Eva Longoria the activist?
If you’re wondering what Eva Longoria has been up to, listen up! The former ‘Desperate Housewife’ has taken up the cause of advocating for immigration reform. The pint-sized actress’s stance on immigration is that the Republican party has a moral, political and economic obligation to compromise on U.S. immigration policy and reform. She believes in that notion so much that she is willing to lend her celebrity to raise awareness around the issue.
This isn’t her first foray into activism. During the 2012 Presidential race, Longoria served as President Obama’s campaign co-chairman. She delivered a wildly popular speech at the Democratic Convention during the same year where she spoke out against Republican opponent Mitt Romney’s proposal for a tax break for the wealthy. One of her most famous lines was that she didn’t need the tax break but, “the Eva Longoria who worked at Wendy’s flipping burgers — she needed a tax break.”
In last year’s election, Hispanics spoke up with their votes; favoring President Obama at a margin of 7 to 1. Some say that immigration was not the primary issue for many Hispanic voters, but a great many were turned off by Republicans’ unwillingness to budge on the subject. Ms. Longoria revealed her stance as an immigration activist as a guest on the news show ‘This Week’, where she expressed that she hoped in his second term Obama will focus more on immigration reform; particularly the Dream Act.
The actress-turned-activist spoke about the immigration process and its complicated nature. “People say, ‘Oh, get in the back o the line,’ [but] people don’t realize there’s a hundred lines to get into”…”It’s a very broken system.”
While immigration may be the focus of her current activism, Longoria is no lame duck activist. She is multifaceted; serving as the executive producer of Latino Inaugural, a concert at the Kennedy Center with performances by several artists including Jose Feliciano, Melanie Griffith and New York City’s Ballet Hispanico.
Eva continually shows that she is aware of the issues that she supports, and isn’t just lending her celebrity status to a cause with which she is unfamiliar. She’s said, “What I am hopeful about is that this administration, and particularly President Obama, sees that immigration is an economic issue,” …“We have to understand that we are dependent upon a labor in this country, specifically agriculture, to provide low-cost products, and they’re jobs that nobody else is doing.”
While she is building herself into a respected activist, Longoria will not take the leap into politics, as she has declined to run for office in her home state of Texas. However, Eva Longoria the activist is blazing the trail for others conscious of immigration reform to speak out and be heard.
