El Mundo Boston Exclusive Interview:
In being named the Harvard Foundation’s Artist of the Year, she joins a long list of prestigious honorees that includes other Latino performing icons such as Ruben Blades, Salma Hayek, Andy Garcia, George Lopez and Shakira.
By Tim Estiloz
Eva Longoria has certainly made a name for herself as one of Hollywood’s most recognizable and successful Latina actresses.
However, it’s her work behind the camera and off-screen as a producer, director, social activist, businesswoman, philanthropist and more that led Harvard University’s Harvard Foundation to name this multi-faceted woman as its 2015 Artist of the Year during its recent Cultural Rhythms Festival.
Longoria, best known initially for her 2004 debut role on the hit ABC dramatic/ comedy series Desperate Housewives; has grown leaps and bounds, both professionally and personally, from that springboard to become a Hollywood powerhouse for change, empowerment and advocacy for those in need.
For Longoria, 39, being added to this list of Harvard honorees was something she never dreamed possible.
“When I got the call that I was getting this award, I almost fell over with excitement”, said Longoria, “because I remember the word “Harvard” as being this unattainable, far-reaching thing that wasn’t for me. It was for those other people. As a little Mexican-American girl growing up in Texas, it (seemed) just so far out of reach for me.”
However, Longoria’s eventual path to Harvard recognition isn’t that surprising, given her family’s emphasis on the need for education.
“I come from a large family of educators“, said Longoria.
“Everybody in my family is a teacher or a professor including my sisters and my mom. I also come from a family of strong women. I have three sisters, nine aunts and God knows how many female cousins and they’re all educated, so I come from a large family where college was a must.”
However, Longoria adds that the road to success in Hollywood, business and philanthropy had very humble beginnings in her hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas.
In speaking to the students at Harvard, she recalled the brief trips she, as a child, would take with her father across the border into Mexico and learning an important life lesson.
“One time, I remember we were coming back from Mexico and we were in the really short line”, said Longoria, “and, I saw this other really long line and I heard my dad say ‘Don’t forget to say you’re an American citizen’. (As a child ) I thought they were magic words. I was thinking to myself, “We know the passwords. I wondered why the people in the long line didn’t know the magic words and why don’t they say them too… and my dad said ( they can’t ) because they were born on the other side. I asked my dad “Why were we born on this side?” Her father said it was luck.
Longoria never forgot her father’s words and how important it was to be an American. But as she grew older while being bussed to a nearby school in a richer and whiter neighborhood than her own, Longoria also began to realize the importance of her Hispanic roots and that other non-Latinos would see her as different.
“I’ve sort of lived my life straddling the hyphen of being Mexican-American, said Longoria. “I got to sit on that hyphen both loving enchiladas and apple pie. Loving Mariachi music and Britney Spears. There’s been so many moments of my life that were memorable to being a hybrid, of being a hyphen.”
Despite her wide ranging success, Longoria jokingly describes herself as the underachiever in her family.
“I was the last person in my family to get a Masters Degree. When I was on Desperate Housewives and it was the number one show in the world and I was ranked really high on the Forbes list… and I said, ‘Mom, look !… and she said, right, but when are you getting your Masters?”
Eventually, Longoria earned her Masters in Chicano studies from California State University in Northridge in 2013.
“It was important for me to understand the experiences of other Hispanics”, said Longoria, “and how they navigated the conflicts of identity and how they navigate being American and ( also ) holding on to your culture.”
Longoria continues to serve the Hispanic community and beyond via the groups she’s founded, Eva’s Heroes and The Eva Longoria Foundation, which help Latinas build better futures for themselves through education and entrepreneurship. The groups also enable many young people to be the first in their families to attend college or even graduate high school.
“The work we do with the Eva Longoria Foundation is really magical“, said 
Longoria.
“We try to recognize those outside forces that create poverty, that create inequality and we try to uncover the reasons for exploitation and we try to assist people to change those conditions in their own lives. Whether I’m advocating for farm worker rights or immigration rights or women’s rights or kids with special needs; what I’ve learned the most is to listen and to listen carefully to all those groups that have long been oppressed”.
Despite her immense success in Hollywood, it’s clear Eva Longoria has not forgotten her personal and cultural roots and life experience in her mission to help others.
“The people who know how to break the chains of oppression“, said Longoria, “are usually the ones who know what those chains felt like.”
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