Person to person
By Seli Groves, Soap Opera Digest, 1991	Home   Cette page en Français

Do you feel comfortable playing Santa Barbara's Santana, a character of Mexican heritage ? Also, are Latina actors limited to playing only Latina characters ?

I feel very comfortable with Santana. I feel that she, as a Mexican American, and I, as an American whose family is Puerto Rican, share a great deal in common. I believe that there is a common bond among Hispanic people. The dialects may be different, but the bottom line is that the Spaniards came a few hundred years ago and mixed in with the Indian populations they found in this part of the world. Therefore, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, everyone who came out of those roots has a link with everyone else in it.

What I would tell young people of Latin American ancestry - and I say this from the most profound places in my heart and soul - is hold on to your dreams. It's what gives Santana her passion and her strength : the ability to stay with her dreams, not let anyone take them from her, and work to make them come true.

So, please, hold on to your dreams. Have that sense of what your dream is and your rightful place is, and go to it. There is always a turning point in everything. If you come from a lower socioeconomic level, you don't have to stay there. If the dreams you dreamed when you were younger seem impossible now, find a way to maintain them.