i was 15.
i got my first professional audition
it was a commercial for cable
subscriptions or
bail bonds i don't really remember but
what i do remember
is that the casting director asked me
uh could you do that again but just this
time
sound more latina it took me most of the
car ride home to realize
that by sound more latina she was asking
me
to speak in broken english and i
couldn't figure out why the fact
that i was an actual real-life authentic
latina didn't really seem to matter
anyway i didn't get the job i didn't get
a lot of the jobs people were willing to
see me for
the gangbangers girlfriend the
sassy shoplifter pregnant chola
number two these were the kinds of roles
that existed
for someone like me someone they looked
at and saw
as too brown too fat too poor
too unsophisticated i kept receiving the
same message
again and again and again that my
identity was an obstacle
i had to overcome and so i thought
come at me obstacle i'm an american
my name is america
i trained my whole life for this i'll
just follow the playbook
i'll work harder i stayed out of the sun
so that my skin wouldn't get too brown
i straightened my curls into submission
i constantly tried to lose weight i
bought fancier and more expensive
clothes
also that when people looked at me they
wouldn't see
a too fat too brown too poor
latina they would see what i was capable
of
and maybe they would give me a chance
just a few years ago my agent called to
explain to me why i wasn't getting a
role in a movie
he said they loved you and they really
really do want to cast diversely but the
movie
isn't financiable until they cast the
white role
first i went through this process for
years of accepting the failure as my own
and then feeling
deep shame that i couldn't overcome the
obstacles
but this time i heard a new voice a
voice that understood
my tears and my pain were not about
losing
a job they were about what was
actually being said about me what had
been said about me
my whole life by executives and
producers
and directors and writers and agents and
managers and teachers
and friends and family that i was a
person of less
value i couldn't change what a system
believed about me
while i believed what the system
believed about me
and i did i like everyone around me
believed that it wasn't possible for me
to exist in my dream
as i was and i went about trying to make
myself invisible
what this revealed to me was that it is
possible
to be the person who genuinely wants to
see
change while also being the person
whose actions keep things the way they
are change
will come when each of us has the
courage to question
our own fundamental values and beliefs
and then see to it that our actions lead
to our best intentions i am just one
of millions of people who have been told
that
in order to fulfill my dreams in order
to contribute my talents to the world i
have to resist
the truth of who i am my identity is not
my obstacle
my identity is my superpower i for one
am ready to stop resisting and to start
existing
as my full and authentic self
you