- Gentefied is a Latinx comedy from Netflix starring Karrie Martin (Pretty Little Liars), J.J. Soria (The Oath), Carlos Santos (2 Broke Girls), Julissa Calderon (Revenge), and Joaquín Cosio (Narcos: Mexico).
- All 10 half-hour episodes dropped on the streaming platform on February 21.
- Calderon, a Dominican actress and video producer who got internet famous at BuzzFeed, is one of Variety’s must-watch Latinx actors of 2020.
Gentefied, a Latinx comedy about a Mexican-American family struggling to keep their namesake taco shop from shuttering—and your next binge obsession on Netflix—stars a dynamic cast: namely, Karrie Martin (Pretty Little Liars), J.J. Soria (The Oath), Carlos Santos (2 Broke Girls), and Julissa Calderon (Revenge).
From executive producers America Ferrera (Superstore) and Monica Macer (Queen Sugar), the 10-episode series is based on Marvin Lemus and Linda Yvette Chávez’s digital series that premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2017. Why do we love it? It's packed to the brim with Latinx culture: the food, the music, the fashion—and did we mention the food? (Don't watch while hungry).
Calderon plays Yessika Flores, a 23-year-old Afro-Latina activist who loves hoop earrings almost as much as she loves her spunky artist girlfriend, Ana Morales (Martin). In the first episode, Ana reinvents the heart-shaped box with rows of tacos, which made us fall in love with her immediately. And we also learn that Yessika is known to challenge stereotypes and fight for her community.
With Dominican roots, Calderon was born in New York and raised in Miami, and later moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. She now borrows from her own cultural playbook for her video content and internet material.
“I come from a Dominican family. We spoke Spanish at home and family was always a priority. A lot of my material is based on Dominican culture because that’s what I know,” she said in a past interview with the Huffington Post. Below, we dive a little deeper to learn more about the woman who is staying true to her roots on and off the screen.
She’s one of Variety’s 10 Latinx to watch.
The list of Variety’s 10 Latinx to Watch was revealed in February and Calderon joined the likes of Melissa Barrera (In the Heights), Angel Bismark (Pose), and Camila Mendes (Riverdale). “Even a quick look at the lineup of this year’s 10 Latinxs to Watch proves the point that industry pros already know: Latinx talent is enlivening and enriching global entertainment from theater to music to film and television,” said Steven Gaydos, Variety's executive vice president of global content.
Calderon has delivered some pretty inspirational keynote speeches.
In between takes on set, the actress hits up the nation’s campuses—Wake Forest, Brandeis, Emory, and her alma mater, University of Florida, just to name a few—spreading her message of hope.
“I’m proud of it because the students are the ones who choose their keynote speaker and to be chosen time and time again by the future of America makes me happy and proves that I am on the right path and doing the work that was placed on my life,” she said to VoyageLA last spring.
She went from waiting tables to making videos at BuzzFeed in less than year.
Though her LinkedIn page has her BuzzFeed video producer gig listed as presently working there, something tells us her full-time acting gig is about to change that—if it hasn’t already. Before Gentified, though, Calderon reveled in internet fame of a different kind. We’re talking viral videos including “Asking Mami for Money” and “If Housewives Were Dominican,” both of which are comedy episodes under the Pero Like umbrella.
Pero Like, by the way, is BuzzFeed’s Latin channel launched for the English-speaking Latinx community. In the video below, Calderone gets personal about her journey from waiting tables to landing her dream job at BuzzFeed.
Calderon played a waitress on Revenge.
On IMDb, Calderon is credited as a "waitress" in one episode of the final season of the hit ABC drama. And while it was a small role, landing the gig was certainly no small feat. Should you want to revisit the melodrama that painted the Hamptons red in the early 2010s, it’s streaming in its entirety on Hulu. You can also find it on Amazon Prime Video. The episode Calderon appears in is titled “Bait”—season 4, episode 15.
It’s probably no surprise Calderon is also a YouTube sensation.
In 2018, the aspiring actress launched her own YouTube channel, on which she posts weekly videos featuring what else: her! According to her welcome video, there’s “scripted content, videos of [her] traveling, cosas de mi familia, and a talking series titled Keepin’ It Real with Julissa.” There doesn’t seem to be anything newer than a year old, but surfing her YouTube channel will be a fun task while you get through Gentefied.
She loves sharing positive affirmations on Instagram.
One of the best things about her feed are the inspirational notes she mixes in with humble selfies and career updates. Adages like, “You owe it to yourself to become everything you’ve ever dreamed of being” and “Fight for the fairytale. It does exist,” are good ones. But our favorite is definitely, “I love how people I’ve never met root for me.” We've never met, Julissa, but we’re definitely rooting for you too.
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DeAnna Janes is a freelance writer and editor for a number of sites, including Harper’s BAZAAR, Tasting Table, Fast Company and Brit + Co, and is a passionate supporter of animal causes, copy savant, movie dork and reckless connoisseur of all holidays. A native Texan living in NYC since 2005, Janes has a degree in journalism from Texas A&M and got her start in media at US Weekly before moving on to O Magazine, and eventually becoming the entertainment editor of the once-loved, now-shuttered DailyCandy. She’s based on the Upper West Side.
