Jessica Alba, Tracy Brennan, Nina Garcia, and Sofia Vergara Co-Host an Evening Celebrating Latin Creatives

In 2023, Jessica Alba and Tracy Brennan, the co-head of motion picture talent at CAA, launched the group Culture Makers over a shared concern that Latin representation in film and TV continued to lag. They recruited peers in all areas of entertainment to come together to network and promote more opportunities for Latinos. Since it started, new relationships, film projects, and collaborations have come about through Culture Makers.

On Monday, co-hosts Alba, Brennan, ELLE editor-in-chief Nina Garcia, and Sofia Vergara held Culture Makers’ third annual event, presented by Tequila Don Julio and ELLE. The party honored designer Willy Chavarria, and guests included Becky G, Natalia and Vanessa Bryant, Edward James Olmos, Andy Garcia, Robert Rodriguez, and Miguel. “It’s such an honor to join Jessica, Nina, and Tracy in hosting this event this year,” says Vergara. “Having an event to that creates community and helps to foster ideas of collaboration, creation, and supporting each other was of course something I wanted to be a part of. It’s an opportunity to celebrate who we are and where we come from.”

Willy Chavarria and Jessica Alba.

Tracy Brennan: Our community has just come together. When Jessica and I started this, we knew each other peripherally. We were running in the same circles and seeing each other at events but had never really spent time together or had a meaningful conversation. Our group is much more bonded, so much more in communication. People are coming out for one another, celebrating each other, letting each other know when there’s a project they’re working on or a movie coming out and how we can all get together and support and repost things for people. There really wasn’t a cultural hub in our community where we could all come [before].

People are like, “Hey, this movie’s happening.” That way people have information, not just from their representatives, and are able to throw their hats in the ring.

Jessica Alba: I think [we were] starving for a community like Culture Makers and our group chat and a space where we could really support one another and be a sounding board for one another. People are super active on it all the time.

TB: Every time we have one of these events, Jessica’s amazing at getting these statistics out quickly, eloquently, and articulately. Education is key because when you’re not connected to other people, you don’t realize your power. But because of the Latino purchasing power, we do have real power. Hopefully people care and are excited and want to support the Latin community, but people also care about their bottom lines.

Vergara, Brennan, and Alba.

JA: When we put it together, Culture Makers was really about having that backyard cookout vibe where we could have deep and meaningful conversations and connect with one another. What comes out of that are projects and working together. [I spoke with Michael Peña] and was like, “Michael, what do you want to do?” He said, “It would be cool to do a family movie. It’d be cool to do an action movie, a heist movie.” And I was like, “Robert Rodriguez, would you want to do a fun action, family, heist movie?” And so Robert joined us.

James Cameron obviously brought me into the world as an actress, but being an indie darling was really because of Robert Rodriguez early in my career. We have this movie called Incognito that was sold at Cannes. Danny Ramirez and Victoria Alonso joined [Culture Makers] and did a movie called Baton, and the cast is pretty much all Latino.

TB: It’s also about connecting the dots because I think a lot of people within our community weren’t aware of the accomplishments of other Latinos. Enrique Melendez, who’s Jenna Ortega’s stylist and one of the very few Latin stylists, was at the Culture Makers event in year two. I was promoting him because I worked with Jenna and was saying to everybody, “You should know this guy.” All of a sudden, he started getting calls from people.

Natalia and Vanessa Bryant.

JA: I think the biggest challenge is, frankly, representation. A lot of the gatekeepers just frankly don’t know people who look like you or work alongside someone who looks like you, so many times they feel like they’re really putting their neck out. A lot of people are risk-averse and they’re trying to hang onto their jobs and don’t want to shake the boat. They feel like it’s a huge risk, even if you are wildly qualified, talented, and right for the job.

There’s rhetoric that we all have to go up against to really change a narrative that’s untrue about our community and seems to drown out a lot of the good work we’ve done and the progress we’ve made. What’s so imperative about this group and what we’re doing every day is to continue to show up and represent who we are and show little boys and girls, no matter who you are, where you’re from, that all different kinds of people can be leaders and in positions of power.

TB: Unfortunately, a lot of the roles that are created specifically for Latinos are very stereotypical. I represent Demián Bichir [the third Latino to be nominated for Best Actor, ever]. After he was nominated for an Oscar, the same year as many prominent movie stars, the only casting submissions that were coming in for him were cartel leaders and he really did not want to continue to perpetuate that stereotype.

It was just very eye-opening and illuminating, in an unfortunate manner, that people were not thinking of him, somebody who’d just been nominated for an Oscar for a beautiful performance, for anything but that kind of role. It’s incumbent on us to help promote new voices, new writers, new directors, and identify them, support them.

I don’t think anybody’s asking, “Hey, I need a straight offer,” but everybody would like to at least have the chance to put their art forward, for other people to look at it and see a new idea and equal the playing field a little bit.

TB: I think it’s still tough, to be honest.

JA: It’s still tough.

TB: In my dream world, I would love to continue to grow Culture Makers. I’d love to do an event in New York. We started it here [in L.A.], but it would be fantastic to have a presence on the East Coast and really unite our group across the entire country. I would love to grow it internationally as well.

I just got a movie sent to me the other day by a Guatemalan filmmaker for a client. I’d never heard of the filmmaker and I sat and watched the movie and was like, “Wow, this is so impressive.” So I think [I would like] for us to continue to grow, unite, and be a presence on a global level.

JA: It would be incredible to have a fund where we could start to really put money and resources into developing these incredible projects. Oftentimes, it’s that $10,000 to $50,000 check that can make all the difference in something actually being created or not.

TB: Although in film and television, the statistics are not moving in a positive direction, I have to say music is unbelievable and has had massive breakthroughs. The Latin music scene is massive and it’s broken all kinds of records in the last few years, which is really exciting and inspiring.

JA: Another big piece in the narrative around spaces where you don’t always see us is definitely in fashion. Karla Martínez de Salas, editor of Vogue Mexico, and Nina Garcia have always been advocates and supporters of people who are part of our community and others. Nina’s incredible. She’s this fairy godmother who makes space for people who are Latino in the fashion world. What a huge impact that makes on culture and representation.

Willy [Chavarria] has definitely leveraged his platform and his shows to tell really beautiful stories that are authentic. They feel like home. For me, when I watch a Willy show on my phone, my iPad, or my computer, I watch it over and over again, like a telenovela, like a Broadway show. There’s a narrative; it’s romantic, it’s tragic, it’s beautiful; it’s celebrating. It’s really talking about what’s going on in the world. He’s very much inspired, I believe, by what’s happening in the world and how to make our community stand up in a beautiful way with dignity and pride. And doing it on a stage in Paris.

Even the silhouettes he uses, it’s all like a callback to Chicano culture, which is what I grew up with. I have such an affinity towards Willy, his storytelling, and his courage around being able to love who you love and not having any barriers on that, because certainly in our culture, there’s still a big machismo thing that he stands up against. I’ve been a fan of his for so many years. It’s really incredible that we get to honor and showcase him at Culture Makers. Hopefully we’ll see all of us wearing more Willy on the red carpet.

TB: The other just fun thing that Jessica really has spearheaded is celebrating someone, whether they’re a known celebrity or an incredible chef or a cook or baker or what have you. Jessica has made sure that every single vendor at our event is somebody from Los Angeles who is Latin.

It’s been a great opportunity to highlight local vendors within Los Angeles. There have been so many different new foods, shops, restaurants, and different things that I had no awareness of that she’s brought to the table and given a platform to shine.

This interview has been edited and condensed.