Starz drama ‘Vida’ aims to shred TV’s Mexican stereotypes

Mexican-Americans are often portrayed as stereotypes on TV, but the new Starz show “Vida” aims to change that.

“What attracted me to the project was having Latin characters at the forefront and having them not be the token sexy Latina, or the gardener, or the maid, or the drug dealer. That’s how we are [usually] presented as on television,” says Melissa Barrera, 27, who stars in the show.

In “Vida,” Barrera plays Lyn, a young woman living in LA who reunites with her estranged Chicago-based sister Emma (Mishel Prada) after the unexpected death of their mother. (“Vida,” the Spanish word for “life,” is also their mother’s name.)

Over the course of six half-hour episodes, the sisters grapple with their rocky relationship, gentrification in the East LA neighborhood they grew up in and their mother’s legacy. That inheritance includes an apartment building equipped with a bar that they must now share with Eddy (Ser Anzoategui), their’s mother wife.

While some critics have compared “Vida” to Showtime’s groundbreaking drama “The L Word,” the series is more of a family story. “It’s a multigenerational show,” says Barrera. “I feel like older generations will want to watch it because it has telenovela aspects that are so appealing to us as a culture. But millennials will also identify with these girls.”

Prada hopes the series, which was created by Tonya Saracho (“How to Get Away With Murder”), will spark a conversation about Vida’s secret life with Eddy. “Queerness is still so taboo in our community, even more so than others,” she says.

Both leads are newcomers to American television. “This is my first big TV thing,” says Prada, 28. “The producers took a chance on all of us. For the whole cast this is our first big thing, so it’s very cool to share that.”

Prada is American (she was born in Miami) with Mexican, Dominican and Puerto Rican ancestry. Barrera, who has appeared in telenovelas such as “Tanto Amor,” is Mexican. Playing a Mexican-American was a learning experience. When she met Mexican-Americans who couldn’t speak Spanish, she admits, “I would automatically kind of judge them a little. And then here I am playing a character that doesn’t know how to speak Spanish!”

Her opinion changed as she prepared for the role and talked to some Mexican-Americans.

“I learned that when a grandparent decided to come to the States, it was because they wanted a better life for their family,” Barrera says. “They want you to not be ostracized and the best way to do that is [for you] to speak the language perfectly. Now I see [raising Mexican-American kids to speak English] as an act of love.”

Barrera says that “Vida” is for people of all different heritages.

“The show is a love letter to the Latin community, but I feel like it’s so universal.”

“Vida” Series premiere 8:30 p.m. Sunday on Starz