SHOW STOPPER AMERICA FERRERA OF TV'S `UGLY BETTY' BECOMES A NEW KIND OF ROLE MODEL, INSPIRES SEARCH FOR INNER BEAUTY.

Byline: SUSAN ABRAM Staff Writer

PACOIMA - She wears her heart on her paisley- patterned, polyester sleeve, her dreams sparkling like the blue steel braces on her teeth.

She may not be the starlet on the arm of the latest Hollywood hunk, but for a growing number of adolescent and teenage girls, there's something about Betty.

They see themselves in Betty Suarez, the title character of the Golden Globes winning ABC show, ``Ugly Betty'' a comedy about a young woman determined to succeed in the world of fashion despite being anything but fashionable herself.

``(Betty) shows that all girls should have insight, and should have confidence and that everyone is pretty in their own way,'' 16-year-old Annesa Garcia said.

``America Ferrera is my role model because in everything that she comes out in, she shows everyone is beautiful.''

For Annesa and her classmates at the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, actress America Ferrera, who stars in ``Ugly Betty,'' offers hope to the smart and talented but otherwise invisible or misunderstood.

Betty is curvaceous. Her hair is thick and dark. She wears whatever she likes -- Guadalajara poncho and all.

Ferrera, who grew up in Woodland Hills and was a valedictorian when she graduated from El Camino Real High School in 2002, drew high praise last week for her heartfelt speech when she won the Golden Globe award for best actress in a comedy.

``Thank you to the (Hollywood) Foreign Press for recognizing this show and this character who is truly bringing a new face to television and such a beautiful, beautiful message about beauty that lies deeper than what we can see,'' Ferrera said.

``It's such an honor to play a role that I hear from young girls on a daily basis how it makes them feel worthy and lovable and that they have more to offer the world than they thought.''

Experts who study women's roles in the media say Hollywood should be listening.

``I think (Ferrera's win) is revolutionary because for so long people have watched these Hollywood types that have been stamped out of a mold, but those women are not who women really are,'' said Mari Womack, research scholar for the Center for the Study of Women at UCLA. ``This is a breakthrough program. She is the kind of character that can transcend across cultures.''

Breaking barriers

Ferrera portrays Betty Suarez, a Mexican-American living in a New York household bursting with love but marred by struggles.

Her father's legal status is questionable. Her sister is a single mother trying to juggle work and motherhood. But Betty is defiant in her determination to pursue a career in the world of high fashion magazines.

Though she is the classic misfit, her lack of fashion sense sending ripples of ridicule from one hyperbeauty's lips to another, she perseveres each week with smarts and old-fashioned charm.

Ferrera's Golden Globe-winning portrayal won her recognition from Rep. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte, during a speech on the floor of Congress.

``Through her work, Ms. Ferrera is breaking down barriers for Latinos in prime-time television,'' Solis said.

``I commend America and everyone involved in `Ugly Betty' for helping to break down stereotypes and provide a role model for young Latinas.''

Ferrera, who needs heavy-rimmed eyeglasses and fake orthodontia to transform herself into Ugly Betty, is just one of the role models that teens are looking for, Womack and others said.

At the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center -- a successful charter school in Pacoima's heavily Latino neighborhoods -- role models have less to do with similar cultural backgrounds and more to do with overcoming social barriers.

Queen Latifah and ``DreamGirls'' star Jennifer Hudson, who also took home a Golden Globe, were mentioned as students' favorites during interviews last week.

``I think we need more actresses who are kind of chubby because that's really how most people look,'' said 15-year-old Elizabeth Mercado.

``I would like to see a lady play something different, like a president, to show that women can be tough,'' said Jessica Maldonado, 14.

In teacher Caren McDonald's journalism class, students said they wanted to see characters who reflected their own reality.

Margarita Medina, 14, said her 24-year-old sister's life would make for a good character. She is a single mother who enlisted in the Navy and is serving in Iraq.

Mariah Silas, 15, said her aunt rescued her, raising her on her own even though she too was young, and had no experience with children.

Boys also liked the ``Ugly Betty'' character, saying that while Paris Hilton still raises their eyebrows, they found inspiration in the overall message of the program.

``Latinos have this tendency to settle for what they have,'' said class president Carlos Avina, 16. ``But `Ugly Betty' promotes the message that you don't have to settle. You can do more.

``She shows us that if you work hard, you can get what you want.''

Forward, then back

Several organizations said despite some success, advertisers and Hollywood's notion of beauty persists. Mind on the Media, an independent, non-profit organization that raises awareness about the negative effects of images in the media, has culled the following from various research groups:

Eighty percent of 10-year-old American girls have dieted. The top wish for girls ages 11-17 is to be thinner.

The number of teenage cosmetic surgeries soared from 13,699 in 1996 to 24,623 just two years later.

In advertising, women's bodies are used sexually to sell products more often than men's.

Women 45 and older are only 15 percent of prime-time TV characters.

Viewers are more than twice as likely to encounter a scene in which a male character predominates over a female.

```Ugly Betty' is basically starting up the conversation of beauty within,'' said Carolyn Ticarro-Parker, executive director for Mind on the Media. ``The message can be that women are active, powerful consumers that need to make a difference.''

The organization promotes a grass-roots program called ``Turn Beauty Inside Out,'' which hosts an annual conference that focuses on advertising, movies, politics and music.

``American society is infatuated with what celebrities are doing and saying, so I think it's going to take big names to move the (beauty within movement) forward,'' Ticarro-Parker said. ``It's going to take industries and the buying power of the teens to open more doors for us.''

Finding beauty within

Once a month, dozens of teen girls from around Los Angeles grab their pens and journals and gather at the Los Angeles Recreation Center in Exposition Park.

They come to express themselves through the written word with the help of mentors, all professional women writers from backgrounds as diverse as television and poetry, songwriting and journalism.

``What we're all about is getting girls to uncover their voice,'' said Keren Taylor, executive director and founder of WriteGirl, a nonprofit organization for high school girls that encourages empowerment through self-expression.

During the school year, the girls and their mentors perform at readings at various bookstores around Los Angeles. An anthology of their work also is published each year, with titles such as ``Nothing Held Back'' and the most recent ``Untangled.''

``Creative writing is an equalizer,'' Taylor said. ``Your voice is your voice and it has no bearing on your physical appearance.''

WriteGirl is the kind of program that makes Mikayla Cowley, a 14-year-old from Agoura Hills, feel comfortable.

She looks nothing like the lead character in ``Ugly Betty.''But just as most girls her age, there are moments when she feels different, except when she's writing.

``There's so many places, so many different ways when you feel you are not part of a group,'' Mikayla said. ``But when you write, you can write about anything you want. You share your work, and people look at your work, not at how you look.''

On Saturday, Mikayla and nearly 50 other teens received some tips on writing poetry. They walked through a giant labyrinth as a metaphor for finding their inner spirituality, before settling in and crafting their own prose.

Some agreed that shows like ``Ugly Betty'' and its Spanish counterpart, ``Le Fea Mas Bea'' are motivators.

``It shows that it doesn't matter what you look like on the outside, but it's on the inside that matters,'' said Jamilah Mena, 14, of South Los Angeles.

Her mentor, Trina Gaynon, 49, of Woodland Hills, said that while the television show has positive messages, more effort is needed to help girls find, and then sustain the meaning of inner beauty.

``Once a girl has identified a gift that she has, she needs to be able to take it somewhere and that doesn't always happen,'' Gaynon said. ``What I like about `Ugly Betty' is that people are surprised that what's on the outside of a person isn't always what's on the inside.''

susan.abram(at)dailynews.com

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To learn more about WriteGirl, go to www.WriteGirl.org.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- color) America Ferrera, right, poses with her award for Best Actress in a Comedy for ``Ugly Betty'' at the Golden Globe Awards on Jan. 15. Above left, Ferrera portrays Betty Suarez, the title character of the ABC comedy about a young woman determined to succeed in the world of fashion.

Ron Tom/ABC

Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer

(3) Laura Hurtado, 17, front left, Aisha Holden, 17, right, and her sister Kamaria Holden, 14, behind Laura Hurtado, pair words of how they feel regarding things they see in the room at WriteGirl a writing program at Exposition Park in Los Angeles.

Michael Owen Baker/L.A. Daily News