Jenna Ortega has a message for Melania Trump: “I do care.”
One day after the first lady made a visit to a detention facility for child immigrants wearing a jacket that read “I Really Don’t Care, Do U?” the 15-year-old actress gave an answer. As Hollywood Life noted, the Stuck in the Middle star showed up to the Radio Disney Music Awards with a jacket that gave a blunt response to Melania’s strange statement.
Jenna’s jacket, styled similarly to Melania’s, read “I Do Care And U Should Too.” Pictures of Jenna Ortega’s jacket went viral on social media and earned praise for her simple statement.
This is not the first time that Jenna Ortega has taken on the president. She posts often on social media expressing her disgust with anti-immigrant policies. As Teen Vogue noted, the daughter of Puerto Rican residents has been invovled in the Pride over Prejudice campaign and has spoken out in support of immigrants.
“It’s important to embrace your culture today because there are so many different ethnicities in America,” Ortega told the magazine. “At the end of the day, you are you. You’ve got to stay true to yourself, and you can’t change yourself in order to fit in or to make someone else feel comfortable.”
Though she is still not old enough to drive a car, Ortega said she feels an obligation to use her platform to speak out.
“I think it’s important to give back to your community because I feel that we were all put on this Earth for a reason,” Jenna says. “We all should do our part to make the world a better place.”
Jenna Ortega is not alone in taking on Melania Trump for her strange statement. It drew widespread criticism, especially in the light of Donald Trump’s policy that separated children from their parents at the U.S. border. Melania’s spokesperson said that there was no hidden message with the jacket, a statement that was quickly contradicted by Donald Trump who said that the jacket was meant as a dig at the “Fake News” media.
As CNN columnist Chris Cillizza noted, it was clear the jacket’s message was intentional.
“We are talking about the first lady of the United States here,” he wrote. “And not just any first lady. One who has meticulously minded her public image for decades — not just since her husband started running for president. The idea that Melania just grabbed any old jacket without regard to how people might interpret it goes against literally everything we know about her.”
While Melania Trump got plenty of criticism for her jacket, Jenna Ortega has been mostly praised for her response, and the pictures are getting viral attention across the internet.