This Latine Heritage Month, our “Mi Historia” series spotlights Latine celebs as they share how their families’ immigration stories shaped who they are – and why telling these stories is vital to empowering immigrant communities.
While most of us in the US have a family immigration story – no matter how many generations back it goes – debates about who “deserves” to be here remain ongoing. Too often, immigrant voices, as well as those of their children, are left out of these conversations – which, in turn, dehumanizes us.
But for actress Mishel Prada, her family’s immigration story is a source of pride. She believes it has shaped her into the woman she is today, and she wants the world to know just how powerful those stories can be.
“My [maternal] grandmother was living in the Dominican Republic and was in a bad domestic violence situation and left,” Prada tells Popsugar. “As I’ve gotten older, I’ve developed so much respect and awe for my grandmother in leaving. She left in the middle of the night with three kids as a woman back in the sixties and found the strength to just be like, ‘Nah, we’re not doing this, and I’m out.'”
“My [maternal] grandmother was living in the Dominican Republic and was in a bad domestic violence situation and left.”
Prada’s grandmother, who was from the island’s capital of Santo Domingo, boarded a plane to NYC with her three small children, very little money, and no plan other than to get her children to a safe place where they could start over. But for years, Prada didn’t know the truth about why her grandma, her mom, and her siblings came here. It was a family secret that had been kept tightly under wraps for decades.
“My mom always used to say your grandmother came to New York to work in fashion. She would always frame it that way,” Prada says. “What happened was that my grandma got a job in a factory, sewing.”
Prada recalls that it wasn’t until adulthood that her mother, who passed away in 2021, began sharing their family stories with her. “I would say in the last few years before my mom passed, I started asking more questions and getting more details,” she shares. “I think in a lot of ways, the women in my family and the people in my family just never wanted to be looked at as victims.”
One story in particular stood out to Prada: her grandmother, a single mother, often had no choice but to bring her young children with her to the factory where she worked. As long as they stayed out of the way, the kids were allowed to be there. Prada’s mom told her about spending hours tucked underneath her own mother’s sewing machine as a child.
“Eventually, my grandmother became really good at sewing on the sequence. She would sew on the sequence for designer gowns,” Prada says. “I always think of it when I’m getting dressed for an event, and you can see the fine details. It just reminds me a lot of her, and it feels kind of poetic. It’s like these gorgeous gowns that now I’m getting sent and I get to wear them and yet there’s all this hidden labor and sacrifice behind it.”
There are other ways Prada feels connected to her family’s experiences. After watching her mother leave an abusive relationship, Prada began sensing she was meant to break many of her family’s generational cycles – even before she heard about her grandmother’s journey to the US. In her twenties, Prada found herself trapped in a toxic, codependent relationship. It was the strength and resilience of the women in her family that ultimately gave her the courage to walk away.
Prada explains that during that relationship, she had become financially dependent on her partner. At the same time, her mother – who had also just left a toxic relationship – lost their home to foreclosure and was facing her own financial struggles. At one point, Prada was supposed to attend a wedding with her boyfriend at the time, who at the last minute decided he couldn’t go.
“I decided, I’ll just have my mom come with me. My mom was my date, and at the end of the wedding, there was a hotel room that we had reserved, but when we got there, my card wasn’t going through,” she says. “And there was just a moment where I realized that we didn’t have anywhere to go.”
She continues: “The house that we lost to foreclosure at the moment felt like the only safe place that we knew to go, so we drove and slept in the car right in front of the house. And I remember being like fuck, this is never going to happen again. I realized that I had been spending so much time investing in another person . . . I never went back to that. I never wanted to feel that feeling again.”
Looking back, Prada believes that her abuela’s story – even before she knew all the details – helped fuel her acting career and set her on a different path. Acting had always been a part of her life, from church productions to school plays as a child, but it wasn’t until she left that toxic relationship that she pursued it as a career. In many ways, stepping into acting became a form of healing for her.
“It just created a space to grow and to explore our humanity and our stories in ways that feel powerful and not victimized or small,” she says.
Prada was only 2 years old when her grandmother passed away, but she’s grateful that her mother lived long enough to see her not only pursue her dream of becoming an actress but also achieve success in it. She recalls how her mother never missed a chance to tell her how proud she was. To this day, Prada carries that with her, living in constant gratitude and never taking for granted the sacrifices her grandmother and mother made as immigrants so she could have the life she does today.
“I think it has also had me take my mental health a lot more seriously. I think sometimes we don’t understand that strength comes at a cost. That sometimes we shouldn’t have to be so strong,” she says. “It’s okay to be soft and vulnerable, and that’s been a big part of what I’ve been tapping into these last few years – what a soft power looks like and not being afraid to ask for help when I need it.”
Even the characters she’s played have often been inspired by the strength of the women in her family, from Emma on “Vida” to Detective Sergeant KD in “The Continental: From the World of John Wick.” Of the latter role, she says, “That is a woman who has had to be so strong to be able to get there, and that woman only knows forward movement. And I very much felt that because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it so much with the women in my family and the women in our communities.”
When it comes to the immigration conversations currently happening in this country, Prada wants people to first understand that Latine individuals are not a monolith – and she urges the community to lean on one another now more than ever.
“Everybody has a different story. Everybody has a different reason for being here, and I think one of the things that has been really top of mind for me is that it’s less about fighting and more about resisting and nurturing,” she says. “We need to be pouring into each other and creating strength so that we can nurture ourselves through this moment. That doesn’t mean you don’t advocate for the things you want. It’s just a reminder that with what’s going on right now, we need to lean into finding that strength within ourselves and not outside of it.”
Johanna Ferreira is the content director for PS Juntos. With more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central part of Latine culture. Previously, she spent close to three years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, Oprah magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Well+Good. She has also moderated and spoken on numerous panels on Latine identity.
