Ligiah Villalobos was at the very first NALIP meeting. She describes it as a meeting of 25 people in San Francisco where a bunch of Latinos were complaining about never getting their images out. “It wasn’t really about trying to find solutions,” she said. “It was just people being really pissed about their stories not being told, about them not being hired.” It was not until five years after that first meeting that Villalobos decided to go back to NALIP and realized it had become an organization which was really trying to promote Latino voices and be a support system for the community. She was recently involved as a mentor at the NALIP’s Diverse Women in Media Forum.

Villalobos is a writer, producer and director, who has worked both in feature films and television. She is best known for her work as head writer for the Nick Jr. show "Go, Diego! Go!" and well as producing and writing the Sundance film "Under the Same Moon". Before these roles, she was a studio executive, working at the Walt Disney Company. She has overseen the ABC Diverse Program and worked at the CW, overseeing six shows, such as Steve Harvey and The Jamie Foxx Show. Villalobos left the television industry when she realized she hated the way people of color were being portrayed. She questioned why she was working on shows she did not believe in – she calls it her moment of clarity. Thus, she became a writer. “My focus has been to tell positive stories of both women and people of color,” she says. “I believe everybody has their own journey, and what is important to me may not be important to other artists. Follow your journey, follow your path – do what it is you’re passionate about doing. Hopefully along the way, if you’re not making a difference with the material you’re putting out in the world, hopefully you’re making a difference by volunteering, by mentoring.”

Today, Villalobos teaches at Cal State University, Los Angeles, because she wanted to teach to Latinos who need the knowledge. Over 50 percent of the student body at that school is Latino or a first-generation college student. She felt that was where her voice was going to make a difference. Villalobos is also currently developing two TV series ideas. To Villalobos #WeAreInclusion means “It doesn’t always have to mean tell the Latino story. It means hire the Latino writer, hire the Latino DP, hire the Latino editor, hire the Latino director.”

Follow Ligiah

Twitter: @JalapenoFilms

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Eduardo “Lalo” Alcaraz is a producer, writer and political cartoonist, who is mostly known for being the creator of the comic La Cucaracha. Born in San Diego, California and raised on the United States-Mexican Tijuana border, Alcaraz loves Mexican pop-culture and Chicano art and is passionate about combining these two and making them art. However, growing up in a bilingual and bicultural environment, he did not see himself working in television in the United States. As a result, he shares that he “eventually discovered that I can make my own content and brown characters for other kids to see.”

Being a television animation Producer, Alcaraz serves as the cultural consultant team of Pixar's 2017 film Coco, “we watch the film and give notes on everything such as dialogues, performances of pronunciations and the looks and everything.” When Alcatraz was first reached out by Pixar and Disney to work on the film, he did not believe that he was invited to the project given all the critiques that Disney have on his previous films, “that strikes a chord of humanity. You think it’s about a very specific thing about Mexican family, but it was a universal boom because of our love to our families.” Alcaraz is amazed at the contribution Latinos are making in the industry, “it is such a big moment in American film, made by the top animation studio and has so much money behind it with global reach but focused on mexican family. One of my job is to avoid typical Mexican portrays.”

Alcaraz has been involved with NALIP for many years, recalling 15 years ago when he was crashing the conference and interviewing people from NALIP for his radio show. NALIP has invited him back to speak on panels, discuss issues and encourage other filmmakers. One of his most memorable moments with NALIP is watching Adrian Molin, the co-director of Coco, being on the panel and presenting movies. “It is very important to see Pixar and Adrian, the young talent, are introduced to the world of NALIP letting people know what you are doing. We appreciate when studios open the doors and when NALIP helps us grow and get this access to the media.”

Alcaraz further mentions that NALIP has advanced his career by making him stay visible with people in entertainment. “We are all kind of involved and open doors for each other, to show we have not given up.” After 25 years’ work on Chicano theater, Alcaraz was very surprised and grateful for the achievement Lations have made in the industry. “We still can’t believe that the door of the access is cracking in our lives. I haven’t given up but I kind of thought ‘well, you know, my kids will get to see this someday.’But no, it’s happening now. When you open one door, you also have to have your peasants jump into the window, so more doors and more windows will open. ”

Alcaraz believes NALIP’s #WeAreInclusion campaign speaks to everyone, not only the people already in the industry, but also helping others to be a part of the industry. “I think society is going through a moment right now, where all these movements need to come together and shake the status quo ‘what is happening’”. To take a part in the campaign, he addresses his attitude to take in his community’s feedback about brown characters, “my fans and readers will send me jokes and suggestions for me to write. They are always horrible and terrible. But once in a while, there is one suggestion that really is about the themes and issues that we face as a community. I incorporate that in my work whether in TV, film, or comics, and I believe we should all do that.”

Claudia Forestieri has been a long-time member of NALIP. She began her journey with a Miami-based documentary, Girls Gone Bad.

Forestieri grew up considering herself a “bad latina.” Raised in Miami, she did not relate to the party scene and instead found herself immersed in books. Her parents were born in the Dominican Republic, but she was born in Puerto Rico. In Miami, she was exposed to many cultures. She noticed that those who held positions of power were not people of color. After this realization, she made sure she was writing stories that addresses this issue. “Growing up, I took my [Latina background] for granted.

Growing up, I wanted to be American, then I got to college, got in touch with my community, and there I got to be more Latina,” Forestieri recalls. #WeAreInclusion for her is a call out to people outside of the Latino community to work with Latinos. “Put our shows on television!” she exclaims.

Forestieri believes in a bright future for Latinos in Hollywood, such as African Americans have been able to pull their community and present stories that can relate with people outside of their community, “Latinos will have the gems that can prove [to be] artistic and crowd pleasers.”

Latinx women Showrunner Gloria Calderon-Kellett is a first generation American, daughter of immigrant parents who came to the US in 1962 from Cuba. She is the Executive Producer, writer and co-showrunner of One Day At A Time previously on Netflix and now on CBS.

As an actress she would only get roles to play a gang member’s girlfriend or sister, that’s where she got the inspiration to become a writer. Calderon embraces the lack of Latinx stories in the industry as a challenge, so she taught herself how to write for TV in order to get the presence she wanted.

In “One Day At A Time” she tells the story of a Latinx family, who are hard working immigrants. The show also brings representation to the LGBTQ+ community. She thinks the secret of success of the show is that it is not only inclusive in front of the camera but behind the room has different culture crew like Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Rican, Argentinian, young and old.

Calderon has worked with NALIP in workshops where she has talked to creators about the need of having Latinx content in the industry, to watch the shows and write powerful and amazing scripts that can take the lead.

Gloria thinks organizations like NALIP show people that they are here to help them, to offer an opportunity as a platform to learn and grow. She thinks that “we are inclusion” means making sure that what you have in front of the camera is the same that’s behind because that’s what makes stories accurate and real. From inclusive rooms offering interesting conversations is where you get great stories.

Calderon feels the future of Latino in features and media is positive because the industry has been one way for a while. Although there is a lot of work to do, people are starving for representation, if we want a more inclusive and warm world, there should be more and many stories that show how diverse our culture is.

“If I hired you for my staff you need to write one script weekly, so you need to work hard, read, and write until your eyes and hands are bleeding because that is what it takes” explains Calderon. She thinks that we should take advantage of having Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO and all these networks to watch all the shows and movies and get the knowledge we need.

She thinks NALIP empowers people by reminding them that they can when people are saying they can’t. “If you have a great script and you’re part of an organization like NALIP you will make it because you’re surrounding yourself with people that are smart and know what they are doing and that’s the path to success”. Calderon most important advice to creators is to believe and to work hard because it takes time but it happens.

In regards to the 20th anniversary of NALIP she thinks it’s incredible to see the people of this organization working together and say: “we wanna help, we wanna guide the future of this voices, we want to celebrate stories, we want to tell these young kids that the future can be different.” She thinks this is what makes the change that is happening. “I want NALIP to continue educating, to continue growing because it's working. I celebrate it because it’s working, we are able to create young storytellers that have the confidence and learning the importance of education and the ability to grow so we can tell more stories”.

Debby Wolfe is a Salvadorian-Jewish comedy writer and film director from South Florida. A graduate of the University of Central Florida film school, her award-winning short films have screened in festivals worldwide, including Tribeca and NBCUniversal Short Cuts. She participated in NALIPs Writer’s Lab program & the NBC Writers on the Verge program which led to her being staffed on NBC's Whitney. From there, she went on to write for Disney Channels' Best Friends Whenever and Emmy-nominated Dog with a Blog. 

She defines #WeAreInclusion as “a movement to encourage content to be made that represent our diverse landscape, to reflect the landscape that we live in.” For Wolfe, living in a country that is 20% Latino but yet can count on one hand the television comedies that feature Latinos in leading roles, is what drives her social responsibility to depict Latinos in a positive light in entertainment. “We’re strong, we’re smart, we’re hilarious.”

Debby has pushed the Latinx community forward by pitching projects with a predominate Latinx cast and encouraging young talent to rise up. She takes on mentees and encourages them to get involved and make content. Through her experiences in going through several programs, including NALIPs Latino Writer’s Lab, she learned the importance of having a focus. “When you have a focus, you can be really good at one thing, once I figured that out, [and] focused, that’s when things started happening for me.”

Angel Manuel Soto is a Puerto Rican Film Director and VR Content Creator. Born in Santurce, Puerto Rico, he studied architecture and advertising and now travels all over the world to film, including Australia, Thailand, Cambodia, France, USA, and Puerto Rico. NALIP screened his film "La Granja" for its Los Angeles premiere.

For Angel, #WeAreInclusion means family. It means being welcomed, it means "Ponerte Adelante" which translates to put yourself in front of people. Through NALIP, Angel has been able to find a supportive community that is interested in the stories Latinos want to tell. “‘We need trust one another. We need to have each others back. I think when you have a unified front it's truly hard to break it.”

Angel’s work consists of narrative fiction and documentaries in which social injustices drive the main themes of his films. His influence stems from seeing his home country Puerto Rico perpetuated by colonialism as well as seeing the injustices happening around the world such as in the Middle East, in Europe, in Southern America, Central America and the brother islands of the Caribbean. His film “Dinner Party” features the first ever recorded alien abduction in 1961 and touches on the subject of racism in America. Follow Angel Manuel Soto on Instagram/Twitter.

Linda Yvette Chavez is a writer and producer who most recently co-wrote the digital series “Gente-fied” along with co-writer/partner Marvin Lemus. The series was produced by Macro and America Ferrera and is now in development for television.

Linda defines #WeAreInclusion as an environment that celebrates and encourages people of very different backgrounds to fully embody who they are and what their truth is in this world. A space where people are not ashamed of who they are, tell their story, and speak their voice without anyone bringing them down.

Much of Linda's’ work revolves around telling stories about her community and empowering women through dramatic comedy. When she was working on “Gente-fied” she wanted to talk about identity and gentrification through a different lense, “we didn't want to show a muted, dark, depressing world. We wanted to show the vibrancy of a community that is dealing with difficult issues but that is really alive and kicking and happy and multidimensional and wants more from their community.”

She believes that the entertainment industry needs to lift up woman voices, brown voices, queer voices, voices that are at the farthest margins in our communities. Through upholding these marginalized voices and making a concerted effort to initiate programs to create clear career pathways is the way that these communities will be able to be supported. “We have to step in and make that happen and that's what I think this industry needs because when that happens, the beautiful things that we are going to be able to put out there is going to be incredible.”

Inspired by his very first project completed in high school, Steven Canals knew that he was destined to contribute to the media and entertainment industry. After being a college counselor for 10 years and away from the world of cinema he decided to follow his dreams. Steven speaks on the progression of Hollywood and how he notices the difference in the industry since now normalized stories are out in the open. He states his passion of storytelling and its value of educating and enlightening the audience. He believes that this combination of elements are what makes content real and dear to one’s heart.

His debut show, Pose is a serialized one hour musical that debuted the Summer 2018 on FX. Set in 1980s New York, Pose looks at the concurrent rise of Trump-era downtown social and literary scene and ball culture worlds. He speaks about his inspiration of speaking on a topic that has not been spoken about. He speaks about the culture being appropriated and how it has progressed. He is passionate about bringing light to the community (ball culture) and the value of family and resiliency.

Pose will serve as a television milestone since trans characters in this series take center stage and are not just seen as comic relief or background characters like in many film and television works of the past. This is not Canal’s first work in which trans characters take center stage; in 2016, he premiered his short film Afuera, at the LA Film Festival. The film Afuera (2016) told the story of an undocumented trans woman. That same year, he served as a Staff Writer on Freeform’s horror anthology Dead of Summer.

He spoke about his interaction with NALIP in 2007 as he was a panelist at the annual NALIP Media Summit. He discusses his experience of attending the Media Summit and how amazing it was to be around Latinx content creators and share this passion with those who shared the same dreams and passions as himself. Steven speaks about why he believes NALIP is beneficial to filmmakers, It is an opportunity for you to reflect on your own art but also to be invigorated by this business and to come up with new ideas for content and opportunities to meet with individuals to someday collaborate with. Canal speaks about his experience of mentoring younger NALIP mentees. Canals speaks about not taking no for an answer. In 2014 he wrote a script while studying screenwriting at UCLA, then spent a few years being told it was “too niche” and that there would not be an audience for it being. He believed in his art and did not take no for an answer. Fortunately the script made its way to Murphy, and he got it. Canals is currently working on season three of Pose which is scheduled to be released in 2021 while also working on a drama project for ABC currently titled In The End. He will also be developing 91 Words, a limited series on FX revolving around the true story of gay activists Frank Kameny and Barbara Gittings. Canals shares his advice with filmmakers who aspire to succeed in this industry. Canals says, “Find the stories that are most important to you”. Checking in with oneself and what is it that you want to talk about. Find it and make sure that you and pour yourself onto the page.

Veronica Falcon is an actor, choreographer, producer and writer. Born in Mexico City, she has come to be known as one of the country’s most respected and well-known actors with careers in television, film and theater. Gaining mainstream attention from her work on Everardo Gout’s acclaimed film “Days of Grace,” Falcon went on to become a notable figure in the industry, being nominated in 2014 for a “Silver Goddess Award,” for her work in Carlos Cuaron’s film, “Sugar Kisses.”

To Falcon, representation in the industry is amongst the most important factors that shape young talent, “we are inclusion means we lead with an example, inclusion is a right, it is not a privilege.” Noting the difference in Latinx work in the industry in Mexico versus the United States, she sees the lack of representation as alarming, “when people see themselves, and see their stories, you know it’s important, it empowers them, it makes you feel included.”

Present day, Falcon has been gaining momentum in the United States for her role of “Camila Vargas” in USA Network’s “Queen of the South,” having been nominated for an Imagen Award as Best Supporting Actress in 2017 and 2018. “I was incredibly lucky because I got a preamble, you know these kinds of roles are not common women, much less for Latina women, and much less for Latina women over 51.” Having a career for over three decades, she acknowledges a change in the industry, specifically the growing need for creativity in order to work around a limited budget in a competitive environment. In order to bring more inclusion in the industry she protests production companies need to place more trust in young talent and the fresh ideas they bring, opening their doors to inclusion, equality and respect.

She attended an event and saw the work at NALIP as essential in supporting young talent and women, noting the impact of increasing support within the Latino community. She is happy to participate in the workshops and incubator programs where she shares her passion for female empowerment and the nurturing of talent, finding the most satisfaction from her work by inspiring others.

Having performed in various films, stage productions, and television productions in and outside of Mexico, Falcon is serving as a strong role model to countless aspiring Latinx actors and producers. She encourages new-comers in the industry in staying true to oneself when advancing and making connections, attributing her passion in keeping her drive alive through years of struggle. “Do not label yourself. You are more than just a gender. You are more than just one thing. You are a full human and you are a creator and you are capable of anything you want.”