Migdia Chinea Varela

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Migdia Chinea-Varela (a.k.a. Migdia Chinea) is a Cuban-American screenwriter and actress. She was a writer for the TV series The Incredible Hulk and Superboy, and has contributed episodes to other series. Since 1971 she has appeared in several TV and movie roles.

Chinea was the first Latina to join the Writers Guild of America West (WGAw), and founded its Latino Writers Committee. She has written and spoken publicly about discrimination in the U.S. entertainment industry, testifying before the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in October 1997.

Chinea filed a discrimination lawsuit against the WGAw and CBS after learning that, under terms of an affirmative-action program, she was expected to work for CBS for less than the minimum rate set by the Writer's Guild. In 1999 the $138 million class-action lawsuit was dismissed without a trial.^[1].

The daughter of Cuban emigrés, Migdia Chinea Varela was raised in south Florida. She began performing ballet and jazz dance in her teens. Her on-camera acting career began with a role in a 1971 episode of Mannix. Her volunteer work in the Los Angeles area earned an award from the city's Human Relations Commission in 1988.

In 1999 Chinea graduated cum laude from UCLA. As of 2006 she lives in a historic neighborhood in Glendale, California.