Sep 3, 2020
“WTF! You’re pretending like you value my voice, but I’m totally tokenized here,” says Jesi Hanley Vega, Founder of Represent! Editorial who believes everyone should know how to tell their Origin Story. She shares with I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY why she supports writers of color and underrepresented communities harness the power of storytelling to raise their voices. After almost a decade working in Hollywood, this Bronx-born Latina realized that she had to conceal her perspective as a woman of color in order to fit in. “They want to tell you how to tell your story and it chips away at your soul,” she states. The untold rules of engagement were: 1) assimilate or fail and 2) don’t bring up race and ethnicity in ways that would make white people uncomfortable. Today, she’s a writing coach, editor, teacher, performer, and a passionate advocate for new voices and new stories to be told by providing spaces where writers of color can be free from the pressures of white-centered environments and discover their voices undisturbed.