If there’s something Andrea Londo understood pretty quickly in her time in Hollywood was that she wasn’t going to fit in, not really. Growing up Latina and transfronteriza put her in a very weird place, where she didn’t really belong either in Mexico or the United States.
As Londo talked to Remezcla about what she’s done to try to make a space for her—and other Latines—in Hollywood, there was a clear awareness that all the stories from our communities are different.
“I was raised between two worlds, shaped by two ideologies: at home, a conservative Mexican upbringing that valued discipline, hard work, and doing things right; at school, an American ethos that told me to dream big, be independent, and believe anything was possible.”
The contradictions were something she learned to navigate early.
“In Mexico, I wasn’t a typical Mexican kid — my Spanish carried mistakes, my education was American. And in the U.S., I was never “just American,” always one of the Mexican kids. I lived in the space between, proud of my Mexican roots yet most eloquent intellectualizing in English.”
As an actress, finding her place in between that was a struggle. Like many other Latinas in the space, Londo has had to fight against the idea that she isn’t “Latina enough,” but she’s also not considered All-American either.
“I didn’t fit into a box. And that used to make me feel like I didn’t belong. Now, I see it as my strength. Being a border child means I can step into multiple realities. I can move between languages, cultures, and codes with fluidity. What once felt like a limitation has become the power I carry into every role.”
Londo, who is perhaps better known for her role in Narcos, is always fighting against the box she and many other Latines get put in. And she’s putting her money where her mouth is.
“It’s really hard to find your place,” she told us, sharing that she’s realized that she needed to take the next step in order to be part of the projects she wanted. “I felt like I needed to start making my own projects, because nobody was going to look at me the way that I look at me,” she told us, adding that she doesn’t want to just sit and “wait for a project that welcomes the nuances of the type Mexican that I am and so many other Mexican women and Mexican men are.”
So, “I’ve co-launched a production company, Two Lands, to expand the stories we tell about Mexican-Americans — stories that don’t fit one narrow box, but reflect the fullness of who we are.”
And a part of that is making stories about how we, Latines, exist in two different worlds, but can be both from somewhere else and part of the fabric of what the U.S. is. “We’re not there yet as being seen as people that are from here, which is why a lot of movies and shows, not all of them, but a lot of them are identity pieces.” And that is good, but it should not be the only narrative.
“We also need to tell stories that are not about how we got here, but the fact that we are here and that we belong here and that we’re not going anywhere and that we’re Americans.”
And a lot of those might be independent projects, which is why she started her own production company in the first place, with her film Adventure Tom now available on Amazon and Apple TV.
“If Latinos get behind the cameras and get into making projects, then it’s also like the kind of projects that we’re going to tell are the stories that we want to tell. The stories that we think are valid and that we’re able to tell better than anyone else, instead of just waiting for someone else to give us permission to do those things.”
You see Andrea Londo, and you might just think of her character in Narcos, or how she presents herself on social media. But she’s part of a group of Latines trying to change how we’re seen in Hollywood. And we need to pay attention.
