Five years ago, Greta Gerwigs directorial debut, Lady Bird, rattled critics and made history.

The coming-of-age film follows a Sacramento, California, teenager nicknamed Lady Bird as she contends with a strained mother-daughter relationship and her desire to attend college on the East Coast despite her familys financial struggles. It was nominated for five Oscars and hailed as a necessary meditation on complicated family dynamics, as well as the trials and triumphs of girlhood.

Despite the overwhelmingly positive reception, however, some viewers noticed striking similarities between Lady Bird and Real Women Have Curves, released 15 years beforehand. Starring America Ferrera in her feature film debut, the movie tells the story of Ana Garca, a Mexican American teenager with academic prowess who is caught between her mothers expectation that she help out with her sisters textile factory in East Los Angeles and her own dreams of heading across the country to attend Columbia University.

There are other similarities, too. Both Ana and Lady Bird learn to express their sexuality, and neither of the films mothers sees her daughter off to college. Josefina Lpez, a co-author of the Real Women Have Curves screenplay, told the online magazine Remezcla in 2018 that while she enjoyed Lady Bird, she couldnt help lamenting that the earlier movie was not appreciated in the same way, despite touching upon similar themes.

While its true that Real Women Have Curves is just starting to be acknowledged as the critical classic it is in 2019, it was the first Latina-directed film to be included in the National Film Registry at the Library of Congress there was no comparison between the two movies for many Latinas. Real Women Have Curves was the first and only time (to this day, in some cases) that they saw themselves represented on screen.

As the 20th anniversary of the film approaches, some of these Latinas spoke to HuffPost about the enduring relevance and legacy of the movie.