I feel like if we stopped pushing people away in trying to get to the top, we could work together. My goal is to start with my family and my friends, progressively get better and create opportunities for them to express themselves and become happy people, then have them affect the people they're around. [I want to] create this growing effect of positivity and inspired a willingness to overcome any obstacles that are in front of you, whether it be from our government or from our daily lives.

I've always believed that - it's stupid, but I always use this - the pressure makes the diamonds. I really do believe that. The more pressure I'm put under, the more, it seems, I thrive. The more you give me to do and the more you give me to accomplish, the more I can get done for you.

I was a professional fighter for a while, and I trained in martial arts for seven years, so I think that kind of helped form a base for me as far as dancing.

In Miami, there's a Latin flavor, and I just love every bit of it.

Failure turns into success. It looks like it happens overnight to other people, but it's just one person's determination to get past a certain goal. Everybody thinks it's an overnight success, but it's not. It's something someone has been working very, very hard on, and more than likely, has been too embarrassed to tell anybody. No one really wants to show other people their failures. They want to show their success.

Funny story: I was hanging out with Adam Shankman for Samantha Ronson's birthday, and Lance Bass was there. I don't really know Lance, but he comes over to me and goes, 'Hey, I just wanted to let you know I'm a fan of 'Pretty Little Liars' and I'm rooting for your character.' It was surreal! That's how 'PLL' has changed my life.

I don't want you to look at my skin and think "white" or look at my heritage and think "Mexican." I want you to look at me and see me as a human being, and hopefully, we can get past all of this other stuff. It's asking a lot, of course, but there's only one way you fight extremists on both sides, whether it be racist or not, and that's by looking past me, getting bigger than that, letting them not affect you, drawing from it and sticking together with the like-minded people you have around you.