Negotiating your salary in the Age of Covid-19

“More money please?” 

It might sound like a silly thing to ask in the wake of present day news and politics, but feeling like you deserve a raise for working through the modern day plague is a real and valid feeling. We have all watched businesses close and make cutbacks and some of us have lost jobs. Most of us, who aren’t Jeff Bezos, sat in anxiety wondering ‘what’s next?’ and what that means for our financial security. I, myself, had to budget and lay off the unnecessary snacks like Hot Cheetos; we’ve all made our sacrifices.

There’s no question about it: If you worked hard through the pandemic, all while wondering if today is the day you contract a sometimes-deadly disease, girl you deserve a raise. 

Asking for a raise can be a scary, intimidating thought, particularly in today’s Covid-ridden landscape. Especially if, like me, you were raised being told to say gracias por todo lo que tengo at every turn. Being thankful is great and all, but women cannot survive on basic AF salary alone. 

Here are some tips to help you snatch that well-deserved raise with grace.

State your case

You deserve this raise – you know that, you know how hard you work, and now you need your boss to know that. Get together any documentation that you can, whether it’s past performance reviews, yelp reviews, emails, or data showing quantifiable results. Anything that shows how you’ve made a positive, helpful impact in the workplace the last year or so will be good to know about. Covid-19 has no doubt changed the way your company does business in one aspect or another. It also probably means your job has relied on you more than usual. If you weren’t working from home, maybe it meant you physically worked in potentially infectious areas. Highlight how you’ve tackled new or modified duties during the pandemic, or helped ensure any changes went smoothly. 

It’s important to emphasize the unique qualities you bring. I hate to say it, but at most companies you’re technically replaceable. That being said, not everyone can bring what you do to the table, so ask yourself why that is. Ask yourself why your employer should be thanking their lucky stars that you work for them. Do you sometimes contribute to other departments? Did an idea of yours increase growth or numbers? What is it you can do that others may not? 

Get ready for the negotiation

Asking your co-workers how much money they make is sometimes an awkward subject, but it’s worth a try, especially if you hold the same position. In the past it was considered taboo to discuss salary with your co-workers, but today, in light of salary gaps between men and women and for people of color, I say it’s perfectly fine to ask around (with people you trust) and find out if you’re being paid fairly. Keep in mind factors such as seniority and performance reviews, as those may have an affect on their salary versus yours. 

Have you perhaps taken on the responsibilities of others who were laid off? Or have your duties been extended to cover for personnel loss? These are things to consider when thinking of how much to ask for. Do some research online and find out the average salary for your position. Ask friends who do similar jobs at other companies. If you’re making less than what you should be, it’s good to have that evidence in your head to remind yourself why this is important. 

Negotiate

Schedule some one-on-one time with your boss. This isn’t the kind of discussion you want to have while you both wait to use the office microwave. Email your boss and ask if you can arrange a meeting with them at their convenience. Write down what you want to say to your boss and go over those points before your meeting to make sure you remember your message and facts. Give yourself a pep talk and do whatever you need to do to remind yourself that you’re worth this, that you have a lot to offer. 

Start off on the right foot. Tell your boss how much you appreciate being employed with them and what the job means to you. Then you can transition into your raise proposal. Be clear, detailed, and confident. 

At the end of the day, if your company doesn’t have the means to pay you more, you’ve given your boss something to consider for the future. A “no” doesn’t mean “no forever.” If you value your job and feel generally appreciated then it might be worth it to stick around and revisit the topic at a later date, especially if your company was hit hard financially in the pandemic. If they do have the means to pay you more and they won’t, or they pay your co-workers more, I say it’s never too late for a career change. If a company won’t recognize your worth or match it monetarily, they might never. Life is too short to stay underpaid! 

Author: Lauren Torres

Finding Fantasmas: The Beginning

“They say that sometimes when you have a traumatic experience, that it can alter your perception.”

– Frank Bannister, The Frighteners

I’ve always had a fascination with the unexplained. 

What is now my attempt to find answers about the other realms, afterlife, and general things that go bump in the night was once something I never would have done. 

I grew up in a very religious household. Jesus Cristo was present at the beginning of every meal, at every family event. We even sang “Happy Birthday” to the man every year on Christmas. The older I got, the more this holier-than-thou mentality pushed me to walk in the opposite direction. 

If you asked my grandma about ghosts, as I had a few times, she’d start muttering prayers in Spanish. My grandpa was the exact opposite. As a kid I would wait in my bed, pretending to be asleep, until I heard the click of my mom’s bedroom door close. After a safe amount of time, I’d tiptoe into my grandpa’s room and watch X-Files with him. 

My grandpa had an interest in all things scary and strange and, whether he meant to or not, he passed it down to me with every movie we watched.

As I got older I continued to gravitate toward content and experiences that would only make that interest grow. I read scary stories, played “light as a feather, stiff as a board” with my friends, and watched The Craft and Casper too many times to count. In middle school, my friends and I even went into a dilapidated, abandoned house that was rumored to be haunted, scrutinizing anything suspicious that we saw. 

At the same time, something else was happening; I was becoming afraid. I leaned towards logical, science-based facts, but what if those were only one side of reality? 

When I was 20, I moved from my grandparent’s house in Pico Rivera, California to Portland, Oregon for a change of scenery. The apartment that my friend and I were able to afford was a small one-bedroom, with thick carpeting and a collection of mismatched furniture we had picked up for free around the city. One of our living room decorations was a tower of empty beer cans. It was barely a space for anyone alive, much less anything supernatural. 

But one night I was woken by the distinct, unmistakable sound of feet shuffling slowly up and down our hallway. To say that I’m a heavy sleeper is an understatement; I’ve slept through earthquakes. But this light, delicate sound snapped me awake in the middle of the night while my roommate lay asleep, unbothered. I heard the feet shuffling for a number of nights afterward, always waking to the sound of them in the dark.

One day, while alone in the apartment and beginning to drift toward sleep, I heard a voice in my ear: “Lauren!” 

It was as crisp and clear as if a human man had been sitting right next to me. It wasn’t a whisper, a raspy voice, or even remotely close to any ghostly wailing. Just one simple, “Lauren!”

“What?” I said.

Silence. 

It wasn’t furniture moving across the room, or lights flickering, or even chills going up my spine. In fact, I wasn’t scared at all. It was just out of the ordinary. 

Years passed and, while I did hear the voice one more time, life moved on. I didn’t think much of it.

Then, in 2019, life stopped for a while. 

One of my closest friends, Jeff, died by suicide. Even though he’d been battling depression and mental disorders for years, it was still the biggest shocks of my life.

I couldn’t move or do anything for months. I quit my job and stayed inside, alone. We had been depression accountability partners. We had dated. Hell, I had lost my virginity to him, a choice I hadn’t made lightly. 

There were things I wanted to say that I never did because god forbid I ever look vulnerable, especially when it mattered. If there’s a way to describe how it felt, I have yet to figure out what those words are. The world has never looked the same and I doubt it ever will. 

I begged him to visit me in my dreams or for a sign of any kind. I got a few here and there, but a part of me still wonders if they were truly “signs” or just coincidences. When I dreamt of him, was it my subconscious cutting me a break, or had he really found a way to see me again? 

I couldn’t sit around and wonder about it anymore. If, as the X-Files had always claimed, “the truth is out there,” what was I waiting for? 

When I hit the internet looking for someone to help me, the person who responded was not at all who I expected. Enter my friend Andie, a medium.  

I had known Andie for a few years, having met while working at the same corporate coffee chain, and I never knew she had this ability. You’d never guess it just by talking to her. Maybe this is because after many years of seeing and communicating with spirits, she’s learned how to handle it well. She doesn’t look like a Lydia Deetz type or even brings up the subject of ghosts. She’s an anthropology major and an amateur photographer, often posting photos of natural landscapes and majestic night skies.

We met up and drove together through L.A. traffic toward Griffith Park for our first night of ghost-seeking. We both agreed that the term “ghost hunting” is strange. After all, we weren’t hunting anything.  

She tells me about how this gift runs in her family and how she’s had it since she was a kid. She used to see her grandpa’s ghost peek his head into her bedroom. Her TV would turn on by itself and change channels until it would stop on cartoons they used to watch together. 

She’s also seen some not-so-friendly spirits: spirits masquerading as people she once knew, perhaps to “trick her into allowing them in.” As far as I can tell, telling the difference is a gut feeling. 

I start to describe to Andie the things I heard in Oregon. Before I can even finish my sentence about the voice, she interrupts me.

“Ugh, I hate when they do that,” she says. “It’s always when I’m trying to sleep, too! Like, if you want to talk, fine, but can we do it when I’m not trying to sleep?”

After spending years trying to block out her abilities, and developing headaches in response, Andie was finally able to accept them. Her headaches went away and she has, what appears to be, a handle on everything. She has even found that, if she asks nicely, a ghost will leave her alone and let her sleep. 

She’s here to explore her abilities.

As for me, I don’t have an interest in the paranormal anymore. I have a need to explore it. To find out if maybe there’s a place Jeff went where he can finally be okay. 

I don’t expect to find Jeff, and I’m not looking for him. If he wants to find me, he knows where I am. I don’t know what I expect to find, or if I will find anything.  We might just be two women walking around in the dark. But I do know that if I can find any answers, I want to. 

I’ve been through enough normal trauma and it’s altered my perception. Nothing paranormal can scare me now. 

Author: Lauren Torres

A Look at Latina Scream Queens

As a horror movie enthusiast, scary movies have been the least scary thing about Halloween season 2020. It’s the most terrifying year most of us have seen in our lifetime. What better way to forget about the very real horrors we face than by watching other people endure their own?

This year we’re taking a look at Latina characters in American horror movies. First thing’s first, let’s get the obvious out of the way; the pickings are very slim. The scariest part of this article is how few Latinas are cast in American horror films, followed only by the actual quality of those few films and characters. Despite the fact that Latinx audiences make up 24% of box office sales for the horror genre, there’s little representation of us on screen.

In the sea of Sydney’s, Carrie’s, and Regan’s, there is a group of unsung heroes: Latina side characters, best friends, and, rarely, leading ladies. Instead of focusing on the terrible job Hollywood has done to diversify film, we’re going to focus on giving the proper shout out to the Latina Scream Queens who have managed to actually make it to our screens. These ladies have managed to shine in the face of mediocre scripts, box office bombs, and tired stereotypes. While this isn’t a complete list (Sorry Jessica Alba, shout out to you, but I’m not watching “The Eye”) here are some of the performances that stand out among the rest. Some spoilers ahead!

Salma Hayek as Santanico Pandemonium in “From Dusk Till Dawn”

Even if you’ve never seen the movie, you’ve probably heard of Salma’s snake dance. Santanico is the badass, dancing vampire that tells George Clooney’s Seth Gecko that he’ll be her “foot stool” and her “new dog named Spot,” all with her foot pressed menacingly on his chest.  I want to be annoyed that she’s used so obviously as the sex appeal in this movie, with most of her screen time dedicated to a bikini belly dance, but she’s also the most genuine and memorable character of the whole film. Her time onscreen is cut short by a falling chandelier and you’re sad to see her go because, in a film full of machismo-dribbling outlaw dudes, she’s by far the most compelling.

Camilla Belle and Tessa Thompson as Jill and Scarlet in “When A Stranger Calls”

It’s a tale as old as time; the teen babysitter is trying to enjoy her quiet night in when the phone rings and a cold, menacing voice on the other end let’s her know she’s not exactly alone. Camilla plays the leading lady here and does her very best to keep us interested, as she fields phone call after phone call from a threatening creeper while babysitting. Tessa is her loyal best friend who tries to help her sort out her messy, high school love life. To her credit, Camilla does one thing I certainly would never do; search the house for the killer, bravely, fireplace poker in hand.

Penelope Cruz as Chloe Sava in “Gothika”

Penelope steals the show in this movie as a mental ward patient opposite Halle Berry’s structured, psychiatrist character, Miranda. Shout out to Chloe because while Miranda spends the whole film frantically trying to convince people she’s not crazy, Chloe is the only person who believes her story. Miranda doesn’t settle into mental ward life very well, but Chloe has that life down pat and, in contrast, handles her similar experience with more grace than Miranda ever manages to. In the end, both Chloe and Miranda escape the mental ward, but it’s clear that neither would have made it out alive without each other’s help.

Zoe Saldana as Rosemary in “Rosemary’s Baby”

A remake of one of the greatest horror films of all time is already a bold project to undertake. Tackling the iconic role of Rosemary, mother to Satan’s child and first played by Mia Farrow, seems unimaginable. Despite a script that struggles to build the sense of paranoia and dread that the original film executes perfectly, Zoe does her best to breathe life into this remake. Like Mia before her, she’s the heartbeat of this story. We feel her panic, heart break, and want to root for her while she carries a demon baby in her belly.

Rosario Dawson as Abernathy in “Death Proof”

Rosario is one of several kickass, takes-no-BS women in this homage to exploitation and slasher films of the 70s. Abernathy is the spunky hair and makeup artist friend we’d all want by our side while there’s a murderous stalker around. She’s also the second lady on this list that’s been subject to Quentin Tarantino’s infamous foot fetish scenes (Salma being the first). There’s no shortage of violence and girl power in this film, and Rosario’s presence rounds out the cast of women perfectly. It’s also just plain fun to watch her help beat the living hell out of, and eventually kill, Kurt Russell’s creep of a character.

Morena Baccarin as Michelle in “The Twilight Zone” episode “Downtime”

While Jordan Peele’s reboot of the popular sci-fi and horror show is a hit-and-miss experience overall, “Downtime” is a stand out episode for Morena’s performance alone. Michelle has finally earned the dream job promotion she’s been working towards when a mysterious orb appears in the sky, halting everyone around her and bringing with it the news that her entire life is someone else’s technology-driven, curated simulation. While the rest of the world has stopped moving during “downtime,” she struggles to accept the disillusion of both her own made-up life and the life of the person who created her to escape their own reality.

Author: Lauren Torres

Jefa Chronicles: Christine Stoddard

If you visit Christine Sloan Stoddard’s website, the first thing you’ll see is this: “I tell stories with words, images, objects, and my body. Deal with it.”

That’s how I would sum Christine up. Christine is a Salvadoran-American writer, artist, and filmmaker who grew up in Virginia and currently resides in New York. She’s written books, plays, and poetry, has created music videos, and her film “Bottled” just got picked up by Amazon Prime. She also founded Quail Bell Magazine, a sometime-print, sometimes-online magazine that focuses on real and unreal (i.e. imaginary, otherworldly) stories from around the world. While her career focus now is mostly centered on creative expression through different mediums, she’s been published in national magazines, newspapers, and places like the Huffington Post, Marie Claire, and The Washington Post, just to name a few.

Christine’s latest project, a poetry book-turned-stage-play, was supposed to hit a theatre stage this past June. Like most other events in 2020, Coronavirus made that impossible. Some day that play will see the stage, but for now the play, titled “Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares” is being published in a two-play anthology that you can read for yourself. I picked Christine’s brain about her art, love of folklore, her parent’s meet-cute story, and what it was like to grow up feeling like ‘the other.’

Certain quotes have been edited or condensed for clarity and brevity.

How long have you been writing? What moment or experience made you realize it was what you wanted to do?

I’ve been writing since childhood. High school is when I started to take writing more seriously. In college I studied creative writing and filmmaking, and then I took other kinds of art classes. I’m thirty-one now, I can say I’ve been writing seriously for the past ten years.

You founded Quail Bell magazine. What inspired you to do that?

I started that in college. I bought the domain in 2009, in 2010 I played around with it by myself, and in 2011 I brought on our first team. We put out our first print zine and started doing more with the website. It’s definitely ebbed and flowed over the years in terms of my involvement with it, whether we do print or not, what kinds of events we bring in, what kinds of multimedia work we do for it. I started it because I’ve always loved folklore and fairytales. My mom is Salvadoran and my dad is Anglo, he’s mainly of Scottish descent. As a kid I was always very aware of similarities and differences between cultures. My parents would try and be positive and say, ‘hey, let’s look for the common ground.’ Folklore just jumps out right away, there are so many overlaps between cultures that we don’t even necessarily think about. Just that general interest was one of the reasons why I started the magazine. We focus on the imaginary, the nostalgic, and the otherworldly. So it’s a platform for different kinds of art and storytelling, but with that lens of the magical and historical and creative in general.

What’s your goal or mission with the magazine?

So, we have two verticals. There’s the real and the unreal, and one of the things that we constantly do is question reality. Again, we do this through creative works. We’re also all-women run, and mainly different kinds of marginalized women. Originally the team started in Virginia because that’s where I’m from, but now I’m in New York so half of the team is up here and the other half is down there. But, like most literary journals, we get submissions from all over the world. We publish from all over.

You wrote a book about growing up in Virginia, “Hispanic & Latino Heritage in Virginia.” What was that like?

Yeah, I mean. There’s a reason I don’t live there anymore. There’s a lot to appreciate about it and there’s certain things I miss. But I grew up in a very white, non-immigrant neighborhood specifically. Our county, Arlington County, is split into north and south. My school was in the north, which is almost entirely white, protestant, non-immigrant. The south is mixed, it is very international, you have all kinds of colors and cultures there. My high school was in the north, and I lived in the northernmost part of the county. People actually would ask if my mother was my nanny. People assumed she was Mexican, not that that’s a bad thing by any means, but she wasn’t Mexican. And my dad worked a lot, so people would often only see my mother. My dad would come home and he would want to relax and not interact with other people so much. That whole dynamic of feeling ‘othered’ and marginalized was very strong at a young age because of where I grew up. Now that I’m in New York, and because I do speak English, a lot of people don’t assume I have any kind of Latin background. Because of where I was raised, I was hyper-aware of the differences and the way that people spoke to my mother.

So did you just take it upon yourself to then write the book?

Yeah. Again, I’ve always been interested in folklore, and history is really closely aligned to folklore, like oral traditions, the way stories are passed down. And so much of that has to do with what people actually remember and things that aren’t necessarily documented in newspapers or any kind of media or formal record. In informal conversations, a lot of people said, ‘yeah, there are more immigrants now than there were when I was little.’ So I wrote the book after I graduated from college. When I was little we couldn’t even get Salvadoran food in all of Arlington County, even when we went to the southern part of the county where there are a lot of immigrants. We’d have to go to the town next door. By the time I was in high school there were two Salvadoran restaurants, which doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you go from zero to two in the smallest county in the U.S., that’s pretty amazing. Again, just from different informal conversations, it was like, so what’s happening here? And me, just always wanting to research and talk to people and find out what’s going on, I thought someone has to be interested in this little book. Lo and behold, the History Press published regional history and they’re always looking for regional books.

Your last book was called “Heaven is a Photograph.” What was that about?

It’s a very little book and it has different photos and it all relates to this narrative of a young woman finding her voice as a photographer and expressing herself as a fine art photographer. It is influenced a little bit by my own personal story, although it’s still largely fiction. My parents met because my father was a war photographer for NBC during El Salvador’s civil war. He lived in Miami, he would be stationed in Central America for two months, then he’d go back home to Miami for two months, and he did this for years, back and forth. During one of these fateful trips he met my mother, who got invited to the NBC Christmas party at the studio in San Salvador. She didn’t want to go, there was a lot of friction between Salvadorans and Americans during the war. But her friend convinced her to go to this Christmas party, and it’s a good thing she did or she never would have met my father. So the book does tell this story, and it’s from the young woman’s perspective as she explores photography. It touches a lot on some of the differences between journalistic and fine art photography. Also the idea of how historically women have often been the subjects in photographs, they have not been the photographer, until more recently with cell phones and Instagram and all of the social media photography. But, historically, photography was like that for a long time, that men were in control of the image. So she rebels in her own way and forms her own images and has her own process.

One of your original plays, “Mi Abuela, Queen of Nightmares,” is being published in a book. How did that happen and is the play ever going to make it to the stage?

So originally it was a little chapbook of poems, and my sibling did the drawing on the cover. This was put out by a poetry publisher in Philly in 2017. It’s about this young woman who always feels sort of in second place to her grandmother because her grandmother died before she was born. And her mother has a very strong memory and really honors her in everything and treats her like a saint. So, ever since I wrote the poetry book I thought, and other people had told me, that the way I crafted the images made it a very visual book. It felt very theatrical, so I took a year turning it into a play. Then I submitted it to Table Work Press, which is a nonprofit in New York. They do published plays but normally they try to have a stage reading or production too to accompany the release of the book. Originally, this was going to be in June of this year, but now it’s rescheduled for next June. I don’t know which theatre, I only know it’s going to be in New York city somewhere.

One thing you said in your artist’s statement was that you’re interested in the concept of power and how it manifests in individual and societal concepts. Has that inspired any new works, considering everything that’s been happening?

It’s just something that always interests me. I think during this time it’s not even so much like, ‘oh, I’m going to look at power extra intensely in terms of content,’ I’m trying to look at it more in terms of production. With a lot of art and creative projects there’s a lot of free or unpaid labor, or delayed payment. You make a book or a film, you get paid after it’s sold. Right now something that I have been very conscious of during this time is getting everyone paid. Honestly, in the past if a close friend volunteered for a project I’d be like, great, I don’t have to pay them, it’s free assistance on this project. But now I don’t have any shame doing the Facebook fundraisers and the Gofundme’s and Instagram posts with a Venmo hashtag. Because on everything that I do I want to make sure that people are getting paid. It’s especially true that anyone that’s a non-white man don’t always get paid, or we don’t get paid what we should be getting paid, or on time. Especially now, so many people are not working full time or working at all. I’m in New York, so that’s extra the case here. I can’t give my friends a million dollars but I can give them something to help them live through this time, and that’s connected to power. For me to be able to raise a couple hundred dollars, it’s not a lot of money, but it helps everybody a little bit.

What are you working on next?

I did write and direct a film called “Bottled” that was just picked up by Amazon Prime, so you can watch it on Amazon. I also have a collection of music videos I directed that will be coming to Amazon Prime too. I’m in the process of making two things. One is the audiobook for my novelette “Naomi and the Reckoning.” The physical book is available to order right now, but I wanted to cast one of my actor friends, Donna Morales from Long Island, to be the narrator for that book. So that’s something we’re working on this fall. The short film that I recently wrote and will be shooting this fall is called “Brooklyn Burial.”

What does it mean to you to be a powerful Latina these days?

I feel privileged in so many ways that I’ve even had the life that I have so far. I’ve done things that my mother never would have dreamt of doing, and that my grandmother couldn’t have possibly conceived. The fact that I went to grad school on scholarships, that just blew my mom’s mind. I do want kids eventually, but the fact that I have delayed having children, certainly by the standards my mom was raised with, and that’s something I consider a privilege, that I could make that choice. Maybe it’s different for women whose grandparents or great-grandparents came to this country, but if you or your mom is the immigrant, just the life here and the choices I’ve been able to make. It’s not like, ‘oh Christine, it’s cause you’re amazing!’ a lot of it is just being here and having these opportunities. There are a lot of wonderful things about El Salvador. You might have heard Trump call it a ‘shithole country,’ along with Haiti. I’m not trying to denigrate a place either, but it’s more that I am so happy about the position of power that women of our generation can have now. Not that it’s perfect. I think, also, trying to be proud of where your family is from. I know for me that has been a huge struggle, as a child it was a huge struggle. But it’s something that I want to do more; I want to put my mom’s country on the map. Yeah, it’s her country, but it’s also part of what made me. It’s where my parents met! There were so many things that I was teased about as a kid, or things I was called, like ‘dirty’ or ‘poor,’ or how the kids would call the avocado sandwiches that my mom made me ‘Grinch sandwiches.’ I remember throwing away lunches she had made for me. Now, I’m so embarrassed to be saying any of that, because I want to be proud. I don’t want to be embarrassed of any of that stuff. I think there’s a power in finding pride. It’s not just about not being embarrassed, it’s about saying, ‘no, these are some good and beautiful things and I’m happy that this is my family and that this is where my family is from.’ And I don’t want to hide any of these things anymore.

Author: Lauren Torres

Jefa Chronicles: Maya Delgado

How do you know someone is destined for great things? I can’t be certain, but I’m sure Maya Delgado could give you a few pointers.

Maya’s been singing, acting, and dancing professionally since she was eight. She released her first music EP, “Shades of You,” at the age of eight and was most recently featured on the Apple TV+ series “Ghostwriter.” Now, at the age of thirteen, not only is Maya an entertainment triple threat, but she also founded an entire nonprofit business, Hearts of Maya, to give scholarships to kids who need help paying for their own theatre, singing, and dance classes. She even won a SPARK! Award, which recognizes individuals who impact and ignite creativity in children, for her nonprofit work. I don’t know about you, but at thirteen I was busily learning the dance moves to “Bye Bye Bye” and re-watching Bring It On. While Maya does love normal kid things, like binge watching Harry Potter or listening to Billie Eilish, she’s definitely a girl with a plan. To act? To sing? To take over the world? After talking to Maya, I’m fully convinced she could do all of the above.

Some quotes have been edited for clarity and brevity.

What inspired you to start acting and singing at such a young age?

Really, it’s always been a part of me. Since I was little my brother and I would watch movies, like Disney princess ones, and I would be the princess and he would be the big, bad dragon. We’d make my family sit down and watch us. I was just banging on the table when I was seven years old, and my grandma told my mom ‘she can actually sing, you need to put her in voice classes or I will.’ So my mom thought we’d try it out and see how it goes, for fun, and I fell in love with it. It’s never been something I thought of as something I have to do, it’s just been very natural. I’m a singer and I’m an actress and that’s just what I love to do. That’s how everything started really, because of my grandma and grandpa. My grandpa was a mariachi singer in Mexico, so he played the guitar and everything. I would always hear him and I thought he was really awesome. It’s always had to do with family and I’ve always had the family support.

Has your grandpa inspired you to pick up any instruments?

Hearing him sing was really what I loved. He had to get surgery in his throat so he couldn’t really sing anymore. That’s what he loved to do, so I started doing that, and I fell in love with it too, so it was a way we could both connect. I did teach myself the ukulele, so I do play that. Learning the guitar is one of my dreams so I can sing one of his songs that he used to sing with his band, that’d be really awesome.

Is there anyone who you look up to or whose career inspires you?

Well, obviously my grandfather, he’s a big part of that. People that inspire me, honestly, are some of the kids who have gotten my scholarships. Just hearing their story, everything they go through, they still get on stage, they’re still very professional. They still love the arts and to perform. I’m really blessed with everything I have and my family, my mom and dad worked really hard so I’m able to go to these classes. I see [the kids] and they work so hard and they’re still able to feel good about themselves and be talented, and I think that inspires me to work even harder than I already am. So really just seeing the kids that I scholarship and their stories is pretty incredible.

How did you come up with the idea for Hearts of Maya?

I went to a studio when I was nine and I made so many close, close friends there. I was homeschooled because I would act, sing, and dance so much that, really, all of my friends were at the studios I went to. I would very much notice when they weren’t there or when they had to go, and then I just realized that it was because they couldn’t afford classes. It made me really sad because I couldn’t see some of my friends and, even though I was nine, I could recognize that they were so talented and so mature and so willing to work hard, and that made me really sad. I saw this as a big problem. I called a family meeting when I was nine to say ‘this is a problem, and I want to help it.’ My dad works in business and finance and he told me about non-profits and how that would be a way to help. So I said, dope, let’s do it, I was very eager to help people. I was in a very good place where my parents were able to pay for classes and I was able to do all these things. My parents definitely helped me develop a way to solve this problem. I came up with the name for it because I love hearts, I love drawing them, I love doing everything with them, it’s such a beautiful shape. And I really need to thank my family, my parents, and everyone that’s supported me along the way. They’ve been a really big part of that. I’m grateful to say that I’m thirteen now and I still have this and it’s still going strong, we’re still giving scholarships to kids.

How many scholarships do you give out?

It depends. To date, we’ve given scholarships to over thirty kids. Which is really incredible to say and I’m super, extremely proud of that. It depends on when those classes are happening. During the summer there are a lot of schools that have acting camps, so it really depends on when these classes are taking place.

How did you come up with the catchphrase for Hearts of Maya, “Find the art in your heart,” and what does it mean to you?

Really what it means is that everything that I want to do and all my hopes for Hearts of Maya is to help people find their creative outlet and find what they love to do. I think everyone deserves to have a creative outlet, everyone deserves to find something that they love. What you want to do starts from within and who you are, what you want to do with your life, and the impact that you want to make. Find the art, your creativity, and what you love to do, starting with yourself. I feel like that’s what I’ve been able to do and what I want to continue to do, help other people realize their talents and creativity and ask the question of ‘how can I do this for good?’ It means a lot to me, finding the art in your heart, that’s what I want to do and inspire other people to do.

Can you tell me about your experiences meeting the kids who get your scholarship?

That’s really when I realize, oh my god, this is happening, this is what Hearts of Maya is. I get to see it on social media and go to events and see the kids applying, but that’s all digital. But really seeing them, getting to give them a hug, getting to talk to them, not only seeing how talented they are but how amazing of a human they are, is really awesome to see. Meeting them is incredible. I just get utter happiness and joy out of seeing them. I’ve gotten to know some of them really well, and I still talk to them. Some of them are people I’ve grown to really, really care about. It also builds a really nice community among everybody, you know, we’re all in this together, very close. We’ll always be there for each other too, which is really great. I just get a really happy feeling. It’s incredible to know that you can help people.

How do you award the kids their scholarships?

Obviously we can’t really do that during coronavirus, I haven’t been able to go and see them. But we’re able to get them a certificate somehow, someway, we find a way. They get to take a picture with it and I get to congratulate them and definitely still talk to them. Pre-Covid, I would go and see them and we’d take pictures and talk for some time, just to see how they’re currently doing now and what their goals are. Hearing it from them is awesome. I get so much joy out of just seeing them and getting to talk to them.

What was it like winning a Spark award?

It was weird, but it was a really good, good weird. This is just something that I love to do and the fact that I was able to get recognized for it, it was really awesome. I got to go to their facility and speak on a panel, which was really cool because I was the youngest one there. Even while I was sitting on the panel and hearing everyone else talk I was learning things about everyone else, about the industry, about using your creativity for good. I really love Spark, they’re really nice and they’re so creative. It’s about using your creativity and how to do good with it. I’ve always seen Hearts of Maya as something that I just have to do, so to be able to get recognized for it, I was able to give myself a pat on the shoulder. It’s in my room and every time I see it I’m so happy, I love it.

Do you have any other business goals?

Yeah, definitely. I very much like the idea of having an idea, developing it, fleshing it out, and turning it into something great. You also get to collaborate with other creators, it feels good for yourself but you also get to help other people while doing it. Hearts of Maya has been a big project that I’ve been working on for years now, and it’s awesome to have that, but I definitely have plans for the future to do other businesses. I have a little notebook in my room where I’ve kept all my ideas since I first started singing, about how to help the world through art and other things. I’m vegan, so I love to bake vegan food, so I have an idea for some kind of vegan something. I think it’s important to learn about health, I love doing that. In the long run I might do something with that, that’s really something I have to think about. I definitely think I’ll do other business things in the future, one hundred percent.

Do you have long-term plans for Hearts of Maya?

Definitely, I have plans for it in the future. We’re already working on a bunch of things, on how to expand it. Currently we have a chapter in Dallas, Texas, but I’m really excited to announce that by the end of the year we’ll have a chapter open in L.A. which is really exciting. Really, L.A. is where everything is at, like studios, casting, singing, acting, the whole industry. I think it’s going to be really important because that’s where a lot of actors that are in need live. Talk about having classes that are expensive, that’s definitely California. I think I’m going to be able to reach a lot more kids and wonderful talents in L.A. so I’m excited to do that. I would want to be able to do it nationally, really. The big, big dream would be to help kids all over the world. Obviously, that’s not going to happen tomorrow, that’s going to take some time and hard work. But I have a lot of hopes. I think Hearts of Maya is something that’s always going to stay with me, until I’m an adult, and it’s just going to continue to grow bigger. I definitely think it’s going to grow, especially with having a chapter in L.A.

Obviously you’re very proud of Hearts of Maya. What else are you the most proud of in your career?

I’m really proud that I’ve been able to stay in this business for a long amount of time. There are a lot of people that just do it for fun when they’re younger, or quit and then come back to it. I’ve been able to have a lot of stamina and really push through and keep going. I’ve been singing since I could remember and I’ve been doing this professionally since I was eight. I’m going to turn fourteen, I still love the arts and singing and acting and auditioning. Every since I was very little, when I started taking voice classes, I was always thinking about the future and how I’m going to stay here for the long haul. I think the fact that I’ve been able to do this for so long, I’m really proud of myself for growing some thick skin and having some stamina in this business. Because it’s hard, it’s really hard to keep going. Really, what you’re doing is signing up for rejection until you have that one lucky shot. I’ve been able to learn a lot, not only grow in acting and singing and dancing, but as a person, and in life. It’s definitely taught me to be strong, know what I’m worth, know what I’m good at, what I need to work on, and how to gauge that.

Are you working on any projects right now?

I’m definitely starting to write a lot now during quarantine. I’ve been able to find time to write with my ukulele. I’m working on a song right now, I’m working on recording and producing it and hopefully I’ll be putting it out by the end of the year.

Author: Lauren Torres

A Guide to Networking Remotely

Whether you’re a networking queen or, like me, the word “networking” makes you recoil in your seat, the Covid-19 pandemic has changed the way we network for the foreseeable future. While we probably won’t be meeting groups of new people face-to-face anytime soon, the Internet is here to help save our socializing life and habits. Whether you’re more inclined to partake in chat discussions or video meetings, there’s something out there for everyone. Here are a few ways to tackle your networking needs while staying home and social distancing.

Social Media

This is probably the most obvious one, but social networking is one of the easiest ways to connect with people with similar interests or goals as you, without ever getting out of bed. The possibilities are truly endless on social media. You can be as proactive as starting your own Instagram account or Facebook page about your interest. Using specific hashtags on your posts and searching for other posts under those hashtags will lead you to others who share your same interests and are probably also looking to network. If you want to take a less proactive approach, it can be as simple as following accounts based on your interests and popping into the comment section. I’ve made friends and gained a few followers just by leaving a comment or two on a post that I had an opinion on. I’ve found sources for stories just by looking around on social media. Most of the time the kind of people you’re looking to network with are also looking for you.

Online Events

We can’t attend concerts or workshops anymore, but attending online events usually means there will be opportunities to network at some point, in some way. Eventbrite, a website that used to sell tickets to a myriad of live events, now sells tickets to virtual events and also has an entire section for free virtual events. Meetup, a site specifically for meeting new people with similar interests in-person, has adjusted to pandemic life by switching to online-only events. There are even online support groups for people looking to connect to others therapeutically, like online AA meetings or anxiety support groups. A simple Google search for the kind of support you seek will lead you in the right direction.

Forums

Websites that allow for group chatting and networking, like Reddit or LinkedIn, are a great option if the thought of video chatting makes you nervous. Reddit has a topic thread for just about anything you could possible think of, whether it be a casual hobby, a T.V. show, or professionals looking to chat, exchange advice, or even post links to job opportunities. LinkedIn is more for professional networking and has a wide array of groups you can join that focus on your chosen profession. Slack has gained popularity as more companies have had to switch to a work-from-home operation. It allows for easy communication between you and your co-workers, but it also allows you to branch out and e-meet new people. Slack has online chat groups that allow many people to chat with each other on their common interests and topics, similar to the old days of AIM chat rooms. Some groups are public, open to all, and some are private and will require you to be invited into the group.

Whatever your socializing style is, I promise you there’s something out there for you. Whether you’re looking to video chat about professional advice, find support for your new IG page, or partake in online group activities, there are already people out there creating spaces for that to happen.

Author: Lauren Torres

Where Are Latinas in Mainstream Comedy?

When quarantine hit in March there was only one thing I wanted to do with my newly acquired, anxiety-riddled time: rewatch every Seth Rogen movie ever (yes, even Green Hornet). When I finished those, I kept going down the path of comedy. I spent my days and nights with every comedian that made me forget about the pandemic-panic roaring outside my apartment.

Somewhere between the movies and stand-up specials, I had an unshakable thought; where were all the Latinas at?

The Hollywood comedy scene has always been a boys club. It doesn’t help that certain studies have suggested that men are funnier than women. One study, reported by BBC News in 2019, found that 63% of men in the study were rated funnier than the women. There has been some breakthrough work from women that have been given a chance, like Cristela Alonzo, but comedy appears to be further out of reach to women of color. When it comes to Latinas, I can count the number of famous, household name comedians on one hand.

Aside from polishing my ‘pretending to go down the elevator’ bit, I am not a comedian. I’m an outsider. So I spoke to some Latina comedians to answer the question I couldn’t get out of my mind: why are there so few Latinas in mainstream comedy?

Some quotes have been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

The Gatekeepers

“I think it’s because the industry has a hard time placing us,” said L.A. comedian Cat Alvarado. “Some of my difficulties in moving up the ranks have to do with what industry gatekeepers see as what a Latina is, versus what we all can be. There are so many versions of a Latina.”

Alvarado’s comedy includes stand-up and Instagram videos featuring characters like “Cat’s mom,” among others.

“There are a lot of up-and-coming Latina comedians that I know, and each one of us is so unique. I think that’s why we’re running into that wall, nobody’s breaking through to those gatekeepers because they have an image of what we’re supposed to be, and nobody is that.”

Could that be because the majority of gatekeepers are white, older men?

“Ironically, no. And that speaks to a whole other issue of, can anyone be ideologically pure and unbiased?”

Jenni Ruiza, a New York, Bronx-based comedian, had a similar experience.

“I once had a conversation with a person in the industry who does development. One of the first notes that I got from him was, ‘how can we downplay your Latinadad?’ I was like, bro, you’re Mexican, what do you mean?”

Ruiza grew up watching comedy. She noticed at an early age that the only characters that looked like her were maids or featured heavy accents.

“I just always felt like I wanted to see someone like me, so if no one was going to put ‘me’ up there, I was going to do it myself.”

Stereotypes and Expectations

One shining moment for us all came in 2016, when Melissa Villaseñor was the first Latina to join the cast of SNL. Ruiza and Jesenia, another Bronx-based comedian, were particularly thrilled. Two years earlier, in 2014, Jesenia wrote, edited, and co-directed her video, “Latino Stereotypes for Dummies (SNL = Still No Latinas),” aimed at notorious Kingpin of sketch comedy himself, Lorne Michaels. With the help of Ruiza, the two demonstrated every Latin stereotype featured on SNL, as a way to call out Michaels for never hiring Latinas on his show. The video went viral and got attention both locally and nationally.

Jesenia’s comedy includes stand-up, sketches, music parodies, podcasts, and character skits.

“People don’t generally flock to female comedians, they feel like we’re going to be preachy, or annoying, or whatever it is. Women have a bad rap. Latinas in comedy, that’s just on a whole other level. We’re not being sexy; we’re not doing the stereotypical things that Latinas do. And forget about it if you’re a mom. People will be like, ‘You should be raising your children.’”

Ruiza feels that performers should shoulder some of the responsibility of underrepresentation as well.

“For every actor out there that’s hungry for work, and for every ‘maid role’ that gets offered to us, being told to play up an accent, an accent we don’t even have most of the time. They’re making us caricatures of who we actually are. And for every actor that takes those roles, it’s so disappointing, because, come on, why? If we keep saying no to those roles they won’t make them anymore.”

The Community

Maria De La Ghetto, an L.A. based comedian, feels that women could make a bigger impact on comedy if they worked together more. Her goal is to someday have her own comedy group to work with.

“Because there’s so few of us, I feel like there might be a little bit of a divide amongst women in general. And then it goes into the other subsections like, women of color, queer women, trans women, groups like that. If we were just women banding together I think we would have a bigger, better presence overall and a chance to bombard these clubs.”

Recently, over Mother’s Day weekend, she participated in a Zoom comedy show, which featured all women of color.

“Where are these people talking about how women aren’t funny and Latina women aren’t funny? It’s because you’re not even trying to have them, we’re not on the radar. These groups of [comedy] guys are just going to hook up their friends, so it’s within us. If one of us gets that show or booking, we’ve got to bring in our homies. That’s the only way it’s going to work, is through community.”

This theory is backed up by Ruiza as well.

“It feels like we’re constantly like, ‘I can’t support you because I need support, and I don’t want to distract people from supporting me because I’m supporting you.’ I think that’s one of the biggest issues that we have as a whole and why we’re still climbing to get executives’ attention.”

De La Ghetto’s experience in navigating the socio-political landscape of comedy extends beyond appealing to the throngs of straight, white men on the scene.

“I’m a big girl, so I stick out already. I’m one of, maybe, two big girls I ever see out on the scene. Maybe it’s a different experience for someone else. But I see a lot of girls on the scene that are pretty and thin, and they kind of gravitate towards each other. And you can see that they’re just more accepted in the groups as opposed to a person or woman of color. I have to go out of my way to be seen by these people.”

Too Much Vs. Not Enough

One wall all these women have hit, to varying degrees, is being told to fit a specific mold. Alvarado, who is fair skinned, was once turned down because they were looking for a ‘Cristela Alonzo’ type.

“That is a very nice way of saying we want someone brown. I mean, fair, I understand. That’s the difficulty for me being mixed. My experience as a Latina, it feels sometimes like it doesn’t count.”

One theory heard in pursuit of this story was that audiences were tired of hearing jokes about our big families, Catholicism, and other stereotypes. But what about when that is the reality for some? Most male comedians continue to toss sex, penis, and masturbation jokes all over the place like they’re confetti, and audiences never seem to tire of it. Can a subject ever feel tired if it’s from a fresh, personal perspective?

De La Ghetto, who is half Mexican and half Filipino, once opened a show where the headliner was an Asian comedian. She was excited to be working with another female, Asian comedian, but her friendliness was quickly rebuffed.

“I wanted to be her friend, I wanted to have unity. She said, ‘so you’re not going to make any jokes about bad Asian drivers and small penises, are you?’ So in my head I freaked out because that was all my jokes, and that is my experience, what do you mean? So after that I was so messed up.”

For the record, she did tell those jokes and they were well received.

Alvarado’s opening joke for years has been, ‘Hi, I’m Latina, but I’m 23, so my kids are grown.’

“I had a white lady come up to me and say the joke was racist and I should stop doing it. I told her I have a cousin who’s a teen mom, so. There you go. It’s really common, so I’m going to tell that joke.”

While it’s important to be able to share personal, cultural experiences, it’s equally as important to tell the jokes and stories about general, human experiences. You know, that thing that unites us all.

“You also have to make sure that everyone can identify with your comedy, so it is a little bit challenging when not everyone can identify with you, when the majority of people are not from your background.”

“I don’t personally care to see stories that are centered on what the Puerto Rican problem or issue is,” said Ruiza. “I just want to see a ‘me’ on T.V. that’s me. It’s the reason I started writing. I can’t rely on white people to give me these roles, cause they don’t know. I feel like I always have to explain myself to people. Like, I’m not a Jenni from ‘the block,’ I’m just a Jenni from The Bronx, just me.”

The Future

“I do want to give Hollywood credit for looking,” said Alvarado. “It could be worse, they could not care at all. There are a lot of people out there that say, ‘It’s nice that you’re Latina, Cat, but we actually want a ‘real person of color.’ Which I take issue with, but I also respect it in that they don’t want half-measures, they really do want that additional representation.”

De La Ghetto sees technology helping to widen the social net and connect comedians of all backgrounds.

“I’ve definitely connected with way more diverse comedians in the last couple of months doing Zoom shows, than doing brick and mortar shows. Once comedy clubs start opening up it’ll be easier, we’ll be more inclined to reach out to comedians in further areas and have a wider network.”

Jesenia maintains that the future for Latinas in comedy resides in making comedy for every culture.

“If you’re doing a show and it’s all about Mexican people, then you’re not speaking to the rest of the cultures. And then you wonder why it isn’t doing well; it’s because you’re not speaking to the rest of the cultures.”

Ruiza believes that change begins with supporting each other.

“It’s our responsibility to put that competitive mentality aside and just root for each other. I’m rooting for everyone Latino and for the people who are really putting their hearts and souls into amplifying our voices in those outlets. I think it’s our responsibility to support them in any way that we can.”

While the future of comedy for Latinas is unclear, none of these ladies have plans to slow down. Alvarado puts fresh videos of her comedy on Instagram and has goals to make her own “Trainwreck” type of movie, a lá Amy Schumer, someday. Ruiza is developing several pilot scripts and co-hosts the PolitiSIGHS podcast. Jesenia has pages and pages of material she’s been working on for her stand-up. De La Ghetto is participating in virtual comedy shows and hopes to do a comedy tour once the shadow of Covid-19 is gone.

So. Why aren’t there more Latinas in mainstream comedy? After mulling everything I’d heard, and more, all I can say is there is no one answer. I’m tempted to say it’s because of “them,” the gatekeepers sitting on their Hollywood thrones, picking and choosing. And, to a large degree, it is. But it’s also up to us as an audience. We have to support the kind of entertainment that tells diverse stories about layered characters because numbers move Hollywood. A good place to start? Support up-and-comers and find some virtual comedy shows. Find comedians you like, then show some love and help create space for them.

Maybe the next time I go on a major comedy binge this story will be old news.

Author: Lauren Torres

Jefa Chronicles: Cristina Costantini, Producer & Director

“I think we just have to be bolder, you know? Men have been delusional for millennia, but now it’s our turn.”

Quotes like this made it clear to me: As a journalist, I can’t be neutral about filmmaker Cristina Costantini. I knew from watching her documentaries, “Science Fair” and the newly-released “Mucho Mucho Amor: The Legend of Walter Mercado,” that her work, which she’s so clearly passionate about, is extraordinary.

Cristina grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a self-proclaimed science nerd with two furniture makers for parents. She didn’t go to school for journalism or filmmaking, but today she sits atop a successful career in both.

She began as a print journalist focusing on immigrant communities and issues before moving into investigative work, tackling the opioid crisis, detention centers, and sex trafficking in Mexico while racking up nominations and awards along the way.

While working at Fusion, she decided to learn about filmmaking and, under the guidance of a few superiors, she learned the tricks of the trade over time. She took a chance and made her first documentary, “Science Fair,” alongside co-director Darren Foster. It won an Emmy award and the Festival Favorite Audience Award at both Sundance and SXSW.

Her newest documentary, made with co-director Kareem Tabsch, follows the story of beloved, gender-nonconforming Latin astrologer Walter Mercado. It has garnered nothing but buzz, positive reviews, and is no doubt guilty of stirring up millennial nostalgia all over the world.

How she went from Wisconsin science nerd to award-winning documentarian was very clear to me after spending just twenty-five minutes with her: she’s a woman who knows what she wants and unapologetically chases after it.

This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.

What was it like growing up in Wisconsin? How did it influence you creatively and professionally?

Milwaukee is a great place to grow up. It’s a small town. I have a lot of love for my city, but it’s also a city with a bunch of problems. It’s the most segregated city in the country. I’m forever grateful to my parents for sending me to public school. I went to a public school that had a mixture of different communities: Black, Latino, and white students. I think that was very formative in who I am. Then they pulled me out of that and sent me to a private middle school and high school and it was a total culture shock; it was mostly white students. Growing up in Milwaukee gave me a great appreciation for the culture and race divide that exists in our country. It kind of put me on a path that made me obsessed with trying to get these communities to talk to each other. Sharing stories with our communities with the mainstream, largely white audience, and making sure that our stories were told and resonate. We all live in this country together and so many people don’t understand each other and I just would love to be a vehicle for empathy. They call documentaries ‘empathy machines’ and I think that’s a great description. I think, through documentaries, if I could foster more empathy for people’s understanding and more oneness among different people, races, economic groups, and religions, then that would be wonderful. So Milwaukee kind of sent me on a quest to do that, to foster more understanding. The stories I’ve always told have centered largely on immigrant communities, even if they’re not straight immigration stories they always have something to do with the immigrant communities in our country. I did a documentary called ‘Science Fair,’ which is about nerdy teenage kids competing in an international high school science fair. Many of the kids I profiled are immigrants or the children of immigrants, many of them underappreciated and undervalued in this country. So that, for me, was very much an immigration story even though it was about science. So, yeah, Milwaukee definitely gave me this drive to make things that people would want to watch that foster empathy and understanding between different kinds of people.

Do you have a memory that stands out for you where you realized what you wanted to do, career-wise?

I remember there was a documentary called ‘Spellbound’ that I loved. It was about kids competing in the National Scripps Spelling Bee in Washington D.C. I must have been in middle school at that time, and I remember watching it and being like ‘oh my gosh, I love documentaries.’ It was nominated for an Oscar in, I think, 2002, when it came out. It made me laugh but it also talked about some of the most serious issues facing our nation, but in a way where people wanted to watch. And I loved it. I remember just being in awe of how it was put together. I don’t think I ever had an understanding that I could be a filmmaker or that documentary film was in my future. I didn’t go to journalism school or film school, I was in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, so I didn’t see it as a real, viable career path. I was just in awe of the people who made it. I think for this film [‘Mucho Mucho Amor’], growing up in Milwaukee, every day that my grandmother would babysit us we’d have Univision on, just as background noise. And I remember every time Walter would come on just being fascinated by him and what he looked like. Allegedly, he could tell the future and that was very captivating to me, he was magical. He was kind of like Oprah meets Mister Rogers, but dressed as Liberace. I have been really in awe of him since I was a little kid. Then, as an adult, I had a newfound appreciation for everything he did. To look like that on television during that time, to be so uniquely and radically himself during that period of history is just remarkable. So, as an adult, I had a newfound respect and admiration for him. That whole feeling and thought process is what led me to start to look for him in 2017.

Speaking of your grandma, you mentioned on Twitter that your grandma won the brag-off at her retirement community this week because of the success of ‘Mucho Mucho Amor.’ You all (along with co-director Kareem Tabsch and producer Alex Fumero) even dedicated the film to your grandma’s at the end. What did she think of the film?

So Kareem, my co-director, our producer Alex, and I co-dedicated it to our grandmothers. For many Latinos, Walter’s face reminds us of the time we spent with our grandmothers and the nostalgia we have for those days. But my grandmother hasn’t seen the film. They haven’t figured out how to get her set up with Netflix in her retirement community, and my parents aren’t allowed to go in and show it to her because of Covid-19. But she’s heard a lot about it and she’s seen our interviews on Telemundo and Univision. For her, I think that’s the highest level of success. The fact that we are inside the television that is beaming into her retirement home, I think, is huge for her. So she was very proud, she says she’s getting calls from all her friends. She has a friend whose granddaughter is a lawyer, and she never had anything to [brag about]. But now I have a film on Netflix, which she’s never been able to figure out how to watch Netflix, but she knows it’s a cultural institution. Now that I have a film on Netflix she says she can win this bragging competition.

You started off as a journalist. What skills did you carry from your journalism days into your documentary days?

Everything. Every physical skill is from journalism. I started as a print reporter and then I went to this network called Fusion that no longer exists, but was basically Univision for the ABC news network. First I was a print reporter, but I really wanted to learn how to make television. My boss at the time, who is wonderful and is the reason I’m here, agreed to take me on as an associate producer and get other producers to teach me the ropes. So I learned how to shoot, edit, how to put a microphone on somebody, media manage, boring stuff but really important stuff to know how to make an actual film. I think, most importantly, I was dealing with hard topics. I was dealing with immigration and detention centers and I had to learn how to tell an interesting story. Those can be such dark, sad, dry topics that if you can’t tell an interesting story through a person’s personal experience then people kind of just zone out and it doesn’t do well. That was the best training ground for me, was these difficult stories and to find the narrative arc and to find how to get people to care and remain invested. So I took all of those skills and I pitched ‘Science Fair’ at Univision and, for some reason, the CEO at the time gave me the green light and said I could go make a feature film while he still paid me full salary. It was crazy, and I’m incredibly grateful because that film did well and made this film [‘Mucho Mucho Amor’] much easier. It’s a very strange trajectory, but I always think people should follow what they’re really passionate about. I’m just trying to be truthful to that and trying to do whatever I’m most excited about and throw myself completely into those projects.

You went from covering darker subjects, such as the effects of a school shooting on students, the opioid crisis, the sex slave trade, to doing lighter subjects like a science fair and Walter Mercado. Is there a reason you made the transition?

You know, I honestly needed, for my own mental health, I needed happiness in my life. I have so much admiration for the people who are able to do that day-in and day-out, and I’m sure at the end of the day they feel like they need an escape. I was talking to detainees on the phone and my phone number would be circulated through the detention centers, which does happen to a lot of prison and detainee reporters. And then all hours of the night and day people would be calling me and telling me their immigration stories. It was an, emotionally, very draining experience and I think I needed to, for myself, find some happiness in the work that I was doing, and some light. I think ‘Science Fair’ and ‘Mucho Mucho Amor’ have done well because they address serious issues. Like, with Walter, with the LGBT community, homophobia, the question of legacy and aging and what happens to us when we disappear. All these serious questions, but done in a fun way, which I think people want to interact with. So I’m doing it for myself as much as I hope I can do it for other people. Make stories that are important, but also bring joy and love.

Have you noticed a difference or shift in what it’s like to work in your field as a Latina between when you first started and now?

Yeah, you know, I think it’s a really exciting time to be a Latina in media. There has kind of been this reckoning and now, more than ever, there’s this acknowledgment that we need people of color and women to tell stories. Most stories throughout history have been told through the perspective of white men and that only gives you a very limited segment of the stories that are out there to be told. I think this movie [‘Mucho Mucho Amor’] is a great example of a story that should have been told twenty years ago. It’s crazy that it took three filmmakers, who already had a pretty established leg-in to the documentary world, to make this film. It has all the elements and it’s very commercially viable. But yet it was a real struggle to convince, to find people to give us money to make it before it was made. And I think that is completely the result of the fact that there just aren’t that many Latino and Latina executives. It’s a real struggle, but I think that there’s a recognition that that’s a problem now. Whereas, maybe a few years ago, there were still a lot of people who were skeptical and didn’t want to admit that. I think we’ve entered an era where if someone is trying to tell a story about a certain kind of person, there is a conversation immediately of ‘who is telling this story?’ And I think that’s great, it’s really exciting. So, to any young women who are thinking about being documentary filmmakers, I would say now is the time and come join us, because we need more people.

You’ve accomplished a lot in your career already. You’ve won an Emmy and you’ve gotten so much good feedback from your films . Has there been one defining moment in your career that stands out to you?

Maybe the most surreal thing was winning the Emmy for ‘Science Fair.’ It was really remarkable; we didn’t expect it. I had kind of prepared a speech but I get nervous about public speaking. My friend Jeff, the producer of ‘Science Fair,’ was filming and expecting me to have a huge response, like screaming and celebration. But when they said my name and the film, I didn’t believe it. So I went into a very quiet space of ‘this might be a mistake,’ and then, ‘oh no, I have to give a speech now,’ so I was silent. They said the name of the film and I was like, ‘I don’t know if that’s us, could it be us?’ But the film my friend took was so anti-climactic, he was going to share it but he said I did nothing, I had no reaction.

What is your relationship like with your subjects once the project is over? Do you talk to them or check in on them? They’re all fascinating people.

I don’t recommend doing what I do, which is I get very close to my subjects, at least with ‘Science Fair’ and Walter I did. It’s explicitly what journalism school tells you not to do, so I think I’m doing it wrong. In those two films in particular, I love the people in front of the camera. Part of the reason I think there’s an intimacy in those films is because I truly spent a lot of time with those people and came to see them as friends and loved ones. I don’t know if it would be different if I didn’t like the subjects. Like Myllena, one of the kids in ‘Science Fair,’ she’s Brazilian, she was living with me two weeks ago [laughs]. Like I said, there’s not a good separation. She’s here studying English and now she’s enrolled in college, but college is now remote and she had a few weeks where she was trying to figure out her housing situation. So Darren Foster, who was my co-director on ‘Science Fair’, and his wife and I have been splitting her. It’s been really funny, we would split her like, one week at their house, one week at our house, another week at their house. So, definitely we get very close to our subjects, we love them.

What advice would you give to young Latinas now that are trying to break into your profession?

First of all, there are so many stories out there that we have to tell that other people just have no entry point into. I think there’s an imperative that our stories are told. For our community to see ourselves in different ways, but also so that the mainstream will understand that we are more than just narcos or criminals, which I think so many of the depictions of us are that. We’re complex and nuanced and sometimes fabulous, which I think Walter proves. So look for the stories in your life, look for the figures in your life, look for the narratives you’re drawn to that other people haven’t told. The world is so interesting and, like I said, white men only know a little bit of it. I would also say to dream really big. I think dreaming to the point where other people think you’re delusional is a good thing. My dad is a small Argentinian man who is very confident and often delusional and, when I need to, I try to channel him. Like, would Mario think about all the reasons he can’t do it? No, Mario would think about all the reasons he can do it, and I think it’s important to think that way. To be prepared though, in order for this to work, you have to be prepared for failure. I think I fail at nine out of the ten things I set out to do. But, if you’re dreaming really big and one of those ten things works out then, you know, you have that one thing. So for every Walter project, for every ‘Science Fair,’ there’s a bunch of littered projects that haven’t worked out. I think just staying delusionally hopeful, understanding that failures happen and failures are normal, and preserving has been super important in my career. Especially for women, I think we just have to be bolder, you know? Men have been delusional for millennia, but now it’s our turn.

Can you tell us at all about what you’re working on next?

I actually don’t know if I can talk about it. I’m working on some things where I’m trying to get into the scripted space, so I have some scripted stuff I’ve written and would love to make. I’m working on developing the narrative version of the Walter project. I would love for Walter’s movie to be a scripted, narrative film. He really wanted it to be a scripted film, his life story, and there’s so much there that we couldn’t get into the documentary that I think would be really good dramatized. And some documentary projects, but I can’t really talk specifics, but I’m very excited that hopefully some of them work out. Like I said, I’m dreaming big and hopefully one of them will happen.

Like asking Timothée Chalamet to play Walter, the way Walter wanted?

Exactly! He [Walter] is so cute.

Article edited by Karen Garcia.

Author: Lauren Torres

Mujeres Monday: Criseida Rico, WhatSheTechs Founder

Criseida Rico is the founder of WhatSheTechs, a website and platform dedicated to uniting women who work in technology, an infamously male-dominated field. But Criseida, a first generation Mexican-American, never meant to work in the technology field. In fact, she got her bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. Years ago she was fired from a job and turned what could have been a defeating moment into a defining moment. From this experience she found her passion for working in technology. Now, she wants to introduce women everywhere to the possibilities of the tech world and empower them while, hopefully, befriending and learning from other women too. Think you don’t have what it takes to make it in tech? To that, Criseida says, “Everyone is a technologist. Everyone knows how to use a computer and a phone.”

Interview edited for brevity and clarity.

Where did you come up with the idea for WhatSheTechs?

I was working at a start-up four or five years ago where I was one of only two females on the team. Ironically enough, we worked in the classic car industry. We built proprietary software for classic car dealers, so that was a very male dominated field. I was having my doubts working with leadership, voicing my opinions, giving my ideas, and I wasn’t really listened to. I tried to find my own community online because I thought, ‘If I’m going through these types of things at work there must be other women that are going through the same.’ But I couldn’t find anything online that resonated with me. I was sure there was a need for this if I needed it, and that’s where the idea came from. I launched it without even giving it a name. It was more that I just wanted to find other women that were going through the same thing and find that camaraderie. I’m glad that I did because it’s opened up a lot of doors and conversations with other women and is really bringing attention to women and tech in general.

Do you work with a team of women? How do you organize everything with your full-time job as well?

Surprisingly, I am the only person right now. I’ve thought about the idea of bringing on additional people, but I’m also a big believer that no one should work for free. So, I won’t until I’m able to provide some kind of payment for other people to work on the team. As much as I really want to ask people to come work for me, to do it for internship credit, I’ve been in those shoes and it’s not the greatest feeling. Especially now, with everything that’s going on, asking people to work for free just isn’t up my alley. I’ve been thankful that I’ve been able to manage and balance having my full-time job and run the site at the same time.

Do you feel like your experience working in technology, as a woman of color, has been noteworthy or different from other women that you know?

Yes. It’s something that I reflect on because, obviously, I’m still heavily in the industry. Being raised here all my life, it’s one of those things where your identity comes into play every now and then in the workplace. Especially when I go to conferences, or if I’m in a meeting room with leadership, you tend to look around and see that, wow, no one here looks like me. One, no one here is a woman. Two, maybe there are other women, but they’re not like me, not Latina. Whenever there is another Latina in my presence in the workplace I get super excited. I live in the south, so I get ‘the look’ sometimes when they find out I’m Mexican-American. They ask if I speak Spanish and tell me I don’t look Mexican. I’m so used to it, and other people laugh, but sometimes I take a step back and wonder if I should be offended. Maybe it’s because this has been my upbringing my whole life. I’ve been around so many people knowing that I’m the minority, and I’ve been okay with it. If you want to bring up skin color, there are other women who struggle because of their skin color and they look more Latina than me. Sometimes I struggle with that balance because I feel guilty that I’m taking someone’s seat. But, at the same time, I know that I’m pushing boundaries and putting us in a very positive light. That’s my long-term goal, and I hope that’s something I continue doing.

Who inspires you in what you do?

I think it’s my family. My parents were both born and raised in Mexico. My dad never finished high school. My mom is a certified accountant and finished college but she can’t practice what she learned in Mexico. To practice that in the U.S.A. you have to go through rigorous testing. Everything that I do, I always have them in the back of my mind. I’m making my stamp in the world for them and all the hard work that they have done for my siblings and I. I hope that down the line they can be proud that their daughter made a statement in a world that’s very different than what they were used to when they were young.

You have a lot of informative articles on your website. How do you decide what topics to tackle?

I find other women that I think would be a great voice for WhatSheTechs. The website is part community, part platform to bring more awareness of women in technology. It doesn’t have to be someone who knows how to code, but because technology has so many different facets in the industry, I look for women who are representative of the avenue that we’re looking to take. We curate our questions according to how technology has either impacted them in their career or in the business that they have developed. From there we hope that other women will be inspired and learn that you don’t have to be a computer science nerd or have studied computer science in school to make an impact in the technology industry. I always use myself as an example. I have a bachelor’s degree in marketing and management. Never did I know that I would use it in the technology world, but I did by accident, and I’m very happy that I’m in this industry.

What advice would you give to women who work in other fields, or have no background in tech, but want to get started?

What I like to tell people is to not be intimidated. There is a place for everyone in each industry. If you’re a nurse, you can go into healthcare tech. If you work in aerospace engineering, there’s a place for you there. Do you work in restaurants? Great, there are technology companies that make software specifically for restaurant companies. There are so many avenues and I think educating people on the different types of careers you can have will really open people’s eyes and make it less intimidating. I think when people think ‘technology’ they immediately think you’re an engineer or that you know how to code. I like to tell people, ‘Look, I work in technology, I’m the face and founder of WhatSheTechs, and I’m not an engineer and I don’t know how to code. So if I can do it, you can too.’ I’m just your average, normal girl that’s just trying to make an impact. I’m showing you that you can do it too.

Have you gotten any feedback from women who have found inspiration through WhatSheTechs?

I have. When I first started it was a quiet launch. When I started reaching out to women to interview, I heard other women saying things like, ‘that is the most amazing thing, no one’s really doing that,’ because, when you think about it, this was four or five years ago. Now there are more organizations that are trying to do the same thing. We are always getting messages from people all around the world saying, ‘I’m so glad I found you guys, you have an amazing concept.’ What we try to do is have an informative article, but also keep it fun and light with whatever’s currently going on in the day or with memes. We try to make it educational, but also fun and accessible, and I think that’s the perfect formula for people to learn more about WhatSheTech is. I’ve gotten rave reviews from people saying things like, ‘this is something that is really needed, thank you for starting this.’

What do you feel is the best part of being a woman in technology?

The breaking barriers part; I hate clichés so much, but it’s so true. In the eight years that I’ve been in the technology space I’ve been able to prove to men that not all women are the same. Men in general have this stigma about women in the workplace, that maybe they’re not smart enough or that their place is being the secretary. At one of my past companies, for some reason, I was always the dedicated person who ordered pizza. Why should I order the pizza for the company? That’s not my job. It’s this stigma that’s been ingrained in men that women do so much in the workplace that they can’t be engineers or leaders in a company. It’s being able to change that mindset and hope that, in the few years I’ve been in this space, I’ve been able to shift that a little and allow for other women to come in and continue the motion of what I’ve started.

What do you have in store for the future of WhatSheTechs?

There’s an idea I came up with a few days ago. I don’t want to give too many details about it, but it’s going to be a virtual series I want to launch this summer. It’s a way for women around the world to have access to one another and bring light to how women in those areas are making an impact in their technology fields. I’ve been hearing lately about ‘Zoom fatigue,’ people getting tired of doing things online. But I think this is the direction we’ll be in for the next few months around the world. You have to do what you can and pivot where you have to, and I think this is something that will resonate with a lot of women who want to learn more and make new friends across the globe. That’s something I’ve always wanted to do and I know other women who feel the same.

What was your journey to working in technology like?

A few years ago I was living in New York City and I was let go from my job. It happened so fast and I came out of the building in complete shock. The first phone call I made was to my mom and I just burst into tears in the middle of the street. So I had mascara running down, a million different thoughts were going through my head, like, how was I going to pay rent? But that situation ended up being a blessing in disguise. That opportunity allowed me to seek out more jobs and really reflect on what I wanted to do. Ultimately, I landed a new job at an advertising agency, which is something I had always wanted to experiment with. I was brand new, and one of the younger associates on the team, and they gave me big roles and responsibilities. One of my biggest accounts was a company called BlueJeans, and I made the mistake of thinking it must be a denim company. The first time I was going to have a conference call with BlueJeans I happened to look them up ten minutes before the meeting. I realized, oh my god, this isn’t denim at all, this is a software company. They do video conferencing, and I know nothing about software or video conferencing software, and I had a mini panic attack. Somehow I got through the initial call. Working with them over the next month or two I started to develop an interest in software. I had never looked into working for a software company and what they do. That’s what ignited the passion to learn about the technology industry because that was my first taste of the industry. I used to feel like it was an industry that was very taboo, like ‘you don’t belong there, you’re not smart enough.’ Working with that one client changed everything for me. I thank them for doing that because that was the really pivotal moment for me. For me it was accidental, but it ended up being the most wonderful thing that could have happened to me.

Author: Lauren Torres

How To Contact Your Local Representative and Have Your Voice Heard

One thing absolutely everyone can agree on about 2020 is that a lot is happening, fast. Between COVID-19 and the Black Lives Matter movement, new information, statistics, and revelations are shaking up our news cycle. There are a lot of avenues to go down as far as helping the causes you want to, and one that is often overlooked, due to sheer anxiety and awkwardness, is calling your representative. I know it seems simple on its face. Yet, it’s terrifying, isn’t it? Especially in a day and age where texting and direct messaging has replaced the need for most phone calls, the idea of calling a stranger to voice your opinion almost seems like one of the harder ways to help. On a social anxiety level, it’s certainly easier to donate to a charity, or tag your local representative in a critical Instagram story. But calling your representative is one of the best ways to lend your voice to causes you care about. When you call your representatives, their staff members keep a tally of how strongly their constituents feel about current topics and issues, which should directly guide how they make decisions concerning your state or city. Even if you’re new to getting involved, calling your representative is simpler and less scary than it sounds, I promise. Here’s a simple guide to help you figure out who to call and what to say when you want your voice heard by your representatives.

How to Find Your Local Representatives

Know who’s representing you

Between state and local representatives, it’s hard to know who to call. Luckily, the Internet is your best friend when it comes to figuring this out. Typing your zip code into Google + the phrase ‘who represents me’ gives you an immediate answer to this question. You can also go to usa.gov to find all your representatives at every level. The website 5calls.org also has a lot of resources as far as finding your representatives and providing phone call scripts for specific issues.

Your city should also have a government website set up that will give you information on your mayor and city council members. Most city websites provide a map to show you which council member represents the district you live in. Your city’s website should show you all elected officials, including the city manager, clerk, attorney, auditor, and prosecutor. Here, you’ll be able to find phone numbers and emails for the people you’re trying to contact.

Who do I call concerning what?

Mayor

If you have an issue with your city’s funding plan, education, or any local issues, you can contact your mayor. Your mayor is responsible for overseeing the city’s major departments. Mayors direct the centralized power of your city, aka, every system that affects how your city operates, like the police department, fire department, education, housing, etc. Even if your city has a weak mayor-council form of government (the city council members have more authority) your mayor can likely use their power and contacts to influence local politics and council members.

Council Member

Your city council is in charge of things like reviewing city budgets, establishing city objectives, regulating public health and safety, overseeing public employee performance, and, of course, responding to constituent needs and complaints. It is their job to represent their community and reflect that community’s needs and wellbeing.

State Senators

Your state senators are directly involved with how your state runs. They pass state laws and are supposed to represent the interests of their citizens when considering legislation that will have an impact on them.

Governor

Governors act as the head of state and state government. They can pass laws, write the state budget, appoint officials (such as judges and vacant senate seats), pursue new and revised policies, and acts as head of the state’s national guard.

What should I say?

The simplest answer is this: say whatever you want to, but make it clear, short, and sweet. I know it feels like you’re supposed to say the “right” things, but as long as you clearly get your position on an issue across, you’ll be fine. Whether you get to talk to an actual staff member or leave a message on a machine, the most important part is that you clearly communicate your stance.

Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t prepare beforehand to make it easier on yourself. Keep in mind most phone calls should be short. Someone, somewhere, is wading through all these calls just to keep a tally of how constituents feel about any given issue, so simple and short is perfectly fine. Admittedly, the first time I called my council member’s office and got the machine, I panicked and there were a lot of “uhh’s” and “umm’s” because I hadn’t prepared an actual statement. Writing down a couple of basic points you’re trying to get across can be helpful in case you suddenly panic when someone answers the phone. You can write a coupe of points, or you can write out a whole script word-for-word if that feels easier for you.

It can be something as simple as:

“Hello, my name is [insert your name], I am a citizen of the [insert your zip code] area. I’m concerned with the level of institutionalized racism and police brutality in our city. I believe our police department needs to be defunded so we can reallocate those funds to better serve our community. I feel strongly that the mayor should take this into consideration and propose a new budget that defunds our police. Thank you.”

It can be as easy as that! Remember, it is these elected officials’ jobs to listen to you. That’s an actual, important part of their job and it’s imperative that you remember that as you pursue contacting them. So please do not feel like you’re inconveniencing or bothering anyone. After all, they work for you.

Author: Lauren Torres

Las Heroínas

Superheroes may dominate the box office and our streaming services, but this year on National Super Hero Day we’re celebrating and recognizing our real heroínas. Throughout history Latinas have defeated odds and smashed stereotypes. I mean, everyone (absolutely everyone) knows the legendary impact Selena left on the world. From Frida Kahlo’s paintings to Jennifer Lopez and Shakira’s memorable Super Bowl halftime show, Latinas are here to leave an impression, surprise us, and inspire us. These are just some of the powerful ladies that have helped make history and shape society as we know it today.

Sonia Sotomayor

Sonia Sotomayor became the first ever Latina Supreme Court Justice in U.S. history in 2009. Born in the Bronx area of New York, she knew she wanted to work in the justice system from a young age after watching an episode of the legal show “Perry Mason.” Sotomayor’s mother pushed her kids towards education and it paid off; she would go on to graduate from Princeton University and Yale Law School. She began her career as an assistant district attorney and worked her way up to the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals until President Barack Obama nominated her for Supreme Court Justice on May 26, 2009. Since then, Sotomayor has been known for writing passionate dissents and being a voice for marginalized communities and people of color. She had a hand in the vote that made same sex marriage legal in all fifty states and the vote that upheld the Affordable Care Act.

Melissa Villaseñor

…

Saturday Night Live is an American staple in our culture and has boosted the careers of everyone from Chris Farley to Tina Fey. The comedy sketch show has been airing since 1975, yet it wasn’t until 2016 that Villaseñor became the first-ever Latina SNL cast member to entertain us “live from New York.” It was no easy get; Villaseñor actually auditioned for SNL way back in 2009 only to be rejected. The comedian never gave up and her hard work paid off when she finally joined the cast on the show she credited as one of her main reasons for pursuing comedy. Not only is she an expert impressionist (she’s done everyone from Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez to, most recently, Brad Pitt on her Instagram) but she’s also broken barriers by performing in a comedy space almost completely devoid of Latinas. Villaseñor also creates art and music – you can even find her on Spotify!

Ellen Ochoa

Many kids dream of becoming an astronaut, but Ellen Ochoa actually made it happen when she became the first Latina in space on April 8, 1993. Ochoa studied electrical engineering at Stanford University where she earned her masters and doctorate degrees before joining NASA as a research engineer in 1988. She was selected as an astronaut in 1990 and spent nine days in space aboard the space shuttle Discovery. Since then, Ochoa has flown into space three other times and has spent over a thousand hours in orbit. She went on to become the first Latina director, and second female director, of the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

Tanya Saracho

Saracho is a Hollywood show runner, producer, and writer, but she’s no run-of-the-mill L.A. professional. She’s the creator and voice behind the Starz dramedy “Vida,” a show that examines the modern Latinx experience and the gentrification encroaching the east L.A. neighborhood of Boyle Heights. Saracho actively pushes for greater Latinx representation in all of Hollywood. “We’re definitely having a moment, but it’s dangerous to congratulate ourselves too much – we’re not there yet,” Saracho said in an interview with Variety. She writes complex and layered characters of all orientations on “Vida” and doesn’t shy away from honest stories about generation gaps, race, and sex. The women of “Vida” actually reflect the full spectrum of Latina sexuality instead of merely sexualizing them. When real-life residents of Boyle Heights protested the show for, ironically, being an example of gentrification, Saracho admitting the accusations weren’t wrong and that the threat of displacement and erasure are very real. She continued to film the show with that in mind because, as she told Indie Wire, “It’s for them.” 

Gabriela Mistral

Gabriela Mistral was the first Latina author to win the Nobel Prize in literature in 1945 and did so despite a life filled with all the passion and tragedy of a telenovela. Born in Chile, Mistral came to love poetry through her father who was a schoolteacher and poet. As a child, Mistral was “never happy again” after being sent away from her family and hometown to attend school. She worked as a teacher’s aid and wrote and submitted stories to newspapers, eventually publishing “La Instruccíon de la Mujer” (The Education of Women) that spoke against the limits placed on women’s education. When she fell into a passionate romance with a railway worker who would later commit suicide, her heartbreak led her to write poetry that touched on life and death in a way that was unique to Latin writers at the time. Mistral earned her teaching certificate and went on to work in education and write many poetry books. She helped rebuild the education system in Mexico after the Mexican Revolution, taught classes at prestigious universities, and traveled the world sharing her work.

Sylvia Rivera

As a gay, transgender, Latina drag queen, Rivera was a fierce voice for LGBTQ+ rights in the 60s and 70s. She fought for legislation banning gender discrimination and advocated for safer spaces for queer youth. As a child, Rivera left her home and became a sex worker on the streets of New York, where she became part of the “street queen” community. Rivera was eventually targeted by her own community, often upsetting others with her brash tactics to include transgender people, often overlooked, in their fight for equal rights. She was banned from New York’s Gay and Lesbian Center after wrecking a desk in their lobby because she believed they weren’t helping the homeless, trans youth that slept in front of the building. She was even booed at a gay pride rally. Rivera was famously the second person to throw a Molotov cocktail at the Stonewall Riots and co-founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR) with Marsha P. Johnson to provide shelter for queer homeless youth. After her death in 2002 the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was founded in her name to provide access to essential services for transgender, queer, and gender non-conforming people.

Cristela Alonzo

Alonzo is a stand-up comedian who made history and headlines in 2014 by becoming the first Latina to create, write, produce, and star in her own network sitcom, “Cristela.” While her path was certainly paved by comediennes like Anjelah Johnson before her, Alonzo’s talent for hilariously commenting on the modern Mexican-American experience is undeniable. In her Netflix stand-up special, “Lower Classy,” she jokes about everything from Trump’s wall (“Doesn’t he know we use tunnels now? Build that wall as high as you want, stupid, we’re underground!”) to her need to clean everything “because I’m Latina.” She was also the first Latina to play a lead character in a Disney-Pixar movie, voicing Cruz Ramirez in “Cars 3.” She released her book, “Music to my Years: A Mixed Tape Memoir of Growing Up and Standing Up,” in 2019 and actively advocates for immigration rights and affordable healthcare for low-income communities.

Dolores Huerta

If you haven’t heard her name, you’ve certainly heard her slogan, “Si Se Puede.” This was the rallying cry created by Huerta to inspire the working-class people she fought for in the 60s and 70s. She co-founded the National Farm Workers Association with Cesar Chavez in 1962 to help organize and fight for the rights of farm workers. Huerta was one of their loudest voices, lobbying for and securing disability insurance for farm workers in 1963. She was actively involved in the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which granted California farm workers the right to bargain for better wages and working conditions, the first law of its kind. She also led a grape workers strike in 1965. The strike was so successful that it evolved into a nationwide consumer boycott of grapes and resulted in increased protections and wages for thousands of workers. Huerta also fought for women to have an equal voice in the workplace and in unions and mentored other young, female activists. She traveled the country to encourage Latinas to run for political office positions and was National Chair of the 21st Century Party. In 2012 President Barack Obama awarded Huerta The Presidential Medal of Freedom and in 2013 she was inducted into the California Hall of Fame.


Go out and make your own history! Si se puede!

Author: Lauren Torres

Book Review: Space Invaders by Nona Fernandez

Nona Fernandez’s Space Invaders is a dreamy, fictional account that captures the strangeness and uncertainty of youth as well as the pain of looking through muddled memories in search of truth. While the book is labeled as fiction, it is based on Fernandez’s own childhood growing up in Chile under similar circumstances she gives her characters. 

Fernandez weaves together the recollections of childhood friends trying to remember their old classmate and friend, Estrella González, who abruptly disappeared when they were kids. Bound by the shared experiences of attending a strict school, playing their favorite video game “Space Invaders,” and growing up in dangerous, dictator-ruled 1980s Chile, the kids, now adults, are haunted by the imprint Estrella left on their lives. As they try to both move on with their lives and remember every detail of the mysterious Estrella they find they all remember her differently; one recalls her hair in braids, another recalls her hair smelling of gum, and another can’t remember her hair at all, only her voice. The only one to ever have visited her home recalls her mother, her dead brother’s photographs hanging on their walls, and watching her father remove his wooden hand, a hand that goes on to haunt him in his dreams. Told with details that swirl between fact and fantasy, each memory slowly pieces together a fractured picture of Estrella and their shared experiences before her disappearance. 

In its short seventy-odd pages, Space Invaders doesn’t so much tell a complete story as it does give us snapshots of what it might be like growing up in the reality of a dictatorship. Fernandez gives us narrators who cannot always distinguish true memory from fantasies and dreams, and often they are all mixed together, giving the entire read a twinge of uncertainty that feels purposeful on Fernandez’s part. The kids are often at the mercy of choices made for them by their parents, their school, and their government. They have no control over their lives other than what they make for themselves, such as making out in dark classrooms or escaping for a day at the beach. 

Space Invaders is a breezy, quick read, but it doesn’t need more than its novella length to leave its surreal, eerie, and emotionally tangled impact on readers. Somewhere between the relatable, teenage hormone-driven moments and the unfamiliar immersion into eighties-era Chile, Fernandez manages to create something that’s as memorable as it is foreign. Intricately layered and written with an air of otherworldly grace, Space Invaders will capture you from its first page and quietly pull you into its video game-inspired world. 

Author: Lauren Torres

Book Review: In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado’s In The Dream House is a brilliant, multi-faceted, and experimental memoir in every sense of the phrase. Structurally and emotionally it pulls readers in many directions, all of which come together to deconstruct the haunting arc of a psychologically abusive relationship.

In its simplest form, In The Dream House is Machado’s recollection of her long-term relationship with a woman she meets while they are attending graduate school. On the surface, everything is picturesque: they fall in love, begin a long-distance relationship when the unnamed girlfriend moves to a different state, and spend most of their time in the girlfriend’s sprawling, beautiful dream house. As time goes on those warm, fuzzy feelings are replaced with hurt, manipulation, screaming, belittling, jealousy, and, eventually, nearly every scene ends with Machado in tears.

Each of Machado’s accounts of the relationship is written as a vignette with titles ranging from literal to metaphorical and represents a different facet of the experience. Together, these break down the complicated layers and thoughts that led her to and through the abuse with crushing honesty.

“Dream House as Inciting Incident” recalls the day she meets her abusive girlfriend, who at this point is just a dreamy, crush-worthy woman that captures her attention. Machado gets more obscure with titles like “Dream House as Noir,” in which Machado’s girlfriend explains to her that her fits and volatile passion for her is simply “what it’s like to date a woman” because women have emotions and are sensitive.

More experimental is the paranoia and panic found in “Dream House as Choose Your Own Adventure,” in which Machado tells us of a morning where she wakes up next to her girlfriend who is angry with her for moving in her sleep and waking her. You feel the dread and anxiety of how something so simple can go terribly wrong in an instant for her. You pick between choices like “apologize profusely” or “tell her to calm down” and turn to a specific page to see the result, all of which are frightening and evidence that, at this point in the story, there is no winning and Machado’s once dream house is now an everyday nightmare. In “Dream House as Schrodinger’s Cat” (a reference to physicist Schrodinger’s theory that if you place a cat in a box with something that can kill it, the cat is, in a sense, both dead and alive until you open the box) Machado muses on how it is she became caught in an abusive relationship. “Was it the fact that you’d already been tenderized like a pork chop by: never having been properly in love, being told you should be grateful for anything you get as a fat woman, getting weird messages that relationships are about fighting and being at odds with each other?”

What stands out perhaps even more than the chilling memories found in Dream House is how difficult it is for Machado to navigate her abusive relationship because, as she puts it, “I have spent years struggling to find examples of my own experience in history’s queer women.” From that perspective, In The Dream House transcends from a memoir into a powerful political act against the silencing of queer women who have suffered abuse as much as anyone else with less reference or support than most. It breathes life into a very human experience that has been kept in the closet while the LGBTQ+ community has worked to become more accepted with time because, as Machado says, “the desire to save face can defeat every other interest.”

It’s never an easy read, but in the end, beyond being a political act of literature, beyond being a tome of queer sisterhood and strength, In The Dream House is Machado’s story of survival all her own. Her use of the second person perspective throughout the periods of abuse pull you into the experience with her, while her first person perspective in the aftermath of it suggests she’s made it through the worst of times in one piece; now it’s your turn to consider and reflect what you’ve absorbed. Machado’s tale will stir up every emotion imaginable and stands as a symbol for not only what one queer, Latina woman is capable of, but what every woman is capable of. As Machado puts it on the very first page, “If you need this book, it is for you.”

Author: Lauren Torres