Latina to Latina

Latasha tells Alicia, “I’m in the most found place I’ve ever been.” And her sense of self, her deep connection to her work, and her artistic genius seem to radiate in waves around her. “I’m practical magic,” she says at one point. And it’s easy to believe it...

She says growing up Latina in Miami gave her the cojones to face life in Hollywood. Her career so far, including roles in Disney Channel’s Elena of Avalor, FX’s The Americans and Freeform’s Young & Hungry is ample proof of that. Aimee tells Alicia that being Latina also gave her the confidence to know that she deserves to be in the room. She opens up about wrestling with imposter syndrome, learning to say no, and the “big trap” of feeling like you’ve made it...

The Mexican actress’ crossover has been years in the making. Raised in Monterrey, Melissa attended NYU, then found fame back home as a telenovela star. But even as she built a career in Mexico, Melissa knew that her future was in the States...

She launched her first startup at 20, and made lots of mistakes. Today, she runs Brava Investments, which only funds companies that have the potential to put money in the pockets of millions of women...

On The Today Show and while covering red carpet fashion for Access Hollywood, Lilliana Vazquez has become one of the most sought-after style experts. As a first-generation Latina growing up in Texas, she assumed she’d become “an accountant, a lawyer or a doctor.” Instead, with her blog, The Cheap Chica’s Guide to Style, as a foundation, she built a fashion brand at “the intersection of aspiration and accessibility...

This episode gets real quickly. Alicia talks to journalist Janel Martinez, founder of Ain’t I Latina, about how forming her Afro-Latinx identity was an intentional act—often in defiance of the “resistance to black identity within the landscape of Latinidad...

The Brazilian-American novelist says she never had to claim her Latina identity because “it embraced me” as she grew up bilingual, bicultural, and multinational. On tour for her latest novel, The Air You Breathe, de Pontes Peebles tells Alicia about wrestling with the tension between needing time and space to create while meeting the demands of being a dedicated mother. She also recounts difficult scenes from her postpartum depression and how the act of telling someone saved her...

Maria Cristina Gonzalez Noguera was an executive at Estée Lauder when she became First Lady Michelle Obama’s communications director. The devoted mother of a one-year-old, her mother, and her husband, headed to DC where Maria Cristina committed herself to a “once in a lifetime opportunity.” She talks with Alicia about the people who inspire her, turning down a future in finance, and juggling life in the East Wing during one of the most popular presidencies in recent history...

Let’s talk about money. The average Latina earns 54 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men. To earn what he earned one year, we have to work an extra 10 months into the next year—until November 1st. That’s recognized nationally as Latina Equal Pay Day...

Gloria Calderón Kellett runs the show. Literally. She’s the co-showrunner and executive producer of Netflix’s One Day at a Time, and with each season, she’s adding more credits to that list: writer, director and actor. She talks with Alicia about her rise through Hollywood’s writers’ rooms (How I Met Your Mother, Devious Maids, and Drunk History), and argues for letting good things be good. And reveals her plans to take her storytelling to the next level...