Quote

I'm very proud to be representing Latinas and women of color, young mothers and full-figured women. I just love that we're seeing different types of people on screen.

I'm the Latin artist who has been the most successful in history at representing the Latin culture. The stylings of my words are immodest, but it's the truth.

I mean in the community that I grew up in, you know, a very, you know, mixed, almost entirely African Diaspora community, one of the things that we were not ever supposed to say was how much self-hatred and colorism determined and guided what we would call our desire. In other words, what we would consider beautiful.

I want our young Latinos and Latinas to write their hearts out and express their hearts out and let us all listen to each other.

I want people to take pride in Spanish Harlem. These are people that everyone in the community could relate to... people who mean something special to us.

It's an honor to represent a Latin culture.

We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased, we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too.

I have to represent. I feel proud to have a culture that's different... and proud to be a Latina. We're not all categorized as one type of person... there's people from everywhere doing different things who have different types of cultures. Being Latina for me is also being a strong woman.

I want to show every part of me and every color of me. And I think, growing up Albanian, I wanted to bring that to light.

It's important for young people to know that they are made the way they are made and they're beautiful and that's how they're supposed to be.