We don't talk about Bruno, but Long Island Latinos can't stop talking about 'Encanto'

At Nichole Flores’ Hempstead home, she and her kids, Valentina, 5, Adam, 9, and Maricela, 11, are watching a movie, alternating between cuddling up and getting up to dance and sing. They know every move and every word. "This is us like almost every night," says Maricela, in between scenes on the big screen TV.

And the movie almost every night? "Encanto," a life-affirming, family-affirming, Latinx-affirming movie from Walt Disney Animation Studios.

Since the movie opened in theaters and on Disney+ in November, it has become a big hit, especially with Latinx families like the Flores, not just for its earworm songs "We Don’t Talk About Bruno" and "Dos Oruguitas" by Lin-Manuel Miranda, but also for the groundbreaking ways it portrays Latinx families on screen.

Mirabel Madrigal is an unlikely Disney princess: a brown girl with glasses instead of a tiara, unruly black curls instead of flowing long locks, no skinny waist and not waiting for a prince to rescue her. She is the central character and the only ordinary member of an extraordinary family with magical gifts living in an enchanted town in the Colombian mountains called Encanto. The enchantment is dying and Mirabel is trying to save it. She discovers that gifts can be weighty and that the key to healing both magic and family rifts is to tell the truth and trust one another.

“I tried so hard to give her our culture, but it was the movie that transformed her.”

Inés Yazbek, 45, on Encanto

Mirabel’s extended family comes in a wide spectrum of skin colors, shapes, and sizes, much like Long Island Latino families. Nichole Flores, whose household includes Puerto Rican, African American, Dominican, and Salvadoran roots, was charmed from the start.

"We watched Disney movies all the time, but the families never looked like ours," she says. "All of a sudden, my 5-year-old is saying, ‘They have my skin color and their hair looks like mine.’ After the show, all of my kids identified who they were in the movie. They saw their story and picked out a part for themselves. That was powerful."

The Madrigals home is an animated casita of magical realism with traditional tiles and woodwork, where Mirabel’s mother churns out healing home-cooked perico (scrambled eggs with tomato and green onions), arepas (cornmeal cakes) and buñuelos (fried dough) that the whole family sits together to eat. While it is set in Colombia, the setting is instantly familiar to Latinos from across the Americas.

For Nayeli Calle-Sosa, 37, of East Meadow, mother of a 3-year-old, the wholesome depiction of a Latinx family is uplifting. She notes that the matriarch in "Encanto" suffered displacement and loss during civil war, and still needs to process her trauma. Calle-Sosa, a social worker whose own parents are Colombia and Peruvian says, "This movie does give the trauma history, but violence is not the center of the story; healing is the center and the healing comes through relationships."

"Encanto" also connects children with Latino culture.

Inés Yazbek from Ecuador and her husband Rigo Acosta from Honduras, came to the United States 20 years ago. Today, the couple live in Westbury with their two children, Milton, 9, and Luisa, 5. "My son is completely bilingual," says Yazbek, 45, a wedding planner. "He has always liked Hispanic things. But my daughter was kind of indifferent. When we went to see the movie, she turned to me and said, in Spanish, ‘Look mami! The braids are just like mine!’" Since then, Luisa wears authentic Ecuadorian clothing, and plays nonstop with a toy casita and her namesake doll, Luisa, the strong sister from the movie. "I tried so hard to give her our culture, but it was the movie that transformed her," says Yazbek.

Katherine Magalhaes, 33, of Old Westbury, says the transformation for her Colombian-Portuguese daughters, ages 4, 6, and 7, was in their relationships with non-Hispanic kids. "The girls were so excited to be able to see and share the movie and our culture with their friends," she says.

LI TALKS ABOUT 'ENCANTO'

The Madrigals may not talk about Bruno, but Long Island Latinos are talking about "Encanto."

Dorothy Santana, founder and president of community group Latina Moms Connect, says LMC’s 1,000 followers blew up their Facebook page with postings about it. And not just about their kids. The movie is striking a chord with parents, too. They recognize their own family dynamics in the interplay of the characters: the forbidding matriarch, the eldest sister shouldering too many burdens, the strains of being the perfect daughter.

"The grandmother, that matriarch, is very common in our communities, but also seeing her vulnerability and being apologetic because of how she carried things out; I was really touched by that and how Mirabel forgave her because of all the trials the grandmother had been through," says Santana, whose mom is Colombian.

To extend the conversation, LMC is hosting an online discussion about "Encanto" on March 3. Leading the conversation will be Dr. Karen Caraballo, a Long Island-based bilingual, bicultural clinical psychologist. Dr. Caraballo, born in Puerto Rico, will address some of the major undercurrents of the movie, such as multigenerational trauma, the importance of representation, migration, acculturation and mental health. "Latina girls and nonbinary Latina girls have the highest rates of suicidal ideation among minority groups," she says. "It is so important that they know that they belong. This kind of movie makes them feel seen, heard and understood. It also gives them a topic to connect with others and to initiate conversation."

For girls like Maricela, though the movie is entertainment, it also provides a vision of themselves that their mothers did not have growing up. "My favorite song is when Isabela (the perfect sister) sings ‘What Else Can I Do?’" Maricela says. "She embraced her true self and when I am with my friends singing I feel like I can too."