Zoe Saldana Blasts Immigration Opponents: 'Shut Up and Just Deal With It'

Zoe Saldana has a bit of advice for people who are wary of the growing Latin influence in the United States: Get used to it, because it’s not going away.

“Avatar” actress Saldana appears in the December 2015/January 2016 issue of Latina magazine, offering her thoughts on the ever-more-heated immigration debate.

Asked what she would say to people who are “scared by the Latinization of America,” the actress was blunt.

Also Read: Megyn Kelly Blasts CNBC Debate Moderator for Letting Donald Trump Get Away With Bogus Immigration Claim

“You can’t kill us. You can’t send us back. We are millions and millions here because it is our time to migrate. We are the youngest culture. We are doing what your people did,” the actress, whose background includes Dominican and Puerto Rican lineage, said. “So shut up and just deal with it. Adjust your laws, because it’s not going away.”

The actress did, however, allow some measure of sympathy for the anti-immigration crowd.

“If anything, I want to give them a hug, and say, “It’s OK. It’s new. Don’t be scared. We’re great people. We’re gonna do great and better things for your country. Trust me,'” Saldana continued. “We’re not angry either. We’re a culture that isn’t angry.”

Also Read: Bill O'Reilly Battles Donald Trump Over Immigration: 'There's a Better Way' (Video)

In the interview, Saldana compared Latino immigrants to previous waves of immigrants.

“The only true American here is the Native American. Everyone else is a transplant. We’re going through the exact same thing the Italians went through, the Irish, the Jews and the Asians,” she said. “In different ways, but it’s been very similar.”

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12 Years a Slave (2013) - Chiwetel Ejiofor led the 2014 Best Picture winner, which is a true story about a freeborn black man who spent over a decade in slavery in the pre-Civil War South.
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Gran Torino (2008) - Clint Eastwood plays a grizzled Korean War veteran who reluctantly takes his young Hmong neighbor under his wing.
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Crash (2004) - 2006's Best Picture Winner traces the intersecting lives of people of different races in present day Los Angeles.
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American History X (1998) - Edward Norton plays the leader of a violent neo-Nazi gang who reevaluates his life when he sees his little brother going down the same path.
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Malcolm X (1992) - Spike Lee and Denzel Washington teamed up for the true story of the inflammatory Nation of Islam leader.
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School Ties (1992) - Brendan Fraser led this all-star cast (which included Ben Affleck and Matt Damon) in which he played tbe only Jewish student at an exclusive 1950's prep school.
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Boyz n the Hood (1991) - John Singleton's hard-hitting look at life in South Central Los Angeles saw Cuba Gooding Jr. trying to avoid the pitfalls of life in the ghetto.
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Dances with Wolves (1990) - Kevin Costner won multiple Oscars for this tale of a Civil War soldier who comes to identify with an oppressed native tribe in the American West.
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Do the Right Thing (1989) - Spike Lee's searing portrait of a day in the life of a mostly black Brooklyn neighborhood during an intense heat wave.
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To Kill a Mockingbird (1962) - Gregory Peck cemented his place in film history as Atticus Finch, a white lawyer defending a black man accused of rape, in the adaptation of Harper Lee's masterpiece.
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The film industry has never shied away from the controversial topic

Selma (2014) - David Oyelowo plays civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. in a biopic that explores the civil rights leader's role in the 1965 Selma protests.

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21 Times Hollywood Tackled Race Issues (Photos)

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