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Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month: Meet Karina
Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 – October 15, and we’re so excited to be celebrating it all month long. Throughout the month, check the B3 Magazine and barre3 Instagram for stories highlighting members of our global barre3 community who identify as Hispanic.
Today, we’re featuring Karina Carlson, a former instructor at barre3 14th Street who moved to Portland this summer to join our Home Office team as barre3 Creative Services Manager. Read on to get to know Karina, including how she connects to her Chilean roots, her thoughts on what it means to be mixed race, and her ideas on how the boutique fitness industry can create more diverse spaces.
B3 MAGAZINE: Let’s start with the basics. Where did you grow up, and what is your cultural background?
KARINA: I grew up right outside of DC, in Arlington, Virginia. My mother is Chilean, and my dad is a hodgepodge of white European ancestry.
B3 MAGAZINE: This is admittedly an extremely broad question, but how would you say your cultural heritage shaped your childhood?
KARINA: Honestly, it shaped everything. It still does. I was fortunate in that my parents invested time into keeping my sister and I connected to our heritage. We grew up speaking both English and Spanish, and we traveled back to Chile often to be with family there. I’m so grateful for that.
I also grew up dancing with my mom, a ballerina who started her career with the Chilean National ballet. In addition to following in her footsteps and taking ballet through my teens, we would dance traditional Chilean dances, like La Cueca, together growing up. My mom grew up during dictator-era Chile, and to be joyous through things like music and dance was an act of defiance—an expression of individualism. Today, one of my favorite ways to move and exercise is dancing to Latinx music. It helps me find joy and deep meaning when I remember the impact that music had on my mother and family during turbulent times.
B3 MAGAZINE: Were you ever tempted to follow in your mom’s footsteps and pursue ballet?
KARINA: I danced competitively until I was a teenager. Ballet gave me so much, but there’s also a darker side to it. I’m glad I had the wherewithal to know it wasn’t healthy for me and didn’t feel pressure to succumb to that side of it.
B3 MAGAZINE: How do you think being mixed race has shaped your identity?
KARINA: Honestly, it can be really challenging at times. You’re always culture jumping, and there’s a feeling of not being enough of either identity, depending on what situation you’re in at the moment. And when you’re mixed race, it’s unique in that you’re separate from your parents—you don’t share a racial identity with either of them. To be mixed is an entire identity.
B3 MAGAZINE: Did you and your family have conversations about what it meant to be mixed race when you were growing up?
KARINA: We weren’t having the type of conversations we’re having today. I don’t know that they had the tools or the language for it at that time. As a kid, I was able to go between my two backgrounds, and it didn’t really faze me. But as I got older, I started to be more aware of it. My sister has different coloring than me—more my dad’s coloring, with fair skin and almost blond hair—and I remember my mom would bring her places, and people didn’t think she was her daughter.
I also started to notice that I was received differently in different spaces. I remember signing up for Latinas Leading Tomorrow and wondering if I was “allowed” to be there, if I was Latina “enough.” But then when I was in white spaces, I was labeled as “exotic.”
B3 MAGAZINE: Was there a moment when you feel like you embraced being mixed race as opposed to leaning toward one identity or the other?
KARINA: For so long, I’ve been shapeshifting from one cultural identity to another. It’s really only been in the past couple of years that I’ve started to embrace my identity as mixed and to have a self-assuredness about that. It’s almost like being a gas versus a solid. I can’t say I’m a solid yet, but I’m working toward it.
B3 MAGAZINE: Identity such an interesting—and lifelong—journey. Do you feel like you bring yours into your career at all?
KARINA: As a mixed person, I try to bring my unique perspective to the table. I am positioned at the intersection of privilege and marginalization and can speak to both. At work, I try to bring all sides of myself to the table and use my privileges to relate to others in similar positions and elevate the Latinx experience in a way that feels understandable.
Being visible and proud of family and my lineage is so important at work because growing up I didn’t see Latinas positioned as professionals in the U.S. When I visited my family in Latin America, I saw my primas and tias as teachers, physicists, bankers, etc. But here, it’s a much different narrative. In that vein, it’s important to highlight that Latina Equal Pay Day is October 21, 2021. When that date sinks in, I think about how it’s imperative that I not only look at the path in front of me, but also at the one behind me to see who I can help uplift and bring alongside me.
B3 MAGAZINE: I love that perspective. I’d love to wrap up with your barre3 story. How did you first learn about us?
KARINA: I was living in Nashville for a while after college, teaching for Teach For America, and there was a studio near my house. I decided to give it a try. I love that it felt similar to ballet in some ways but that the messaging was completely different. It was both familiar and refreshing at the same time. When I moved back to D.C. to be closer to my family, I became an instructor at barre3 14th Street.
B3 MAGAZINE: One of the things we’ve been talking about as we celebrate cultural heritage months is that the boutique fitness space has traditionally been and still largely is white. Although this is changing, we still have so much work to do. Have you felt this, as someone who is mixed race?
KARINA: I feel it when I step into the room in most boutique fitness spaces; they seem to be catering to a very specific type of person. I think we can change things by putting people in front who look like the people we want to bring in. People make a personal connection with their instructors, and if that instructor looks like you, it means something.
Thank you so much, Karina!
Hispanic Heritage Month is September 15 – October 15, and we’re so excited to be celebrating it all month long. Throughout the month, check the B3 Magazine and barre3 Instagram for stories highlighting members of our global barre3 community who identify as Hispanic.
Today, we’re featuring Karina Carlson, a former instructor at barre3 14th Street who moved to Portland this summer to join our Home Office team as barre3 Creative Services Manager. Read on to get to know Karina, including how she connects to her Chilean roots, her thoughts on what it means to be mixed race, and her ideas on how the boutique fitness industry can create more diverse spaces.
B3 MAGAZINE: Let’s start with the basics. Where did you grow up, and what is your cultural background?
KARINA: I grew up right outside of DC, in Arlington, Virginia. My mother is Chilean, and my dad is a hodgepodge of white European ancestry.
B3 MAGAZINE: This is admittedly an extremely broad question, but how would you say your cultural heritage shaped your childhood?
KARINA: Honestly, it shaped everything. It still does. I was fortunate in that my parents invested time into keeping my sister and I connected to our heritage. We grew up speaking both English and Spanish, and we traveled back to Chile often to be with family there. I’m so grateful for that.
I also grew up dancing with my mom, a ballerina who started her career with the Chilean National ballet. In addition to following in her footsteps and taking ballet through my teens, we would dance traditional Chilean dances, like La Cueca, together growing up. My mom grew up during dictator-era Chile, and to be joyous through things like music and dance was an act of defiance—an expression of individualism. Today, one of my favorite ways to move and exercise is dancing to Latinx music. It helps me find joy and deep meaning when I remember the impact that music had on my mother and family during turbulent times.
B3 MAGAZINE: Were you ever tempted to follow in your mom’s footsteps and pursue ballet?
KARINA: I danced competitively until I was a teenager. Ballet gave me so much, but there’s also a darker side to it. I’m glad I had the wherewithal to know it wasn’t healthy for me and didn’t feel pressure to succumb to that side of it.
B3 MAGAZINE: How do you think being mixed race has shaped your identity?
KARINA: Honestly, it can be really challenging at times. You’re always culture jumping, and there’s a feeling of not being enough of either identity, depending on what situation you’re in at the moment. And when you’re mixed race, it’s unique in that you’re separate from your parents—you don’t share a racial identity with either of them. To be mixed is an entire identity.
B3 MAGAZINE: Did you and your family have conversations about what it meant to be mixed race when you were growing up?
KARINA: We weren’t having the type of conversations we’re having today. I don’t know that they had the tools or the language for it at that time. As a kid, I was able to go between my two backgrounds, and it didn’t really faze me. But as I got older, I started to be more aware of it. My sister has different coloring than me—more my dad’s coloring, with fair skin and almost blond hair—and I remember my mom would bring her places, and people didn’t think she was her daughter.
I also started to notice that I was received differently in different spaces. I remember signing up for Latinas Leading Tomorrow and wondering if I was “allowed” to be there, if I was Latina “enough.” But then when I was in white spaces, I was labeled as “exotic.”
B3 MAGAZINE: Was there a moment when you feel like you embraced being mixed race as opposed to leaning toward one identity or the other?
KARINA: For so long, I’ve been shapeshifting from one cultural identity to another. It’s really only been in the past couple of years that I’ve started to embrace my identity as mixed and to have a self-assuredness about that. It’s almost like being a gas versus a solid. I can’t say I’m a solid yet, but I’m working toward it.
B3 MAGAZINE: Identity such an interesting—and lifelong—journey. Do you feel like you bring yours into your career at all?
KARINA: As a mixed person, I try to bring my unique perspective to the table. I am positioned at the intersection of privilege and marginalization and can speak to both. At work, I try to bring all sides of myself to the table and use my privileges to relate to others in similar positions and elevate the Latinx experience in a way that feels understandable.
Being visible and proud of family and my lineage is so important at work because growing up I didn’t see Latinas positioned as professionals in the U.S. When I visited my family in Latin America, I saw my primas and tias as teachers, physicists, bankers, etc. But here, it’s a much different narrative. In that vein, it’s important to highlight that Latina Equal Pay Day is October 21, 2021. When that date sinks in, I think about how it’s imperative that I not only look at the path in front of me, but also at the one behind me to see who I can help uplift and bring alongside me.
B3 MAGAZINE: I love that perspective. I’d love to wrap up with your barre3 story. How did you first learn about us?
KARINA: I was living in Nashville for a while after college, teaching for Teach For America, and there was a studio near my house. I decided to give it a try. I love that it felt similar to ballet in some ways but that the messaging was completely different. It was both familiar and refreshing at the same time. When I moved back to D.C. to be closer to my family, I became an instructor at barre3 14th Street.
B3 MAGAZINE: One of the things we’ve been talking about as we celebrate cultural heritage months is that the boutique fitness space has traditionally been and still largely is white. Although this is changing, we still have so much work to do. Have you felt this, as someone who is mixed race?
KARINA: I feel it when I step into the room in most boutique fitness spaces; they seem to be catering to a very specific type of person. I think we can change things by putting people in front who look like the people we want to bring in. People make a personal connection with their instructors, and if that instructor looks like you, it means something.
Thank you so much, Karina!
