For actors Stephanie Beatriz and John Leguizamo, Disney’s animated film, Encanto – which is set in Colombia and features a young Latina heroine – is a long time coming.

Speaking during a keynote presentation – moderated by Enrique Sapene and part of the recently held Hispanicize #UnidosTogether Virtual Summit – Beatriz, who stars as Mirabel in Encanto, discussed how her upbringing helped shape her as an artist. She noted that her father, who is from Baranquilla, Colombia, and her mother, who is from Bolivia, immigrated to the United States when Beatriz was about two years old. She added that she was born in Argentina because her parents “were travelling around a lot,” and that she “grew up in a primarily very heavily Mexican area outside of Houston,” Texas.

She noted that her mother “did a really great job of trying to build community around us,” with many of her friends being from Mexico, El Salvador, Panama, the Caribbean, and South America. Beatriz added that her mother “wanted to show me and my sister that we weren’t outsiders – that we were actually part of this” network of people who “had also come to the United States either because they were displaced, because they were refugees, or because they were searching for something else.”

Beatriz noted that her interest in the arts and seeing more Latinos on screen, specifically her co-star, Leguizamo, drew her to do theater, as she “realized that there was a place for me there.”

Leguizamo, who was also part of the keynote presentation, stars as Bruno in Encanto. He noted that he was born in Colombia and grew up in Jackson Heights in Queens, New York, with “so many Latin cultures around me.”

Leguizamo said that his mother, who is Colombian, and his father, who is Puerto Rican, would force him to speak Spanish when he was a kid. Now, he added, he has “been trying to get my Spanish back [and] trying to read a lot of great Latin literature in Spanish.”

On what attracted him to participate in Encanto, which will be released on Nov. 24, Leguizamo noted the movie’s positivity and the need for more Latin representation.

“We don’t need just one movie – we need lots of movies” representing all of the different Latin cultures, Leguizamo said.

As Disney said in late September, Encanto revolves around the Madrigals – a family who lives in a charmed place that is called Encanto.

Leguizamo said that Encanto is “really special” because it is set in Colombia and involves “a great Latin heroine – I mean, when do you see that? … I felt so proud to be a part of this in so many different ways.”

Another draw for him was the involvement of Lin-Manuel Miranda, who, according to Disney’s statement, created all-new songs for the film. Miranda “is a genius,” Leguizamo added, noting that Miranda is “one of the pioneers changing all of America because his colorblind casting in Hamilton was the dream that I’ve been hoping for since the ‘60s – since they started coming up with that concept in the ‘60s.”

Similarly, Beatriz said that she was excited to participate in Encanto because not only is the movie an animated film, it also surrounds a girl heroine, it is set in Colombia, and it involves Miranda and Disney.

She added: “[W]e’re in a very cool, special, amazing time because of steps that were taken in the ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, [and] ‘90s with casting, with theater, [and] the way that it was sort of inviting people to see the world in a different way. It’s because of those steps that now Disney – Disney Animation, one of the best known … storytelling people/artists in the world … – chose that this story should take place in this place because of the specificity that they wanted inside the storytelling, and also how that specificity would lend itself to this really universal thing” – namely, family and one’s role in family relationships, such as being known as “the smart one.”

Beatriz added that she knew Encanto was going to be a new kind of story, which she noted that Disney started exploring with Frozen, which involves the relationship between sisters, Elsa and Anna. Encanto, Beatriz noted, is about the relationship between family members.

‘The greatest empires the world has ever seen’

During the keynote panel discussion, Leguizamo was also asked about key lessons that he learned from developing his show, John Leguizamo’s Latin History for Morons, which can be streamed on Netflix. He said that that journey “was such an eye-opening experience for me – it changed my whole perception of myself as a Latin man in America and our people, all our Latinx people in America. … I don’t know what happened in my education in America that they’ve erased our contributions” in such fields as science, journalism, and entertainment.

He added, in part, that “we didn’t just get here – that myth that we just [got] here is BS – we’ve been here for 500 years, and before that, we were the greatest empires the world has ever seen – Aztec, Maya, Taino, [and] Incas.”

Among the matters discussed during the keynote presentation were Beatriz’s support for an organization called, Immigrant Families Together (IFT). Beatriz noted, in part, that “because of practices that have been in place and governments that have been destabilized, there are people [who] are fleeing for their lives, [who] have no choice, and are coming to the U.S., to seek something safer and better for themselves and for their children. And to me, … it’s just a no brainer – if someone is desperate and in trouble next to me, of course I’m going to help them.”

According to its website, IFT is dedicated to reuniting and supporting families separated at the U.S./Mexico border, as well as providing humanitarian aid to its partners on the border.

Leguizamo also discussed his work on the National Museum of the American Latino, with the actor noting: “I think it’s one of the most powerful things that we can do in this country is get this museum up in the Mall. We got the permission of Congress, we got the permission of the Senate, and now we just need to get some of the funding from the Senate and Congress – the $400m to start it.”

He added, “[W]e’re going to take all the contributions, all our history, our empires, all the Latinx groups that came and donated of their lives and their scientific know-how, and their inventions, and we want to put that all in the museum, and it will be there for the world to see – to celebrate.”

As noted on its website, the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino strives to create a museum in Washington, D.C., “to educate, inspire, and encourage respect and understanding of the richness and diversity of the American Latino experience within the U.S. and its territories.”

Among other things, Leguizamo recommended that “everybody should look up a Latin hero and read it to their kids and their family every night,” as well as support Latin-owned businesses.

Similarly, Beatriz called for individuals to connect “to your own roots, even in your own household,” and to ask their families about what it was like when they came to the United States, for instance, in efforts to learn more about their personal history within the “larger scope of our history in the United States” as an ethnic group.

To view the full keynote presentation, visit hispanicize.com.

Screenshot taken by author from Hispanicize.com, October 2021