without representation i don't think we
get nuanced and complex
images of latinidad yeah i think we're
just playing to what white people think
latinos are
[Music]
one of the beautiful things about the
next list is that you have 10 writers
who all come from different experiences
[Music]
what drives you what's that push to me
my culture represents a north star that
i can kind of follow
like i'm trying to be the artist both my
parents
weren't allowed to be
they know how complicated it is being
latinx
in this country we've been here we're
indigenous this is our home
i feel like now people are willing to
pay attention
[Music]
hi my name is anna salinas and my script
inside
is on the blacklist latinx tv list i'm
here with my boyfriend
edgar mampazier and he's gonna ask me
some questions about my story
and i hope you guys enjoy how do you
identify yourself culturally
as you know my mom is from sweden she's
from a little island off the coast of
sweden yeah
my dad is born in cuba but raised in
puerto rico his whole family left cuba
so i don't have
any family left in cuba i've only been
once and it was as a tourist
so my connection is to puerto rico
that's where i went
growing up that's where i visited my
family
but my dad doesn't identify puerto rican
not at all he considers himself a human
he fought against the puerto rican
accent and was like i have a cuban
accent which
i don't know if he did a good job
fighting against that accident totally
disagree with it i think he does
sound very puerto rican yeah on top of
that because it's my mom who's swedish
her culture was often very dominant in
my house
she speaks swedish with me so i speak
swedish
and my dad i think is a little more
passive about his culture but also
had a vested interest in americanizing
i had to kind of fight for my dad's
culture
and i never really understood like these
pieces of his culture as culture how
much of that do you think
is because of like sort of the complex
history of cuba and maybe
pain and how much do you feel like you
wrestle with
recognizing all of that what it means to
be latino for my dad
is very different than what it means for
me my dad
fought against having a spanish accent
whereas i fought to speak spanish at all
and i do think that's actually a very
common next generation
phenomenon like i have a lot of latinx
friends
are really self-conscious about their
spanish and i feel like that's the case
with me
because i have a point of reference of
how bad i am
so it all leaves me feeling a bit
insecure
about what i am culturally
i do self-identify as latina because
it means half of myself being seen
in a way i felt like was erased
growing up a little bit do you feel like
that's why you got into writing was a
part of you trying to express
this not necessarily hidden but
oft-forgotten side of yourself when i
got out here
i was auditioning for parts that just
were such a sliver of myself
and i had always wanted to write but i
think that really
affirmed what it meant to write for
myself writing was a way
to sort of meld the pieces of myself
that i wasn't seeing
on screen or getting auditions for
because it's hard
to feel like something's possible if
you've never seen yourself there
do you feel like you see yourself
represented i don't feel represented on
tv
foreign movies i think latinas are
especially
unrepresented in comedy and when
we do see latinas in comedy i feel
like it's usually playing to archetype
or stereotype
i want to see weird latinas on tv
i want to see them also behind the
camera and there are exceptions and i
feel like those exceptions are people
who have carved out space for themselves
how did you become a writer i came to la
as a teacher i actually have a master's
in education
i was teaching art to the kids it was
like this art immersive school
in doing that i was acting things out a
lot i would dress up as like
artists i dressed up as like frida kahlo
and i was having so much fun in the
performance
and also validating these five-year-old
mostly latino kids
that they were artists and i ended up
getting validated myself
there's this like repetitive theme in
your story of this thing that you're
like
keeping down exploding out is that how
it
felt to be on the latinx tv list i
felt extremely validated by being on the
blacklist latinx tv list especially when
you're carving your own cat i didn't
feel like i had to
pretend to be a virgin of myself i could
just be this like
imperfectly latina writer who is
multicultural and very americanized but
also
not non-american in some ways and weird
and that even my
script didn't have to be like trophy
or anything your script is the very
opposite of sharpie
we should get into that your script is
insane
so it's called inside and
what is it about the script is about a
girl whose vagina suddenly
starts transmitting russian's buy
signals
yes so it's a spy dart comedy and when
we start our story she's depressed
she's angry at the world she doesn't
feel accepted
and by like taking an active role in
what's happening with her vagina
and claiming that ownership she
finds a confidence in who she is
what drives you what's that push i
feel that in order to succeed
i have to be really really undeniably
good
and i think that comes from being a
child of immigrants being
an unrepresented creator i
feel like if i'm not working
my hardest nobody's going to give me the
time of day
for most of my life i was afraid to
admit
what my dreams really were now
i allow myself to imagine a world where
i have created a show
and it's on television you're close to
that world you're
on the blacklist latinx tv list
we'll see you grew up looking at the
television being like i don't see myself
feeling insecure about all of these
things
how do you inspire these generations of
kids to
feel power in their identity i think the
way you inspire
young latinx kids is to show
nuanced complicated depictions of
identity on tv
we can aspire to those things and carve
out that space
and that itself is so powerful
so that we create more diverse heroes
and i think we get there by writing
characters
who are fully human and are written from
an
authentic point of view well that's
all the questions that i have or
memorize if i'm being honest
well thank you edgar and thank you guys
for watching our discussion and thank
you to the latinx
tv list and i hope you guys have a great
latinx heritage month
thank you guys for celebrating latinx
heritage month
make sure to like comment and subscribe
for all things hulu
and all accents welcome to sentos
biamenios