The Definitive Answer To What Race The Minions Are
By: Benjamin McGruber
The question that has plagued Despicable Me fans and anthropologists for years, “What race are the Minions?” has finally been answered. I could just tell you the answer right here and now, but I get paid by the word and it helps our SEO to have over 300 words per article. So instead, I will take you on a journey of racial discovery.
The first clue as to the racial identity of the small yellow men was their eyesight. Every minion wears what appear to be a vision correcting lens or lenses for those with two eyes. Citing the study Prevalence of Vision Disorders by Racial and Ethnic Group among Children Participating in Head Start (Ying and Maguire 2014) we found that the prevalence of vision problems was highest in Hispanics and non-Hispanic whites. However, the minions dress up as many different cultures and there has been little to no outrage. With this we can conclude they are not white. It was still too soon to cast votes for team Hispanic in our racial investigation, but they were heavily favored at this point.
A closer look at their language could provide valuable insight into their origins. Minions speak a language called Minionese. Typically, languages with the “-ese” suffix are native to Asian countries. This seemed like an open and shut case for the Asian camp of our research team, until we realized the creatures are yellow and that surely would have sparked some outrage, for which we found no online footprint. It was then we realized that Portuguese was an outlier: a language spoken in both the westernmost part of Europe and Brazil. Score 2 for Hispanic.
We were all ready to throw in the towel and declare the Minions to be Hispanic once and for all. Some of us were growing concerned that our inquisition was pointless. Some even questioned why they became race scientists in the first place, but we owed it to our study to push forward.
It was time to narrow our focus to their diet. Minions typically eat bananas, which is also one of the few words they say in English. Bananas typically grow in tropical and subtropical regions. Tropical regions such as central and South America. That was all the proof we needed to conclude that the Minions are in fact Hispanic.
Pair those three findings with the fact that they are able to appropriate any culture with zero negative backlash online and you’ve got a recipe for Hispanic Minion mignon.
Now that this important question has been answered, we are all free to live our lives in service of greater intellectual pursuits. We are free from the clutches of a reality wherein Minions have no discernible race and streaming services can now add the Despicable Me franchise and The Minions spinoff content to their Latino Voices section. Today is a good day for man and Minionkind.
