Ivonne Coll — An "Abuela" For a New Age - video Dailymotion

She's the matriarch on Jane The Virgin — and she's changing the way Hollywood portrays "abuelas".

Transcript

00:00I even had an agent told me once, she said, you know, you can pass for white.

00:06You don't have to say you're Puerto Rican.

00:17They would call me Chacha. Hi, Chacha!

00:20Coming from Puerto Rico, being that I was so colonized in my mind, I didn't take it

00:28like an insult because maybe I was used to having Americans making fun of our accents, etc.

00:35Where are we in films? Where are we? We are non-existent.

00:39The only parts that are written still for Latinos are the immigrant who is crossing the desert

00:45and who is asking for the Anglo to help him and to save him, or the maid in Beverly Hills,

00:52or the nanny, or the housekeeper. That's it. They think that all the Latin abuelas

00:58here in Hollywood have to wear the apron and have to say, Mija, ¿Tienes hambre?

01:14They placed us in a middle-class environment, that we're not in the ghetto, we're not poor,

01:21we're not at the mercy of. We are in charge of our own lives.

01:27And I don't think that's ever been seen before in American television here.

01:33I refused in this character to be cooking and wearing aprons. You don't see the other abuelas,

01:40the Anglo abuelas, doing that only or being with an apron.

01:52It has been a great responsibility to represent all those undocumented people because

02:08I happen to employ a few of them myself. And I took it upon myself as a very serious business.

02:15I have nothing but admiration for people who come here under dire circumstances

02:23to seek for a better future. I cannot even imagine what it is to have to do that.

02:30It's people who come here seeking for a better life,

02:35seeking for a future, an economical future for their children.

02:52I hope that a generation like Gina's generation that comes after me, I hope that she sees a

03:00different world in terms of how we're going to be portrayed. That we shouldn't be only playing

03:06mothers and abuelas because that's the only thing that awaits an older

03:10Latina actress. Those are the only parts.