How Latino is Dominic Toretto? And why does it matter?

polygon.com:

To the inquisitive mind, the Fast and Furious films are brimming with mystery. How, curious viewers may wonder, does the Family bend the laws of nature to their will? Where did they study to gain sufficient mastery of engineering and physics to pull off their impossible stunts? Who trained them to be masters of both mixed martial arts and firearms? For my part, I’ve made peace with never knowing the answers to these questions, in case the truth is in fact some dark Lovecraftian secret that drives me to madness or car-related criminality. However, there is one Fast Mystery I must solve: Is Dominic Toretto Latino?

Watching a Fast and Furious movie frequently involves negotiating how seriously to take it. On the one hand, it’s sensible to see them all as tongue-in-cheek goofs, especially given some of the stuff mentioned above. On the other hand, some of these films have real heart — even if the big emotions and oft-repeated mantras about family aren’t always supported by the scripts.

But Dom’s ethnicity is worth taking seriously, because it’s obvious that the people behind the franchise have thought about it and leveraged it in increasingly thirsty ways. And the purpose Dom’s identity does or doesn’t serve can help us understand the role the franchise plays in the cinematic landscape. Are the Fast and Furious movies sincerely attempting to reflect a large portion of their audience? Or is Dom’s shifting background a cynical ploy to try and rope more brown people into theaters? Or maybe something in between, a weird collision between the personal and commercial that results from the ways America commodifies identity?

Like a lot of things in the Fast and Furious franchise, the answer to the Dom question has changed over the