Lilliana Vazquez, E! News Anchor
On January 6, Lilliana Vazquez became E! News’ first-ever Latina anchor. This monumental moment (both for Vazquez and nuestra gente) was the culmination of hard work, big dreams and a non-traditional career path fueled by her “scrappy” spirit. Like many who are first-generation, Lilliana attributes her strength and hustle mentality to her family – specifically her grandma, who came to the U.S. with her nine children in hopes of a brighter future.
“I always say our tios and our tias and our abuelitas and abuelitos – they’re warriors,” Lilliana tells me. “It’s in their blood. And that’s how I approach what I do, both personally and professionally.”
While the TV personality is a high-profile fixture in media thanks to a new Peacock venture and super-engaged Instagram community, she’s unafraid to speak up on important issues that matter to her.
Earlier last week, she hosted an Instagram Live about the difference between Hispanic and Latinx (more on that later!) with fellow Latinx/Hispanic movers and shakers. And late last month, she delved into the controversy surrounding influencer Arielle Charnas’s September Cosmopolitan México cover.
Nothing is off limits and the goal remains the same: to educate, inspire, and spark even more thoughtful dialogue. The same can be said about our very candid interview. Keep reading to learn more about this mujer de magia.
Grace Gavilanes: You just hosted an IG Live about the difference between Hispanic and Latinx. How do you identify? And why did you want to address this topic with your followers?
Lilliana Vazquez: I personally identify as Latinx and I say that with a little bit of a caveat because I only identify that way when I am here in the United States. If I were to travel anywhere else – if I were in Mexico or if I was in Argentina or Colombia, I would never say I was Latinx. I would say I was Mexican and Puerto Rican. That is what I would say if I was outside of the U.S. I do think [Latinx] is a label that I use here when I’m describing the community that I consider myself to be a part of. I also prefer Latinx to Latina because I find that term to be much more inclusive. And to me, it represents the inclusivity that I want to live my life.
But I don’t expect other people to have the same sensitivity. And the reason why I wanted to have the conversation is because it happens every year, I notice – but this year it’s even stronger – people don’t know what to call this month. Obviously, it started out as Hispanic Heritage Month in the ‘80s, and then as we’ve evolved and progressed – and you’ve seen “Latinx” in academic institutions and you’ve seen “Latinx” in social media – now some people are calling it Latinx Heritage Month. People keep asking me, “What should I call it? What’s the right word? Is Hispanic offensive now?” And I say no. Everyone has their own preference, but I wanted to understand why so many people were divided and so many of our people were divided over this one term.
GG: It’s difficult to navigate, so thank you for starting that conversation.
LV: I also saw a post on R29 Somos that talks about adding an additional label, which is not just being Latinx, but being white.
GG: I saw that too. I think there are people who see “white Latinx” and think that strips away their identity. What was your takeaway?
LV: I think for me, identity is so deeply personal and so multifaceted and nuanced. I think first of all, many of us come from mixed race backgrounds. Especially if you’re Mexicana. I know for a fact, when I look at my ancestry, I’m not a white Latinx person. My family does not have ancestry in Spain. My dad is Puerto Rican and has Black [blood]. My mom is indigenous blood. Even though I represent like a white girl in America, that is not what I identify with. I think people confuse culture and heritage with race and I think that overcomplicates things as well. But I do think to add that label takes away, again, especially from our indigenous background, which is constantly trying to be erased. I don’t like that. And I don’t like the term.
I saw that and I said, “I think we’re so much more than that.” And even last night in the conversation we were having – Latinx vs Hispanic – it’s like, as Latinos we’re constantly being asked to check boxes and fall into one category or another, and we continue to subdivide and subdivide. And I can’t help but think that is a way to stop our growth and our power. So, I don’t like it at all.
GG: It really shouldn’t be up to anybody else.
LV: It shouldn’t. And the post came across as so finite and definitive, like, if you say that you are white-passing or white Latinx, you say that you are taking it away. I find that identity can’t be put into those kinds of situations. I think that’s what made me question the part. Especially when so many – that term mestizo, that’s what we are. I am Mexican. That is what we are, so it was just interesting that they made such a definitive point on something that is so complex and so different for everyone. That’s what I got from the conversation I had last night [about the difference between Latinx and Hispanic] – it’s really not up to me to decide how they identify. At the end of the day, it’s up to me to ask somebody how they would like to be addressed. And that’s kind of what I took away.
““The way [being first-gen] has impacted my career is, and I always say, I am unafraid to work harder than anybody out there.””
GG: You’re first-generation Latinx, which has many layers and you have been outspoken about it. How do you feel like that’s shaped you?
LV: I would say that the way it has impacted my career is, and I always say, I am unafraid to work harder than anybody out there. And I think the reason for that is our families came here with so little and so much risk. I can’t even imagine how my grandmother felt coming to the United States with nine children. So, anything that’s put in front of me, whether it’s a professional challenge or a personal challenge, I am so deeply rooted in what she was able to do and the sacrifice that she made for her children and for the next generation, which is my brother, me and my cousin – I think it makes me incredibly tenacious. It makes me an incredibly hard worker and I think it makes me unafraid to push when maybe in another situation, you would be a little scared to take a risk or to go out on a limb and do something. I think it comes from that. I always say our tios and our tias and our abuelitas and abuelitos – they’re warriors. It’s in their blood. And that’s how I approach what I do, both personally and professionally.
GG: I don’t want to speak for all Latinx families, but for me in particular, my family was very nervous when I said I wanted to write and edit for a living. Was your family scared?
LV: I think it’s not just a Latinx thing. I think it’s a first-generation/immigrant mindset, which is, again, all of that sacrifice and all of that hard work. Not that what we do is frivolous, but they don’t find the same level of stability in it. They want something much more traditional. They want you to be an accountant, to be a lawyer, to be a doctor – something that is incredibly stable and is rooted in an advanced degree because their biggest fear is that you would fail or that you wouldn’t have the same success that they had. They want to continue to grow their family and grow that education and that experience.
I think for me, my decision was, “Hey mom, I’m not going to take this really good job in finance. I’m going to go work at a fashion magazine.” I think she just about died because she was like, “Fashion? What is that? What are you going to do?” But I will say, she was so supportive once I really made that jump. And I think that’s the one thing about our family – especially our culture – is that once you’re in, they will support you. They are your ride or dies. I think that’s an incredibly beautiful thing because I always say you could jump and take a big risk. You just need a parachute. And sometimes a parachute … could just be the love of your community and the love of your family.
GG: What would you say has been the biggest obstacle in your career? And how have you overcome it?
LV: I’m going to say that it’s two things. Number one, it’s been me. I’ve gotten in my own way. I’ve said this publicly before. I said, even up until the day I walked onto that set for E! News on January 6 as the first and only Latina in the 30-year history to have that anchor role, I kind of always questioned whether or not I belonged in that space. I did not have a traditional trajectory. I’m really scrappy and I really cobbled together my career in a very non-traditional way, and I think that often makes me feel like I don’t belong there. I’ve definitely felt it on the Today show, and some of it was me. And some of it is the people around us. And that’s the other part of it. What do I think has gotten in my way? I think other people have also not been as willing to lend a hand and open a door and be my ally and my advocate because in our industry, the opportunities feel so scarce and they feel so few and far between that often times when you see someone else come up who you’ve seen come from nothing and seize this for themselves, you are almost afraid of them because you had a head start and they already caught up to you.
And that has felt really hard because I’m like, well why wouldn’t they help me? And this is not other Latinx women. This is just white women in general. I don’t find them to be super helpful at least as it applies to my career. The combination of those two, I think 1.) Is I’ve gotten in my own way because I feel I don’t belong there when I’ve earned every opportunity I’ve gotten, more than anyone I know, and 2.) I think the unwillingness of those around me to help me succeed and to stick their hand out and say, “Here, let me show you” or “Let me say no to this so you can have this” – I think that’s incredibly punishing to feel that, and I’ve definitely dealt with a lot of that.
GG: I hear that. I find myself turning to my fellow Latinas and talking to them about these things. How do you deal? Because it is hard.
LV: Yeah, it’s hard, and if you don’t have a way to process it, you hold it all inside and it starts to affect you. It affects the way you present. It affects when you’re in a meeting. It makes you not want to speak up. It makes you not want to advocate for something that you do want to do or a story that you want to tell. I definitely rely a lot on my – like you said – Latinx friends who don’t work in the industry. I mean, there are so few of us in the industry. I have one producer at E! who is Latina. She and I are years apart. I probably have a decade on her in terms of age and experience, but at the same time, we’re kind of united in that we feel like we’ve been treated a certain way in past jobs or this job, and so you have to kind of lean on them. It might be somebody who’s your junior or someone who’s incredibly your senior, but when you don’t have a lot of us present in the workplace, you kind of have no choice. And I kind of think that’s a beautiful thing because it does foster a different type of relationship. It’s not so much a mentor/mentee – it’s more of a “We’re in this together. We’re going to struggle together and we’re going to succeed together.” So, I lean on that.
I also have a therapist. I talk it out with her. There’s nothing wrong with having these conversations, whether it’s a career coach or a therapist, because a lot of times you get in your own way about this stuff. We can’t fix the problem of lack of representation overnight. I can’t fix that at NBC or at E! there’s only 11% Latinos in the workforce and 0% of that 11% fits at an executive level. I can’t change that overnight. I can help change that, and I can be really loud about the fact that that’s unacceptable. It’s not going to change overnight, so you have to think, “What are the things that I’m going to do for myself?” It’s almost like you have to self-care your way through this.
GG: You’re right. We’re so quick to get angry at the situation because it is infuriating – but we have to remember that it’s going to take time.
LV: The best thing you’re going to do is build those allyships with women in other industries because I have definitely had people reach out to me like, “Oh my God, there’s an opening at my company, but they need somebody super senior and I just saw it – do you know of anyone?” And because I’m 10 years older than them, I’m like, “Yes! Give me 5 minutes.” And you create this whisper network within the Latinx community of Latinx professionals. It’s amazing what you can do with that. Lean into that. You think, “She works in advertising and I work in television – there’s no crossover.” But you’d be surprised. And that’s important because if we don’t put each other up for those jobs, then nobody else is. The gatekeepers want to stay gatekeepers. It’s not to their advantage. Not all gatekeepers, but some gatekeepers want to stay in that role. They don’t want to give the keys to anybody else.
GG: I’m such a fan of how you hustle. I was watching your Stories on how you set up your own studio and just got to work for Peacock in quarantine. Have you always been quick to adapt to change?
LV: I’m kind of like a forever student. I love to learn. I’m a little bit like a nerd that way, and when I saw that I was really going to have to do and run my own production if I wanted to get content out during COVID. There was a version of me that was like, “Well, I just got hired to anchor this show and I’m supposed to have hair and makeup. And I’m supposed to have an audio engineer and a director and camera person … if that’s what they ask of me, I’m not going to overexert myself because that’s not what I signed up for.” That’s a version that exists. And trust me, that thought went through my head at one point. But then I realized that’s not who I am and that’s not going to make me happy. What’s going to make me happy is innovating. What’s going to make me happy is making great content and telling good stories and getting it out there. And I saw this time as an opportunity to learn and do that.
I’m so happy that I took the time to do that because I now understand the production side of my business from a very different angle and in a very different way. And it also lit a fire in me as a producer that has been kind of slowly and lowly burning for the last few years, and now I’m fired up. I think COVID has given people pause to find their passion, and while I love being on camera and I love being on air, at the end of the day, I’m a storyteller at the core, and those stories might be in entertainment news, but they might be in scripted television. And that’s what this break gave me. I took it as an opportunity to learn more about myself. One of the things that make me feel really creative is one of the things that inspired me to work harder, and that’s what it was. So, I took the opportunity to produce for Peacock because I kind of didn’t have another choice. And I’m so happy that I did because I learned so much about myself and about my business.
GG: It’s time to spread some love – which Latinx content creators are you currently loving?
LV: I am obsessed with Erika [Hernandez] from @LatinaMadeNotMaid … Erika is amazing. She is working so hard to shift the narrative that exists in our society about Latinos. She’s so funny in her approach. She’s so wickedly smart and she is so unafraid to go there and call it exactly like it is. She is the person I aspire to be when it comes to truthfulness about how I really feel. I have to watch what I do because I work for a network and I understand the responsibility and privilege of that, but there are some days when I just want to go off. And Erika will do it, and she does it in such a smart and vulnerable way.
This interview was condensed and edited for length and clarity.
