--- title: Afro-Latino Actors Roundtable on Experiences in Hollywood description: Gina Torres, Dascha Polanco, Laz Alonso, Amara La Negra and Sarunas Jackson spoke to TIME about their experiences in the industry, and their efforts for authentic representation. canonical: https://time.com/5889072/afro-latino-actors-roundtable/ author: Andrew R. Chow article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-09-17T16:07:41.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-14T09:06:58.612Z article:section: Entertainment og:title: The Afro-Latino Actors Fighting Erasure in Hollywood og:description: Gina Torres, Dascha Polanco, Laz Alonso, Amara La Negra and Sarunas Jackson convened for a roundtable discussion og:url: https://time.com/5889072/afro-latino-actors-roundtable/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8a1cb352a34e9107/698a124216d884319ac389c8/200916_AFROLATINX_IN_ENTERTAINMENT_FINAL-Copy-01.00_11_18_11.Still001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1280 og:image:height: 720 og:image:alt: Afro-latino Hollywood round-table og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Afro-Latino Actors Fighting Erasure in Hollywood twitter:description: Gina Torres, Dascha Polanco, Laz Alonso, Amara La Negra and Sarunas Jackson convened for a roundtable discussion twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt8a1cb352a34e9107/698a124216d884319ac389c8/200916_AFROLATINX_IN_ENTERTAINMENT_FINAL-Copy-01.00_11_18_11.Still001.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # These Afro-Latino Actors Are Pushing Back Against Erasure in Hollywood > Sponsored content. 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Terms and conditions apply. * Savings buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Savings Account. * No ATM fees from Ally Bank at Allpoint and Moneypass ATMs plus we reimburse for fees charged by other ATM owners nationwide up to $10 per statement cycle. * Early direct deposit offers eligible direct deposits up to two days sooner. * Spending buckets are a feature of Ally Bank's Spending Account. ## Video: These Afro-Latino Actors Are Pushing Back Against Erasure in Hollywood [Watch (HLS stream): These Afro-Latino Actors Are Pushing Back Against Erasure in Hollywood](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/MQ9XzmhW.m3u8) (11:29)  _Published 2020-09-17. TIME convened a roundtable of Afro-Latino performers—Gina Torres, Dascha Polanco, Laz Alonso, Amara La Negra and Sarunas Jackson—to talk about their fraught experiences in the industry, and their efforts for increased authentic representation._  by [Andrew R. Chow](https://time.com/author/andrew-r-chow/)  ## Andrew R. Chow Correspondent Sep 17, 2020 4:07 PM UTC  by [Andrew R. Chow](https://time.com/author/andrew-r-chow/)  ## Andrew R. Chow Correspondent Sep 17, 2020 4:07 PM UTC The Panamanian-American actor Sarunas Jackson often hears a familiar line of questioning soon after he meets someone new. “You say you’re Black, but you speak Spanish. So what is it? Which one are you?” Jackson says people ask him. Jackson is Afro-Latino, a label for people who identify as both Black and Latino. Many Afro-Latinos are descended from African slaves who were brought to the Caribbean and South America as opposed to the U.S.: “It’s just a matter of where the boat dropped us off,” Jackson says. Now, [one in four Latinos](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/01/afro-latino-a-deeply-rooted-identity-among-u-s-hispanics/) in the U.S. identifies as Afro-Latino according to the Pew Research Center, amounting to roughly 15 million people. But while there are millions of Afro-Latinos around the world, they are chronically misunderstood and underrepresented. Across Latin America, they are [marginalized and discriminated against](https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/30201). In the U.S., they are [less likely to go to college](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/ramos-afro-latinos-racism.html) and are more likely to have a lower family income than other Latinos. In terms of representation, almost all of the biggest Latina entertainment stars—including Jennifer Lopez, Sofia Vergara and Salma Hayek—are fair-skinned, as gatekeepers perpetuate a narrow image of what it means to “look Latina.” Afro-Latino actors are consistently shut out of roles because they don’t match that image—and when they are cast, it’s even rarer that they get to play Afro-Latino characters, instead playing characters who are Black or mixed race but not Latino. Last year saw a rare bright spot for representation when [Jharrel Jerome](https://time.com/collection/time-100-next-2019/5718785/jharrel-jerome/) became the first Afro-Latino to win an Emmy for acting, for his gutting portrayal of Korey Wise on Ava DuVernay’s [_When They See Us_](https://time.com/5592163/when-they-see-us-netflix-ava-duvernay/). But this year, the Emmys have become a focal point for a contentious conversation around Afro-Latino erasure after an [L.A. _Times_ article](https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/emmy-nominations-spark-conversations-about-latinx-repre-1844562383), originally titled “Emmys 2020: Black nominees gain ground, Latino representation still abysmal,” was perceived to pit the groups against each other while ignoring their intersection. In September, TIME convened a roundtable of Afro-Latino performers—Gina Torres, Dascha Polanco, Laz Alonso, Amara La Negra and Sarunas Jackson—to talk about their fraught experiences in the industry, and their efforts for increased authentic representation going forward. ## **Latin American colorism** While the term “Afro-Latino” only came into consistent use within the [last two decades](https://www.dictionary.com/e/pop-culture/afro-latinx/), Afro-Latinos have been “hiding in plain sight since time,” Gina Torres**,** an actor best known for her roles on _Suits_ and _Firefly_, said during the roundtable. During the transatlantic slave trade, well over 90% of the more than 12 million Africans enslaved by Europeans were [forcibly brought to the Caribbean and South America](https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/teaching-resource/historical-context-facts-about-slave-trade-and-slavery). Many of the slaves who landed south of Florida died due to the brutal conditions, but a lineage of African descendants began to spread across Central and South America, mixing the cultures of their homeland, indigenous populations and their European colonizers. Now, according to [the Pew Research Center](https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/03/01/afro-latino-a-deeply-rooted-identity-among-u-s-hispanics/), there are more than 130 million “Afro-descendants” living in Latin America, three times the number of African Americans in the U.S. Despite their outsize presence in countries like Brazil, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic, [colorism runs rampant](https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/03/opinion/ramos-afro-latinos-racism.html) in those societies—and Afro-Latinos “are 2.5 times more likely to live in chronic poverty than whites or mestizos,” according to a [World Bank report](https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/30201). “The gut punch of it for us is understanding that our lighter-skinned brothers and sisters drank the same Kool-Aid of colonization that everybody else did,” Torres says. **Read More:** [_‘Latinx’ Is Gaining Popularity. But New Research Says Only 3% of U.S. Hispanics Use the Gender-Neutral Term_](https://time.com/5878380/latinx-use-pew-research/) The actor and singer Amara La Negra experienced this type of behavior firsthand. As a child, she was cast in _Sábado Gigante_, the enormously popular variety show that was the longest-running show in Univision’s history. But she was almost always the only dark-skinned face among the performers, and says she was subject to constant colorism behind the scenes. “They never knew how to place me. It was like, ‘Your look is messing up the choreography,’” La Negra recalls. La Negra later auditioned for a major telenovela, only to be rebuffed by the casting director: “‘No, there’s nothing you did bad,’” she recalls hearing. “‘You’re beautiful! It’s just that we’re looking for someone more, _como que,_ _Latina_.’” Laz Alonso, the veteran Hollywood actor known for his roles in _Fast & Furious_ and _Avatar_, says he hasn’t been able to get any jobs in Latin America: “The doors are shut,” he says. “It really bewilders me how Latinos are not as aware of our Black history as we are in the states.” ## **American marginalization** While the Latin-American market has proved itself frequently hostile to Black performers, Afro-Latinos often experience double marginalization in the U.S.: not only are Black and Latino people underrepresented in most arenas of public life, but Afro-Latinos often feel shunned within each community. “When I was in the African-American environment, it was like, ‘Oh, there goes that Spanish girl,’” La Negra says. “And then when I’m in the Latin environment, it’s like, ‘You’re too Black to be here. You should be with them.’” The marginalization of Black Latinos in African-American communities is part of something that [Henry Louis Gates Jr. refers to](https://www.pbs.org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/how-many-slaves-landed-in-the-us/) as “African-American exceptionalism”: the idea that the Black experience is the Black _American_ experience. “When we’re celebrating Blackness, if you think about that umbrella of Black, there’s obviously different cultures and different nationalities,” Jackson says. In Hollywood, the Afro-Latino perspective is all but invisible. Alonso began his film career in the early 2000s, and was put up for almost exclusively African-American roles. When he auditioned for Latino roles, he got similar feedback as La Negra did: “‘Well, he did a good job, but he doesn’t look Latin.’ They thought a Latino had to look Mexican,” Alonso says. Torres, too, was asked to play mostly African-American characters, and says that many of her peers changed their Latin-sounding last names rather than deal with the confusion. When Torres did pass the audition stage, she would find that her characters lacked depth. “I have been the eunuch in pretty much every show,” she says. “I’m always the ball-buster, the assassin, or the cop that doesn’t have a life—because to have a life means that you have to humanize me. It’s so much easier for them to fit you into that slot and check off that box. And they got a lot of boxes with me: female, mature, person of color.” Jackson is of a younger generation, having broken into Hollywood just as the industry was starting to grapple with [#OscarsSoWhite](https://time.com/4242076/oscars-so-white-presenters/). But he faced some of the same misconceptions that his peers initially faced decades earlier. “Every time, I just had to be a light-skinned Black guy or a biracial Black guy who was just Black and white,” he says. “But you know, it is what it is. You’re going to take a role.” Meanwhile, rising shows centered on Latino Americans, like _Vida_ and _Jane the Virgin_, mostly excluded Afro-Latinos as well. When Jackson was cast on _Insecure_, his character, Dro, was initially supposed to be Black and Mexican. But when Jackson pushed for Dro to be Afro-Latino by way of Panama, the showrunners agreed to make the change. “That was the first time I was ever allowed to be an Afro-Latino character,” he says. ## **Fighting for change** Within the past decade, a movement for representation has allowed different types of stories to emerge, and a trickle of Afro-Latino stories has come to the screen. FX’s [_Pose_](https://time.com/5603918/pose-season-2-review/) features two prominent Afro-Latina actors: Indya Moore and MJ Rodriguez. The hit Netflix show [_On My Block_ ](https://time.com/5887132/best-teen-dramas-of-all-time/)features an Afro-Latina lead character, Monse (although the actor who plays her, Sierra Capri, is not Afro-Latina), while writers of Netflix’s _Gentefied_ created the character Yessika with Afro-Latina actors in mind. “We really wanted to explore those issues of anti-Blackness and colorism within the Latinx community,” co-creator Marvin Lemus [told _Remezcla_](https://remezcla.com//features/film/america-ferrera-interview-gentefied/) earlier this year. Last year, Torres became the first Afro-Latina to create, produce and star in her own show, with _Pearson_ on the USA Network. “I finally got into a position of power, and said, ‘We’re going to write this character as Afro-Latina. I’m going to use my Spanish as often as possible,” she says. “That was sort of my way of educating the people around me, and what I was doing was absolutely being 100% myself.” Of course, the U.S. entertainment world has a long way to go to in terms of representation. According to a study by USC’s Annenberg Inclusion Initiative, across the 100 top-grossing movies from 2007-2018, only 3% of films featured leads or co-leads with Latino actors—and Afro-Latinos make up an even smaller slice still. The [contentious dialogue around the Emmy nominations ](https://newsone.com/playlist/black-twitter-slams-anti-black-latinx-people/)showed how Afro-Latino viewpoints are erased and how African Americans and Latino Americans can be pitted against one another. Torres’ _Pearson_ was canceled after just one season. “They’re having us fight over crumbs,” she says. To forge ahead, Torres talks about “creating channels for sustainable access”: mentorship, education, collaboration, creation of authentic stories. One of those channels is _Orange Is the New Black_ star Dascha Polanco’s _Brown Love_ podcast for Netflix, in which she delves into these issues. “It is the responsibility of those that are in positions of power to push forward diversity in a way that is not a trend,” Polanco says. “This is the Afro-diaspora. This is the normalcy of life.” ## Transcript I'm Gina Torres. I am Afro Latin ex by way of Cuba. Both my parents are Cuban born and I'm first generation Cuba. So my name is Lars Alonzo. Very similar to Gina Afro-Cuban. I am Dascha Polanco and I was born in the Dominican Republic and I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. My name's Sharon is Jackson, and I like my peers here. You can see that I'm first generation on my mother's side by way of Panama. All right, guys. Well, my name is Amandla Negra. Is a pleasure to be here with you guys. Afro-Latino means roots. It means blackness, it means culture, it means sound, rhythm food. It means so many things. That means being Dominican. It means. It means being prideful of my my ancestors, where I come from. Not denying it. I love my culture. I love my people. I love all of you. I love seeing these faces on the screen. You know, it's it's so incredible to me that we are, in fact, having this conversation that we even need to have this conversation, because I guess for the vast majority of those who aren't aware of us, we've been hiding in plain sight since time. You mocked me up The Goonies. I never heard it all Afro-Latinos. We are Afro-Latino now. Let's do that in a move. When people ask me how I can be one or the other, I always remind them that I'm both. I'm not one or the other. I'm black and I'm Cuban. You know those. No, no different than you can be black in American or black and British or black in anywhere else, you know. And I think that what really ends up confusing them is because I'm really born in the U.S. I'm the first American born in my family. I'm really black American, too, You know, So ethnicity is Cuban, nationality is American, but race is black. And I'm all three equally. I'm not one or the other. And I find that when I have that conversation, I'm educating fellow Latinos as much as I'm educating anybody else. But it really sometimes bewilders me how Latinos are not as aware of our history, our black history, as we are here in the States. Oh, I think they are. I just think they are ignoring it. But we'll get into that later. You're allowed. Hello. I've always been very proud of what I. Of. Of who I am, what I am. My mother. My father did a great job of putting that into me. My mother was born in Panama for the first generation, like I said, as being on a show on Insecure, insecure on HBO. That was the first time I was ever I was I was allowed to be a Filipino character ever. You know, every time I was on, I just had to be a light skinned black guy or a biracial black guy who was just black and white in America. But, you know, it is what it is. Are you going to take the role? So as we're moving forward and we're starting to see this thing grow just a little bit more, I'm cherishing this time a lot because, like Gina said earlier, we've been hiding in plain sight forever. I've questioned my talent like, is it if I wouldn't have been casted in the show words Incarcerated woman, would I have had the same opportunity? No, I wouldn't have. I'm not gonna see her say or see an opportunity that'll lay story, I guess Then I would have auditioned for anything. I would have been of course, I would have gotten the same up To know. The reason why I've got that is because it's more visibly accepted, socially accepted to see me as a to play an incarcerated woman than it is for me to play the romance interests or the love of some romantic I can be allowed. I think we all have. Our little, you know, passion. And when I got to Hollywood, I was auditioning for primarily African-American roles. But I would push my agents and my managers to to make to also have me audition for Latino roles. You know, and of course, the feedback that I would get was, well, you know, he did a good job, but he doesn't look like I would say that Hollywood, in my experience, was more open to what an Afro-Latino is than that in America throughout Latin American projects. You know, I can't I haven't even worked on anything in Latin America. I haven't worked on any movies. Realize, of course, like The Doors are shut, you know, and I think there's a respect to that as well. I think it's very regional, too. You know, there isn't a Latin market, there's a Spanish market, a mexican market, a Colombian market, a Panamanian market. Every country has their own thing. But if you look at what they're putting on the big screen and on the little screen, you're not going to see a lot of Afro-Latinos either. So I think that in in in the Latin American space, there is a tremendous amount of growth that needs to happen that we haven't seen yet. I work I grew up in the Latin entertainment industry. I grew up doing Salahi, got there with Don Francisco for six years. Every Saturday, the only black girl ever in the 56 years he got there was on air. I always felt like, Oh, now more can do matter later. Like, you know, you're that that black person that they never know how to please not be yourself. My talent is just your look is messing up the choreography. So I went to an audition. I won't say for what network, because regardless, y'all have to know we don't really have that many options. You know, it's either that they bother or block anybody. So I go and I have in and then they I basically got told the same thing. Yes, you did great. But we're looking for someone. They wanted to make it not hurt my feelings. We're looking for someone that looks more, more Latina, you know? You know, it's not that you did about. You're beautiful. It's just that we're looking for a little more Latino something. To me, the question goes like, So what exactly does that look like? And I always mentioned these artists I love and admired them. My most highest respect for them. But the stereotype is a Sofia Vergara is a Salma Hayek is all these women that I admire machismo. My motto is respect. But that's not what a Latina looks like. You know, one of my one of my favorite stories to tell is, is when I auditioned for Alias as as an assassin. And and she was written Russian. And then they got ready to dismiss me. And I said, because like all actors, we play with voices right? I said, you know, I have a Russian accent. I can do this with a Russian accent. And their eyes go wide like, Wait, what? And just for, like, shits and giggles, they're like, okay, yeah, let's hear it. And I did the same scene and the Russian operative with a Russian accent. And I got the job. Yes. I got in a meeting with the writers and they were like, Well, we're just, you know, we're just going to make a Cuban. We're going to make her. And I said, Please don't, please don't. Here's what you need to understand and know. There are a lot of Cubans in Russia. There are a lot of Russians in Cuba. And that's how Anna Espinosa was born. And just having that conversation and broadening their their world to understand where everyone. Right, right, right, right, right. So at what point are we really going to start just filling the quota for Hollywood, which has been for so long dominated in America by white people? Right. And by what they perceive us as being what fix that being of what story should we tell from their perspective? At what point do we just stand back and say, you know what, We can't support that anymore. And I think it's happening now. It's a beautiful thing now. We're not supporting things that we can relate to. But also I'm going to collaborate with you know, I want to collaborate with you online. You know what? Let's make us let's just tell our story from our perspective and listen and let us be our showrunners. Let's get behind the scenes, right? We're warriors. We come from Carib and Arawak, and they know and we have always had to be warriors and and establish our territory. And so at what point are we going to take our territory and our, you know, intellectual property and say, this is what we're going to do and I have to be part of it and I'm going to have the control over it and that's it, you know. Makes me crazy. You know, we're not like the hot spicy this we're not a dish. We're not just, you know, a mountain of music. We're not just we're from fully formed human beings and everything that, you know, especially with that just said about being from Antigua and, you know, I mean, that's so true. I've I have been the unic in pretty much every show that I have ever been with because that and there are a number of, you know, one of the reasons I'm taller than most of the men, but I'm a lot of the time a woman who complicated to give me a family. So I'm always, you know, the ball buster or the assassin or this or that or the name of it, you know, or the cop that doesn't that doesn't have a life outside of. Because to have a life means that you have to humanize. Mm hmm. You know, I look back to my, you know, my dear glamor mama, Diahann Carroll, and I remember her telling the story of how she herself went to the producer, Aaron Spelling, and said. I wanted to be the first black bitch on television. And he said, Well, I just don't I don't know how to write for you. And she said, Write it for a powerful black man. I will do. The rest. Will. And that and that's what we're talking about. I mean, that's that's what we're talking about. It doesn't matter how it's written. If they cast us, we'll do the rest of this press. The truth warming radio story will bring the voice will get to work even though it's sad. But also that, yes, we can we'll bring it. We'll bring our lives, we'll bring our passion. We'll bring it to the role. Just let us come in. And that's their whole space race. 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