Dascha Polanco has quickly gained popularity from the hit Netflix show, Orange Is The New Black, but like most actresses, she’s struggled to get where she is today. Except in her case, she was told to hide her Afro-Latina features because she doesn’t look black or Latina–that’s because she’s Dominican.
“We have to be ‘Fake Latinas.’” Polanco told Vivala. “And here’s the thing about ‘Fake Latinas’—when you look at Latinas who are succeeding in Hollywood, they’re super thin and you really can’t tell if she’s Latina or not.”
Polanco is always sharing positive messages about embracing your body and who you are. She is a full-figured woman and she’s not afraid of showing skin. “To tell you the truth, when I first arrived at New York Fashion Week wearing a tight bodysuit that completely revealed my thighs, I was a little nervous,” Polanco wrote for TODAY. “I kept on covering myself up with my jacket and I just didn’t feel ready. There was no pool there, no beach… So shouldn’t I cover up?”
@theblondsny #NYFW #Selena #GlamInspired #Selflovery #ismellgood
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She credits her team, a strong group of women, for empowering her and giving her the confidence to show some skin. “That’s when I decided to own it. For me, it was this realization that I’m not getting any younger,” Polanco wrote for TODAY about how she stopped relying on her jacket that night to cover her thighs. “Sure, I’m working on stuff. Sure, I’m a work in progress. But this is who I am right now, and I want to be free.”
Polanco plays a beautiful sexy full-figured convict on the show, which is something that hasn’t been seen too much on screen. She wants to encourage more Latinas to go for it, to get more attention in the media. “I look at all these articles like, ‘All the Powerful Women of Hollywood’ and I don’t see a Latina in it. Or just one Latina,” Polanco told Vivala. “It’s like, ‘If you’re gonna have one, you can only have one. You can’t have a couple. You can’t acknowledge [multiple] people.’”
She’s come a long way and wants to continue to inspire others to love the body they have, which is why she encourages her followers to follow her journey with #SelfLovery. “Every day, I am learning how to love myself more,” Polanco told Vivala. “Something I’m working on is #SelfLovery. This is this whole project that I’m working on where we’re including men and women, to just take a moment to self-analyze and just say, ‘I love myself.’”