Actress, producer, and activist América Ferrera sat down with NBC Latino to talk about being brought up in the Latino community in the U.S., her work to empower her community as co-chair of Voto Latino and why she decided to become an actress.
"My parents are emigrants, they came over from Honduras. I was born and raised in Los Angeles. I was lucky enough to grow with a lot of diversity, really diversity was the norm for me," said the former "Ugly Betty"star. "So really didn't feel different until certain things began happening."
One of those things was Proposition 187, an initiative that denied schooling and other social services to illegal immigrants, which came up when Ferrera was in elementary school. "I remember there being feeling a lot of fear around that, and being told by my mother when she dropped me out to school 'you don't have to answer anyone's questions', 'don't let anybody harass you.' That was one of the first times I became aware that I was being singled out for what I looked like or where my parents were from or what language we spoke at home."
The 29-year-old actress, who will play a nun in CBS's new drama "Damascas," also talked about her beginnings in acting. Ferrera remembered being a very expressive child, who enjoyed acting from a very young age. "As a young child, I was very expressive, musically, and dramatically, and I kind of memorized commercials and recite them for myself. I was acting before I really even knew what acting was. We didn't have money for specialized programs or after school programs. It was just whatever was offered to me through my public school is what I had. So I was very lucky."
Ferrera is also a Latino rights advocate and participates assiduously in the 'I'm Ready' campaing. "I personally believe it's why we're having this national conversation, because we showed up and made a huge difference in the election in 2012," she told NBC Latino. "What the Latino community cares about can't be ignored anymore by either major party in this country. It's crucial that we continue to stay engaged, continue to use our voices, and to put pressure on congress, so that we are represented in the build. The things we care about are represented in the congress."