Mostly, there’s this overwhelming feeling of joy to know for some people it’s the first time they've ever seen the intersection of their own story represented in the media. You know, for a lot of Latinx people, [Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star] Melissa Fumero and I are some of the first Latinx regulars they’ve seen on a comedy! Then for me to also be bi is really thrilling for a lot of people in the LGBTQ+ community, because they’re seeing a character who’s established, and who’s been around for five seasons, come out. It’s an added layer of who that character is, but it doesn’t define her. And I think that’s something a lot of the LGBTQ+ community feels. Speaking for myself, my queerness is definitely a part of me, I feel it almost every day, but it’s also not my defining characteristic. There’s so much more to me. I’m so complex, and so is everyone.

One thing that I think really resonated with a lot of queer Latinx people was that Rosa’s parents didn’t accept her bisexuality. Why did you want to tell that specific story?

What I think is great about co-creator Dan Goor and the producers on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, is that they immediately gave me a call and said, “We're interested in exploring this, but we want to do it the right way. So do you want to do it?” And from then on I was almost like a consultant on the episode, and I really wanted to do things that felt specific to Latinx culture.

While it’s not across the board, for a lot of Latinxs the Church is a big part of your life, and that predates any of us, going all the way back to the Spaniards colonizing South America. It’s deep, it’s really deep. There are wonderful exceptions to this rule, but I remember growing up hearing from Church leaders that queerness is an abomination and a sin; that people who “choose” to do that will go to hell. And that’s terrifying as a kid! You’re having these new feelings, and you’re also hearing from people you trust and love that your feelings will condemn you to hell and you’ll burn forever. That’s really dark. Consequently, I think a lot of Latinx people are closeted or semi-closeted. It’s like they’re in the pantry! It’s not the closet, but they’re in there, and you see them when you open the door, and you open it a lot, but no one’s talking about it.

So when it came to Rosa, I said, “I don’t think that her parents are going to be accepting of this.” I think Rosa was raised religiously and her parents are really faithful, and I think they have some old school ideas about what life is supposed to be like for their kid. I imagine that her parents are immigrants and that they came here to provide their kid with a better life. Here she is, doing great, and the next thing is falling in love and starting a family, and they saw that going a certain way. So when it’s suddenly maybe not going to go that way, they just can’t wrap their brains around it. The writers did a great job showing that.

This upcoming season of Brooklyn 99 is the first one where Rosa will be out for a whole season. How will we see that play out on screen?

We’ve only seen a few scripts so far and I don’t have control, so I don’t know! But there have been plenty of mentions of it since the beginning. And that’s exciting, but I’m definitely pushing for us to see some sort of romantic scene or entanglement with a woman. We’ve already seen her dating a man, and I think the next time we see her holding hands or making out with someone, I’d like to see her making out with a woman. That’s both sides of her bisexuality. And maybe we’d get to see someone who’s nonbinary or trans later in the season. You know, I think Rosa is just attracted to who she’s attracted to, and some of the people she’s dated in her life have been trans. And I don’t know how much we’ll be able to explore of any of that, because I’m not in charge, but I do think it’s important and it’d be nice for the fans to see.