'And through all her hard work, Latinos made it to the upper middle class.” “She was just so filled with joy that she wrote something on a page and cared about it so much,” the actor said. So I hope that we welcome in people that love rom-coms, and that they see their family in some way through the lens of this family,” she said.Ĭonstance Marie ('George Lopez,' “Switched at Birth”) recalls Calderón Kellett's giddy reaction when her scripted vision for the family's enviable Craftsman-style home came to life on a soundstage. “This is a rom-com that happens to be about a Latino family, not a Latino rom-com. Renée Victor and Pepe Serna play a long happily married couple.Ĭalderón Kellett, who began her career as an actor, gets to deliver some choice lines in the supporting role of Gladys, who's unapologetically single and exuberant. Right (Vincent Rodriguez III), and cousin Sol (Isis King), a physician who's falling for a co-worker. (Benito Martinez), in a middle-age marital slump siblings Lily (Emeraude Toubia), who just dumped her perfect boyfriend, and Jorge Jr., who may have met his Mr. Many of the characters face relationship challenges, including Beatriz (Constance Marie) and Jorge Diaz Sr. The five episodes of Portland-set “With Love,” out Friday, follow the extended Diaz family, their friends and partners through a holiday cycle of Christmas Eve (Nochebuena), New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, July Fourth and the Day of the Dead (Día de los Muertos). And it’s (the series) so inclusive that it really kind of educates people.” We have Christmas holiday traditions, just like everybody else. “I feel like this show represents the Latinx community in a way that we truly are, but nobody’s ever seen us before,” said series star Constance Marie. Holiday movies have eased away from rigidly all-white casts, but people of color overall are playing catch-up when it comes to seasonal TV stories.

something where they are the center of a story, and they’re experiencing love and joy and all the warm good feelings.”Īmazon gave her pitch a quick approval, and the result is the original series “With Love,” a holiday potpourri of a rom-com with a Latino family and tolerance at its heart. “I can provide a healing salve and give people. “I can provide a panacea,” Calderón Kellett recalled thinking.

America was also facing “a barrage of darkness,” she said, including violence and intolerance toward people of color and the LGBTQ community.

In darkness she is all i see