Nothing’s Going to Stop Us: Set Hernandez and Maysoon Zayid on Unseen
Two advocates discuss the audience data from a new CMSI report that should change how independent film gets distributed, and who needs to step forward first
Since January 2025, the current U.S. administration has accelerated executive orders directing federal agencies to eliminate ADEI programming across government and to pressure federal contractors and grantees—including nonprofits and universities—to certify that they operate no programs the administration deems discriminatory. The legal landscape has shifted repeatedly since, but the chilling effect has extended beyond the rulings. Universities have dissolved DEI offices and declined to restore them after injunctions. Nonprofits have quietly renamed programs, re-evaluated public communications, and pulled back from constituencies such as disabled people, immigrants, and undocumented youth that draw the most scrutiny.
This is the context in which Distribution Advocates convened comedian, best-selling author, and disability advocate Maysoon Zayid with filmmaker and community organizer Set Hernandez, whose documentary Unseen has, since its release, modeled exactly the kind of work now under institutional pressure. Set’s groundbreaking film follows Pedro, a blind undocumented student on a quest to become a social worker, and utilizes a unique visual lens, audio descriptions, and more. Unseen, which can be seen on PBS, Kanopy, United Airlines, and more, was one of multiple films recently studied by the American University Center for Media and Social Impact for its audience engagement.
Hernandez and Zayid discuss what the CMSI findings reveal about an audience the industry has yet to take seriously and how positive images of disability can save lives. They touch on how authentic stories can appeal to a universal audience, and how the untapped disabled viewership can swing box office and elections. Unseen’s CMSI report is available here.
This interview has been edited.
Maysoon Zayid: The American University Center for Media and Social Impact recently did a study of accessibility and representation on Unseen. Can you give the abridged version of its history?
Set Hernandez: Maysoon, of all people, the fact that I’m in conversation with you about this is so exciting and beautiful. Unseen came about because my friend Pedro and I first met in 2015, at a professional development program for undocumented youth. At the time, I was a coordinator for the program; Pedro was a participant and he was the first person I met who was openly undocumented and had a disability. It dawned on me that the experience of disability is rarely talked about in the immigrant community. So I approached Pedro a year later to see if he’d be open in making a project together to uplift his story through the lens of his life as an aspiring social worker, who happens to also be undocumented and blind. Because I’m also undocumented, it was this uphill battle because so many things were out of reach.
Maysoon Zayid: You have to be a U.S. citizen [to access funding]. I’ve just entered the philanthropy world and the US citizen thing is incredible. It’s everywhere.
Why do you think disability is so invisible in the undocumented community?
Set Hernandez: I think it’s because so much of the immigrant rights discourse and rhetoric speak to the notions of capitalism, as in we are pulling ourselves by our bootstraps, able-bodied, and capable of doing all these things that feed into capitalism.
And because of our ability to feed into that, we are deemed more worthy of citizenship and dignity because we can contribute to—
Maysoon Zayid: —productivity.
Set Hernandez: Exactly.
And you’re probably familiar with this public charge doctrine. Defectives in the Land is a book that historically looks at notions of disability in relation to immigration in the early 20th century and how eugenics is the basis of the immigrant system in the U.S. in more ways than one. Because when you think about race in the early 20th century, this idea of the superior human race—
Maysoon Zayid: It all comes back to supremacy.
My second question: when you approached Pedro, did you think that 11 years later you would still be doing this?
Set Hernandez: I didn’t even think that I would be doing it a year later. Unseen has consumed my entire 20s, my entire adulthood, but not in a bad way, more like absorption than consumption. It’s like having a friendship.
Maysoon Zayid: It sounds like having a starter wife, but friend.
Set Hernandez: I’ve been a starter wife, exactly.
Maysoon Zayid: Circling back, how does Unseen become the center of this study?
Set Hernandez: When the Center for Media and Social Impact reached out, they were doing this project. There’s multiple studies. And each study also has a different kind of lens; some are more qualitative.
Part of the reason I think why they were interested in Unseen is because there really has been no comprehensive study about the experience of undocumented people and disabled people as moviegoers, you know what I mean?
Maysoon Zayid: Allah yerhamha.
Set Hernandez: The opportunity to look at a film that has had the immigrant and disabled audience in mind from the very beginning, became a chance to illuminate this experience of a key demographic in cinema that has been underserved and overlooked.
Maysoon Zayid: Set, you were saying it, that it’s fun you and I are having this conversation. Twenty-five years ago, I started the conversation about if a wheelchair user can’t play Beyonce, then Beyonce can’t play a wheelchair user. Not only do we need to tell authentic stories, but we are a captive audience.
Where we’ve seen so much progress is in commercials. When you watch commercials, people are Deaf, people are blind, people are all banged up in all different ways. They’re all part of the disco, the disability community, because they know we have body power, and we are an audience, and one in three households has a disabled person in it.
I was so excited that this study was done, but I was disappointed that it only surveyed 350 people. Why was it so small?
Set Hernandez: We would argue that it’s not that small, because from a sampling size perspective, the survey looked at participants from seven states across the U.S. from a dozen organizations. When you look at the overall breakdown of who took the study, the percentages of people that are LGBT, that have a disability, that are undocumented, reflects the larger world around us.
We feel confident that this study can have reverberations for the rigor and the quantitative-qualitative research approach.
Maysoon Zayid: I’m confident that I want more people to see or hear Unseen. So how does that happen?
Set Hernandez: It’s so funny. You’re literally trying to promote the film.
People can watch Unseen on Amazon. It’s on PBS Passport. Support your local public station. Folks can also watch it on Kanopy for free.
Maysoon Zayid: I watched it on United.
Set Hernandez: Oh no, Maysoon.
Maysoon Zayid: That’s how I saw it.
I think it is so incredible how you use the blind lens at different points during the film. We were watching through Pedro’s eyes and it was so disorienting in the beginning. What was the decision-making as a filmmaker?
Set Hernandez: I think that’s such an important note because my goal from the very beginning is to make sure that Pedro sees himself in the film and that it reflects who he is as a person.
But the only way he can do that is if he actually gets to access it. So, the blurriness, the perspective, the subjectivity is more of a way to imagine equitable enjoyment of film for blind and non-blind audience members. The film is also about a person who listens to other people as a social worker.
Maysoon Zayid: I have to get to the report.
I was shocked by the first statistic, which is 83% of participants said they were inspired to improve their situation after watching the film. I have always believed that positive representation can save lives.
Were you surprised?
Set Hernandez: I don’t know if I was surprised. The point of the film is to share Pedro’s beauty with the world. Whatever our film team experienced when we were making this film, we want the audience to experience it also.
Like you, I’m allergic to the inspiration trope around our community and any community that’s underserved and marginalized. The study was also done in October and November 2024, when all this hateful rhetoric was being shared about immigrants during the presidential campaigns.
For people to feel inspired, notwithstanding the political discourse, and for this film to be a source of that, is the same emotional download we felt when making the film.
Maysoon Zayid: At that time, what was so shocking to me is that I found everybody around me to be so lacking in hope. And that’s why it was surprising. I find that people have lost hope. So, I was really excited by that statistic that 83% of people were like, fuck no. People were like, I can live a better life. That’s a really powerful thing that this film was able to do. That’s why I think it’s so important that this study was done, because I’m always trying to convince the capitalists that these products are worth selling and the audience exists.
As a comedian, I’m either trying to make you laugh so that you feel better, or I’m trying to make you realize that we’re laughing at people exactly like you. Another statistic in the report said that undocumented people felt more confident in sharing their experiences after watching Unseen. This gives me anxiety because I want people to be confident, but people still think it’s funny to call ICE. How do we straddle this confidence that you elicited without putting people in danger?
Set Hernandez: This is so real, Maysoon. For example, when I first learned that I was undocumented, I didn’t even call myself an undocumented student. I called myself an AB540 student here in Los Angeles, California. I didn’t have the vocabulary.
I work at a university now, and as I meet young undocumented youth, I’m realizing that this sense of fear of being found out as undocumented is so palpable again. And this disclosing of one’s experience can operate in multiple ways. Sometimes we’re so afraid of sharing that we’re undocumented, we actually don’t tell anyone around us—and because no one knows that we’re undocumented, we don’t get the resources that we need. Just telling your counselor, for example “Hey, I’m undocumented and I need support”—unless someone knows that we need that support, they might not know to give us that support because they didn’t realize that we need that support.
Maysoon Zayid: You also don’t know that support even exists.
Set Hernandez: Exactly. The way fascism and authoritarianism works is by isolating us and making us feel that it’s hopeless, that we can’t fight because we’re all alone. When we share our stories and realize I’m not the only one who’s going through this lived experience, that’s how organizing happens, right?
And that’s the power. The moment we find each other, that’s maybe how change can happen.
Maysoon Zayid: On the surface, Pedro seems like he’d be such a niche character—Latino and blind, challenging me for the gold medal in the oppression Olympics. But the study showed the majority of audiences identified with him, which speaks to the intersectionality of this story. How do we take this great nugget of knowledge and sell it to the capitalist market and say, disabled stories, when told correctly, when they’re good, everyone wants to see them?
Set Hernandez: I always use X-Men, these mutants with superpowers, as the analogy for how I first found out that I'm undocumented. The character that I related to was Rogue when she first learned she's "different." But she’s this white woman who is also a mutant. I'm neither of those. If you think about it, a white woman with superpowers is also a niche person. Pedro is as niche as any because we’re all our own different experiences. It’s just that Hollywood has saturated the market with a certain kind of lens, and we think that that’s “mainstream,” when the global majority, doesn’t even reflect those images.
What I realized is the more specific we went into Pedro’s lens, the more universal it felt. Because we stopped looking at Pedro as a disabled, undocumented person, and started sharing Pedro as a person. He’s going through a lot of human things. Let’s lift up those human things, and pepper in the experiences of disability and immigration along the way.
Maysoon Zayid: I know what you mean. I sold a sitcom to ABC that died. I was constantly telling them: we don’t have to focus on disability. Let’s just focus on the hot mess character, that she’s messy and sloppy. She falls in love, she’s late for work, she’s trying to put on eyeliner—everyone who’s ever run to miss the most important meeting of their life isn’t looking at her limping, they’re racing with her. That’s what you’re saying–—the more that you hone in on the humanity, the more universal it is.
Set Hernandez: Exactly. And that’s relatability... the more you relate to the emotions of what that person’s going through.
Maysoon Zayid: What year was this shot? And how would it be different if it was shot in the current fascism on fire?
Set Hernandez: Unseen was shot in 2016, when Trump first became president.
Part of the reason why we also have the aesthetic of the blurriness was to try to blur the faces of other [undocumented] participants for their safety.
If the film were shot today, I feel like we would still be doing it the same way.
2026, the new 2016, they say.
Maysoon Zayid: In the report, there was a stat that gobsmacked me, that there’s 20 million blind people in America, which means they outnumber Muslims by so much. Everybody’s afraid that Muslims are going to take over and invoke Sharia law. But from this study, I learned there were 20 million blind people. And there’s only 4 million Muslims. If there’s 20 million blind people, it is a swing vote. That means they can actually control the entire country. How do we use Unseen to activate the blind population to overthrow fascism? Go.
Set Hernandez: What I’ve learned about the political power of the disability community is that it’s such an unsung hero, because to your point, 20 million people is an entire voting block. Something that I learned from the blind community is that no community is a monolith. How often are the GOTV efforts accessible? How often do they include audio description, ASL? Why aren’t larger organizations more intentional about accessibility rather than treating it as a side project? Part of the reason why the disability vote is untapped is maybe similar to how no one thinks of the undocumented disability community as a film market with buying power. We need to really reimagine and listen to disability leaders who know what their communities need. We need to push back against the ableist way non-disabled people use the phrase "blind leading the blind," because there's nothing more powerful than blind people leading other blind people and have directly impacted people lead each other.
Maysoon Zayid: So, I’m Palestinian, Muslim, women of color, disabled, live in Jersey, divorced, and look like a Kardashian, the whole nine yards. People always ask me what’s the hardest thing. And so, I’m going to ask you: what’s more challenging, identifying as LGBTQ, identifying as undocumented, or being a fabulous drag queen?
Set Hernandez: Girl. Did you say what is more challenging? I don’t think any of it is challenging—okay, who am I kidding? It’s a little difficult.
Maysoon Zayid: And then undocumented. I didn’t really realize you could live so openly undocumented with ICE running around, shooting American citizens.
And, then we know the treatment of Brown families. You’re Filipino. I love that you’re so comfortable with all of it.
Set Hernandez: That’s what Pedro talks about at the end of the film: he’s tired of having to live fragmented versions of himself all the time. How can I show up authentically as much as possible in ways that feel bold and wherever it feels safe and appropriate? And how can I challenge myself if it doesn’t feel safe? How can I still show up authentically and powerfully to confront all this? I think they’re all hard, and they’re all easy, and what makes it manageable and affirming is to know I am not the only one who is living like that.
Maysoon Zayid: I walk on stage, or I limp on stage, now completely unafraid. I talk about the government, I talk about Islam, I talk about men, I talk about whatever I want to talk about, because everybody else is self-censoring. The danger is real. But the fear they instill in us, or the shame that they teach us, is so much worse. I like what you’re doing, because you’re saying: I see what’s around me. So what?
Set Hernandez: I can’t let the fear stop me from living my life. And that’s what Pedro and we want to share with our community members who watch this film—don’t let fear stop you from living your life.
Maysoon Zayid: What’s next for you??
Set Hernandez: I’m developing two documentaries and two scripted projects. It’s always a rat’s race downhill, to be honest. Whichever one will not lead me to be more broke than I already am. That’s the vantage point.
Maysoon Zayid: I have two cats. I have to convincingly pretend that I don’t favor one. But people with multiple kids, if they have to choose one to save, they always know absolutely who they’re going to pick. Which one do you like the most?
Set Hernandez: All of my projects are about undocumented people. One uses unrequited love as a lens to illustrate what it feels like to grow up undocumented in the U.S., unwanted by the only country you’ve called home… Half of the projects I’m working on explore desire and the sensuality of undocumented people, because no one thinks of immigrants that way.
Maysoon Zayid: No, you’re not allowed to have desires.
Set Hernandez: Exactly, like we’re just workers who are sacrificing all the time.
Maysoon Zayid: Undocumented people are not supposed to be tired. They’re not supposed to get sick. They’re not supposed to fall in love. They’re not supposed to do anything. They’re machines who just do what we need them to do and then please go away. I think the idea of marginalized communities having desire is not something we see.
We just see privileged people having desire, and people desiring privilege.
Set Hernandez: Thank you, Maysoon, for hanging out with me.
The key takeaway that I want to share: right now, supporting undocumented folks, supporting Palestinian filmmakers, is made almost against the law by this system that we’re in. If we’re asking for support from distributors or from funders, they have to be willing to take risks. And regardless of whether they come on board, Maysoon Zayid is going to be out here. Set Hernandez is going to be here. Nothing’s going to stop us because we’re living in our purpose.
Maysoon Zayid: But it doesn’t hurt if people who have nothing to lose stand in front of us once.
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