Elite Daily: “‘OITNB’ Star Laura Gómez Tells Real-Life Immigrants’ Stories On-Screen & Off"

At the end of season 6 of the hit show Orange Is the New Black, Laura Gómez’s character, Bianca Flores, was transferred from Litchfield Penitentiary to an Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention center, and in season 7, the show dealt with her experience in detention. "I felt, in a way, it was an interesting way of working around my anxieties at the moment," Gómez, herself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, said to Elite Daily. “This is affecting us one way or another. I thought it was a wonderful way for me to canonize all this and to find a place to put it. And we all knew we had a big responsibility.”

Inspired in part by her work on Orange is the New Black, Gómez wanted to highlight the experiences and accomplishments of real-life immigrants. Under the hashtag #ImmigrantStoriesByLauraGomez, Gómez has profiled actors, LGBTQ activists, novelists, musicians, entrepreneurs, and young students. "I just had a feeling that this was a way to use my platform, which has been amplified by this show to comment on positive aspects of immigrants, the way I know it, the way I experience it," Gómez said. "I felt this could be my way of humanizing us and giving a little profile of a journey of an immigrant and a positive impact in American society."