It’s been a couple days since it was announced that America Ferrera was nominated for an Oscar for the first time in her more than two decade-long career for her performance as Gloria in Barbie, and Latines are still celebrating. For many of us, Ferrera’s characters were the first time we ever saw someone on the screen who reflected our realities without playing into gross, misguided stereotypes about our communities. While Latine actors are often limited to playing villainous gang members, dangerous drug dealers, untrustworthy maids, and mistresses who typically lack any sort of character development, Ferrera has portrayed a young woman wrestling with competing cultural ideals in Real Women Have Curves, the everyday Latina high schooler in Gotta Kick It Up!, a heroine in Cesar Chavez, and, more recently, an unfulfilled, insecure working mom who is retiring sexist ideas around femininity and self-sacrifice in Barbie. For 22 years, her roles have made us feel our stories as Latines, many of us children of migrants from Latin America and the Caribbean, are worthy of being told.
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