Latinos DID NOT root for Daniela during Dream Academy

I just discovered through another thread that apparently, a lot of eyekons here came from the Popstar Academy documentary and not when the survival show was happening in real-time on Dream Academy (Youtube).

So I just want to share perhaps one of the more heartbreaking things I witnessed as somebody who tuned in to both Dream Academy (DA) and Popstar Academy (PA) on Netflix.

When DA was happening, latinos didn't really root for Daniela because they thought she was white-washed and a 'gringo'.

They were instead rooting for Samara and Celeste who are from Brazil and Argentina accordingly versus Daniela who was born and raised in the U.S.

Moreso Samara because she has a beautiful, melodic voice and it seemed like Hybe was also pushing for her to debut because she was chosen to do a dance cover with an established kpop artist when they were in Korea.

Unfortunately, Samara got involved in a controversy (and controversies have been a do or die moment for newly-debuted kpop groups in the past so I understood why the management didn't want to take the risk).

Her family was involved in a strange religion and Samara was discovered liking content associated to that religion (from the best of my knowledge).

Samara's biggest competition has always been Manon and Daniela. With Manon, it was about which 'black girl' would the audience want to be represented by; and with Daniela, it was about who the latinos related with more.

For the latter, they felt more kinship with Samara rather than Daniela. So when Daniela debuted instead of her, they felt pretty disappointed, saying things like "She's not latina enough", "She's a gringo", and that "Samara was robbed".

If you're a Latino reading this, I don't really think y'all are to blame. It was an understandable argument.

It's just kind of sad especially after getting to know more of Daniela's personality after Katseye debuted--how she's so bubbly, such a big softie, and how deeply she values her Cuban/Venezuelan heritage--all the backlash then might've really hurt her.

Then I watched PA and the scene with Daniela's mom wondering if it was either going to be the American or the Latino audience who'll support her (spoiler: she barely got any support from both groups 🥲💔) and Daniela herself mentioning in the documentary that people don't think she's latino enough when she was chatting with the other girls.

I'm glad our girl Dani braved through the backlash and focused her energy on giving stellar performances instead of allowing herself to drown in the negative public opinion.

We know her now as the "LATINA MAMI 💙🛡️" of the group--but her representing the latino community definitely didn't come easily.

The public opinion started to change MASSIVELY after she did a live (post Katseye debut) and spoke Spanish in a heavy Cuban accent.

People started to think "Maybe she's not so gringo, afterall..."

I'm glad Dani is fighting to prove she's worthy of representing latinas and latinos all over the globe by being proud of her culture, speaking to fans in Spanish, and teaching the other members the language too.

This post isn't meant to be a dig on the latino community for not supporting Daniela enough 😭 what's done is done. Rather, it is to highlight Dani's hero's journey as a trainee to finally being a Katseye member 💗