Throughout its four-season run, Orange Is the New Black’s received praise for featuring a cast that represents varied experiences. So on Sunday night at the Screen Actors Guild Awards when the group won the Outstanding Ensemble in a Comedy Series prize, Taylor Schilling (aka Piper Chapman) highlighted what makes the show truly special. “We stand up here representing a diverse group of people, representing generations of families that have sought better life here – from places like Nigeria, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Ireland,” she said. “And we know that it’s going to be up to us, and all of you probably, too, to keep telling stories that show what unites us is stronger than the forces that seek to divide us.”
Schilling’s speech is just one of many that turned political at the award show. The ceremony followed a weekend that brought distress and confusion to Muslims and the immigrant community. On Friday – Holocaust Memorial Day – Donald Trump signed an executive order banning Syrian refugees for an undetermined amount of time and immigrants from seven Muslim-majority countries for 90 days, CNN reports. Additionally, if green card holders from restricted countries traveled outside of the United States, they couldn’t re-enter the country. This resulted in authorities holding a 5-year-old Iranian boy away from his mother for hours. It confused and frightened the elderly traveling to meet with their relatives. And it put a wrench in the plans of those who had sold everything and endured a long approval process to receive visas. (A federal judge in Brooklyn called for a temporary injunction to Trump’s executive order.)
That’s why on Sunday celebrities like Julia Louis-Dreyfus spoke about her father fleeing religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France, and Moonlight star Mahershala Ali gave a touching speech about converting to Islam almost two decades ago. “My mother is an ordained minister. I’m a Muslim. She didn’t do back flips when I called her to tell her I converted 17 years ago,” Ali said. “But I tell you now, we put things to the side, and I’m able to see her, she’s able to see me — we love each other, the love has grown, and that stuff is minutiae. It’s not that important.”
On Sunday, the Orange cast followed in the footsteps of many others who took the time to denounce Trump’s administration. Schilling and her cast mates chose to explain why their differences made the Netflix show richer. Check out the video below, and don’t miss Elizabeth Rodriguez (Aleida Díaz) completely distract Taylor when she shouts out Brooklyn: