagram account and “Eons,” and admittedly fangirled when she realized they’d be working together. With Barboza-Ramirez, she felt taken seriously, like her ideas mattered. She felt seen. Jimenez, similarly to Barboza-Ramirez, hadn’t been exposed to many scientists that felt relatable growing up.
“I never saw anyone that studied geology that looked like me,” she said. “I think just at the core of it we didn’t have enough representation and it sucks because I pushed myself to study geology despite a lot of lack of encouragement and lack of visibility.”
“Now when I go out and do public programs or see profe doing their thing, I’m like, ‘Heck yeah, that’s amazing.’ … Why don’t we have more of that?”
Now, as a science educator, it’s become part of Barboza-Ramirez’s life’s work to inspire the next generation of queer and Latinx kids to see how science can connect to their lives and in turn how they can influence science.
Get to Know Michelle Barboza-Ramirez
Barboza-Ramirez grew up in Los Angeles in a family that encouraged them to explore their interests and desire to learn. Their parents were both teachers who had moved to California from Mexico. And many of their summers were spent with their mother, who crafted field trips for her students after testing them out on Barboza-Ramirez, visiting sights like the Los Angeles Natural History Museum and the La Brea Tar Pits, where a thick asphalt tar seep trapped mastodons and saber tooth tigers, preserving their remains over 10,000 years ago.
Notebook in hand, Barboza-Ramirez would jot down facts about the insects or the dinosaurs they had learned about that day to share with friends and family later, their mother remembers, foreshadowing what would become their career — to explain science to everyday people.
But Barboza-Ramirez didn’t realize any of those early interests could translate to being a scientist.
“I had always thought science was just like math equations or being in a chemistry lab with test tubes,” they said. “I don’t think I had a very good idea of what science is and what science does and what it looks like.”
Part of the problem was that their idea of who could be a scientist, a profession typically portrayed as a man in a lab coat scribbling furiously on a white board, bore no resemblance to who they are or what interested them.
A 2018 study by the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media found that between 2007 and 2017, 37 percent of characters that played engineers or scientists in films and television depicted women; 71 percent of STEM characters were white. Just 3.9 percent were Latinx. There was no data for nonbinary characters.
The study goes on to state that the common stereotype of a nerdy scientist, the socially awkward white man found in entertainment, further reinforces the idea that STEM is a “male pursuit.”
It’s one of many barriers to bringing more underrepresented students into the field where at least in terms of gender, has become more representative. According to the Geological Society of America, 45 percent of geoscience Ph.D.s now go to women. But the numbers drop for women of color, accounting for just 1.5 percent of geoscience degrees. There is not enough data on nonbinary people.
For Barboza-Ramirez, it wasn’t until they were in college at California State University, Fullerton, that they gained a better understanding of what science could be. They entered college as a business administration major. But after taking a geology class in their second year, part of their college’s requirements to fulfill a science credit, they started to see how their love for the outdoors and the natural world could be science too.
They realized that the museums they visited as a kid were also places of scientific research, where paleontologists and geologists were working on research projects on the floors above.
“It truly had never occurred to me until my second year of college that that was somebody’s job,” they said. “Someone had to be paid to dig up those dinosaurs and figure out what they are … I had just not understood that at all.”
“That’s when everything changed for me,” they continued. They promptly switched majors to study geology.
They went on to get their masters in geology at the University of Florida, where the faculty and student body in their program was a lot less diverse than their undergrad community in California. There they encountered micro-aggressions, like the time someone at their lunch table suggested that Mexican scientists had only really started producing research in the past 50 years or so. For Barboza-Ramirez, the comment stung, but they weren’t prepared to respond.
“I was really being hit with these biases from folks and it was really frustrating,” they said. “I would love to say that when I heard those things, I had a nice quick comeback. No, I was just in shock. Because my first reaction was, ‘Are they right?’”
They felt the need to prove to themselves and others that their community’s knowledge was scientifically valid and rich. “I wanted to arm myself with knowledge,” they said.
Barboza-Ramirez began to research all the scientific contributions that had come from Mexico, and also started to see the difference between how the scientific community viewed Western science versus non-Western or Indigenous knowledge. They saw how it was characterized as less-than.
“I feel like a lot of times I’ll see articles that report that science has proven something. … Whereas, really, Western science is actually catching up to what Indigenous knowledge and Indigenous theory has been saying for thousands of years,” they said.
At the same time, they were learning about other groups who had been left out of record books. Barboza-Ramirez was pursuing a gender studies certificate and started a podcast called “Femmes of STEM” to showcase the many contributions of women — astronauts, biochemists and agriculturalists —that had also been hidden due to sexism.
In research for the podcast, they learned how women geologists would publish under their husband’s names in the 1800s because they weren’t allowed to be members of the Geological Society.“When you say there haven’t been queer folks, or people of color, or women in these fields, what are we defining these fields as? How were their stories taken away? How did they have to hide what they were doing?” they said.
These questions, and the answers they found through their podcast and other research, sparked a passion to not just be a scientist, but an educator who could play a role in fostering representation in the sciences.
One way Barboza-Ramirez does that is through their work as a student navigator at a community college in Seattle, where their main job is to help minority students earn degrees in STEM through a program funded by the National Science Foundation.
As a part of their job, they connect students with internships and research opportunities and take them to conferences where their identities are centered, including the annual Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science conference.
Barboza-Ramirez emphasizes that the science that will be produced as a result of a more diverse field will also be more accurate and nuanced because of it.
“I think it’s crucial to realize that science is not an objective field,” they said. “Which is why I think it is absolutely crucial to have BIPOC folks and queer folks and any sort of minority folks in the room.” It’s a point they tell students over and over: If only cis-white men are interpreting the data, bias, either conscious or unconscious, is naturally built in.
But, when there are more people a part of research, they can point out failings in experiment designs, or think outside of what has been deemed “objective” or “natural” or that are limited by a binary way of thinking about a world that simply isn’t.
There is a term for this reframing, called queer ecology. “It just means looking at the world outside the traditional Western view of how things should be, these hetero-male dominant findings,” they said.
“As a nonbinary person, [this framework] is validating in so many ways, to feel like I’m not crazy, and the way that people are making me feel about the way that I feel is crazy instead,” Barboza-Ramirez said. “Because I am nature. And in the same way that nature is outside of the binary, so am I.”
“As a nonbinary person, [this framework] is validating in so many ways, to feel like I’m not crazy, and the way that people are making me feel about the way that I feel is crazy instead,” Barboza-Ramirez said. “Because I am nature. And in the same way that nature is outside of the binary, so am I.”
Science should be fun, Barboza-Ramirez believes. So in addition to their many other pursuits, they are a cofounder of Cosplay for Science, a science education initiative. Started alongside two of their friends, the goal is to make science education more interesting and relatable through cosplay, or dressing up as fictional figures from pop culture. They’ve inhabited “Jurassic Park” characters to talk about paleontology at a pop-up exhibit and dressed up as Pokémon — some of the characters are based off of real fossils — at Comic Cons.
“Our whole mission right now is really learning how we can utilize pop culture, storytelling and cosplay and weave all of those narratives together to help teach people about science in their everyday lives,” said Gabriel Santos, one of the group’s founders and a fellow paleontologist.
A byproduct of the cosplay exhibits is that people are interacting with scientists like Barboza-Ramirez and Santos, who is Filipino American.
“Michelle talks a lot about how they didn’t see anyone like themselves, and they worked very hard to represent queer paleo scientists,” he said.
Cosplay for science breaks that barrier.
“A lot of us are people of color, queer, scientists, women scientists,” Santos said. “It’s not something that we are intentionally pushing to the forefront, to be like oh look at us we are so diverse. It’s just who we are.”
Barboza-Ramirez hosting a show like “Eons” is yet another way to challenge those stereotypes.
Just think about the hosts of typical nature shows, Santos said. The people that come to mind are hosts like Steve Irwin, David Attenborough or Jeff Corwin. Then consider how many are people of color and openly queer.
“And Michelle’s out there on PBS ‘Eons’ as a scientist, first and foremost, but then also represents just by being who they are,” Santos said. “And it’s so important and inspiring to know that there are people out there who watch that, and will see Michelle.”
Santos, who is also one of Barboza-Ramirez’s close friends, said he cried when they told him they had gotten the hosting gig at “Eons” a few years ago because it meant so much to both of them to be that representation for others. This week “Eons” announced that Santos would be joining as a host too.
Barboza-Ramirez said that sometimes, bringing that visibility can almost feel overstated. But when they hear from fans who recognize a piece of themselves in the show, they know it is a meaningful part of the work. “There’s people where this is still new to them,” they said. “They haven’t had the chance to see that representation.”
“It’s not just for people like me that can see themselves and be like, ‘Oh, I can be openly queer and Brown and successful as a scientist,’ but it’s also to normalize that for everyone else.”