Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Calls Out Fox News for Mispronouncing Her Name

“My last name is Ocasio-Cortez. Full stop. That’s my name. No, you can’t say ‘Cortez,'” she says in a tweet

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez went after Fox News Wednesday evening, taking the network to task over what she said were repeated instances of mispronouncing her name.

“Fox News likes to say my name (incorrectly) as ‘Cortez,’ which I can only imagine is bc that sounds more ‘stereotypically’ Hispanic + probably incites more ‘anxiety’ for them,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a tweet. “My last name is not “Cortez,” just as theirs isn’t “Ingra” or “Carl” or “Hann.”

“My last name is Ocasio-Cortez. Full stop. That’s my name. No, you can’t say ‘Cortez.’ I’ve never used that in my life. ‘Cortez’ is referring to someone else. Even if they’re trying to be rude + wrong, my dad’s last name was Ocasio anyway,” she continued.

“For the curious, in Latinx culture children take *both* their parents’ names. It’s not a ‘progressive, new thing.’ It’s just how some names work. PR hyphenates, others mark differently. Your last name = the families that came together to make you. AOC is also fine though.”

The tweets from AOC were inspired by a segment on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Wednesday evening when regular guest Joe diGenova mocked Ocasio-Cortez’s way of speaking.

“She does the Latina thing where she does her, you know, ‘Anastasio Ocasio-Cortez,” he said misstating her name while employing an exaggerated accent. “I assume she’s going to love that when I do that,” he added with Ingraham laughing along.

The incident was the latest sparring between the network and AOC. Skirmishes between the two have now become a near daily occurrence in some form or another. In the past channel luminaries like Brit Hume have disparaged her as “like a five-year-old” while frequent guest Ed Rollins attacked her plans to return to pre-Reagan tax rates by calling her “a little girl.”

Reps for both Fox News and the Congresswoman did not immediately respond to request for comment from TheWrap over the latest kerfuffle.

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