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Saved By The Bell’s Alycia Pascual-Peña on Why Hollywood Needs More Afro-Latina Characters
Peacock/Tyler Golden
Season two of Saved by The Bell landed last week, starring not one, but two Latinas. The first season got the type of praise that’s rare for reboots and it deserved it. This 2020s version of Saved by the Bell uses the same format and location as the original: It’s still a thirty-minute comedy about a group of friends at the uber-rich Bayside High. But it also makes fun of itself, getting jokes out of the original cast’s escapades while focusing on a newer, more diverse generation.
The second season is just as good as the first, taking place in the post-COVID school year with our teens back on campus and ready to shed their isolation blues. Part of what makes it work is Afro-Latina Alycia Pascual-Peña playing the role of Aisha. She’s sort of the new Slater as the athletic best friend and quarterback of the football team. But since the Zack role is also held by a Latina (Haskiri Velazquez as Daisy), their dynamic is more about supporting and less about competing with each other. Plus Mario Lopez is actually still Slater, who’s now Bayside’s gym teacher and busy learning the emotional intelligence to help him finally surpass his high school self.
So, while we’re back at Bayside, it’s Gen Z’s campus now and that means centering perspectives like Aisha’s. She’s got a lot of great arcs this season from figuring out her identity after the football season is cancelled to exploring a new side to her sexuality. POPSUGAR spoke with the actress who described herself as “an aggressive gal” who bucks all the stereotypes of what it means to be a young, Afro-Latina in Hollywood.
Check out this slideshow to learn more about Pascual-Peña. We’re sure we’ll be seeing more of her soon!
Alycia Pascual-Peña
As a Bronx-Raised Dominican American, She’s Super Proud of Where She Came From
Pascual-Peña is a proud Dominicana from the Bronx. Her parents met on the island, (her father was born there while her mom was born in the U.S.), and she spent her early years in a monolingual Spanish home thanks to her parents and grandparents. “They sent me to pre-K without knowing English. In the moment, I was livid because I was like, ¡no entiendo nadie! But thank God, I had a wonderful nun in my pre-K in the Bronx that really helped guide me,” she told POPSUGAR.
Peacock/ Evans Vestal Ward
The Biggest Risk of Her Life Was Not Putting Education First For Once
Pascual-Peña always knew she wanted to be an artist and is grateful to her mom for supporting her, even when the rest of her family didn’t always understand. She says she “has a lot of grace” for them, knowing how hard it is for immigrants to take the types of risks inherent to an artistic career. For example, she was raised to always put education first so it was a big deal when she decided to take a break from college and “give 110% to acting.” But it paid off with her booking the role of Lucy in Amy Poehler’s Moxie, a Netflix film that came out earlier this year.
Peacock/Greg Gayne
She’s Community Oriented
“Everything that I do is truly for my community,” Pascual-Peña tells POPSUGAR and she clearly means it. Her wildest dreams are yes, to be a successful multi-hyphenate in Hollywood but also to give back, supporting immigrants, Latinas, and the arts. She loves the Latinx community and that love inspires her to use her platform to push us to do better: “A lot of people tried to tell me ‘we’re all family, somos Latinos’. And I’m like, ‘Yeah, we are. But you guys continue to negate and erase our experiences, and the fact that we deal with racism.'” That’s why it’s so important for her to play Afro-Latina parts. She hopes her roles help other Black Latinos “know that they’re valid in their beauty and in their truth and in their experiences. These are conversations that started in my house, and now I’m having them on greater platforms.” And with that, she’s changing the world.
