Speaker 1: This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and
Speaker 1: courtur latin US.
Speaker 2: Latin Latino USA.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa. We bring you stories that are underreported
Speaker 1: but that mattered to you, overlooked by the rest of
Speaker 1: the media, and while the country is struggling to deal
Speaker 1: with these, we listen to the stories of black and
Speaker 1: Latino Studio United Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at
Speaker 1: the forefront of the movement. I'm Maria Ino JOSSA. Dear listener,
Speaker 1: heads up here that there are mentions of suicide and
Speaker 1: some explicit language, so be prepared. Thank you back.
Speaker 3: It's a cold autumn night and the streets of Chelsea,
Speaker 3: New York City are bustling. I'm on my way to
Speaker 3: meet comedian Ada Rodriguez at the Chelsea Music Hall. She
Speaker 3: had the comedy show tonight. I've never seen her life before,
Speaker 3: but I really enjoy her work because she really goes there,
Speaker 3: especially when she talks about Latinos.
Speaker 2: And I grew up going to the hair salon with
Speaker 2: my grandmother every week, and every week they try to
Speaker 2: blow dry the Dominican out of me because Latinos are racist.
Speaker 2: They can be very racist. They're racist with others, and
Speaker 2: they're racist with each.
Speaker 3: Other too, Like Either's mom is Puerto Rican, her dad
Speaker 3: is Dominican, and her stepfather is Cuban.
Speaker 2: Some of them think they're better than Haitians because they
Speaker 2: speak Spanish right, and Cubans think they're better than the
Speaker 2: Dominicans because they're a little lighter and they think they
Speaker 2: speak better Spanish. And Puerto Ricans think they're better than
Speaker 2: all of them because they're citizens.
Speaker 3: Once they get to the venue, I meet Eithera, Hi, ayva,
Speaker 3: It's so nice to meet you. Thank you for making time.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it. She's headlining the venue and she
Speaker 3: loves it.
Speaker 2: I always get nervous. I'm exhausted, but I'm excited new material,
Speaker 2: but very excited because there are not many Latinas in
Speaker 2: stand up period, specifically the ones that get the opportunities
Speaker 2: to headline. So I don't take this stuff lightly.
Speaker 3: I Either takes the stage in front of a packed audience.
Speaker 2: Wow me, Handa, how beautiful you are. I'm so happy
Speaker 2: to see you. Wow. All right, let's get started.
Speaker 1: From Vuduro Media and BrX, it's Latino USA.
Speaker 2: I'm Maria Josa.
Speaker 1: Today, Comedian Aida Rodriguez on family and comedy, and how
Speaker 1: she fuses both of these to heal our Latino USA
Speaker 1: producer Ronaldo Lanos Junior recently met up with Aida Rodriguez
Speaker 1: for a conversation, and he's going to pick up this
Speaker 1: story from here.
Speaker 3: Aida Rodriguez was born in Boston. Her first comedy gig
Speaker 3: on stage was in the late two thousands, but her
Speaker 3: breakthrough came later when she was a top ten finalist
Speaker 3: on The Last Comic Standing in twenty fourteen. Here's Aia
Speaker 3: talking on the show at the time about a moment
Speaker 3: when her daughter told her that she had a bully.
Speaker 2: I said, a bully that's called writes a passage. You're
Speaker 2: gonna always have a bully. Right one day, a bully's
Speaker 2: name is going to be taxes and Supervisor. You don't
Speaker 2: have a bully. She's seventeen years old. I said. What
Speaker 2: you have is a year to do something about it
Speaker 2: before it's a felony. Yea you have.
Speaker 3: In twenty twenty one, Either released an HBO Max comedy
Speaker 3: special named Fighting Words. It's also part documentary to this journey.
Speaker 2: I had an opportunity to go to the Dominican Republic
Speaker 2: and meet my father for the first time. And it's
Speaker 2: funny because we sat at a restaurant and every time
Speaker 2: a woman walked in, he'd be like, that's your sister.
Speaker 2: It happened a few times. He was so generous. He
Speaker 2: gave us each our own mother's. He was like, Oprah,
Speaker 2: you got a mother, You got a mother.
Speaker 3: The special dives into some tough subjects like eye that's
Speaker 3: upbringing without her father, being homeless, and how her family
Speaker 3: helped her get through it all. At times, Ida's comedy
Speaker 3: gets political. She addresses anti blackness in the Latino community
Speaker 3: and fighting words.
Speaker 2: I was dealing with this shit my whole life. Listen,
Speaker 2: My family was religious, anti abortion until I got pregnant
Speaker 2: from a black dude. Then they became pro abortion in
Speaker 2: the name of Jesus. They were like, He'll forgive you
Speaker 2: too much truth for you to night, said Joe.
Speaker 3: Just recently that published her memoir Legitimate Kid, which dives
Speaker 3: even deeper into her personal life and some of the
Speaker 3: subject matter of her comedy. We're going to hear Aida
Speaker 3: read from and talk about why she decided to write
Speaker 3: Legitimate Kid and how it's helped her heal. And Ida
Speaker 3: also brings us moments from her recent comedy show in Chelsea.
Speaker 2: Here's Aida Rodriguez. So my name is Iva Rodriguez. My
Speaker 2: title is Queen of the Universe. I actually I'm a
Speaker 2: stand up comedian. I'm a writer, I'm an actor now
Speaker 2: an author, and I'm also a producer and a director.
Speaker 2: So it sounds weird saying all of those things, but
Speaker 2: we have to claim our space. So yeah, I'm all
Speaker 2: of those things.
Speaker 3: Aida says she learn a lot about herself and her
Speaker 3: comedy by writing her book.
Speaker 2: Everything I Do is an homage to the people and
Speaker 2: the community where I grew up. You know, a marginalized
Speaker 2: community of Latinos Latine black people that are working class,
Speaker 2: considered poor, but show up every day to work. And
Speaker 2: I am one of those people. I stand on the
Speaker 2: front lines for them because I do feel like some
Speaker 2: people call me problematic, or they say that I say
Speaker 2: things that are incendiary, and I do. I think it's
Speaker 2: important to push the buttons and to talk about it.
Speaker 2: But I also don't think it's cool to go leave
Speaker 2: El Barrio, the hood, the neighborhood, and go get an
Speaker 2: education and within the economics realm, and then come back
Speaker 2: and weaponize that education against people who didn't have it.
Speaker 2: So I find myself in this place where I feel
Speaker 2: like I need to stand up for that, and I'm
Speaker 2: comfortable calling it all out. I really lean forward towards progress.
Speaker 2: I'm really about that life when it comes to the people,
Speaker 2: you know, from the immigrant to the black Latino to
Speaker 2: the lgbtq IA person. I was raised by all of
Speaker 2: those people. That's my whole family, and so I do
Speaker 2: stand up for that. But I think it's important not
Speaker 2: to let people who think it's cool to rock with
Speaker 2: us when it's trendy to jump aboard and then jump
Speaker 2: off when it's not cool anymore. When you talk about politics,
Speaker 2: right wing and left wing people both do it. But
Speaker 2: beyond that, I think there's just a lot of people who,
Speaker 2: as black people, say they love our rhythm, but they
Speaker 2: don't love our blues. And I think that's applicable to
Speaker 2: people of color, that people think it's cool to be
Speaker 2: Latino and call you spicy, and we love tacos and
Speaker 2: all that stuff. But when it comes to like the
Speaker 2: real movement and all of the stuff that is happening
Speaker 2: underneath to all of us, the numbers get really small
Speaker 2: in terms of people who are still standing with us.
Speaker 3: Hi that says she wrote her book because she wanted
Speaker 3: to tell her story and she didn't want to be
Speaker 3: the punchline.
Speaker 2: Specifically, when it comes to comedians, people see us like
Speaker 2: as their personal gestures, their clowns. They don't realize that
Speaker 2: it is an occupation. It is a profession and a skill,
Speaker 2: and we employ that at our workplace, and it's a
Speaker 2: very very hard job to do, which is why a
Speaker 2: lot of people are afraid to do it. I've been
Speaker 2: wanting to write a book since I was a little girl.
Speaker 2: Writing has always been my therapy. My writing process started
Speaker 2: a long time for this book because I had been
Speaker 2: writing essays. You know, I write journal entries. The journal
Speaker 2: entries either become essays or they become jokes, and sometimes
Speaker 2: they become both. I want you to understand what that
Speaker 2: story is and at the same time, I want people
Speaker 2: to understand how I mind my comedy and where it
Speaker 2: comes from. And I went away. I went to a
Speaker 2: rubo and I took my mother and my kids with me,
Speaker 2: and it was so triggering because my mom was very
Speaker 2: raw at that time. Was the first time she had
Speaker 2: been out of the since she was a baby, and
Speaker 2: she triggered me, and that is what led me to
Speaker 2: like get a lot of it.
Speaker 3: Out during this process. I that reflected on her childhood.
Speaker 2: My childhood was filled with trauma, and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of horrible things that happened, but there was a
Speaker 2: lot of great things that happened and a lot of
Speaker 2: people that showed up for me. I used to think
Speaker 2: of myself as Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, and
Speaker 2: I was like, my grandmother is the good witch. My
Speaker 2: mom is a bad witch because my grandmother never disciplined me.
Speaker 2: My mom always did. And then my uncles were the Lion,
Speaker 2: the tin man, and the scarecrow combined, and you know,
Speaker 2: it was a bunch of adventures. My grandmother was the
Speaker 2: landlady of the building, so I would collect rents with her,
Speaker 2: so I was hearing information like who was cheating on
Speaker 2: who who? And I was around a lot of adults
Speaker 2: all the time, and they felt very comfortable talking about
Speaker 2: adult stuff around me and all the other kids. So
Speaker 2: I just think I had a really interesting childhood. But
Speaker 2: I still played a lot of cakeball, lived at the
Speaker 2: truth row Man and the ice cream truck. I ran,
Speaker 2: I climbed trees, I hung out with my little brothers
Speaker 2: until they got old enough not to want to play
Speaker 2: with me anymore. I was blessed. I had a lot.
Speaker 2: Some things happened, but bad things happened to everybody, and
Speaker 2: so I've never just been one to think that, oh,
Speaker 2: it happened to me, trauma doesn't make you special, because
Speaker 2: it happens to everybody.
Speaker 3: In third grade, Either was called a bastard by a
Speaker 3: little girl who had her father's last name, something that
Speaker 3: didn't have because Either had her mom's last name, not
Speaker 3: her father's, and that moment became a theme in her book.
Speaker 2: I was an innocent minding my own business when one
Speaker 2: a rotten kid in my class named Beth, called me
Speaker 2: a bastard. Beth was the first child that I described
Speaker 2: as evil. All the kids laughed and taunted me, except
Speaker 2: for Alvaro, my cute, chubby Cuban buddy. But Alvaro was
Speaker 2: also kind, and he responded in my defense, no, she's
Speaker 2: not a bastard. I am sure he didn't know what
Speaker 2: the word meant either, since he barely knew English. Still,
Speaker 2: it was as though someone saw me at the moment
Speaker 2: and knew that I was feeling naked. I was eight
Speaker 2: years old. When I became conscious of the absence of
Speaker 2: my father in a real way, Beth made sure of it.
Speaker 2: It set me off on this journey to find legitimacy.
Speaker 2: I really learned a lot in my journey, and even
Speaker 2: though I didn't have the words for it, but the
Speaker 2: way patriarchy plays a role in placing the importance of
Speaker 2: father versus motherhood and the way a child's life is shaped.
Speaker 2: In my family, there was ma chismo and there was
Speaker 2: all of this patriarchal framing where the people were like,
Speaker 2: you guys are doomed because your father isn't in your life,
Speaker 2: and you heard that all the time. I think that
Speaker 2: it really impacted me in that way where I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm doomed because I don't have my dad, and girls
Speaker 2: that don't have their dad usually end up pregnant or
Speaker 2: in jail, because that's the stuff that I would hear.
Speaker 2: Those words really do affect you. Going on throughout my
Speaker 2: life trying to understand why I was the kid that
Speaker 2: didn't have their own father and what that meant for
Speaker 2: me in terms of my trajectory and where I would go,
Speaker 2: but also where it made me feel vulnerable to the
Speaker 2: world because I was taught that father meant protection, and
Speaker 2: so I was thinking, like, compared to some of the
Speaker 2: girls that I knew, who was going to take care
Speaker 2: of me? And it just made me feel like I
Speaker 2: was easy access to predatorial behavior, and I called it
Speaker 2: into my life. It came out in my personal relationships
Speaker 2: with friends, romantic, everything that I did. It kept showing
Speaker 2: up because it really became a part of my identity,
Speaker 2: and it manifested in ways that I had challenges having
Speaker 2: this deficit in my life, which was I started looking
Speaker 2: for that in my relationships and my romantic relationships, and
Speaker 2: when someone made me feel protected, that was the way
Speaker 2: in for me. I remember having a guy that liked
Speaker 2: me and he would try to beat everybody up who
Speaker 2: tried to do anything to me, and I didn't even
Speaker 2: think about how that could be harmful for him, but
Speaker 2: it was just like, Oh, he really loves me, he
Speaker 2: cares about me. I would gravitate towards that. It was
Speaker 2: a pattern Either writes about in her book. The red
Speaker 2: flax kept showing up and I kept ignoring them. Kept
Speaker 2: his phone on silent, would always place it face down
Speaker 2: so that I couldn't see the caller. ID He would
Speaker 2: disappear at night after leaving my place and tell me
Speaker 2: that he fell asleep the next day. I was willing
Speaker 2: to overlook so much just to be with him. It
Speaker 2: was real and mine, and at least I had someone
Speaker 2: I had no idea of what a healthy relationship was.
Speaker 2: My grandmother was a woman who came from Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: in the fifties, who never had an opportunity to have
Speaker 2: an education. She moved to America with her two children
Speaker 2: and then have four more kids here. My grandmother was
Speaker 2: a door to door saleswoman. She's probably the smartest person
Speaker 2: I ever met in my life. And it was so
Speaker 2: funny because she was illiterate, and her and my stepfather
Speaker 2: would go back and forth, and he would point out
Speaker 2: that she was illiterate, and she would always say, yeah,
Speaker 2: I can't read, but I can count, and I know
Speaker 2: you broke.
Speaker 4: Hi.
Speaker 3: That's grandmother with a little rough around the edges. But
Speaker 3: she was always there for Eida when it mattered.
Speaker 2: She had come to rescue me. I just knew it.
Speaker 2: I ran as fast as I could grabbed her and
Speaker 2: never wanted to let her go. I would finally be
Speaker 2: free from the horror that was that man. My grandmother
Speaker 2: was here to take me home. I remember asking, are
Speaker 2: we going to go get my mom? And my grandmother
Speaker 2: quickly replied, she'll come later. I was so sad to
Speaker 2: leave my mama, but I really couldn't take the struggle anymore.
Speaker 2: I had been cold, hungry, tired, and molested. It was
Speaker 2: time for me to go. She's just my hero, so
Speaker 2: much of my hero that when she got cancer. I
Speaker 2: was angry with her when she got sick because I
Speaker 2: couldn't process the fact that she was weak. In my mind,
Speaker 2: it was like, this is not okay. But she was
Speaker 2: always there for me, my mom, who I thought was
Speaker 2: my sister in real life. And it was really hard
Speaker 2: growing up in a house with a mother that was
Speaker 2: so young, and my mom was a very beautiful woman girl,
Speaker 2: and to think about the fact that she was involved
Speaker 2: with somebody that was so many years her senior and
Speaker 2: moved out of the country with and had a child,
Speaker 2: and I was like, that's human trafficking now when you
Speaker 2: think about the things that they were dealing with at
Speaker 2: that time that were normal or acceptable, because they weren't normal.
Speaker 2: But my mom is one of the most spirited, fearless
Speaker 2: people I've ever met in my life.
Speaker 3: Rai that says she considers her mama Queen and that
Speaker 3: she has a lot of respect for her.
Speaker 2: My brother's arrival was not the best. He was born
Speaker 2: days after Kuriano beat our mother. He cheated on her,
Speaker 2: and when she found out and confronted him, he didn't
Speaker 2: appreciate her tone or questioning and decided to teacher a lesson.
Speaker 2: He beat a nine months pregnant woman and left her
Speaker 2: for dead in Central Park, and those people who many
Speaker 2: saw as undesirables in society were the ones to take
Speaker 2: care of her and deliver her to the nearest hospital,
Speaker 2: saving both her and her baby's lives. To this very day,
Speaker 2: she says never looked down on anyone. It was the
Speaker 2: prostitutes and junkies that rescued us. I had to grow
Speaker 2: up with her, so it was really hard, was painful,
Speaker 2: and sometimes fun to have a very young mom that
Speaker 2: would dance with you anywhere. That was the thing about her.
Speaker 2: She was misinformed about discipline because she was hit with
Speaker 2: an extension cord. She thought hitting us with the belt
Speaker 2: was a step up. And so thank God for growth,
Speaker 2: because now I've never hit my daughter or my son
Speaker 2: and she's always been like good. So a lot of
Speaker 2: people don't know. My mom went back to school and
Speaker 2: got her and then she went to a technical school
Speaker 2: and became a pharmaceutical tech and she graduated from there
Speaker 2: and she had the highest GPA in her class. She's really,
Speaker 2: really smart. And in spite of all of the things
Speaker 2: that have happened to her, and a lot of bad
Speaker 2: things happened to her, she still fights. And she's my
Speaker 2: favorite fighter. Mike Tyson ain't got nothing on my mama.
Speaker 2: I cry when I watch movies about family, right like
Speaker 2: we all cry when we saw Setlanta. Selena was, you know,
Speaker 2: a biography, but it was also a story of family.
Speaker 2: None of us are alone, as much as we'd like
Speaker 2: to think that we are. We see that tour bus,
Speaker 2: we see those people. I see movies like Soul Food
Speaker 2: or La Familia, and they would make me cry, and
Speaker 2: I had to sit down with myself and say, what
Speaker 2: is it about this stuff that makes you feel this way?
Speaker 2: Why do you feel sad or why do you cry?
Speaker 2: And it's because I realized that above all things, I
Speaker 2: value family. And my children make fun of me because
Speaker 2: I like to eat family style. So when we go
Speaker 2: out to eat. They're like, oh, oh, we're gonna have to,
Speaker 2: you know, But I believe in con partiendo, like we
Speaker 2: all eat together, we all taste. It's communion, community. It's
Speaker 2: always been the center of it all. And it took
Speaker 2: me a long time to discover to realize that that
Speaker 2: was what was everything to me. And yes, my father
Speaker 2: wasn't there, but there was a father there and it
Speaker 2: might not have been the traditional father role, but it
Speaker 2: was everything that I needed and then some.
Speaker 3: It was later in life that Aida had a full
Speaker 3: circle moment with her own daughter when it came to
Speaker 3: their last name.
Speaker 2: I asked my baby if she knew her name, and
Speaker 2: she looked me in the eye and confidently said, yes,
Speaker 2: I'm a Kayla. Do you know your last name? Akayla?
Speaker 2: What a Kayla Rodriguez, she said, looking me straight in
Speaker 2: the eyes and punching me right in the face with
Speaker 2: it no hesitation. She knew her name. I want to
Speaker 2: be Rodriguez like you, she said, I don't want daddy's
Speaker 2: last name. So many emotions swept through me. I was
Speaker 2: so confused and at the same time flattered. She was
Speaker 2: proud of me and wanted to be like me. She
Speaker 2: didn't even think about her father, and because he wasn't there,
Speaker 2: she didn't know him enough to like him, let alone
Speaker 2: carry his name. The way she saw it, it was
Speaker 2: a privilege for her to claim me. What a beautiful
Speaker 2: perception to have at that young age. Damn, she was
Speaker 2: my hero. Forgiveness is not a gift that you give
Speaker 2: other people. Forgiveness is a form of self care, and
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of us hold on to forgiveness.
Speaker 2: I will say that human error is inevitable. We all
Speaker 2: do it. And one of the best things that I
Speaker 2: did for myself was to forgive the people who hurt me.
Speaker 2: That doesn't mean that I allowed them back into my life,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that I am buddy buddy with them,
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean that I even speak to them anymore.
Speaker 2: But what I did do was really come to terms
Speaker 2: with understanding that forgiveness was me taking care of me,
Speaker 2: and it released me from the chains and a lot
Speaker 2: of the pain that I was holding on to. That
Speaker 2: allowed me to move forward in my life.
Speaker 3: Before the show, Either told me that she feels like
Speaker 3: she's in a new chapter of her life, and her
Speaker 3: comedy and set Tonight reflects that.
Speaker 5: Among the people are suffering from depression, and I want
Speaker 5: you to know that I see you.
Speaker 2: And then you have found about taking your wife.
Speaker 5: If you are paddling, dad, please talk to somebody.
Speaker 2: Please, sare me regular somebody and don't go to people.
Speaker 5: Don't tell people who are suffering from depression, who are
Speaker 5: thinking about killing yourself.
Speaker 2: Think about your mother, right? What about your children? That
Speaker 2: could very well be the reason a lot of them
Speaker 2: people want to killing themselves. And there you go, agitating
Speaker 2: the wom I want you to be here.
Speaker 3: You are they that says she has struggled with depression
Speaker 3: in her lifetime.
Speaker 5: And I was gonna kill myself and I was gonna
Speaker 5: take my children with me. And I drove to the
Speaker 5: top of the cliff with my two kids in the
Speaker 5: car and I was gonna drive off.
Speaker 4: And my son said, I love you, mommy, and I
Speaker 4: was like, I can't drown him.
Speaker 2: She's a good person. But if that would have just
Speaker 2: been me and my daughter, I don't know if.
Speaker 5: I'd been here today.
Speaker 3: If you or someone you know are struggling with thoughts
Speaker 3: of suicide, contact the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at nine
Speaker 3: eight eight. And just so you know, this book will
Speaker 3: be available in Spanish in early March.
Speaker 1: This episode was produced by Rinaldo Lanos Junior and edited
Speaker 1: by Haley Sanchez. It was mixed by JJ Grubin and
Speaker 1: Special Things This Week to Harper Audio for letting us
Speaker 1: use excerpts from the audio version of AIDA's book Legitimate Kid.
Speaker 1: The Latino USA team also includes Victoria Estrada, Andrea Lopez Grussado, Bilordi,
Speaker 1: mar Marquez, Marta Martinez, Mike Sargent, Nur Saudi and Nancy Trucquillo.
Speaker 1: Beni Lee Ramidez is our co executive producer. Our director
Speaker 1: of Engineering is Stephanie the Beau. Our senior engineer is
Speaker 1: Julia Caruso. Additional engineering support by Gabrielle Abyez. Our marketing
Speaker 1: manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed by
Speaker 1: Zenia Robinos. I'm your host and executive producer Maria Jojosa.
Speaker 1: Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: look for us on social media and remember nottevayas nunca
Speaker 1: estella proxima.
Speaker 6: Baye Latino Usa is made possible in part by the
Speaker 6: Heising Simons Foundation. Unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities more at
Speaker 6: Hsfoundation dot org, the Ford Founding, working with visionaries on
Speaker 6: the front lines of social change worldwide, and the John D.
Speaker 6: And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Speaker 2: I want to turn that off. See Chris, can you
Speaker 2: turn this fan off? I don't want to mess with
Speaker 2: one of this, so both of them, because this is audio,
Speaker 2: all right, thank you so much. If you want that
Speaker 2: one off too, if possible, yeah,