Today we’d like to introduce you to Lyndzi Ramos.
Hi Lyndzi, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I am currently a rising Senior Animation and Digital Arts student at the University of Southern California. Growing up, I have always loved to draw and watch animated films. The minute I realized that the cartoons I (heavily) consumed on TV and the Disney movies I loved were a composition of thousands of drawings. I fell in love and I knew that I wanted to grow up and have a career in animation. But I did not just want to work in animation. I want to help make a change in animation by bringing more diversity and representation through my work and to the industry. But I am getting ahead of myself, here is some of my background.
I am originally from a small town in Peoria, Arizona. (basically, a suburb of Phoenix) I am the daughter of a Jewish New Yorker (mother) and a Mexican Immigrant (father). So I am a mix of two unlikely identities to come together. (Either are barely represented in the media, let alone mixed together.) In addition to being Mexican and Jewish, I am also a bigger woman overall. I am plus-size and tall, standing at 5’11. I have been a bigger girl all of my life, and I always stand out, but at a young age, I learned that being different was apparently a “bad thing.” In elementary school, I was known as the taller, chubby, big curly hair, girl with tan skin. Being so different from the other kids in my grade led to bullying and prejudice towards me. I was bullied for being fat (which I do not see as a bad word or a bad thing to be now.) I was told that my curly hair would “be so much prettier” if it was straightened and that the hair on my arms (from my Mexican heritage) was “disgusting.” I was called “ugly” and “stupid” for being a larger size, and I was being discriminated against simply for being me, but I was only just a kid then!
So over the years, I thought to myself, no one is ever born to discriminate against another person based on their size, gender identity, race, sexual orientation, ability, ethnicity, or religion. It is something that is taught. That is when I learned that the media (entertainment and animation for instance) play a huge role in society’s understanding of different identities through representation shown on screen. Growing up I never saw any character that looked like me or even had a similar story. And I always wondered, if there was someone who looked like me in the animations, cartoons, and media we all watched, would there have been more of an understanding? Would there have been more tolerance or respect? Instead of being met with unjust treatment simply for existing and being me?
That is when I realized the value and importance of representation and diversity and inclusion in film/ entertainment for everyone. Because if the stories being told in animation showcased only one kind of person and told by one kind of person. How are we as a society supposed to ever understand and most importantly, respect the many identities, cultures, and fruitful stories that still need to be told both on and represented behind the screen?
I always knew I wanted to work in animation, but from then on, I knew I had a mission. I was determined to be an advocate and use art and animation as an outlet to tell underrepresented stories and feature diverse characters that have had little to no representation. This has driven me to learn how to draw character designs of people with different body types, races, ethnicities, abilities, and gender identities. And overall, how to be mindful of an animated character’s identity when developing work for my class assignments, contests, and portfolio.
Over the years I would participate in art and design contests as an outlet to put my art and messages of diversity and inclusion out into the world. In elementary school, I would participate and win district Anti-Bullying Art Contests. In high school, I participated in the Arizona Valley Metro Design a Transit Wrap Contest where I designed a wrap that showcased diversity and a sense of community that could lead to a brighter future by taking the metro. I then won 1st place and had my design showcased on a bus and light rail for a year. Towards the end of my high school career, I participated in the Sock It To Me sock company Design a Sock Contest, where my sock design celebrated body positivity by featuring designs of women of all different sizes, ages, and races that covered the sock. Titled “Love Yourself” my sock design placed 3rd overall and was put into production to be sold on Sock It To Me’s online store. I also participated in the 2020 Doodle for Google contest. Where the entire United States school artists compete to have their Google Doodle design featured on the Google homepage for a day. The 2020 Doodle for Google’s prompt was “Kindness” to which my design featured me drawing and designing diverse characters as that is my way of spreading kindness. Recognizing and showcasing all the different people out in the world. I won 1st place for Arizona and made it to the voting round. I did not get to have my design featured on the Google homepage. But it was an honor to be chosen to represent Arizona and to get as far as I did.
Once I graduated high school and was accepted as an Animation and Digital Arts major at the University of Southern California’s, School of Cinematic Arts (SCA), I continued my advocacy to bring diversity to all my work at college. At the John C. Hench Division of Animation and Digital Arts. I have taken every opportunity I could to bring diversity and inclusion to the table. I was able to tell my story as a plus size creator and showcase the importance of positive fat representation in the media in addition to body positivity, diversity, and inclusion in my animated documentary short: ” So Much More to Offer.” This film has been featured in multiple film festivals and has won awards such as “Best Student Documentary” and a “Humanitarian Award” at the Los Angeles Animation Film Festival. Furthermore, I was determined to bring more diversity outside of SCA and to USC. As I have become the Art Director of the Daily Trojan (USC’s fully student-run newspaper.) Where I have successfully built an art and design team of all different backgrounds in an attempt to truly represent the diversity of USC’s campus both in production and visually represented in the art featured in the newspaper. Before being promoted to Art Director, I initially worked as an artist and cartoonist at the Daily Trojan. Where I would keep diversity in mind when creating artistic supplements as well as creating my own comic featured in the newspaper “USCENE” featuring bi-weekly stories of my experience as a plus-size Jewish Latina at USC. Where my comics would discuss topics such as the intersectionality of my identity, what it is like not seeing other plus-size students at the school, and discussing Anti-Semitism.
Finally, this past semester I have been interning as a Spring Program Intern at LatinX in Animation. An organization that strives to empower and promote the growth of Latinx diversity and minorities in all facets of Animation, VFX, and Gaming industries by celebrating authentic stories that are about us, told by us, and made by us. While interning my classwork was devoted to developing my upcoming senior animated thesis film. For my project, I am going to be telling the true story of how my parents met. It is a story that is so beautiful, two different walks of life who unexpectedly fell in love. It is “Beshert” (- That word is Yiddish but in English means “Destiny”) And a story that needs to be shared as I have never heard or seen anything else like it represented before.
“Beshert” Logline: A Jewish New Yorker takes a trip to Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for Thanksgiving after losing her parents. While on her trip she unexpectedly meets the love of her life: The hotel front desk manager wearing a floral shirt.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been entirely a smooth road. Growing up, being bullied and having to deal with low self-confidence as a result for most of my life was not easy. But I can say that hardship has made me stronger, I am more confident in myself than ever, and it made me determined to go after what I want.
It was actually through the power of drawing and art that helped improve my self-confidence. Growing up with no positive fat representation in the media can really impact your self-esteem. Especially when I grew up in a time (the early 00’s) where thinness was the gold standard of beauty. And fatness was always deemed ugly until the body-positive movement started a few years ago. Fatness being equated to being “less than” was especially prominent in entertainment as movies, TV shows, and films would always have the fat character as the best friend, or the funny comic relief, or the villain, but never the main protagonist or the hero. We were always represented as something to be laughed at or villainized.
So growing up with no great positive fat role models to look up to in the media, combined with getting bullied because I am a bigger girl, had a big negative impact on the way I saw and felt about myself. I had low self-esteem, I did not put effort into the way I looked for a long time because I believed what those bullies said when they called me ugly. For a while, I really struggled with my self-worth.
Let it be known too that being fat does not equate to healthiness. I have always been healthy even though I’m plus-size and exercise. Something that a lot of society does not understand is that there are a lot of intersectional factors that contribute to someone being plus-size or fat. And being fat should not be demonized as it is a describing word. Society and the media contribute to how thinness is deemed ideal and pretty whereas fat was misconstrued to mean ugly and undesirable. Fat and Thin, they are both words, and it is time to make them equal.
It was not until I was a freshman in high school that I had the idea to create the positive fat representation I had been longing for myself. I was sitting in English class doodling in my notebook and once I took a second to look what I had drawn, I realized I drew a fat girl on purpose. I called her “Cherry” (my original character) because she was round and her cowlick in her hair represented a cherry stem to me. It was the first time I drew a fat character and thought that she was pretty and confident, all the things I did not see myself as a fat girl. From that day on, I kept drawing “Cherry” and saw myself in her. She would not be a character to laugh at but rather with. She is funny because of her words, not her body. She was pretty because her body is unique and equally beautiful to anyone else’s. The more I kept drawing this fat character, the more I felt confident in my own body and found it to be beautiful. Which is why representation in animation, movies, and TV is so important. If I had a cartoon character like “Cherry” to look up to as a kid, I would have felt seen and validated for my experience. Eventually later in high school, I did find love for myself and my own sense of confidence. And I have felt beautiful and confident being fat and big ever since.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I am an Animation and Digital Arts Major. So my line of work is in the Arts/ Creative. What that entails, though is that I am an Animator, Character Designer, and Background Painter.
My work resides in the visual development part of the animation pipeline. My specialty is in background art (So basically the background paintings you see the animated characters living/engaging in.) and character design. (I would be responsible for designing how the animated characters on the screen would look.)
I am known for my diverse character designs suited for children’s cartoons. (Though I have not had the opportunity to work on an official animated show from an animated studio…yet) I want to gear towards children/ teens in animation as I feel it is important to see people/ characters who are different from you at a young age. In my portfolio, I showcase character designs of kids/people of different races, body types, and identities as part of my mission to showcase underrepresented audiences. I believe this sets me apart from others as I perform visual research and always pay attention to the different people around me so I can be accurate when designing characters that require certain characteristics or features to accurately represent a person of a specific identity.
Honestly, I am most proud of the way I have overcome hardship and turned it into determination to use my art as a way to help make the world a better and more respectful place. I am proud of my sense of direction and that I have gotten myself as a plus-size artist out of a small town in Arizona to a top film school in California to pursue animation just down the street from the industry. There are a lot of things I still want to accomplish and I have felt proud of all the progress I made in trying to get to where I want to go. Which is essentially to be able to create an animated show with a fat protagonist and a diverse cast that represents the underrepresented.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me happy is my family and friends. My family, mom (Paige Ramos)/ dad (Luis Ramos)/ Sister, (Kelsie Ramos) / and Brother (Nick Ramos)/ make me happy as they are my biggest supporters and I would not be the person, storyteller, and creator I am today without them. We are a tight-knit family that enjoys each other’s company. I always smile my widest and laugh my hardest when I am with my family as we all have our inside jokes and understand each other in ways some other people don’t.
My family is full of hard workers. My siblings and I were taught by our parents to work hard for our dreams as they were not able to fully do so. And I already see the payoff from working hard. The thought of working hard so that I can support my family also makes me happy because then I will truly know that I achieved my dream. I hope someday to serve as a thank you to my parents that I would be able to help take care of them.
Being surrounded by loved ones and friends will always make me happy because engaging with people brings so much joy and color to my life. I love being able to interact and create relationships with others and making memories with others that I can look back on and laugh. That is one of my favorite things to do.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://lyndziramos.wixsite.com/portfolio
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lyndzi_ramos/?hl=en
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lyndzi-ramos-a42141232/
Image Credits
Lyndzi Ramos
