How Gaby Natale’s Immigrant Perspective Empowers Her to Be a Pioneer

Gaby Natale is a pioneer. As the fırst Latina to win three Daytime Emmys in two years, the TV host and bestselling author is on a mission to empower other Latino immigrants to follow their dreams and pursue every opportunity they’re given.

To what degree has your success allowed you to be a proponent for more Latino inclusion in the arts?

Influence, success, and visibility go hand in hand, but it’s diffıcult to trace which comes fırst. I’ve lost count of the times I found myself to be the only — and more often than not fırst — Latina in the room, whether it was a business meeting, a negotiating table, or a stage.

This helped me develop a ”pioneer mentality;” I had to trust my vision even before I had the results to validate it. In a way, I had to be my own mentor because way too often nobody like me had done it before.

A good example of this ”pioneer mentality” is my career as an author. After a successful run of my bestselling book in Spanish ”El Circulo Virtuoso,” I just offıcially became the fırst Latina to be signed by HarperCollins Leadership division, joining the ranks of John C. Maxwell and Rachel Hollis. I am sure that by sharing my journey as a proud Latina immigrant in an authentic way, others too will realize that “calladita no te ves más bonita” (you do not look prettier when you are silent).

How has your culture affected your life in a positive way?

I am, fırst and foremost, a Latina immigrant. This fact of life gives me a perspective different from most people.

In many areas of my life, being an immigrant has made me a risktaker. I know what real poverty is and I know what lack of access to opportunities really feels like.

When I quit my job as a news anchor for Univision to start my own production company, my colleagues thought — and told me! — that I was a lunatic. But my thought process was completely different. I kept thinking, “If the worst that can happen to me is that I’ll have to fınd another job and move on, I would be insane not to try it!”

What is the best piece of advice you have ever received?

One of the best pieces of advice I ever received came from my mom Cristina. I like to call her the Erin Brockovich of Argentina. She is a tough-as-nails lawyer who has spent her career fıling class-action lawsuits on behalf of retirees.

Back in 2001, Argentina was in the middle of its worst fınancial crisis in a century. We are talking over 20 percent unemployment rate, food riots, fıve presidents in 10 days, the works. I was fresh out of college with a master’s degree in journalism, zero callbacks from prospective employers, and one unpaid offer from a dear friend to go help her do some menial tasks at a political marketing convention her company was sponsoring.

So here I am, having a pity party in my head, when my mom calls and I start whining about my “oh-so-sad” fate of being an unpaid helper at a convention lots of former classmates would be attending as guests. Of course, Mamá Cristina is not the type to commiserate.

She asked, ”Do you have anything better to do?” Well, no. That’s the whole point of being unemployed. ”Then, m’ija” she said, “you are going to put on your best dress, get some nice-looking lipstick, and go there like they are paying you a million bucks. And you are going to do that because you never know when opportunity will knock on your door.”

As it turned out, she was right. That political convention opened a little door for me to start doing remote work for a lobbying fırm out of Washington, D.C. that would eventually turn into a job offer to work for them here in the United States. Her advice literally changed the course of my life.