Gina Rodriguez joins Clinique’s Difference Makers where she shares what her childhood was like growing up in Chicago. The actress talks about the big influence that her parents are in her life, and how their support and push for education is what got her where she is today.
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Her one change was to turn education into empowerment. “I grew up in a predominantly Latino neighborhood in Chicago, gang-infested, the neighborhood schools are probably the lowest in the city and the belief was that, ‘This is it, this is the neighborhood that I grew up in and this is the neighborhood that I’m going to die in.’” As a result of that, kids got caught up in a cycle of “can’t” and “won’t” because of where they lived. Many of these kids don’t have any role models, so they think that joining a gang or the streets is their only solution.
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“I had the unfair advantage that our parents knew that education was going to be our ticket to success,” she says. Rodriguez had a lot of things going against her, such as her skin color, body type, where she came from, but at the end, those things that she thought were barriers, she was able to knock down by getting an education.
Her dad got her to wake up every morning and stand in front of the mirror and say, “Today is going to be a great day. I can and I will.” Her parents have always been there for her, supporting her career, and she is very grateful.
“The moment of winning the Golden Globe and being there with my parents that wasn’t about me, that was for all the young girls and boys that don’t see themselves there,” she says. Her life purpose is to free others from those invisible shadows because she had her parents that helped her see that she had a bright future, while others don’t.
Check out the inspiring video:
[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLByJHzcr0k&w=560&h=315]