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2.28.2012

the asian american guy who accidentally ended up on time's latino voter cover story

Heard about this last week but haven't had the chance to mention it...

TIME's latest cover story features a striking collage of portraits of Latino faces, boldly declaring, "Yo Decido. Why Latinos will pick the next President." The only thing is, one of the people isn't Latino: Time Magazine Cover Depicts The 'Faces of the Latino Vote'--With a Non-Latino Face.

Surprise! It looks like an Asian face somehow snuck its way on to the cover.

Oops. The guy in question, Michael Schuennum (top row, center, behind the "M") is actually of Chinese, Irish and Norwegian descent -- definitely not Latino.

Not sure how Schuennum, a staff photographer at the Arizona Republic, ended up getting his picture taken, but he says they never actually told him what it was for, or even bothered to ask if he was Latino. I guess he was just near a lot of Latinos and happened to look Latino enough.

Of course, there are certainly Latinos of Asian descent, with significant populations of Asians across Latin America. But Michael Schuennum is not one of them -- not that anyone at TIME was actually checking.

For a cover story heralding the collective power of the Latino vote, it's kind of a funny goof. TIME has since issued an apology for the mixup. More here: Time magazine apologizes for putting non-Latino on Yo Decido' cover.