Why Miguel O'Hara Is Marvel's Most Important Hispanic Character
2. How He Represents His Heritage
There are some people out there who will try to tell you that Miguel O'Hara is not a good example of Hispanic representation because he looked "too white" in his original design. However, this argument doesn't really hold water for a number of reasons.
For starters, fair-skinned Latinos do exist and to pretend that they don't is absurd. Secondly, it's sort of a moot point anyway, seeing as how later redesigns gave Miguel a more recognizably Latino skin tone. And finally, it doesn't really matter what his skin looks like, because he openly represents his Hispanic background in another way: his suit.
As confirmed on the pages of 1992's Spider-Man 2099 #2, Miguel's Spider-suit is actually a costume he bought while visiting his mother's homeland of Mexico for the Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) celebration, with the skull on the outfit's chest making this unmistakable.
Admittedly, Marvel could have done a bit better to make Miguel more visibly recognizable as being Hispanic from the off. However, the fact remains that while most other Spider-heroes, and in fact most superheros in general, often have their ethnic background concealed by their costume, Miguel wears his loud and proud whenever he suits up as Spider-Man (which is fairly often, seeing as how, well... he's Spider-Man.)
It just goes to show that while Miguel hasn't forgotten his roots. An while he sets himself apart from other Hispanic characters by challenging convention, he is still very proud of the culture he comes from.