Grace Gealey, who plays Anika Calhoun on FOX’s Empire recently sat down with the folks at Details Magazine. Here’s what the actress, who’s from the Cayman Islands, had to say about experiencing colorism when she moved to the United States at eighteen.

For me personally, it’s the whole light-skinned/dark-skinned dynamic [for women of color]. I mean, there’s competition among women everywhere you go. But back home we understand that you can look like a variety of things and still be from the same culture. What I’m saying is that I’ve never felt like I was a light-skinned black woman. Never felt that way because we shared the same culture back home. But when I came to America, that’s when I started to feel that there was a lot of push-back from women. I was definitely made aware that I am light-skinned. I realized that was a thing here.

Check out the entire interview here.