i wanna hear your lana's ethnicity discourse 👀
Oh ho HO buckle up anon. I joined Tumblr a while after the largest wave of Lana discourse so I was never in the thick of it, but I’ve seen plenty of posts+comments debating.
I’ve spoken on this before but I’m just going to,,,clean slate it. Forget my prior posts, this is what I actually think. Also, please note that I myself am not Chumash. Ethnically, I am mostly Mexican, Polish, and English–if there is anything I say that requires editing, education or clarity, please let me know and I will be more than happy to oblige. Also feel free to comment/reblog/tag me and let me know your own thoughts or debates!
First of all, let’s look at the facts–Lana Arwen Lazar is American Indigenous (I would prefer not to use the word American, because it stems from colonization+world charting but for clarity I will continue to use it in this post).
The percentage of her blood that is Native is irrelevant. Where she is from is irrelevant. She is indigenous to the Americas in some percentage.
In book one, it says her grandfather is Chumash. Canonically, Lana is at least 25% Chumash, a Native American tribe. On Twitter, Michael Grant has twice stated that he sees her as Hispanic (I’m going to say Latine because it’s more inclusive to Indigenous populations, but it is different than Hispanic) but agrees there is “crossover in the southwest”. So, while not canonically, it is the Word of God that Lana is ALSO Hispanic/Latine.
Now, as for race, I’m not going to fully delve into this BECAUSE Hispanic, Latine and Indigenous peoples can be of any race, but in the final book, we see Lana described as white (there is also the possibility that she’s described as white because Michael confirmed he forgot he wrote her in as Native, but for the sake of brevity let’s assume she was intentionally described as white).
So, it’s safe to say that Lana is at least 25% Chumash Native American, up to or at least 25% Latine, and possibly of other tribes across North, Central and South America, and may be white European and other ethnicities as well.
However, large parts of these backgrounds are rooted in cultural participation. Based on what little we see of her background, she doesn’t seem to be very interested in her home life or culture.
Here’s where my thoughts would actually be applied: fancasts, faceclaims, edits, and the prospect of Gone TV. Lana’s ethnicity and race are not important to her storyline in the books as are the ethnicities and races of characters like Edilio or Dekka. If they were to whitewash Edilio or Dekka, it would obviously be outrageous, but the Gone TV team has claimed several times that they will not allow anything of the sort. Lana (and even Diana, but that’s another post I’d love to make) is the gray area, being someone who could provide Native American and Latine representation but someone who’s whitewashing wouldn’t affect the story. However, this doesn’t mean they should white wash her. Obviously she can be played by a racially white actress, but it would be best for them to cast a Native American/Latine actress and then incorporate the actress’s own ethnic background into the story (again, another post I’d love to make so LMK if it’s wanted).
And now, on a note of personal criticism, Michael Grant wrote Lana’s background in the worst way possible. The living in Vegas, the alcoholism and smoking, the communication with animals, the healing–all Native American media tropes/stereotypes. Not only this, but writing in her grandfather as Chumash to promptly forget him implies that the two were written in as a token Native characters. Finally, if he was aware he wrote Lana as Chumash, and then said he thought of her as Hispanic, this basically implies to me that he sees all multi-ethnic people and BIPOC as interchangeable, which is the furthest thing from the truth (I can’t speak for everyone on this interpretation, obviously).
Please know that this isn’t me,,,dumping on anyone or the series–I love the books so so much, and have interacted with/asked questions/talked to Michael on Twitter several times, but these are just my thoughts. Again, feel free to add on, debate me, send more asks, etc.! I love fandom interaction.
