Amirah Vann has learnt to love her “thick big, nappy hair”.
Amirah Vann loves her hair
The ‘Shirley star wants to embrace her “Latina” culture and identity through as many means possible including accepting and honouring her natural tresses.
The 42-year-old actress told the website Refinery29: "I am Latina. I have thick big nappy hair, and why am I changing it? Like every bit of me is Latina."
Amirah opted to make ‘How to Get Away with Murder’ character Tegan Price “Afro-Latin” as she “clearly” saw her as such.
She said: “I made her Afro-Latina. When I looked at Tegan Price, and she spoke Spanish, I was like, ‘Oh, well, she’s me.’ I didn’t even think that hard about it — I’m clearly a representation of who she is.”
The NAACP Image Award winner loves to satisfy her “personal interest” to learn about her potential fate - if she had been born during a different time - when preparing for roles in projects such as ‘Underground’ and ‘Jazzman’s Blue’
Amirah said: “I poured personal interest and desire [into those roles] because that’s [my] heritage. I’m not far removed from that experience. I mean, any one of those narratives could have been my narrative.”
The ‘Queen Sugar’ star share how colourism - the preference for lighter-skin over darker skin tones - “hurts” her despite not experiencing it.
Amirah said: "It hurts me and I’m not even dark-skinned. At the end of the day, we’re one of the few places that can teach the world that this is another version of what a Latino looks like."