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. Congress and the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in October 1997.

Chinea and other Guild members filed a class-action discrimination lawsuit against the WGAw and CBS after learning that, under terms of an affirmative-action program, they were 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 émigrés, 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 1996 Chinea wrote an essay criticizing the portrayal of Hispanics in the show Wings ^[2].

In 1999 Chinea graduated cum laude from University of California Los Angeles. As of 2007 she lives in a historic neighborhood in Glendale, California.

On November 16, 2007, the WorldNet Daily posted "Battle-scarred 'sub' in L.A. barrios speaks out" by Chinea, a former substitute teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Chinea stated that, in many schools she served, the students had no interest in learning, abused the teachers, vandalized property, and joined gangs. Chinea stated that teachers are underpaid and under-appreciated in the district. She described the campuses in LAUSD as "mess, filthy, dilapidated and without supplies." Chinea believes that the district is taking little action against the conditions rampant in various low income schools. ^[3].

Migdia Chinea-Varela participates in Wikipedia with the Wikipedia account User:Migdiachinea.