Roberta Colindrez

"I can only speak for myself, but as an actor i wasn’t like, “I’m going to challenge the way people see Latin people.” I was just happy to get roles. I tried to find new material in characters, but I wasn’t post-race about it or anything like that. I was just looking at it as just work. I wasn’t framing myself, so I wasn’t framing characters. Now I see the importance of playing [certain types of] characters. I’m not necessarily choosing characters that go against stereotypes, I’m choosing characters that you don’t even have time to question where they would fit in. Or what box they would fit into."

"I wish that more young people, especially less affluent people of color, would realize that we’ve been making stories forever, we’ve been creating rich characters. If we can ignore the pressure to tell a story the way “they” want to hear it and just tell it the way it is, we’ll continue to grow in the industry and have greater power."

"I think this is part of the female gaze…We are used to being watched, so why not watch ourselves, and why not enjoy it? Watching each other, excluding the visage of men—I can enjoy my sexuality."

"I know what they’re thinking. ‘You’re clearly queer, you’re dressed like a child, you have tattoos.’ They have this impression that a person that looks like me…I try not to be like ‘You’re fucking racist!’ or whatever, but they’re probably thinking, There’s no way you belong on the screen. And I’m so happy to shatter that forever."