Eva Mendes wonders if all Latina mothers do one specific thing that her mom does.
“Can you relate?!” Mendes asked in a caption alongside a video she posted on Instagram this past weekend. “Is this a Cuban Mami thing or a universal Mami thing? She’s complaining, but she likes it. I love my Mommy!”
In the video, which has gained 134,000 likes in two days, Mendes explained how she is starting to see things from her mother’s perspective. “I feel like I see everything through my mom’s eyes, you know?” Mendes said. She then started giving examples of some of the things her mother, Eva Perez Suarez, might say if she came over for a visit.
“She says things like, ‘Ay, how beautiful that looks,’” Mendes said in Spanish while doing her best impersonation of her mom. “‘But why do they have the table so close? You can’t even walk.’”
She continued speaking in her mother’s voice throughout the video: “But why is this right there?” she said, imagining that something in the room was dangerous for her children. “The kids will die.”
She also imagined what her mother would say if she noticed something in the room that could injure her. “Ay, look, I’m about to die right here,’” Mendes said, continuing to speak like her mother. “Why do they have this placed right there?”
She added: “It’s a total…compliment-complaint, compliment-complaint. She’s amazing at it, and she’s always here with me.”
Perez Suarez gave birth to Mendes in Miami on March 5, 1974. She raised her daughter in Los Angeles after she and Mendes’ father divorced.
The last time Mendes posted a photo of her mother on Instagram was this past October, when she wished her a happy birthday. “Feliz Cumpleaños Mami!” she wrote on Instagram. “No post could ever come close to expressing what I feel for you, so I’ll keep it light….I love you! Besitos! Love, Mimi.”
Earlier this year, Mendes teared up on The Today Show when the hosts wished her mom a happy Mother’s Day. “She’s not doing too well right now, so that means a lot to me,” Mendes said. “She’s a survivor in every way.”
We’re hoping Perez Suarez is doing better and getting to spend time with Esmeralda and Amada, her two grandkids from her daughter and son-in-law, Ryan Gosling.