America Ferrera made history as the first Latina actress to win an Emmy for lead actress in a comedy series, and she’s working to ensure others follow in her footsteps. The “Superstore” star and producer is one of the exec producers behind “Gente-fied,” a project based on a digital series from Macro that just received a 10-episode order from Netflix. The Hollywood Reporter confirmed the news.
A half-hour dramedy, “Gente-fied” tells the story of “three Mexican-American cousins chasing the American dream in a rapidly changing Los Angeles even as that dream threatens their neighborhood, their immigrant grandfather, and their family taco shop,” the source summarizes.
The show’s creators, Linda Yvette Chavez and Martin Lemus, are first-generation Chicano writers, and created “Gente-fied” to serve as a “love letter to the Latinx and Boyle Heights communities,” THR writes. Both will write and exec produce.
Ferrera took home an Emmy in 2007 for her breakout role in “Ugly Betty.” “I wasn’t even aware of it until after the fact, until other people brought it to my attention, that I was the first Latina to win the Emmy, which was not a big part of the story and I certainly didn’t even think of it that way,” she said of her historic win. “Looking back and thinking, ‘Oh wow, that barrier was broken when I won,’ that’s really special and regardless of what happens that can never be undone. I was so in a bubble that I wasn’t even aware of what that moment meant in a larger context for women like me in the industry.”
“Real Women Have Curves” and “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” franchise are among Ferrera’s other acting credits.
Also an activist, Ferrera released a book of essays, “America Like Me,” in 2018. “The more our stories are attacked and dehumanized, the more urgent it becomes for us to tell them,” she explained while promoting the book. “The more we fight for this space in the culture, the more inevitable it is that pockets of people will be threatened by us. Too many young people feel that their invisibility in the media means they are not valued or worthy enough to create and become whatever they want to be the world. As a woman of color Latina woman who doesn’t fit in any of society’s molds, I know how damaging it can be to never see yourself in dignified and powerful positions in the world.”
The second half of “Superstore’s” fourth season begins airing March 7. The NBC comedy centers on a group of employees working at a fictional big box store in St. Louis, Missouri.
Check out a trailer for the “Gente-fied” web series below:
