America Ferrera has campaigned for 13 years to make underrepresented voices heard at the voting booth, spending years on the ground fighting voter suppression. She co-founded Harness following the 2016 presidential election, an organisation that activates a community of cultural organizers, and launched her own Instagram series to demystify the American voting process.
The actor, director, executive producer, and activist joined Stephen Colbert on The Late Show to talk about the second season of Gentefied landing on Netflix, but the late show host also spent time on Ferrera’s expertise in inspiring civic engagement — and how important the between times are.
“Many people are politically active in voting years, how do you keep that going between the times when it’s in the public consciousness not as much?” asks Colbert.
“Those are the times where it’s the most important to engage communities and engage people,” says Ferrera. “I could set my clock every two months before an election. People think it’s enough to pull out Ugly Betty at a rally and be like ‘Buenos días, Ugly Betty está aquí! Go out and vote!’ — like that’s like a winning strategy. And it’s not, shocker.”
“I think what I’ve learned being out there registering people to vote, trying to get people to vote, is that it’s not about people’s vote, it’s about people’s lives,” she added. “People understand when things are transactional and you’re just there to get a vote a couple of months before a campaign. Communities need sustained engagement. They need education. They need to deeply understand how their vote is tied to their lives, to their health insurance, to their education, to their neighbourhoods. I think it’s the work we do in a non-election year that determines what happens in an election year.”
“America Ferrera, why aren’t you running for office?” asks Colbert.
