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America Ferrera says visible change has finally come to Hollywood for Latino talent after years of being “unrecognized.” As a producer, her goal is bring even more diverse projects to audiences.
Ferrera made the comments Friday night at the National Hispanic Media Coalition’s 2020 Impact Awards in Beverly Hills, where she won the outstanding series producer honor for her work producing Gentefied and Superstore.
“For a very long time, I felt very alone and isolated as a Latina in this industry,” she said before praising the many generations of Latino creatives who paved the way.
“We are living in an era brought upon by many, many generations of Latino and Latina actors, producers, writers, directors, who stayed the course, and they paved the path,” she said. “Sometimes they did it all alone. Sometimes they went completely unseen, unrecognized, uncelebrated, and sometimes, they never got to see their visions and their talents meet with opportunities that they deserved.”
Ferrera went on to say as a producer, she plans to create a pipeline for Latino stories “to be seen and celebrated.” She then praised several TV shows featuring Latino talent, including Netflix’s Gentefied; Starz’s Vida; Freeform’s Party of Five, and One Day at a Time, which recently jumped from Netflix to Pop TV.
Ferrera thanked Hollywood’s creative community to developing a growing number of Latino-focused projects.
“Thank you to our allies in the room — those of you who are not particularly from the Latino community — and yet, you have the capacity to see the value of our lives, of our stories; you invest your money in our storytellers and give real creative power to our voices,” she said. “If you empower us, we will deliver beautiful content and voracious audiences.”
Ferrera gave her speech just hours after she made the surprising announcement that she is exiting NBC’s Superstore after five seasons.
The Impact Awards celebrated Latino progress in media over the past year. Other honorees included Warner Bros. Entertainment; Jay Hernandez; Dany Garcia; Isabella Gomez; Ozzie Areu, Roberto-Aguirre-Sacasa; Isabella Gomez; and Amy Lippman.
