Actress Gina Rodriquez, known for her
starring role as Jane Villaneuva on the CW’s “Jane the Virgin,” recently
delivered a Brown Lecture Board talk to students at Brown University, speaking
about positivity and self-determination.
Rodriguez told students how a mantra passed
down from her father – “Today is a great day. I can and I will” – got her
through her early years at New York University, where she was diagnosed with
thyroid disease.
“I already have all these things against
me,” said Rodriguez of her viewpoint at the time. “I’m broke, I’m brown, I
don’t look like ladies in the movies, and I just wanted to be a leading lady.”
According to Rodriguez, realizing that those
limitations were self-imposed was a major factor in her success today, and she
urged the Brown students in attendance to be the heroes of their own stories.
“I used to think there was this entity that
was telling me: ‘Oh, you’re Puerto Rican, you can’t pass,’” she said. “The
truth is that that was all in my mind. All those boxes — all those borders and
walls that people put up — those are imaginary … I’m the one who is going to
decide what affects me and what doesn’t. I’m the one who is going
to decide whether I give up or not. And I decided not to.”
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