She’s talented. She’s famous. She’s funny. She’s beautiful. No, I’m not talking about Carol in the cafeteria.
For some reason this semester, more than the usual number of Hollywood stars have been appearing on campus. First it was Cuba Gooding Jr. and now it’s America Ferrera. What has attracted these A-list stars to our campus? Who is bringing them to our little slice of heaven and exposing the secret “on the Point”?
Rather, the question to ask is: what are these celebs doing here, and why is their message so important to the UMass Boston campus?
Ferrera’s talk initiated the birth of the Women’s Leadership Initiative (WLI) on campus, a program that’s been in the works for some time now. It is to be run through the efforts of the Office of Student Leadership and Community Engagement and the Office of Student Affairs.
She began by speaking about coming to terms with her naiveté of the world. She was a straight-A student who grew up in the LA area and attended the University of Southern California to study international relations. She played in her first feature-length film (“Real Women Have Curves”) before she entered her studies, making her a world-renowned actress before she even took English 101.
Ferrera shared with the audience the effect these first college-level classes had on her during her first year: tears flowing every day. Not because she was overwhelmed with the amount of work assigned to her, but with the brutal truth of the inequalities in the world she was living in for 18 years, and had no idea of.
When asked where her interests lay, Ferrera exclaimed how important education was to her life, as it was the route that led her to self-awareness. She emphasized to all the members of the audience to finish our time here at UMass Boston, and to get out there and vote.
Ferrera is known for her lead roles in “Real Women Have Curves” (2002), “The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants” (2005), “Our Family Wedding” (2010), and the hit TV series “Ugly Betty.”
