To be seen and to be respected for my work and acknowledged as a true American Latina... means a lot to me.

People think of Latina women as being fiery and fierce, which is usually true. But I think the quality that so many Latinas possess is strength. I'm very proud to have Latin blood.

I don't understand labels. I don't need anybody to tell me I'm Latina or black or anything else. I've played characters that were written for Caucasian females, I just want to be given the same consideration as everybody else, and so far that has been happening.

If there's anything that I've always said about myself is that to me, it's much more important for me to get to work with filmmakers that I've grown up loving and admiring.

I think as an American society, when we're paying too many taxes or dealing with war, we don't want to see sad things at the movies.

It takes a lot of courage to face up to things you can't do because we feed ourselves so much denial.