Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with America Ferrera |

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Good afternoon and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Arelis Hernández, reporter for The Washington Post. Joining me today is actor, director, producer, and activist America Ferrera. Ferrera produced and directed episodes of the show “Gentefied.”

Bienvenida.

MS. FERRERA: Hola. Hi, Arelis. How are you?

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Doing great, doing great. I want to start with, of course, the show. How does season two pick up where the last one left off?

MS. FERRERA: Yes, well, season two, which drops tonight at midnight--woo!--starts right where we left off on season one. So if you haven't seen it, close your ears because this is a spoiler alert--and also go watch it--but season one ends with a lot of things happening for everyone but kind of most notably, Pop, the patriarch of the Morales family, gets picked up by ICE, and we don't know what his fate is after that moment. So season two picks up right--not right where we left off but we pick up with Pop and his story.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Well, let's watch a clip from the new season with the Morales family.

[Video plays]

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Love, love the new season. I'm gonna try really hard not to spill any spoilers here, but how do you think this clip in particular illustrates some of the big issues in the show that you guys tackle? And for people who haven't seen the show, explain why it's called "Gentefied."

MS. FERRERA: Yeah, well, "Gentefied" is a play on the word gentrified, obviously, gentrification. And it's a word Marvin and Linda made up, and "gente" in Spanish means people. So "gentefication" is about the people of the neighborhoods being part and parcel of the change of it, which is, in some instances, positive, and in others very complex and complicated.

And for Marvin and Linda, and for myself, what I so related to in the story is, you know, we're similar in age and of the same kind of first-generation fabric of the Morales cousins, Chris, Ana, and Erik, and how, you know, on one hand, their assignment from the older generations is, we sacrificed everything, we came to this country, succeed, be more, do more, have more, get more, but also, at the same time, don't change, and stay rooted and stay connected and identified with where you came from. And that is an inherent tension.

And in a lot of ways, I feel like gentrification is a perfect metaphor for sort of the inner experience of a first-generation child of immigrants, where you're expected to do both. And there's real conflict and real tension and turmoil in trying to do and be both things. And so the show explores the ways in which that change is really impacting this neighborhood, kind of the social implications of gentrification, but also how that plays out inside of one family, through many generations.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: And immigration is a big thing, right? I mean, what do you want viewers to take away from the prospect of having your loved one possibly deported and what that can feel like for a family?

MS. FERRERA: Yeah, well, that really is what season two explores, and Marvin and Linda made the choice to set the whole second season, in the in-between time. You know, Pop is being released from detention in the first episode, and the entire season takes place in the unknowing in, you know, his case is happening throughout, but we don't know what his fate is going to be. And they did that because they wanted the audience to have an experience of what it feels like for a family to be living inside of that uncertainty. And yes, there's fear and there's anxiety, but and there's hope. And also, there's laughter and love and joy mixed in with all of that and that sort of full complexity of, yes, the dark and horrible things that are often depicted about the about the immigration experience and the deportation process are very real and very true. And they exist in this show, and in this world. And at the same time, our families keep living full human lives, because we are full humans.

And I think for me personally, what I want the audience to experience in the season is the fullness of the humanity, the joy, the love, the heartbreak, the complications, the hard family dynamics and relationships, that that really give us our fullness, to come away seeing these characters, seeing Pop, seeing the people who love him, as real, full, complex people, and hopefully you feel like you know them so that the next time you read a headline or hear about a deportation, that that doesn't just feel like some far off idea to you, that you can imagine that those are people who love and laugh and have joy and have family and friends and what happens in their lives has massive impact and ripples in the community that loves them.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: All of which was brought to the fore. And again, I'm going to try really hard not to give anything away. So, I'm just gonna call it the Thanksgiving episode, right? Which is sort of this inflection point in the season.

You know, what I was most struck was by the nuance with which you all were able to tell this story of generational tensions, particularly in an immigrant family, and unpack sort of the meaning of sacrifice. How do you do that, though, without falling into sort of the trap of tropes? I know, you're talking about, you know, portraying full human beings. But how do you do that without falling into that in storytelling?

MS. FERRERA: Well, thank you for thinking we achieved that. I actually directed the Thanksgiving episode, which was, for me, like my crowning jewel in the season. I love the Thanksgiving episode. And when I read it, I just--all I could think about was August: Osage County, the Broadway show then turned movie that, you know, had this huge family coming together and everything comes out. And I remember the experience of watching it on stage and Broadway and just having this amazing, cathartic experience of, oh, my gosh, I see myself, I see my family. I mean, they're not Latino, but like, this is my family. My--someone would be hitting somebody, and then somebody did start hitting someone. And then I was just laughing and crying all at the same time.

But when I saw this episode, I thought, oh, it's this. It's us. It’s like our brown Latino families sitting at the all-American Thanksgiving dinner, getting to be petty, and complex, and wrong, and insulting, and funny, and, all of it happening at once, where it's like it's all there.

You know, it--we aren't just, you know, sad, forlorn people sitting around waiting to hear if Pop is going to be deported. Like, there's family history and there's family tension, and everyone doesn't like everyone at the same time. And people are having marriage problems, and people are breaking up and falling in love and achieving their dreams and having their hearts broken.

And so it was all that humanity that just like sat at the dinner table, that for me, it was such a joy and such a privilege to get to direct and create the space for those moments to happen. And again, like, it feels to me like a version of Thanksgiving dinner that I've never seen told through our lens, and it was just like such an utter joy.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: So, you were telling an American, a human story? Were you necessarily telling a Latino story? When you were directing that, like, how would you--how did you--what was your goal there?

MS. FERRERA: I don't know that it was so much a Latino story as it was just personal. It was just about these moments that I've experienced in my home that happens to be a Latino home and a Latino family. And you know, in particular, like there's a moment where, you know, it's revealed that two characters are in therapy. And then the--one of the older generation characters like starts laughing at them and insulting them and insulting therapy.

And to me, like that tension of like somebody's real marriage problems on the table being somebody else's like joke and object of ridicule, like, it just felt real to me. And it felt like true to my experience, and funny and awful and awkward all at the same time.

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And no, I don't think that I was cognizant, I don't think that I ever am cognizant of like--or telling a Latino story. It's me. I'm just pulling from like my life and my experience and what I know and what I love. And truly, my guiding light in directing that episode, in particular, was--as a director, capturing these moments and these characters and these tensions--was to love this family. It was to love each character, because everyone's wrong and everyone's right, and everyone's in their own story, and everyone's the main character of their drama.

And even the Ernesto character, Chris's dad, who's a hard one to like because he's been painted, you know, off camera in such a specific way, I wanted to love him. I wanted to understand him a little bit more. I wanted that moment that always happens at a family function gone wrong, where it's just silence and that feeling of like, God, everything’s so complicated. And I want that complexity for us. That's what I want for us, not because it's unique to us, but because we so rarely get to see ourselves living in complexity.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: To that point, in previous interviews, you’ve talked about how like, you know, a lot of us grew up seeing ourselves in actors like, you know, Julia Roberts or Tom Hanks. I mean, what do you think it means? And it's obviously very meaningful to you, but what do you think it means to viewers to see, you know, this Latino family growing up in East LA sort of struggling with these things?

MS. FERRERA: You know, I think that it helps people feel seen and like their stories and their lives are valuable and present. I mean, I remember hearing I don't even remember where, but I remember someone likening like not seeing yourself in the culture to growing up in a house where there are no pictures of you on the wall. You know, and just this gaslighting feeling of like, am I here? Like, am I real? Like, am I? Do I matter? Do I have value? Because everything is sort of playing back to me that I don't exist in this world in these ways.

And that I think, has very real impact on how we think about ourselves and what we see as possible for ourselves. You know, I've had so many instances in my adult life, where I learned about a Latina athlete, like Rosie Casals, who's this incredible tennis player. And just like being dumbfounded that, you know, she won Wimbledon. She was Billie Jean King’s tennis playing partner. She was this short five-foot Central American brown girl from Northern California. Like, when I think about like, I didn't know that we could be tennis players. Like if I knew we could be tennis players, I might be like Serena Williams right now, you know?

And that's real. It's really, really real, the feeling of like, needing to see it to open up the possibility of like, oh, I didn't know that was an option. And so I think that it means a lot to see oneself and one's life reflected.

And I think, you know, I grew up watching, you know, all the mainstream everything, TV, film, all of it, loving it, and learning how to relate to it, learning how to translate it for myself. It wasn't even until I was much older that I realized that it was a problem that I never saw myself reflected, because I just thought this is the way the world is.

And sure, I'm Tom Hanks in Apollo 13. I'm Julia Roberts in Erin Brockovich, I’m Will Smith in Fresh Prince, because that's all I had. And I think that the silver lining of that is you become really adept at compassion, you become really good at seeing yourself in other people. And I think that there are a lot of people who need more of that, like the ability to see themselves in people that are not exactly like them, which "Gentefied" also offers.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Well, but how did you--well, then would it click--did it click to you? When did it click that it's like, oh, you know, even though I'm doing this thing where I'm adapting myself to all these different stories, to all these different depictions, at one point, did you say, huh, but there aren't stories like mine and it clicked to you that, well, that's important and that's an issue? At what point in your career did that happen?

MS. FERRERA: Yeah, I mean, I think it happened like right off the top in my career. I mean, you know, I was obviously made very aware and reminded all the time by family, teachers, friends, loved ones that like people like me did not succeed in the entertainment industry, because that was my dream and that's what I wanted and that's what I was going for. And it was obvious to me that there was no real model for me of who I was [audio interference] someone like me was in in this industry. So it's not like I wasn't aware of it.

But as soon as I started pursuing it, auditioning, I became very--I was made aware right off the bat that there was a box that I could exist in, and it wasn't a box I wanted to be in, and it was everybody else's projection and stereotypes of what a Latina was.

And I really didn't fit any of them. You know, I'm--you know, I'm not--I wasn't the standard, you know, image of like a beautiful sexy Latina that people wanted in movies or on TV. I didn't have a heavy accent. And I had been asked at my very first audition I ever went to, I remember I auditioned and the casting director said to me, like, okay, can you do it again but sound more Latina? And I was just like--I was 16. I was like, do you want me to do it Spanish? Like, I didn't even know what that meant to be honest.

So I knew like right off the bat, like, oh, there is a lane and a box that people want me to stay in. But I--but it was never--I was never accepting of it. I knew and I just hoped against all hope that like, eventually, I would walk into the room and be good enough that they would let me do more stuff outside of that. And you know, I know now, what an incredible anomaly, miracle the opportunities that came to me are, I mean, truly.

And so when I--so right away when I did--"Real Women Have Curves" was my first film that I did at 17, and it was the first thing anyone ever saw me in. And I traveled around the country and around the world with that film. And I was and played a 17-year-old Latina American, chubby, poor, you know, daughter of immigrants striving for more. It was very specific. It was very specific to LA. It was an incredibly specific lens.

But we traveled the world with that film. And the amount of people all over the world who came up to me and said, that's me--you know, gay, straight, man, woman, old, queer, young, whatever--they saw themselves in this character that was so specific--and specific to me. And like--and so the validation of that right up front that our stories do work, people can see themselves in us. Our stories are universal, our dreams, our hopes, our struggles, our failures, our successes, those are not the obstacle.

It was such a validation and such a compass so early on in my career. That was the bar, right? That for me was like, well, if I can do this, then why would I--why would I take the role of the--you know, this movie won at film festivals. I won an acting award at the Sundance Film Festival at 17. And then what awaited me on the other side was a bunch of bit parts as the funny spicy best friend Latina--you know, realizing right after--sorry, go ahead. I could talk all--

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: No, no, it’s all good. No, you blew past all my questions. I was gonna tell you I watched "Real Women Have Curves" right when little Arelis was sprouting her own curves and wondering what the heck was going on.

And another show that was a big part actually, of my personal formation was "Ugly Betty," right? And so you talk about you’ve had this realization, like there can be commercial success. These stories need to be told, that there's an audience and there's a hunger for it. And yet, "Ugly Betty" was successful, but there would not be another TV show led by Latina actress on American television for another eight years. So what's happening? What is the disconnect here?

MS. FERRERA: Well, you know, that's--I mean, I feel like that was the story, you know, back to "Real Women Have Curves," and then again with "Ugly Betty." You would think, oh, this film, you know, based on a play by a Latina writer, starring Latinas, directed by a Latina, like, the success of that--both critically, financially--like would, you would think, spawn more opportunities for films like that, and it didn't.

And that was the heartbreak for me of just like, oh, but I thought we proved it and--and it--and then it happened again with "Ugly Betty" where it was like, we premiered to 17 million viewers. We were not a niche show. Like our audience was incredibly diverse, and in every way--in age and ethnicity, in lifestyle. And like you said, it did not create a groundswell or an opening of the floodgates.

And again, the success of our stories are seen as an exception, and not as proof that we can succeed in these spaces. And I don't--you know, I don't know what else to say about that other than I think that there is a deep, deep, deep bias ingrained in our industry about what stories have value and worth and what stories are, you know, worth the investment. And even when we succeed and prove otherwise, even our successes are used to confirm that those moments are an exception to the rule, that our stories don't work and people don't want to see them.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Well, let's fast forward to today. And, you know, first of all, what's changed? And secondly, you know, with the success that you've had both in front of the camera and behind the camera, I mean, do you feel like you have the creative freedom now to, you know, be a part of that solution to accelerate some of that change--if things are changing, right?

MS. FERRERA: Yeah, I mean, I would say, are things changing? Yes. You know, what those things are that are changing, you know, it's not--it's not--it's not everything that needs to be changing that's changing. I think we can look to television, which is now a whole new beast, an animal in and of itself, because what television is today is different from what it was five years ago, and much less 10 or 15 years ago where--yes, probably, by sheer count there are more Latinx faces on television, whatever television means anymore, today than there were 5, 10, 15, 20 years ago.

But there--but, you know, there's so much to consider in terms of what are the versions of the stories being told about our community? Who's telling those stories? Who is truly--who is--who is the process empowering in it, you know? Because oftentimes, you know, sure the package can look great. It's brown faces on TV, brown faces making it, brown faces behind the camera. But the process is defined by the minutiae, by the moment-to-moment power dynamics of who actually gets to decide, you know, the line that’s said, the wardrobe that's worn, the attitude a character gets to take.

You know, how authentic it ends up at the end of the day, and how reflective it is of our authentic true stories is not just about putting the right person in the seat. It's how empowered is that person to actually tell the story that they set out to tell. And for me, that is what I'm most interested in. You know, I've spent 20 years in front of the camera and a number of years as a producer, and a director behind the camera and feel like what I care about is honing in on and identifying, ah, here is the moment where we have an opportunity to shift who holds the power to make the decision, and then to just notice what happens in those moments, you know? What's unspoken? What's assumed? You know, what takes precedent? You know, what notes are--what notes are given and given again and given again? And at the end of the day, are decisions being made that are about keeping a certain system comfortable? Or is there real power for new kinds of decision makers to change it in the moment that it matters the most? And that's what I'm really, really interested in at this stage of my producing and just creative career.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: So we're quickly running out of time, but I just wanted to get this one question. It’s what's your message to the next generation of Latinos, given, you know, you're talking about power dynamics, you're talking about systems? What message do you send to Latinos who want their voices heard in the entertainment industry?

MS. FERRERA: Yeah, yeah. Here's what I'll say. I think my advice to myself at all times and to others is community. You know what--I'll tell you what is shifting, is that 20 years ago, I did not have other Latinas in the room. I didn't have relationships to other Latinas in the industry. I didn't have Latina mentors. I didn't have Latina friends, co-workers, co-conspirators. You know, I was often the only woman, the only Latina, the only young person, the only actress in the room raising my voice to represent a certain perspective.

And what's happening and what I've seen shift in recent years in the industry is the Latinx creative community finding one another, doing away with the notion that we are each other's competition and instead deciding that we will be each other's best collaborators and best supporters. And that is a real shift that I have witnessed throughout my career, and I see how it's changing things on a very real level. Even, you know, the new, DEAR Hollywood initiative that was just launched through the Untitled Latinx Project, the Untitled Latinx Project is a group of Latina showrunners who came together just to like compare notes. And it cannot be understated what the power of that is, the power of having access to and relationship and community with the other people in your industry who are having the exact same experience being the only ones in their rooms, right? And so it's--the community of it is incredibly empowering. And so my advice would be, find community, find partners, find co-conspirators, and don't do it alone.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Well, thank you so much. Unfortunately, that is all the time we have for today. Thanks to all of you. Thank you, America, for joining us today. Really appreciate it.

MS. FERRERA: Thank you. This was a lovely conversation. Thank you.

MS. HERNÁNDEZ: Awesome. Well for all of you, thank you as well for joining us. And you can go to WashingtonPostLive.com to register for upcoming programs. I’m Arelis Hernández. Thank you for watching Washington Post Live.

[End recorded session.]

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Transcript: Race in America: Giving Voice with America Ferrera

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