Saldana was born in New Jersey to a Puerto Rican mother and a Dominican father from the Dominican Republic. She was raised in Queens, New York, and her first languages are English and Spanish. When Saldana was nine, her father died in a car accident, and Saldana's mother moved her and her sisters back to the Dominican Republic. While there, Saldana enlisted in a ballet class and gained experience as a dancer, enlisting in one of the most prestigious dancing schools in that country, which benefited her later in her role in Center Stage. She returned to the U.S. after her sophomore year in high school and enrolled in the Faces Theater Program, an acting course. She also worked in Burger King as a cashier in the mid 1990s.