This week was supposed to be a time for celebration for the cast and crew of Gentefied . The Boyle Heights family comedy about ‘gentefication‘ made a big splash upon its release on Netflix. On Friday, the team learned that Camila Maria Concepción, the show’s writers’ assistant, had taken her life.
Concepción was a self-described “translatina storyteller/activist/survivor whose pronouns are she/her/hers and/or that bitch.” She was a vocal advocate for trans liberation. In fact, she spoke on that very topic at the 2018 United States of Women Summit alongside artist Micah Bazant, poet Audrey Kuo, and political commentator Sally Kohn.
On the industry side, she’d also been at the forefront of better trans representation. In 2018, she partnered with artist Favianna Rodriguez and Transparent’s Jill Soloway to push for the 5050by2020 initiative that sought to “demand the leadership of those who have been marginalized in order to build new models of power, access, and representation in television and film.”
As news of her death reached the Gentefied fam, celebrations of her spirit and talent poured in. “You were a light,” Linda Yvette Chavez shared in an Instagram post. “A brilliant light that struggled to shine in the midst of the darkness in this world. But I saw you, girl. I fucking saw you from the moment I laid eyes on you. I knew you were fucking magic and I wanted the world to devour your magnificence the way you deserved.
Marvin Lemus echoed her: “When Linda and I met you, we knew you were the most special, raw talent we’d ever fucking met. We knew you were going to be huge. You were going to be bigger than just our writer’s assistant.”
Read emotional tributes from colleagues and friends, in their entirety, below:
Rest in peace, Concepción.
If you or someone you know needs to talk, call 1-800-273-8255 to get support. The Suicide Prevention Lifeline is available 24/7 for everyone in the United States. SAVE (Suicide Awareness Voices of Education) is an international resource for those reading from the rest of the world.
