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Coming in and out of Hollywood for pilot season, I may have to thicken my accent or hear that, physically, I'm not Latino. I not only am, but there's another 50,000 people who look exactly like me.

A Latino actor can't play this and a Latino actor can't play that because they're Latino.

The Hispanic population in this country is not a monolith. When you're in Miami, the newscast is going to be different from the newscast in Los Angeles.

You gotta understand, there weren't a whole lot of roles for Hispanics in the Eighties, so comedy was really the way I could really feed myself and eventually feed my family. I was an actor who learned to be a comic, and it's cool to come back and get back into acting - move forward in the direction I started out to do in the beginning.

It's interesting: I think, as a Latino actor, the biggest challenge is being called 'Latino' because immediately, the world has a perception of what that means.

Unfortunately, considering that we Latinos are really big for movie companies when they have blockbuster releases or new cable shows, when it comes to the dynamic of supporting our own product, it leaves much to be desired.

I think all Latino actors want to be storytellers first. I want to be an actor first, and then I want to be Latina.

It's funny, because I've never thought of myself as a Hispanic actor, like in 'American Gangster,' I'm playing an Italian. I've always been fortunate enough to have been allowed to play all these diverse roles.

It's a privilege to work as an anchor for Univision, but more important, I am amazed by how Latinos are transforming America.

The number of Latino roles is very limited, and it's unfortunate there isn't more color-blind casting.