section_path: Early life
section_name: Early life
paragraph_text: Early life
  
  Zoë Yadira Saldaña Nazario was born on June 19, 1978, in Passaic, New Jersey, and raised in Queens, New York City. Her parents are Aridio Saldaña, who was Dominican, and Asalia Nazario, who is half Dominican and half Puerto Rican. In an interview with Wired, Saldaña has said that she is 3/4 Dominican and 1/4 Puerto Rican. She and her two sisters, Cisely and Mariel, were raised to be bilingual in English and Spanish; the latter was their first language at home. When she was nine, their father was killed in a car accident. Saldaña and her two sisters were sent to live with their late father's family in the Dominican Republic. Their mother remained in New York to earn enough money to pay for her daughter's Dominican private school.
  
  The widowed mother Asalia married Dagoberto Galán, who became the stepfather of the girls. They consider him fully their father. While the whole family lived in the Dominican Republic for a time, after Saldaña's sophomore year in high school, the family returned to New York City to escape political unrest. She completed her early education at Newtown High School in Queens. The majority of her late childhood was spent in Jackson Heights, Queens.
  
  Saldaña discovered her love of dance while living in the Dominican Republic. She was enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy studying forms of dance, but describes ballet as her passion. She told Vanity Fair that she quit ballet because she did not "have the feet", and had too much pride and ambition to just be in the corps de ballet.
  
  In 1995, Saldaña performed with the Faces theater group in Brooklyn. She appeared in plays that encouraged teenagers by exploring such issues as substance abuse and adolescent sex. During these years, she performed with the New York Youth Theater. Her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her dance training and her acting experience helped her land her first film role, playing ballet student Eva Rodriguez in Center Stage (2000).
  
  Zoë Yadira Saldaña Nazario was born on June 19, 1978, in Passaic, New Jersey, and raised in Queens, New York City. Her parents are Aridio Saldaña, who was Dominican, and Asalia Nazario, who is half Dominican and half Puerto Rican. In an interview with Wired, Saldaña has said that she is 3/4 Dominican and 1/4 Puerto Rican. She and her two sisters, Cisely and Mariel, were raised to be bilingual in English and Spanish; the latter was their first language at home. When she was nine, their father was killed in a car accident. Saldaña and her two sisters were sent to live with their late father's family in the Dominican Republic. Their mother remained in New York to earn enough money to pay for her daughter's Dominican private school.
  
  The widowed mother Asalia married Dagoberto Galán, who became the stepfather of the girls. They consider him fully their father. While the whole family lived in the Dominican Republic for a time, after Saldaña's sophomore year in high school, the family returned to New York City to escape political unrest. She completed her early education at Newtown High School in Queens. The majority of her late childhood was spent in Jackson Heights, Queens.
  
  Saldaña discovered her love of dance while living in the Dominican Republic. She was enrolled in the ECOS Espacio de Danza Academy studying forms of dance, but describes ballet as her passion. She told Vanity Fair that she quit ballet because she did not "have the feet", and had too much pride and ambition to just be in the corps de ballet.
  
  In 1995, Saldaña performed with the Faces theater group in Brooklyn. She appeared in plays that encouraged teenagers by exploring such issues as substance abuse and adolescent sex. During these years, she performed with the New York Youth Theater. Her appearance in their production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat led a talent agency to recruit her. Her dance training and her acting experience helped her land her first film role, playing ballet student Eva Rodriguez in Center Stage (2000).