The rest of our incredible class of 2023 will be announced on November 1, 2023.
I cant remember a time when I didnt want to fight injustice to incite change in this world.
From a very early age, I experienced inequity.
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I knew that some people had more and other people had less.
When I was in fifth grade, we lost our assistance with meals at school.
It was isolating and embarrassing to be hungry at school, unable to focus on learning and socializing.
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Adults didnt see my unmet need, or they did and chose to look the other way.
It was the dream that nobody ever imagined was possible for me.
I was determined to build a career in an industry that didnt reflect people like me.
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I refused to be deterred.
I had a hunger to succeed and a hunger to understand the world.
And I knew I would only be truly fulfilled if I pursued education alongside my acting career.
So I chose to go to the University of Southern California to study international relations.
Nevertheless, I pursued both, juggling studying, auditions, and tutoring for gas money.
But in my freshman year I started to doubt my acting career.
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Was I simply being frivolous and driven by my own ego and ambition?
I remember going to a beloved professor and sobbing as I told him what I was thinking.
His reply changed everything.
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She wanted him to understand what she was up against at home in her own life.
He then asked her parents to watch the film to understand how they could support her dreams of education.
He allowed me to see storytelling as a powerful tool for change.
I had always been inspired by Hillary Clinton, so I decided to campaign for her.
Through campaigning, my confidence in my own advocacy grew.
I became driven toward the Latino community and our engagement in democracy.
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It is so often the women who carry so much of the responsibility to create access and opportunity.
But also, it is the women who are given the least resources to achieve it.
I feel deeply grateful and proud to be a cofounder.
We built a community that became Times Up.
Times Up was a moment of intersection, of blurring the lines between entertainment and social activism.
And the unity was crucial to any of our voices being heard.
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But standing together made it harder to ignore.
This was about community as power.
I was newly pregnant during the beginning of #MeToo and Times Up.
Our culture and our policies must change.
The DGA has since added a parental paid leave policy to their latest contract.
I was so proud to be a small part of rallying women to sign on.
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We have a presidential election in the US next year.
But the reality iseveryyear is an election year, and every local and state election matters.
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