When Grey’s Anatomy returns for its 13th season on Sept. 22, it will be missing one member from the cast as Sara Ramirez has moved on to new horizons.
“It was a very conscious decision, a choice that I made, and it was really supported by my colleagues and my boss, and so for me, it’s the best choice I ever made,” Ramirez, who played Dr. Callie Torres on the ABC medical drama, told Parade.com. “When you’re really clear about the decisions you’re making and why you’re making them, it’s actually rather empowering, and I continue to wish them all well and they know it, so it’s a good thing.”
But before she left, Ramirez had filmed a PBS special, TED Talks: Education Revolution, premiering Sept. 13, which she hosts along with comedian Baratunde Thurston, and is part of Spotlight Education, a week of primetime programs on PBS and WORLD Channel focused on the challenges facing America’s education system and why many students are still failing.
“The way it was presented to me was that it was a focus on how education is changing to adapt to our new digital world, which, I think, is really important, so it felt very current as well,” Ramirez said. “As a person of mixed race, a Mexican-Irish-American immigrant, a female of color, I definitely was curious to see what the lineup was going to be knowing that 60 percent of Latino and black students drop out of high school.”
That lineup features performances by singer/songwriter Meshell Ndegeocello and Ramirez, as well as three original short films produced by Independent Television Service (ITVS):
- Modern Classroom, by Greg Whiteley, which proposes a radical rethinking of the traditional classroom model, largely unchanged since the Industrial Revolution.
- Freedom University, by Heather Courtney and Anayansi Prado, about an alternative college program in Georgia for undocumented students shut out of the state’s university system.
- Unconscious Bias, by Geeta Gandbhir and Perri Peltz, about how bias can sneak up on us when we least expect it.
Following is more of Parade.com’s conversation with Ramirez regarding her interest in education and the teacher who made a huge difference in her life:
Being part of a TED Talk is an impressive thing. How did you get involved in the first place?
I’ve been going to the mainstage TED conferences since 2009. I’m a very curious person, and I really enjoy stepping out of whatever specialty I’m focused on in my career and learning something new about the world and what other people are doing to contribute to making the world a better place.
About a year-and-a-half ago, I attended the TED Women conference in Monterey, and I was approached by Juliet Blake, who’s the producer of TED Talks Live New York, and she said, “I’m producing this extension of TED Talks, and we’re doing this live, hybrid performance captured by cameras and eventually aired on PBS. Would you like to co-host with Baratunde Thurston?” I just thought, “Of course.”
Any nerves to be part of a TED talk?
At first, I was intimidated by the idea of it all because I wasn’t really sure what it was. I’ve never done anything like this before, so I wasn’t really sure what I was being asked to do, but Juliet was persistent and kind and wonderful, and we worked it out. Also, there was the fact that I was working on Grey’s Anatomy at the time, so I wasn’t sure, if I was going to be able to get out to fly to New York, but everyone made it work.
Do you have a particular interest in education, and if so, where would that stem from?
I come from a family of teachers and scientists, and so I think for that reason, very early on, I was exposed to education and environments where learning was a priority, but I was also very curious about the fact that this particular show was also going to shine a light on how education is changing. I found that really interesting.
And I was curious to see who Juliet Blake was going to get to speak, and interestingly enough, most of the people she had on the list are people of color, which I was really glad to see. I’m also an immigrant. I was born in Mexico. I moved to the United States when I was 7-1/2. I was privileged in that my mother was an American citizen, so I was born with dual citizenship.
When I was 7-1/2, my mother put me on a plane and said, “I’ll see you in two weeks. My friend’s going to pick you up in San Diego.” I didn’t know where San Diego was, where I was going, or what it all meant. I didn’t really understand that I may not see my father for some time [her parents were divorcing], let alone speak to him, so that was a very difficult, turbulent time.
Because of my upbringing, I had a lot of privileges for all the obvious reasons along with the fact that mother is very light skinned and looks “white,” so when I was with her, I experienced white privilege, but when she wasn’t around, I experienced severe forms of discrimination and racism, so because of all my varied experiences growing up as a child in Mexico and the United States, I’m aware of how distractions can really prevent you from learning, from really investing in your education especially if you don’t feel valued, if you don’t feel seen, if you feel neglected on some level, whether it’s teachers not following through, not really caring about their students as human beings but just as numbers, or if students are struggling with issues at home because one of their parents is incarcerated, or one of their parents is on drugs, or they’re being raised by their grandparents and they’re not getting the specific services they need or support they need, or they live in a neighborhood where at any moment there could be a drive by.
There are some very legitimate pressures for a lot of our youth, especially our youth of color, and so for those reasons too, I really was curious to see what these evenings were going to be about. So, all of those reasons made me really want to participate.
Did you have a teacher like some of those featured in this TED talk that changed your live?
Ole Kittleson, one of the teachers who had the biggest influence on me, recently passed away and I sang at his memorial service on Saturday. He is the teacher who changed the trajectory of my life. When I was in ninth grade, I got the courage to audition for the school musical after really blowing it in seventh grade. I just was so traumatized that I thought, “I’m never going to do this again,” and then, I persevered, and in ninth grade, I came in and I auditioned for Ole. I sang “Wind Beneath My Wings,” and his jaw dropped. and he said, “Where have you been? Oh, my gosh, you’re amazing.” He took me by my hand and literally walked me around the campus to all the heads of the arts departments, like the head of the singing department, the choral ensemble department, the head of the drama department, the head of the dance department, and he said to all of them, “This young lady is going to be in your top-level classes next year in her tenth grade year.”
I had so many issues. I didn’t fit in, I didn’t belong, nobody wanted me there. People were cruel to me growing up. People would say things to me like, “Where’s your green card? Go back to Mexico.” So I just felt really shocked that someone saw something in me that I had not. It was really a beautiful moment that changed the trajectory of my life. The following year, I was in starring roles in every musical. People suddenly knew my name and knew who I was walking around campus, and this was a big campus, fourth grade through 12th grade. That’s what shifted my perspective.
There was a time when I wanted to be an engineer, because I’m still a very curious person when it comes to math and sciences, but I was getting incredible feedback and attention that I sorely needed as a child. I think that that’s part of the reason I gravitated towards it and thought, “Well, maybe I should pursue theater and the arts because I’m getting a lot of positive feedback here,” so that’s why I applied to Juilliard. I actually got in, and I ended up moving to New York and attending Juilliard. I got my degree in drama, and I ended up living in New York for 14 years.
TED Talks: Education Revolution premieres Tuesday, Sept. 13 on PBS.
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