"There's not enough roles for all marginalized communities that fully respect us," Pascual-Peña notes. That's why she's particularly proud of Aisha who's outspoken and powerful but also vulnerable and truly human. "It would be really easy for a character like Aisha to fit into stereotypes of being the angry black woman. [That's why I'm] super intentional and deliberate about those moments of softness, to root her and ground her," she adds. It's that type of wholeness that Pascual-Peña looks for when playing a character. In fact, she says her best experiences as an actress have been Latinas and Black women telling her they see themselves represented for the first time in her characters.
