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Zoe Saldaña Accepts Academy Award As First Dominican American To Win An Oscar: "I Will Not Be the Last"

“I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity,” the Best Supporting Actress winner said.
Published: March 3, 2025
Zoe Saldaña Accepts Academy Award As First Dominican American To Win An Oscar: "I Will Not Be the Last"
Photo: Courtesy of Saint Laurent

After having already won the Best Supporting Actress award at the Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, BAFTAs, and SAG Awards, Zoe Saldaña wrapped up her awards season sweep by taking home her first Oscar, too. Wearing a burgundy Saint Laurent gown, the Emilia Pérez star accepted the Academy Award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role by thanking her family—and specifically calling out her immigrant parents. “I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award,” Saldaña said. “And I know I will not be the last.”

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Read her full speech below:

“My mom is here. My whole family’s here. I am floored by this honor. Thank you to the academy for recognizing the quiet heroism and the power in a woman like Rita. And talking about powerful women, my fellow nominees: The love and community that you have offered me is a true gift, and I will pay it forward. Thank you so much, Jacques Audiard, you are forever a beloved character in my life. Thank you for taking the interest. Thank you for being so curious about these women, to tell this story. To my cast and my crew of Emilia Pérez, I’m sharing this award with you...To my mom, my dad, and my sisters, Mariel and Cisely, everything brave, outrageous, and good that I’ve ever done in my life is because of you. Thank you so much—and to my husband with that beautiful hair. The biggest honor of my life is being your partner. You hung the moon in our beautiful, perfect sons, Cy, Bowie, and Zen. They fill our skies every night with stars.

My grandmother came to this country in 1961. I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hard-working hands, and I am the first American of Dominican origin to accept an Academy Award. And I know I will not be the last. I hope!

The fact that I am getting an award for a role where I got to sing and speak in Spanish—my grandmother, if she were here, she would be so delighted. This is for my grandmother, Argentina Cesse. Thank you so much. Mucha gracias."

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Saldaña spoke to ELLE in our Women in Hollywood issue about how her career has been full of many pinch-me moments.

“I’m a girl from Queens,” she said. “I really love being from Jackson Heights, but it’s such a world in its own. The day that Steven Spielberg gave me my first opportunity or James Cameron or J.J. Abrams or James Gunn, and then Jacques Audiard, my heart skipped a beat. Those are those moments where through that struggle that I have with loving myself, I’m repurposed. I’m compelled to see myself as others are seeing me, and the sacrifices that I’m putting in every day are being rewarded. It’s a shot of oxygen into my lungs, and it reshapes me and raises me; it reconnects me to my higher self.”

She also said that it’s worth recognising the progress women in Hollywood have made. “We condition ourselves to believe that we always have to fight and we always have to push and I think that’s very important,” she prefaced. “Something that’s also very important is to pause and look back and appreciate the progress that has been made. We will never be happy with the pace of how change happens for the better, but it has been happening since the beginning of cinema. We are completely different today from where we were 20 years ago and then 40 years ago and 60 years ago. There has been an evolution.”

This article was first seen on ELLE US.

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