As her star rose and rose, meanwhile, "what was great was the pride she had in her culture and the fact she wasn"t willing to compromise or whitewash her cultural and ethnic heritage for whatever was popular or mainstream at that moment," says Isabel González Whitaker, cultural commentator and former deputy editor of Billboard. "[Instead] she really helped bridge culture in a way that we were all dressing like J-Lo. I think that she opened the door to [Latino culture having a] broader appeal because of the multiple touch points she was able to embody through the cultural reflection of her looks, her sound and her history."