#Robert amaya ethnicity how to
#Robert amaya ethnicity full

#Robert amaya ethnicity full

I realized I’d become a minister in the full biblical sense. I realized I had transitioned from being just a businessperson or just an actor to a representative of a greater message. Until then I’d said, “I’m a realtor” (I hold a license) or “I’m just an actor.” But I’d never stopped and thought about it. I was on a return flight when a young lady asked me what I do. I had already spent a year traveling and speaking because of Courageous, in churches, businesses, universities. About two years ago-this is after Courageous had come out, about 2012-I was on a plane. Do you ever hit pause and say, “Who am I?” Can you even say what is the core of your identity? Is that a fair question? And you’re a Christian mixing several worlds at once. In many ways I represent a group of people in everything I do and the way I feel, my upbringing. I consider myself a Latino that’s the better word. I came to understand some people have issues around it. RA: When I grew up, you were white, black, Hispanic or “other.” My parents were never offended by generalities like that. THC: Latino? Hispanic? Which do you consider yourself, and what do you think of those terms? You’ll still have your Calle Ocho it’s a hybrid of so many, and it’s beautiful. You find, especially today, such an influence of so many Latin cultures coming together. When I was 11, my mother had enough of the earthquakes, and we moved to Miami and got hit by Hurricane Andrew. RA: California is predominantly Central American, the Mexican culture in general, not a lot of Cubans per se. Even my dad will joke and say he’s been Cubanized over the years. And early on it pushed my dad to say, “I want to make sure I’m around and I teach my children how important family is and keeping the family unit together.” On my other side, Cubans are exceptionally tight, and the Cuban culture is more dominant. Early after he moved here, my dad’s father, my grandfather back in El Salvador, who I never met, was caught in the crossfire by radicals, in a case of mistaken identity. He would sometimes take a bus, and he saw my mom at a bus stop, and she caught his eye, and they fell in love. They both ended up in California, and my mother was studying and my dad was out working, doing everything to survive in the new country. She came to the US when she was 16 my dad was three years older. My father is actually from El Salvador, and my mother from Cuba.

Robert Amaya (RA): Well, I’m not just Cuban, really I’m a Latino hybrid. The High Calling (THC): Robert, start by telling us a little about your Cuban background. He’s a 21st century American: multiple cultures, multiple roles and, in his case, with a maturing perspective on what holds the pieces together. Off screen, and off the road, Robert shares a real estate business with his father and takes the home shift with their daughter while his wife, a singer, performs. In May this year, his marquee factor takes a great leap forward as he joins Patricia Heaton, Sean Astin and Trace Adkins in Moms' Night Out, a family comedy about the harried lives of three young moms. Javier has put Amaya, who is not Mexican but Cuban/El Salvadoran, on the map and sent him flying across it as a spokesperson. Courageous would score $34.5 million at the box office, sell a staggering number of DVDs, and spawn a movement (in the lead storyline, Javier is one of four men signing a vow together to be “courageous” fathers). For once the best man on the screen looks like them. And around the world, Latino audiences exhale. Despairing of what he stands to lose, he gets no sleep, and in the meeting the next morning, he tells his bosses if he cheats he can’t face God. Small side note, they mention to him that he’ll need to fudge a few reports. until his bosses take him aside to offer a raise and a promotion. Javier at last lands a factory job and settles into good work. In 2011, in a little category buster of a film called Courageous, actor Robert Amaya played Javier, an out-of-work Mexican laborer with a young family.

#Robert amaya ethnicity how to

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