America Ferrera to Hollywood: 'Be as Brave as the Characters We Write'

When accepting the Trailblazer Award from the Critics Choice Association’s 5th annual Celebration of Latino Cinema & Television, America Ferrera took the opportunity to call on artists across Hollywood to use the power of storytelling to empower communities in “a day and age where discourse and conversation are failing to create connection and empathy and understanding.”

According to The Hollywood Reporter , the Barbie star recalled a conversation with a scholar on the history of authoritarianism who warned that the United States is “barreling towards a crisis point in our country and therefore in our world.” Ferrera pressed on: “And we [in Hollywood] are not a cute little side note to civil society — we are civil society. Artists and the stories we tell have a role to play in thi