Kiara Alegría Hudes

I mean, we just suffocate it if that was the approach.

So it's like, okay, let's write a song about the piraguero selling icies on the street.

And that's going to clear our spirits.

That's going to give us some new artistic energy to work with.

Oh, and maybe there will be a solution that kind of comes and finds us for that other problem we were dealing with.

Definitely.

Being the first in the family to go to college was a big one.

And that struggle of, you know, like Nina, my parents came to Philadelphia, really built a life, a calling, a community and a family in the Puerto Rican community.

It was an under-resourced time and my parents were working very hard in North Philly to

to create health centers, to create bilingual services, to create infrastructural need.

And they were doing this within, as I mentioned, a very enclosed and tight knit Puerto Rican community.

Then for me to go off to a space that there's almost no Latinos at, they had really not been in a space like that in their life.

And so that was a shock to me, and it was a shock I couldn't totally convey to them.

They didn't totally have experience with that.

You know, that was...

I'm just filled with so much sadness and regret at that and also resolve.

Knowing what I know now, should I ever be in a similar space, I know some places to scream a little louder.

I'm still not so familiar with Hollywood that I kind of totally understand the machinations there and all the decisions that get made and everything.

I do look back now and I can reflect and see a few moments where I was in the room and therefore had a voice in the room.

And I could have –