I was listening to them, to respect and to be there the least amount that we could, because they're right. When you go... you kind of gentrify the neighborhood a little bit. And if you're in production three months, you're a gentrifying force. I get it.

Tanya Saracho

Categorized in : Entertainment

We are creating culture and that affects perspective and eventually that can change legislation, i think it's not just TV we're making -- not when you're brown people. When you're brown people and you get to make a show like this, it's a political act.

Tanya Saracho

entertainment

[ The main characters ] are not the children of immigrants, they're the grandchildren of immigrants, and that's important too, because that's American. That's being American.

Tanya Saracho

entertainment

And so I think I spent the rest of my time in Chicago, those 15 years, unpacking what she meant.

Tanya Saracho

entertainment

You don't bring the taco to you, you meet it, and you turn to it.

Tanya Saracho

entertainment

Nothing against resorts or Cancun or Carlos 'n Charlie's, but Guanajuato is different. If you want history, culture, and peace, it's perfect.

Tanya Saracho

you peace culture history

I'm queer - and queer, to me, is not being stuck in a binary and being kind of fluid.

Tanya Saracho

being me binary kind

I am so homesick every day of the week.

Tanya Saracho

every-day i-am day week

The big, radical thing that I'm trying to do is to portray Latinas as complex human beings.

Tanya Saracho

complex human big trying

It's mountains. The air is crisp. It's peaceful. You don't get spring break in Guanajuato.

Tanya Saracho

mountains you peaceful spring

When 'Vida' got the green light, Starz sent me this picnic basket of Jamie Fraser red wine and all these 'Outlander' things that I'll never open because it's like my sacred thing.

Tanya Saracho

me red green light

What I notice a lot about millennials is that they have agency over their sexuality.

Tanya Saracho

over about millennials sexuality

White, older showrunners told me, 'Why do you want to hire an all-Latinx writers room? Hire who's best for the show - don't get caught up in that.' And I was like, 'No.' For such an intimate show about the details of a culture? You can't fake that. The room needs to reflect the makeup of the show.

Tanya Saracho

best me you culture

In lots of ways, I've been trying to tell stories this way since I started writing plays: a female-centered story with queer, Latinx gaze.

Tanya Saracho

story writing trying way

I always was missing that female brown queer perspective, and I think in 'Vida' we have that. A lot of things I wanted to touch on and deal with, I get to do here.

Tanya Saracho

think always perspective missing

When you get a bunch of Latinxs together, we get to handle our stories. A cultural shorthand happens.

Tanya Saracho

you handle together happens

I have 16 plays, and we don't ever do subtitles. You can't do subtitles in the theater, so I was like, 'I'm not gonna do subtitles.' You'll never lose the story. There might be a little joke that you might miss, but you'll never miss the story, even in the Spanglish of it.

Tanya Saracho

lose story never you

I would like to do more millennial, Latina, complicated stories.

Tanya Saracho

more like latina complicated

I always have something big enough to say as a playwright. It's storytelling.

Tanya Saracho

say something always enough

I feel like a lot of us have a story to tell, it's just that we don't get the platform or the access or the opportunity. I don't know how the goddesses and gods and the stars aligned. I got the opportunity, and I do have to note that a Hispanic woman gave me that opportunity.

Tanya Saracho

woman me stars opportunity

I had never heard this term before - gente-fication - which is also happening in Portland, Houston; it's happening in a lot of cities. It's upwardly mobile Latinx who want to come back to their neighborhoods where they grew up - or it's Latinx moving to L.A. and looking for a Latinx neighborhood to live or open a business.

Tanya Saracho

live looking never business