The 72nd Annual Primetime Emmy Awards were held on Sunday, and big-name stars gathered to celebrate and acknowledge groundbreaking television programs. One of the celebrities that made a special appearance was America Ferrera.

In a segment called “This Is What I Sound Like,” Ferrera spoke about her troubling experiences as a young Latina actress just starting off in Hollywood.

Before the segment, “Grown-ish” actress Yara Shahidi introduced the segment, emphasizing the importance of representation onscreen.

“The stories we tell on TV shape how we see ourselves and others,” she said. “And how we are seen can many times determine how we are treated. The dream of television is the freedom to live our full and nuanced lives outside of boxes and assumptions.”

In a pre-recorded segment, Ferrera then described her first audition in Hollywood–an experience that ended up being a formative one.

“I was 16-years-old when I got my very first audition and I was this little brown chubby Valley Girl who spoke, you know, like a Valley Girl,” Ferrera explained. “I walked in, did my audition. The casting director looked at me and was like, ‘That’s great. Can you do that again, but this time, sound ‘more Latina?””

According to Ferrera, she asked the casting director whether she wanted her to do the audition in Spanish. The casting director declined. Ferrera tried to explain the contradiction of the directions, telling the casting director: “I am a Latina and this is what I sound like.” Needless to say, she did not get the part.

When she went home to tell her family the story, they seemed unsurprised by the blatant stereotyping Ferrera was facing. They told her that the entertainment industry will want her to “speak in broken English” and “sound like a chola”.

“What did you think was gonna happen?” her family members asked her. “[Hollywood was] gonna have you starring in the next role made for Julia Roberts?”

According to Ferrera, the realization that Hollywood saw her in a different way than she saw herself made her want to “create more opportunity for little brown girls to fulfill their talent and their dream.”

Since then, the Honduran-American actress has starred in numerous projects that illustrate the diversity of the Latinx experience in America, from “Real Women Have Curves” to “The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” to “Ugly Betty“. Most recently, Ferrera dipped her toe into the producing waters with the bilingual Netflix series “Gentified“.

Although Ferrera is putting in the work for more Latinx representation onscreen, the Television Academy still has a long way to go when it comes to recognizing Latinx talent. Unfortunately, the only Latino person nominated for an Emmy this year was Argentine-Mexican actress Alexis Bledel for her work in “The Handmaid’s Tale”.

Here’s to hoping that Latinos like America Ferrera will continue to make their voices heard, giving inspiration to little brown girls everywhere who want nothing more than to see themselves onscreen.

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If there’s a universal human experience that unites all of humanity, it’s that we’ve all had to deal with rejection at some point or another. It’s impossible to live your life without shooting your shot when the time comes, whatever your shot may be. 

But unfortunately, not everyone can be successful 100% of the time. From contests to job opportunities, to romantic endeavors, all of us have been subject to discovering that not everyone thinks we’re as great as we think we are. Rejection, unfortunately, is a necessary part of life.

On Saturday, Twitter user @Eden_Eats asked her followers to share the stories of their “harshest rejection”.

What was your harshest rejection?

I’ll go first. One time, a super charming guy I had a crush on took me out to dinner a few times, invited me to a swanky gala, had me over for Thanksgiving, and then introduced me to his buddy as “a girl I wish was my sister”.

— Eden Dranger (@Eden_Eats) November 9, 2019

Quickly, @Eden_Eats’s tweet about being epically friend-zoned got almost 4,000 retweets and almost 65,000 likes. All sorts of people responded to her post with stories one-upping each other on the various humiliating ways they’d been rejected. As people continued to share all the ways they’ve been let down, the tweet quickly started trending.

As usual, Twitter users jumped at the chance of publicly roasting themselves.

But, in all honesty, there’s something cathartic in sharing your emotional scars with the public. Misery loves company, right?

What was possibly most surprising about these tweets is all of the creative ways people came up with to tell others they’re not interested. Why couldn’t a simple “no, thanks” suffice?

The stories Twitter users shared ranged from the bad…

I once went speed dating and I was the only guy who showed up, there were 14 women.

All 14 chose to stay single than go out on a date with me.

— Brendan (@BrezzyHayter) November 10, 2019

Ouch. It’s one thing to be rejected once. It’s an entirely different story to be rejected 14 times. 

To the ugly…

My fiance bought a house without telling me. So, I took that as a subtle hint.

— Pester Clark (@PesterClark) November 10, 2019

The upside to many of these stories is that the posters obviously dodged a bullet by getting out of these relationships. Even if this woman’s fiance didn’t buy a house without telling her, he was obviously not very skilled in the communication department in the first place.

To the downright horrifying.

In 7th grade I was invited to a slumber party. The mom came home from work, said "There is no slumber party." We all got in the van for her to take us home. She took me home first. I found out later she took all the other girls back for the slumber party.

— ❄️Winter Wendy-land❄️ (@jamberta2) November 10, 2019

Unfortunately, the rejections that are the most painful and linger for the longest time are the ones that happen during your childhood. When you’re young, you’re already impressionable. When you add a giant dose of rejection to the mix during your formative years, the experience can stick with you. 

Naturally, Latinos of Twitter hopped on the bandwagon to share their harshest stories of rejection.

Sometimes, sharing your painful memories makes you feel less alone. Reading stories about how everyone goes through the same crappy experiences and how so many of them overcame their previous pain is a beacon of light to many people. When you’re rejected, it can be easy to feel like you’re the most unwanted person in the world. The popularity of this topic on Twitter proved that this couldn’t be less true.

This Latino felt rejected after his online love interest ghosted him for being honest about his mental health journey.

I matched with this girl on Bumble and we hit it off. Talked for weeks until one day she asked me about my semi colon tattoo. I opened up told her about my struggle with depression. She immediately cut me off and said I was toxic and she couldn’t have people like me in her life.

— J E S S (@puertoricangeek) November 10, 2019

Being vulnerable and honest upfront is the best way to weed out the people in your life who don’t belong there. 

This Latina was left confused after she acted on what ended up being mixed signals

Once a guy called me at 11pm and asked me if he could come over to my place, I said yes, and when he arrived and I made a move on him (I sat on his lap and tried to kiss him), he moved his face and told me he couldn't do it.
I was shocked and still don't know why he came. ????

— Sofía Gómez Uribe (@SofiGomezU) November 11, 2019

Haven’t we all been in that situation where we were sure someone liked us and we ended up getting it all wrong? This girl is not alone. 

This Latina shared the saga of her boyfriend who left her for another woman with “bigger boobs”

about this girl that "came back" to his life, he said "I'm obsessed with her, that's why I couldn't continue with 'us' but truth is you're not really my type, she's tall and has really big boobs."
Me: ????????????

— Martha Pratz (@smarthypratzy) November 11, 2019

We wish we could feel bad for all of these people, but some of them so obviously dodged a bullet that we’re happy for them. 

This Latina’s boyfriend moved her out of his place while she was SLEEPING.

Longish story short- he bagged all my stuff up while I was sleeping and took my key. The girl I wasn’t supposed to be worried about moved in the next day…

— Victoria Tovar (@vee_managed) November 11, 2019

The craziest thing about some of these stories is that the person doing the rejection is often too cowardly to tell the other person to their face.

This girl’s crush rejected her without even having to look at her.

one time in middle school i had finally gathered the courage to ask this guy to hang out with me during lunch, he was playing on his PSP as i walked up, i hadn’t even said anything and he goes “no.” didn’t even LOOK at me. lmaooooo

— Yuri ???? (@yuridia_mendoza) November 11, 2019

Leave it to a middle school boy to do something like this. This boy joins the long list of men who have chosen a video game over a girl. 

Of course, some people have had their harshest rejection experiences from their career paths:

It says a lot about me that my first thought reading the “what was your harshest rejection” bit fully expected the next para to be about an email from a lit journal #HandsUpIfYouveEverFelfPersonallyVictimisedByALitJournal #WritersLife #WritingCommunity https://t.co/Y0UyhFWKEU

— Isabella Luna???????? (@bellalunapoet) November 10, 2019

Dedicating your life to creative work is a surefire way to experience more rejection than the average person. But the beauty of rejection is, there’s always something better for you waiting on the other side. Nothing and no one should be in your life if it doesn’t want to be there. 

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