Speaker 1: Push it. Hey, Ben, Hey, we are bringing our listeners
Speaker 1: something really special today. Do you remember earlier this year
Speaker 1: when we talked to Christopher vas about the real James
Speaker 1: Bond named Portfideo Rubiosa. Of course I remember that was amazing,
Speaker 1: What a great conversation episode. As well. Chris has his
Speaker 1: own podcast called brown Enough, where he breaks down what
Speaker 1: it means to be brown enough in America today. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to that podcast and he discusses identity, careers
Speaker 1: and being proud of who you are with other brown activists,
Speaker 1: creators and change makers. We think our listeners will really
Speaker 1: like it. So we're sharing right here one of our
Speaker 1: favorite episodes, and it's about that question what are you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What are you? If you like? What are you? If
Speaker 1: you like what you're hearing? You can listen to brown
Speaker 1: Enough right now, Stitch or Apple Podcasts or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts. I am an artist and a
Speaker 1: writer and a cartoonist. This is Molica Garb. If her
Speaker 1: voice sounds familiar, that's probably because you've heard her on MPR,
Speaker 1: where she reports on things like the refugee crisis, gender equality,
Speaker 1: and women's health. And when she's not doing that she
Speaker 1: is drawing up a storm. It took me a long
Speaker 1: time to admit to myself that I was an artist.
Speaker 1: But I just felt like as a kind of person
Speaker 1: who needed to sort things out by writing or drawing,
Speaker 1: sort my emotions out. And I think that that is
Speaker 1: my true calling. And after spending years carrying a diary
Speaker 1: in her backpack where she wrote and doodled her feelings out,
Speaker 1: she finally answered her calling to become an artist. She
Speaker 1: just published a graphic memoir called It Won't Always Be
Speaker 1: Like This. It's sort of a follow up story to
Speaker 1: her first book, I Was There, American Dream And with
Speaker 1: a title like that, you know I needed to hear more.
Speaker 1: In this book, filled with red, white and blue colors,
Speaker 1: Molica shares her story about growing up as a first
Speaker 1: generation Filipino Egyptian American and trying to sort out her
Speaker 1: identity in the pre Internet world before tweets, selfies, TikTok videos,
Speaker 1: and Instagram posts were a thing. We're talking about a
Speaker 1: time when teens were heavenly influenced by pop culture. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about like when Sean Combs became p Diddy, or
Speaker 1: when Dawson from Dawson's Creek was every girl's illusion of
Speaker 1: love or when mean girls was a sort of actual
Speaker 1: reflection of what clicks and high schools were like. You know,
Speaker 1: the pop rockers, skaters, jocks, geeks. I wonder what new
Speaker 1: clicks they have these days. Anyway, Molica and I share
Speaker 1: the experience of having immigrant parents, and this graphic memoir
Speaker 1: is a tribute to families like ours who came to
Speaker 1: the US and tried to achieve this so called American dream.
Speaker 1: Today we are talking to Molica about her journey of
Speaker 1: own her artistry, navigating between three cultures and two religions,
Speaker 1: and that sticky, sticky question we have all heard before,
Speaker 1: what arguing I'm Christopher Reevas and this is brown enough
Speaker 1: stories between black and white? Here we go. I have
Speaker 1: this true admiration and love for artists, y'all. I think
Speaker 1: what we contribute to society gives us a better understanding
Speaker 1: of the world. And so I was surprised when I
Speaker 1: heard Molika say it took her some time to own
Speaker 1: that title of artists. Why did it take you so long?
Speaker 1: Because in my opinion, artists are like the most valuable
Speaker 1: parts of a society. You know, when a coup happens,
Speaker 1: they try and killed like the doctors of the lawyers
Speaker 1: in the art. So what took you so long to
Speaker 1: love that? I think I tried to fit the mold
Speaker 1: that my parents wanted me to sort of fit in,
Speaker 1: and that was, you need to do well in school,
Speaker 1: you need to graduate and do this big important thing
Speaker 1: working for a big important brand. And my aunt once
Speaker 1: told me about how in life everybody has a calling
Speaker 1: and it's not necessarily the work that you do on
Speaker 1: an everyday basis. It's about it's a thing that drives you.
Speaker 1: It's your emo, it's your modus operandi. I'd always been
Speaker 1: thinking about what that calling was for me, and it
Speaker 1: sort of clicked one day when I realized that I
Speaker 1: just kept a diary all the time, a notebook all
Speaker 1: the time in my bag in my twenties, and if
Speaker 1: anything that I saw that was happening to me, if
Speaker 1: I was angry, if I was sad, and I remember
Speaker 1: one day I drew a notebook doodle while I was
Speaker 1: riding the bus that said, gosh, I can't wait to
Speaker 1: write about this in my diary when I get home,
Speaker 1: because I had had bad day. And I realized that
Speaker 1: that's what artists do they mean they need to make
Speaker 1: things in order to understand the way the world works.
Speaker 1: And it was a really late realization for me. I
Speaker 1: only started cartooning in the past, you know, since I
Speaker 1: was thirty and I'm now thirty six, but had always
Speaker 1: been sort of a casual doodler. And once I realized
Speaker 1: that I was, like, it just clicked and things started
Speaker 1: moving for me professionally in my creative life. Molica turned
Speaker 1: her casual doodles in scribbles into cartoons with story arcs.
Speaker 1: Her comics have now been featured in places like The
Speaker 1: New York Times, the New Yorker, and you can also
Speaker 1: find them on MPR's website, like a recent one she
Speaker 1: did that I love called how to Stay Cool Without
Speaker 1: an Air Conditioner. They're really quite delightful and fun no
Speaker 1: matter who she's making comics for, though, Molicica is always
Speaker 1: taking inspiration from her own life. When she was growing up,
Speaker 1: that life was pretty unique thanks to her parents very
Speaker 1: diverse backgrounds. Your dad is from Egypt, your mom's from
Speaker 1: the Philippines. They both seemed very incredible in their own right.
Speaker 1: My mom this is before the me too area, obviously,
Speaker 1: but my mom was my dad's secretary. My dad was
Speaker 1: a general manager of a hotel in downtown La Or
Speaker 1: I think it was in Hollywood. My dad asked her
Speaker 1: out for a date and they went to go see
Speaker 1: like some Indiana Jones movie. That was it. They got
Speaker 1: married after six months, and they spoke English at home, obviously,
Speaker 1: because my dad is a native Arabic speaker and my
Speaker 1: mom's a native Tagalog speaker. And you know, the marriage
Speaker 1: didn't last. They obviously had a lot of cultural differences.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm really glad that it didn't work out,
Speaker 1: because I got some really awesome siblings in their following marriages.
Speaker 1: But they're still really good friends. So they come from
Speaker 1: very different cultures, as you just said, and it didn't
Speaker 1: work out. But what did they have in common? That's
Speaker 1: a really, really good question that I've never considered before. Gosh,
Speaker 1: what do they have in common? I think they both
Speaker 1: really loved traveling. They had sort of set it up
Speaker 1: where my mom would be working for an airline and
Speaker 1: my dad worked for hotels, so for a while when
Speaker 1: they were married, they would travel around everywhere for free.
Speaker 1: So they both loved that. They're both very funny people.
Speaker 1: My dad has a great sense of humor, and my
Speaker 1: mom is hilarious. She's very sharp. They're both very smart.
Speaker 1: I think that they're both news junkies in a way.
Speaker 1: I think my mom corrects me on my own news knowledge,
Speaker 1: especially when it comes to celebrity news, and so does
Speaker 1: my dad, So they both liked to keep up on things.
Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, you came out with your first graphic novel.
Speaker 1: I was their American dream. Who is they? They is
Speaker 1: my parents and my family who supported me and raised
Speaker 1: me as a young person and still do today. What
Speaker 1: do you think their dream was. I think their dream
Speaker 1: for me, like many immigrant parents of their generation who
Speaker 1: came to the United States, was that they wanted a
Speaker 1: child who could assimilate well into the United States, who
Speaker 1: would get the best education, go to the best colleges,
Speaker 1: have the best career opportunities, and sort of skip what
Speaker 1: they had to struggle with trying to adapt in America.
Speaker 1: Because I was naturally and perfectly American, I would just
Speaker 1: slide right into perfection of the American dream of owning
Speaker 1: a home and everything. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: biggest things that my parents said, well, my dad said this,
Speaker 1: He said, I just didn't know that you had your
Speaker 1: own set of struggles being of, you know, second generation American.
Speaker 1: I thought that once we came here, like things would
Speaker 1: be perfect for you and great, And I was like,
Speaker 1: you didn't anticipate that I would have identity issues. He
Speaker 1: had always said to me, like, you have an American passport,
Speaker 1: you're American, and it's like you can say that all
Speaker 1: you want, but I don't really believe those words, like
Speaker 1: unless you I don't know. I felt like I had
Speaker 1: to do the work to actually believe those words, emotional work.
Speaker 1: If you could define assimilation in like a sentence, what
Speaker 1: would it be, well, I think in the olden days,
Speaker 1: when I was a kid in high school, assimilating meant
Speaker 1: shedding all aspects of my cultural identity, my Filipino noess
Speaker 1: and Egyptian noss and sort of and sort of taking
Speaker 1: on and being quote unquote white, which was what I
Speaker 1: equated with American. And once I could achieve passing as white,
Speaker 1: then I would be fully assimilated. And now I don't
Speaker 1: think that's true at all. Obviously. I think that's a
Speaker 1: very warped and horrible way of viewing what assimilation means.
Speaker 1: I think it's being really comfortable in your own cultural skin,
Speaker 1: like your own being really comfortable in who I am
Speaker 1: as a Filipino and Egyptian, and understanding the important role
Speaker 1: that my presence in America plays to this society, and
Speaker 1: feeling an immense sense of belonging in my own skin.
Speaker 1: And I think, in my today's definition, when I think
Speaker 1: about my own parents, I think about these are twenty
Speaker 1: year old kids, children with children who came from not
Speaker 1: much and decided to give their children something. And I
Speaker 1: believe that sometimes what we call assimilation is often just survival.
Speaker 1: Trying to give my child opportunity and trying to invest
Speaker 1: in the American dream, which is really just the story
Speaker 1: of mobility. And whatever I have to do to receive
Speaker 1: a check in order to make that happen, often from
Speaker 1: white employers, is what I am going to do or
Speaker 1: teach or facilitate. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean I remember,
Speaker 1: I mean, I remember I was taught that, you know,
Speaker 1: from my parents and family. I mean, um, one of
Speaker 1: the biggest I mean, I wrote this about this in
Speaker 1: my book. I was their American Dream. But you know,
Speaker 1: my uncle Titomorrow Tito means uncle Intagalog. You know, he
Speaker 1: told me that I was so lucky for going to
Speaker 1: a white school, like predominantly white school like Syracuse, where
Speaker 1: I could really learn from the white people and I
Speaker 1: would get this first this first class, you know, look
Speaker 1: at an examination. I could at this first class front
Speaker 1: row seat into into white people and to really observe
Speaker 1: their manner of dress and how they ate with a
Speaker 1: fork and a knife, and how they introduced themselves. And
Speaker 1: you know, it just makes me sad thinking about it.
Speaker 1: That was telling me to carry myself with the confidence
Speaker 1: of a mediocre white man. Did you really say that
Speaker 1: to you? Yeah? Or me knowing as a child to
Speaker 1: be on the subway, like looking at the Wall Street boys,
Speaker 1: because I would take the sixth down to Wall Street.
Speaker 1: I had like a little job down there, and I
Speaker 1: would go from the Upper East Side to Wall Street
Speaker 1: and I would watch these these these men, often white men,
Speaker 1: who seem to not have a worry in the world,
Speaker 1: and I would study them, study that would study absolutely.
Speaker 1: I would absolutely study them too. And you know what
Speaker 1: I hate is that when I did graduate, you know,
Speaker 1: my family was right to some extent, right, there is
Speaker 1: a code, there's like some code that I didn't learn
Speaker 1: from them, But I learned from observing of how to
Speaker 1: be and how to act in a predominantly white space,
Speaker 1: A lot of confidence when you introduced yourself. You know,
Speaker 1: in Filipino culture you're very deferential and very very gentle
Speaker 1: when you enter a space. You don't want to make
Speaker 1: too much draw too much attention to yourself you have
Speaker 1: you don't in American culture. The early bird catches the worm.
Speaker 1: The loudest duck, you know, you know, makes moves, and
Speaker 1: that's not how how Filipinos exert or sort of show
Speaker 1: their power. So in reading your book, I was fascinated
Speaker 1: by what felt like heavy diversity in your high school.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about city those, California. Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was such a great place to grow up. So Cerritos
Speaker 1: is south of la It was a predominantly Asian and
Speaker 1: Hispanic community. A lot of Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese people, a
Speaker 1: lot of Mexican people, a lot of Portuguese people, and
Speaker 1: there were a few black and white people, maybe almost equal,
Speaker 1: I would say. And a lot of the leadership in
Speaker 1: Cerritos were Asian, which was pretty cool. Our mayor have
Speaker 1: been Asian when I was growing up. People who worked
Speaker 1: at the library, you could see that they were Asian
Speaker 1: and Hispanic, like, it was very diverse all around. Yeah, all,
Speaker 1: I gotta say, said, ETOs reminds me of my own hometown, Queens,
Speaker 1: New York. I was very fortunate to grow up around
Speaker 1: so much diversity. Queens is the melting pot, y'all. If
Speaker 1: you take the seven train down Roosevelt Avenue, you will
Speaker 1: get a taste of just about everything. Warm Colombian pastry,
Speaker 1: spicy Indian curry, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, Italian ICs. I
Speaker 1: could go on and make a menu, but we don't
Speaker 1: have time for that. Did you know that that was
Speaker 1: an amazing thing then? No? I mean now, looking back, like,
Speaker 1: I feel like it's freaking amazing. I wrote about this
Speaker 1: in the La Times and like a comic op ed
Speaker 1: about how I reminisced with my high school friends. Dude,
Speaker 1: why didn't we ever talk about how amazing it was
Speaker 1: to grow up in a place like Cerritos when we
Speaker 1: were in high school? And we talked about how conversation
Speaker 1: around race has changed so much in the past few decades,
Speaker 1: and we were able to sort of reflect on that
Speaker 1: a little bit in that piece. But one of the
Speaker 1: things that was really cool about it was that there
Speaker 1: was this like cultural exchange and this profound sensitivity around
Speaker 1: other people's cultures. Now, going back to Queens again, if
Speaker 1: you find yourself in Jackson Heights where you have Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian,
Speaker 1: or Mexican communities, there's an understanding between them and respect.
Speaker 1: The district embraces and celebrates each country with gratitude. So
Speaker 1: I was struck when I got to her chapter about
Speaker 1: the most important question in her high school what are you?
Speaker 1: What did it mean to you back then in high school?
Speaker 1: And how is it evolved? Okay, to be real, what
Speaker 1: are you? Question really almost was like social currency, right,
Speaker 1: Like there was a hierarchy of Asians, which I'm sure
Speaker 1: you've heard about the hierarchy of Asians. I've heard about it,
Speaker 1: but tell others have not, Okay, So, like the hierarchy
Speaker 1: of Asians was this horrible thing that I'd learned in
Speaker 1: high school. And I hope that others like, I mean,
Speaker 1: this is awful, And I just knew that Filipinos like
Speaker 1: myself or at the bottom of the hierarchy of Asians.
Speaker 1: But um, so it was like all the East Asians
Speaker 1: at the top, like the Japanese, then like Chinese and Korean,
Speaker 1: and then like all the brown Asians, like if you
Speaker 1: were Vietnamese or from Laos or Cambodia, you know, you
Speaker 1: were sort of at the bottom. And I think that
Speaker 1: that was also like some weird people could be like, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're Filipino. Okay. And it's also like a way
Speaker 1: of like a lot of people in school was still
Speaker 1: pretty segregated. So if you were Korean, you would be
Speaker 1: hanging out likely with a bunch of other Korean girls.
Speaker 1: If you were Mexican American into hot topic, like you
Speaker 1: had your own group. If you were Chinese and love
Speaker 1: like magic the gathering, like you were in your own subgroup.
Speaker 1: I I think that it was a understanding what your
Speaker 1: culture was because I think that there was a high
Speaker 1: level of sensitivity for that, but also be understanding where okay,
Speaker 1: so what's your social standing in the list of like
Speaker 1: cool races, which is also horrible. So for example, like
Speaker 1: Portuguese guys at Cerrito's high school were considered the quote
Speaker 1: unquote whitest guys, and being like a white Portuguese guy
Speaker 1: was like better than being like a white Hispanic guy.
Speaker 1: This is look I'm only repeating things that are that
Speaker 1: was from high school. Please don't crucify me for this
Speaker 1: on Twitter. I'm just saying what we believe back then. Horrible. Seriously, y'all,
Speaker 1: don't crucify Milico on Twitter. She's sharing her high school experience,
Speaker 1: one that I can also relate to. I'm back home
Speaker 1: in New York. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans were at the
Speaker 1: top of the hierarchy, and maybe because we got the
Speaker 1: biggest parades, we earned some extra points. All right, y'all,
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,
Speaker 1: Molica is going to tell us how that what are
Speaker 1: you question changed when she went to college. Yo, we
Speaker 1: are back with journalist and cartoonist Malica Gharib. When you
Speaker 1: get to college, you realize no one's asking this question,
Speaker 1: and you sort of miss being asked it. Correct. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I did. I was around a lot of white people,
Speaker 1: a lot of white students and friends, and it just
Speaker 1: seemed like a very very awkward thing to broach. People
Speaker 1: didn't know how to talk about it. I found it
Speaker 1: a very crucial point for me to mention that I
Speaker 1: was Filipino and Egyptian. It seemed very important to share
Speaker 1: or disclose as part of If they really wanted to
Speaker 1: know who I was, then they should also understand these
Speaker 1: aspects of myself. But it felt like that time and
Speaker 1: the moment never really came up, and it was always
Speaker 1: like a little awkward because I think they just didn't
Speaker 1: want to address it at all, because they didn't know,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to say anything quote unquote racist. So
Speaker 1: only after my book came out, I was their American dream.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of college friends coming back to
Speaker 1: me and saying like, I'm so sorry. I never like
Speaker 1: asked you about like your culture or like things that
Speaker 1: you like doing at home with your family, or you know.
Speaker 1: I had a lot of like subtle racist things being
Speaker 1: told to me by friends. Had a roommate once who
Speaker 1: my mom shipped this plastic container of I think it
Speaker 1: was like caldaretta, which is like some beef stew, and
Speaker 1: she would always comment every day about how the fridge
Speaker 1: smelled so intense and anyway, I was like, I just
Speaker 1: wish that we could have had more open conversations about race,
Speaker 1: but nobody know how talk about it. Then. You know,
Speaker 1: that was like two thousand four. I mean people are
Speaker 1: still struggling to talk about it now. Yeah, please do
Speaker 1: some enlightening for us, because I think the world still
Speaker 1: struggles with this. What is another less rude way to say?
Speaker 1: What are you? Um? How do you identify? And I
Speaker 1: think that for a lot of people that that opens
Speaker 1: up a lot. Everyone could be asked that question. We
Speaker 1: have to ask that now at work for a diversity
Speaker 1: questionnaire with every source that we interview, and it's an
Speaker 1: open ended question and people could answer it in any
Speaker 1: way they like. It's a question for everybody. You mentioned
Speaker 1: your uncle Tito earlier, and in the book you talk
Speaker 1: about him a lot. He told you about the real world.
Speaker 1: He said there will be expectations on you as a
Speaker 1: brown woman and that you needed to learn them. Was
Speaker 1: your uncle Tito right? Yeah he was, And that's um
Speaker 1: tit tomorrow to you. That's right, my bad. He was
Speaker 1: absolutely right, it was. It was shockingly accurate. I think
Speaker 1: that one of the first places I worked was a
Speaker 1: corporate ad agency and I highly observed, you know, how
Speaker 1: other people dressed collared shirts. I came from like a
Speaker 1: punk style in la where people were very casual and
Speaker 1: laid back and had surfer style and that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: and I just had sort of had to adapt to
Speaker 1: that environment. I once was invited to a dinner with
Speaker 1: like a professor and another colleague of his and some students,
Speaker 1: and like we were eating at a fancy dinner table
Speaker 1: with like lots of forks and knives, and I had
Speaker 1: to like I literally had like a movie moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, um, I'll ordered the chicken extra rare,
Speaker 1: like you know what I mean. Like, I just like
Speaker 1: didn't know what to do, so I just like copied
Speaker 1: whatever my other white classmates were doing. But lots of
Speaker 1: little moments like that, learning how to pronounce things. I
Speaker 1: once said prove it proven instead of proven in a
Speaker 1: meeting and got laughed at and I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: there's like a way that I have to be, which sucks.
Speaker 1: But I had to put on my white voice. That
Speaker 1: was way back in the day. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: preface it with that that was a long time ago.
Speaker 1: I do not do that anymore. Do you have your
Speaker 1: book on you by chance? Yeah? Can you read us
Speaker 1: page forty seven? Yeah? Of course. I wish that I
Speaker 1: could have smushed them all together into one faith. So
Speaker 1: for most of my childhood I did dear God and
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary, but sorry, not you Jesus. Please let
Speaker 1: me get the good grade on my quiz tomorrow, and
Speaker 1: don't let me get in trouble at math class. Please
Speaker 1: watch over Mom and Dad and mimminentti tomorrow and nanayantatai Amen,
Speaker 1: I mean a mean how Muslims say? Amen? Can you
Speaker 1: imagine being in these two worlds? Catholics have Jesus and
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve, Muslims have Mohammed. Catholics celebrate Christmas and
Speaker 1: Muslims do not. Catholics can eat just about everything, but
Speaker 1: Muslims can't eat pork. As complicated as it seemed, Monica
Speaker 1: always honored and respected what her parents taught her to
Speaker 1: believe in. Both my mom and dad were very religious.
Speaker 1: I mean not like fanatically religious, but they were certainly
Speaker 1: like you know, my mom had a statue of the
Speaker 1: Virgin Mary in her bedroom and believed in that one day,
Speaker 1: you know, the Virgin Mary had appeared to her. And
Speaker 1: my father did go to the mosque every Friday. So
Speaker 1: I understood from the jump that my parents religion was
Speaker 1: deeply important to them, and therefore I should respect that.
Speaker 1: And by respecting that, as a young person. You sort
Speaker 1: of are instilled with this code of conduct. And for
Speaker 1: me that was you know, if my mom asked me
Speaker 1: to go to church with her, I would go. If
Speaker 1: she wanted me to go to Catholic school, I was
Speaker 1: obedient and I said yes. I went through Confirmation and
Speaker 1: Communion and all of it, and with my dad. My
Speaker 1: dad really wanted me to memorize suras, which is like
Speaker 1: the prayers from the Koran, and one how to pray,
Speaker 1: you know, dress conservatively when I was around him, and
Speaker 1: just in Egypt in general, and you know, not eat
Speaker 1: pork and things like that. What are your favorite things
Speaker 1: you learn from both religions? You know, I really like
Speaker 1: the pomp and circumstance of Catholicism, Like I love the
Speaker 1: big churches and cathedrals. I love the music, the choral music.
Speaker 1: I love that everything is very somber and serious, and
Speaker 1: you really feel a great and overpowering sense of reverence
Speaker 1: and awe to a God above you. And I find
Speaker 1: real comfort in knowing that there's you know, the Virgin Mary,
Speaker 1: a woman figure is there is very maternal figure that
Speaker 1: you don't see in many other religions but play such
Speaker 1: an important role in Catholicism and Islam. I also love
Speaker 1: that the text never changed, the Quran never changed. And
Speaker 1: so when you're learning suras, when you're saying the Fatah,
Speaker 1: you know you're really learning something that you're learning, you're
Speaker 1: reciting something that people for hundreds and hundreds of years
Speaker 1: have recited. And that's also very powerful for me. Do
Speaker 1: you practice or continue to practice either of these religious
Speaker 1: aspects or components? No, I think that I one of
Speaker 1: the things that's been hard to understand or like put
Speaker 1: together in my head is that like in Islam, like
Speaker 1: Jesus is not God, but in Catholicism, Jesus as God.
Speaker 1: So I've had to sort of in my mind be like, Okay,
Speaker 1: I believe in God, but I don't believe in Jesus.
Speaker 1: But I definitely love the Virgin Mary because she's cool.
Speaker 1: So like I have some kind of like hybrid religion
Speaker 1: in my head. I don't practice any of the elements
Speaker 1: of both Catholicism and Islam. Like I haven't gone to
Speaker 1: a mosque, I haven't like prayed in the Muslim sense
Speaker 1: and ages. And I do, however, sometimes go into pop
Speaker 1: into a Catholic church and like light a candle and
Speaker 1: say a prayer every now and then, But I would
Speaker 1: hardly call that being Catholic. If someone asked me how
Speaker 1: I identify lately, you know, part of my journey is
Speaker 1: I just say brown. You know, I'm just a brown man.
Speaker 1: We can get into the into the nuances of being
Speaker 1: half Dominican, half Colombian, Afro Latino, but mainly I choose brown.
Speaker 1: Do you use brown in the book? Do you relate?
Speaker 1: What is brownness to you? I have changed, my thought
Speaker 1: has changed a lot over the past couple of years.
Speaker 1: Even it's also fluids similar to you, and I think
Speaker 1: that's really interesting and important to talk about. When I
Speaker 1: was writing the book, I use the word brown to
Speaker 1: express solidarity with fellow people of color who were going
Speaker 1: through the same identity crisis that I was going through,
Speaker 1: and who we're also on a path of understanding who
Speaker 1: they are, understanding their cultural identities and going on there all.
Speaker 1: I call it their like wokeness journey right like into yourself.
Speaker 1: I don't know why I call it that, because I
Speaker 1: felt like I had suddenly been decolonized at like age
Speaker 1: twenty eight, and then like I radicalized quickly after that.
Speaker 1: But one thing that I recently have thought about. Was
Speaker 1: that saying who you are as a person, what your
Speaker 1: cultural identity, is so freaking radical in and of itself.
Speaker 1: Why should I have spent decades trying to hide that
Speaker 1: I am Filipino, an Egyptian, and in favor of whiteness.
Speaker 1: So why now should I have to hide and say
Speaker 1: that I am not those things? This time, now, more
Speaker 1: than ever, I want to freaking scream it from the rooftops.
Speaker 1: This is what an Egyptian Filipino looks like with a
Speaker 1: Muslim dad and a Catholic mom. And if that's new
Speaker 1: for you, then that sucks. But you should wake up
Speaker 1: and realize that a lot of people around you are
Speaker 1: different things. Embrace who you are, folks. What is rooted
Speaker 1: in our veins is what makes us special. And if
Speaker 1: you are lucky enough, like Molica to be living in
Speaker 1: these two different worlds filled with so much color and
Speaker 1: life and more power to you. Molica just released her
Speaker 1: second graphic novel called It Won't Always Be Like This,
Speaker 1: So go and get your copy today. You won't be disappointed. Y'all.
Speaker 1: We want to hear from you, so please get in touch. Specifically,
Speaker 1: we are looking for your stories about your names. Do
Speaker 1: you have a name that's unique, one that's hard for
Speaker 1: others to say? Do you have a funny story in
Speaker 1: origin story? What do you think is special or beautiful
Speaker 1: about your name? Let us know. Send us an email
Speaker 1: or a voice memo to brown Enough at stitcher dot com. Again,
Speaker 1: that's brown Enough at Stitcher dot com. You could wind
Speaker 1: up on a future episode brown And as a production
Speaker 1: of Stitcher. It's created and hosted by me Christopher Reevas,
Speaker 1: and I'm also an executive producer. Our team includes producer
Speaker 1: Manolo Morales, Senior producer Abigail Keel, Technical director Casey Holford,
Speaker 1: Production assistant Gabrielle Gladney, and executive producer Camille Stanley. Original
Speaker 1: music by Casey Holford. Special thanks to Brendan Burns. Workhouse
Speaker 1: Media is a contributing producer to this podcast. Carlos I
Speaker 1: Hernandez of Ekey Guy Management is also an executive producer
Speaker 1: of Brown Enough and don't forget to subscribe y'all or
Speaker 1: follow brown Enough so you never miss an episode. And
Speaker 1: if you got a minute, leave us a review a
Speaker 1: nice one. It goes a long way. Thanks witness Stocks
Speaker 1: from Stitcher. We hope you enjoyed that preview of Brown
Speaker 1: Enough with Chris stepher reav Us. Listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: follow brown Enough so you don't miss an episode