Eva Longoria Not Mexican? Actress Reveals She Grew Up Not Knowing Heritage

Eva Longoria, co-founder of The Latino Victory Project, an ambitious non-partisan effort to build political power within the Latino community, hosted one of their Latino Talks at the Wooly Mammoth Theater in Washington, D.C. last week. Guest speakers included Mexican rock band Maná and “Orange is the New Black” actress Diane Guerrero.

Longoria opened up the conversation with a story about how it was to cross the border as a Mexican who was born in the U.S. back in her childhood days, and revealed she didn’t know about her heritage until she changed schools in third grade.

“When I was little, we lived near the border so we walked across the border all the time,” the actress said. “We would go eat lunch, we’d go buy medicine, a quinceañera dress, and I remember that all we needed to say to cross back to the United States was that we were American citizens.”

She continued, “And I remember walking across with my dad and he said to me, ‘Don’t forget to say American citizen.’ And I looked and I saw a whole line of people waiting to get in and I said to my dad, ‘Do they not know the magic words?’ And my dad said, ‘No, no, no. They can’t say that.’ And I said, ‘Why? Why don’t we tell them to say American citizen?’ And my dad said, ‘because we are Latinos, we were born on this side [U.S.].’”

The “Devious Maids” executive producer, who started the movement to give the Latino community a face and a voice in governmental matters, proceeded to tell the audience about the moment she found she was “a Mexican.”

“The first day that I had to be bused to the other neighborhood,” she recalled. “I get on the bus and I have a bean taco, because that’s what my mom made me for breakfast, a bean taco. I remember getting on the bus and everybody had a Pop Tart and I was like, ‘What’s that?’ And they were like, ‘What’s that?’ I was like, ‘It’s a bean taco. Doesn’t everybody eat bean tacos?’ And I remember somebody saying, ‘She’s a Mexican.’”

Diane Guerrero and Maná’s Fher Olvera and Alex González, who are some of the Latino celebrities who have also been very vocal about the recent immigration issues, shared their stories with the crowd present as well.

Click play on the video below to watch the event, which was live streamed on Facebook and Twitter on March 4.