Eva Longoria's achievements in the television and film industry are not enough to make her family proud. In her appearance at the Cultural Rhythms festival hosted by the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, the actress revealed that her family considered her an underachiever because she was the last one to earn her master's degree.

"When I was on 'Desperate Housewives,' it was the number-one show in the world, and I was ranked really high [on the] Forbes list. I said to my mom, 'Look', and she said, 'Right, when are you getting your Master's?" Longoria said on Saturday at Harvard University, as quoted by PEOPLE.

The philanthropist is the recipient of the 2015 Harvard University Artist of the Year recognition, The Crimson wrote. Aside from Longoria, the program also featured a dozen student groups and a speech from honorary host and Cultural Rhythms founder. Rios. S. Allen Counter, director of the Harvard Foundation, spoke in the event as well.

The actress shared that her family placed such huge importance on education that her mom only became proud of her when she finally got her MA in Chicano Studies from Cal State Northridge in 2013, Fox News Latino wrote.

The 39-year-old star also used the event at the university to discuss the issues of diversity and oppression in society.

"The people who are known to break the chains of oppression are usually those who know what the chains of oppression feel like," she said, as reported by The Crimson.

The actress, a Texan native and the founder of Eva Longoria Foundation and Eva's Heroes, also talked about her experiences as a Mexican-American living in the United States.

"I've kind of lived my life straddling the hyphen of being Mexican-American," Longoria said, as reported by Fox News Latino. "I kind of just sit on that hyphen, you know - navigating loving enchiladas and apple pie, loving mariachi music and Britney Spears. But there are so many moments in my life that were memorable to that experience of being a hybrid, of being a hyphen."

Longoria also recalled the time when she and her family took trips across the border to Mexico and wondered why they were able to get into a shorter line coming back into the United States, while others had to wait in a longer queue, Fox News Latino noted. Her father told her that they were lucky to have that privilege, explaining that their family was "born on the other side." Since then, Longoria never forgot the importance of being an American.