Working on “Superstore,” the NBC comedy about a motley crew of employees at a big-box store, marked the first time Sierra Teller Ornelas wasn’t the only Latina in the writers’ room. At last year’s NALIP Latino Media Fest, she and fellow scribe Vanessa Ramos spoke about the novelty of actually being able to work with another Latina. “This was the first experience I had ever had working with another Latina woman in the room,” Teller Ornelas revealed. “I’ve been to brunches with Latina writers because we’re like, ‘We have to go to brunch, because we’ll never be in the same room together.'”
Teller Ornelas’ first TV writing job, “Happy Endings,” saw her advising the series’ writers on the best way to tackle a story in which a main character finds out he’s one-sixteenth Navajo. As Teller Ornelas, who is Navajo Latina, told the Navajo Times, “People were like, ‘Does this really happen, where somebody suddenly discovers they’re part Indian?’ I was like, ‘Oh my God, yes.'”
On the surface, a blond, apparently Caucasian male sitcom character suddenly bragging about his Native American roots might seem obnoxious, if not outright offensive. But Teller Ornelas considers comedy a chance to “get conversation going about very dense, complicated issues.” But it’s essential, of course, that “Natives are in on the joke, rather than being the joke.”
Since her gig on “Happy Endings” — which she landed after working on the show as part of a Disney writing fellowship — Teller Ornelas has remained committed to telling specific, nuanced, and authentic stories about people of color as well as the working class. “I took pride in trying to be like an ambassador to people who shop at Wal-Mart and Target, because that’s my family. That’s where I come from, that’s who I am,” she explained to The Creative Independent about writing for “Superstore.” “There are so few opportunities for us to get shown on television. I always feel a very deep responsibility to make sure whatever’s shown isn’t necessarily positive, but that it’s an honest portrayal, or an interesting portrayal, or more complex than anticipated.”
Writing for a series led by a Latina, America Ferrera, is also a point of pride — and a rare opportunity. “To me, working on ‘Superstore’ with a Latina female lead, I got to say, ‘This is where I come from.’ I remember we did an episode where her parents didn’t hire movers. I was, like, poor people don’t hire movers. They have cousins. They might rent a truck,” Teller Ornelas recalled. “And my boss was like, ‘oh, that’s better.’ Let’s have them rent a truck. And they forget to rent the truck, so now she has to do this.”
As for ensuring she’ll never have to be “the only one” on another job, Teller Ornelas believes diversity on both sides of the camera is essential, but also thinks diversity initiatives need to be re-designed. In particular, they need to stop pitting already-marginalized people against each other. “The one thing that these diversity programs create is that there can only be one. It’s like you climb your way ‘Hunger Games’-style and then you get thrown in a room with another one and you are like, ‘There is only supposed to be me,’ because you have been trying to so hard and fighting all these people who look like you,” she’s observed. “One thing I learned very on from Silvia Olivas, who was in the program with us and who had been on ‘Moesha,’ is how she was so smart at being supportive, helping other writers, and not being competitive.”
“I think as women especially, but also as writers of color, we are taught to compete,” she concluded. “I think the more you can help people the better off we’ll be.”
Teller Ornelas has written for and produced shows such as “Surviving Jack,” “Selfie,” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” She also teamed up with Ferrera to develop “American Alien,” a comedy about working class siblings trying to protect space aliens in their hometown, Tucson, Arizona — which is where Teller Ornelas was raised as well.
“Superstore’s” fourth season begins October 4.
Previously on Writer to Watch….
“Sierra Burgess Is a Loser” Scribe Lindsey Beer
“Atlanta” Emmy Nominee Stefani Robinson
