After 41 Years, 'SNL' Adds First Latina Cast Member

After more than four decades on the air, "Saturday Night Live" has finally hired a Latina cast member. Fox News Latino reports that for this season, comedian and impressionist Melissa Villase�or was named to the long-running comedy skit show alongside Alex Moffat and Mikey Day, who has been a writer on the program since 2013.

Villase�or, who is of Mexican descent, is the first Latina and only the third comedian of Hispanic descent to join "SNL." Horatio Sanz, who left the show in 2006, and Fred Armisen, who departed in 2013, were the previous two Latinos in the show's 41 seasons.

Said Felix Sanchez, chair of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts, "It shows that we're making progress and that we are an important community that cannot be disregarded. This is an area that is undeveloped and underrepresented -- Latinas in comedy.... If Melissa does well, there will be a demand for more it will open doors for others."�

He said that Villase�or's hiring is a pivot in the right direction for the show's representation of what America looks like.

Villase�or started doing stand-up comedy soon after graduating from her Los Angeles high school, and, after got her break during Season 6 of NBC's variety show "America's Got Talent." She reached the semifinals of the show and went on to do voice work for Cartoon Network's "Adventure Time," Comedy Central's "TripTank" and Fox's "Family Guy." She auditioned for "SNL" several years ago.

"I started doing impressions when I was 12 or 13," she told SanDiego.com in 2012. "I started doing the Britney Spears impressions and everything. I knew when I was 12 that I wanted to be a comedian -- there was no doubt in my mind."

Her spot-on impressions include Jennifer Lopez, Sarah Silverman, Kristin Wiig, Owen Wilson, Sonia Sotomayor and Hillary Clinton, which can be seen on her webseries for M�s Mejor -- a digital comedy studio launched by "SNL" production company, Broadway Video and aimed at finding new Latino talent.