Latinx Files: This Latina Equal Pay Day, we should all be acting up

On a crisp Friday morning in late September, over a hundred riled-up Latina actors and their allies — including hotel workers, steel workers, teachers and Teamsters — began to assemble outside the Warner Bros. Studio in Burbank, where they blasted reggaetón and shook rubber chanclas furiously in the air.

Together, they chanted three punchy syllables — “¡Pá-ga-me!”

Their slogan, which translates to “pay me,” was a rallying cry on behalf of Latinas who’ve been overworked, underpaid, and fed up with a system that has left us to earn a national average of 52 cents for every dollar earned by white, non-Hispanic men.

The demonstration was a spirited pre-game for this year’s Latina Equal Pay Day, which falls on Thursday, Oct. 5. With support from the nonprofit Justice for Migrant Women, the event was put on by Latinas Acting Up: a caucus of Latinas from SAG-AFTRA, or the Screen Actors Guild and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

Although the writers’ strike came to a fruitful end on Sept. 24, the actors continue to hold out for a deal with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, as they have been since July 14. The bargaining committee has called for a number of changes: among them higher wages, residuals from streaming services, and protections regarding the use of AI in replicating their likenesses.

Latinas Acting Up began as a series of Friday meet-ups, organized by actors Diana Maria Riva and Lisa Vidal. (They both notably featured in the 2003 romp, “Chasing Papi.”) Vidal, who co-captained last Friday’s rally with Riva, previously served on the SAG-AFTRA national board for over 10 years, where she was just one of three Latinos at the table.

“I’ve met so many beautiful young artists who have felt very hopeless and depressed. It’s hard to be out here [in L.A.] by yourself without your family,” said Vidal, who began acting in childhood, and later starred in TV shows “ER,” “The Division” and “The Baker and the Beauty.” It was during their Friday get-togethers that she and Riva helped empower a new generation of talents, and began to mobilize the group as a visible, vocal and formidable coalition of Latinas in Hollywood.

Riva noted that Latina Equal Pay Day happens Oct. 5, as opposed to the standard federal Equal Pay Day, which takes place on March 14; in 2022, working women of all races and ethnicities earned an average of 77 cents to the dollar earned by their white male counterparts. In arts and entertainment alone, that number went up to 85 cents. The difference in dates is proportionate to the wage gap.

“It takes [Latinas] almost two years to be paid what a white man gets paid in one,” said Riva, who had previously starred in “The West Wing,” “Dead to Me” and the recently discontinued HBO series, “Gordita Chronicles.”

Before joining forces with the actors, Mónica Ramirez, attorney and founder of Justice for Migrant Women, wasn’t sure if their goals were aligned. As the daughter of farmworkers, she found the stories told in Hollywood a far cry from her rural hometown of The Plains, Ohio.

“‘Stand and Deliver’ was one of the first films [in which] I felt we were represented,” she said. “I was a senior in high school when we got Univision in my town for the first time. Hearing Spanish on TV was just something that didn’t happen in Ohio.”

It was while drafting the “Dear Sisters” letter of solidarity from Latina farmworkers to Time’s Up — a fundraising organization for victims of sexual harassment and assault in Hollywood — that Ramirez began to recognize the parallels in precarity between those working in the fields and those working in entertainment. Much like the farmworkers Ramirez helps organize, actors are often subject to low wages and long hours; they’re also at a high risk for wage theft, discrimination and violence on the job.

“For me, there’s no use in comparing who has it worse,” says Ramirez. “We are all touched by the work of farmworkers. Now we work with women in Hollywood to help people understand that we have a shared struggle.”

Part of that mission meant expanding the parameters of the wage gap study. In conjunction with the National Asian-Pacific Workers Forum, Justice for Migrant Women factored in data from the U.S. Census Bureau survey, not just for those working full time and year round, but those employed in part-time, freelance, temporary and seasonal jobs.

Their adjusted wage gap report accounts for 27 million more women than last year’s survey — but it also lowered the national average income for Latinas, which decreased from 54 cents in 2021 to 52 cents in 2022. The number shrinks for Honduran, Guatemalan and Salvadoran women who reported their earnings.

“A lot of women in Hollywood would not have been counted in the previous surveys,” said Ramirez. “It’s really important to reflect the full reality of working Latinas, but also to acknowledge that the data is not a full picture. We don’t know the reality for all the undocumented people. We don’t know the reality for trans women. We don’t know the reality for women who are being paid under the table.”

Award-winning actor Gina Torres, a series regular in “Suits” and “9-1-1: Lone Star,” arrived on the scene wearing a Cuban flag draped across her shoulders; Friday’s picket line was far from her first. “My dad was a typesetter for the [New York] Daily News for 26 years,” said Torres. “I was a kid when the papers went on strike in the ‘70s and the ‘80s, but it helped me understand what the fight was about. A strong middle class is important to the economy, and we’re seeing it dwindle away.

“It’s powerful to see members of other unions out here with us, because together we make the cogs of the machine,” continued Torres. “Without us there is no machine. What we’re asking for is just a small percentage of the profits to be distributed among the people that are actually doing the work.”

Once SAG-AFTRA can secure a fair contract with the AMPTP, members of Latinas Acting Up wish to direct their focus to increasing representation. In 2022, only 2.6% of both lead roles and co-lead roles in film and television were played by Latinx actors. “Being in the single digits is unacceptable,” said Vidal.

“Latinos from different cultures also need to support each other’s projects, whether it’s a story about a Dominican, a Cuban, or a Mexican,” said Riva. “Divided we do nothing. They don’t look at us. They don’t pay attention to us.”

“I want to see more diversity on camera and behind the camera,” added Torres. “When I was coming up, our stories, our roles were often played by Caucasian actors. And it’s not just important to be in our stories, but we need to write them, we need to be able to produce them, we need to be able to direct them. United, we make a powerful force.”

(Jackie Rivera / For The Times; Martina Ibáñez-Baldor / Los Angeles Times)

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