Speaker 1: Up next, Luna talks with Anna Paulina. Luna part of
Speaker 1: the gang, which young poor Hispanic raised by a single mother,
Speaker 1: people who grew up like me. You are supposed to
Speaker 1: end up just another statistic, another life full of so
Speaker 1: much energy and potential that becomes trapped in a web
Speaker 1: of welfare and poverty. But not me, not in this life.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you how I refuse to become a
Speaker 1: victim and made my own reality and now hosting my
Speaker 1: own podcast. Hey everyone, thank you so much for tuning
Speaker 1: into my podcast. I'm so excited to have this, especially
Speaker 1: with I Heart Radio. But this week, instead of talking
Speaker 1: about what we will be usually talking about every week,
Speaker 1: which is issues not just politically but social and nationally,
Speaker 1: I wanted to share with you my story. And it's
Speaker 1: a little bit different because I want you to know
Speaker 1: exactly who I am. Every single week that we do talk,
Speaker 1: I said, from this one, We're gonna be talking about
Speaker 1: other issues, especially the national ones, but I want you
Speaker 1: to know where I come from, my perspective and why
Speaker 1: I believe what I do, So please tune in. This
Speaker 1: one's very special to me, very personal, and other than
Speaker 1: that each week will have I'm an awesome meeting time
Speaker 1: where you guys can come tune in, find out information,
Speaker 1: straight talk, no political influence or propaganda, just my opinions,
Speaker 1: me and you, and a place where you can come
Speaker 1: with the whole family. So a lot of people, I
Speaker 1: think looking at me, the general assumption is that you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a young woman, probably didn't experience much other than
Speaker 1: Starbucks and yoga pants right at ug boots. But I
Speaker 1: think that there's so much more to that. Growing up,
Speaker 1: I think that my unexpected path into politics was really
Speaker 1: influenced by God. I think that a lot of times
Speaker 1: when we look back at previous life circumstances and we
Speaker 1: might not necessarily have an understanding as to why certain
Speaker 1: things are happening the way that they are. But what
Speaker 1: I found is in my journey that a lot of
Speaker 1: what I've a id on to give me strength and
Speaker 1: my voice to fight for what I believe is right
Speaker 1: and for fighting for the American dream in this country
Speaker 1: has really come from what I experienced as a child
Speaker 1: and as a young adult and starting out. And I
Speaker 1: give so much credit to my mom because she really
Speaker 1: did raise me. As a young single mother. My mom
Speaker 1: had me at around twenty years old. She had my
Speaker 1: father actually when she was fairly young, and my mom
Speaker 1: realizing it now, you know, you see how much I
Speaker 1: think a young mother would go through. But ultimately, my
Speaker 1: mom made the decision to choose life over abortion, and
Speaker 1: that's not I think an easy decision for a lot
Speaker 1: of young women, especially from the circumstances in which she
Speaker 1: came from, which was essentially a really rough upbringing. I mean,
Speaker 1: my maternal grandmother actually died of AIDS studo heroin use.
Speaker 1: Drugs were prevalent, not just on my mom's side, but
Speaker 1: really on my father's side as well, and she was
Speaker 1: the only person that could take care of me. She
Speaker 1: had no family to rely on. It's not like we
Speaker 1: had a strong extended network of people that could really
Speaker 1: care for her and care for me, and so we
Speaker 1: did it on our own, and I remember those struggles
Speaker 1: growing up. I mean, the earliest memory I have from
Speaker 1: toys is actually going to this place called the Giving Spot.
Speaker 1: And at the time I thought it was awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: you'd go into it and it was like all these
Speaker 1: toys everywhere and they were free. But what it was
Speaker 1: is it was actually a donation center. And I look
Speaker 1: back at that now and I see all of the
Speaker 1: success that I've experienced, and then sometimes I bring it
Speaker 1: up with my mom. But those are some of my
Speaker 1: early memories as to what I thought was normal and
Speaker 1: I didn't know any different. With my story, I want
Speaker 1: people to remember that this is not a victim story.
Speaker 1: This is about coming across being dealt with cards that
Speaker 1: might not necessarily be in your favor, but being able
Speaker 1: to take control of your life and change the outcome
Speaker 1: if you're willing to put forward the hard work and
Speaker 1: the effort in order to create your own reality. So
Speaker 1: moving forward from that, it was hard. My dad was
Speaker 1: not really in the picture. He as much as he
Speaker 1: loved me and as much as he loved my mom,
Speaker 1: ultimately their relationship did not work out because my father
Speaker 1: really struggled with addiction. And for me as a child,
Speaker 1: my father was such, you know, a superhero, and I
Speaker 1: think a lot of younger kids you look at your
Speaker 1: parents and they're just your night in shining armor. It
Speaker 1: wasn't until I think I was really in high school
Speaker 1: that I realized that my dad did have a severe
Speaker 1: drug problem. He was using meth. Some of the times
Speaker 1: I actually do remember I would come across different paraphernalia,
Speaker 1: and I'm actually lucky that I was smart enough to
Speaker 1: as a child navigate that and not try that stuff
Speaker 1: or not ingested, because I think, honestly, probably could have
Speaker 1: killed me. But those stories, especially now when we talk
Speaker 1: about what's happening, you know with the Southern Board. I'll
Speaker 1: get into the political aspect in a second. Seeing the
Speaker 1: direct impact that all of this has had of my
Speaker 1: family really does give me this fire and compassion to
Speaker 1: want to share my story and fight the good fight
Speaker 1: so that other people are aware of the impacts that
Speaker 1: it has, especially to when we talk about the welfare
Speaker 1: state and what impacts a fatherless home has on family
Speaker 1: development and longer term impacts, whether it's the juvenile justice
Speaker 1: system or whether it is talking about the welfare system,
Speaker 1: the welfare state and then really setting children up for success,
Speaker 1: the father is instrumental in all of that. Moving forward
Speaker 1: from that, just to kind of give you guys some perspective,
Speaker 1: you know, my dad again, having these experiences my father.
Speaker 1: If I didn't go through them, I wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: person that I am today. But you know, I do
Speaker 1: remember things like we were at this hotel once and
Speaker 1: my dad was using with one of his friends, and
Speaker 1: he left actually me there at the hotel with my
Speaker 1: friend den Hey and her older sister and her younger sister,
Speaker 1: and so it was just the three of us, and
Speaker 1: my mom actually ended up having to come get me
Speaker 1: and found out that I was left at this hotel
Speaker 1: because later on that day my father had been arrested.
Speaker 1: And you know, you talk about these experiences and people
Speaker 1: look at me and they just don't understand the magnitude
Speaker 1: of what I've been through and why I'm conservative. People
Speaker 1: so many times you're like, I don't understand. You know,
Speaker 1: you're half Hispanic, you're half white, like you're a young woman,
Speaker 1: and they assume because of how I look, that I'm
Speaker 1: going to vote a certain way, and it just it
Speaker 1: could be the farthest thing from the truth. So that
Speaker 1: broken home mentality really did again provide me with a
Speaker 1: lot of insight as to what things work and what
Speaker 1: other things don't work, especially when it comes to policy.
Speaker 1: But it wasn't necessarily all bad. Some of my youngest
Speaker 1: memories with both my mother and my father is you know,
Speaker 1: my my my own side. As much as she tried
Speaker 1: to shelter me, I remember going to visit her family
Speaker 1: on the weekends, and they would have these massive, I
Speaker 1: want to say, like house parties, not like crazy drinking.
Speaker 1: But we have a very musical family on that side,
Speaker 1: so a lot of people would be singing and playing
Speaker 1: the guitar, and very large family extended on that side.
Speaker 1: And then on my dad's side, when I would go
Speaker 1: to see him, you know, on the weekend instead of
Speaker 1: going out, and you have like the ice cream truck guy.
Speaker 1: When I would be with him on visitation, we would
Speaker 1: have the alote guy, and so he would go around
Speaker 1: with this basket and he'd be squeezing this horn, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of getting people to go outside, and for a
Speaker 1: dollar you could get two pieces of a lotte, which
Speaker 1: is basically corn with mayo and and the chili pepper
Speaker 1: on it and everything. And we'd got there and we
Speaker 1: sit on the curb and eat that. You know, we'd
Speaker 1: have the carne sava and tacos and or chata, or
Speaker 1: we'd stop by my uncle Phelippa's house. And it was
Speaker 1: interesting because as a child, you know, I grew up
Speaker 1: actually with my father speaking Spanish around me, but I
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily learn that, and I actually to this day.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I asked my dad, I'm like, you know, why
Speaker 1: didn't you teach it to me growing up? And I
Speaker 1: think that from my father, he more or less wanted
Speaker 1: me to assimilate. He grew up going back and forth
Speaker 1: to Mexico City a lot, and for me, for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: he wanted me to, I guess, embrace being an American.
Speaker 1: He you know, he was first hin, I was second generation.
Speaker 1: But you know, it wasn't ntil later on in life
Speaker 1: that I realized, you know, being able to speak Spanish
Speaker 1: is actually important, especially culturally to me as well. And
Speaker 1: so I actually was able to spend a couple of
Speaker 1: years in high school and college learning that. But you know,
Speaker 1: you have these memories and then back to kind of
Speaker 1: as who I am. You know. One of my best
Speaker 1: memories as a child was with my great grandma Luna,
Speaker 1: and she had come to visit my mom and me,
Speaker 1: and we were sitting in the living room and there
Speaker 1: used to be back in the nineties. It was a
Speaker 1: Spanish soap opera and it was called Luz Gladita, and
Speaker 1: it was about this young girl and she would always
Speaker 1: wear her hair in two different braids, about three quarters
Speaker 1: braided down and My grandma loved watching this show, and
Speaker 1: so I would sit there in the living room with her,
Speaker 1: and she would actually sit there pet my head and
Speaker 1: do my hair like the little girl in the show.
Speaker 1: And you know that, to me, whenever I thought about
Speaker 1: the bad, I also remember the good. So I think
Speaker 1: that that's actually been in part a big reason why
Speaker 1: I've been able to push through is because everyone, no
Speaker 1: matter what walk of life you're in, I think people
Speaker 1: are going to have both negative and positive experiences, and
Speaker 1: it's how you choose to move forward with that. You
Speaker 1: don't ever fully dwell in the past, because that won't
Speaker 1: help you as an adult moving forward, and it won't
Speaker 1: help you or your family in regards to how you
Speaker 1: can better your life for everyone. So, when I turned
Speaker 1: about fourteen years old, my mom had actually gone through
Speaker 1: a pretty crazy divorce and we moved to Los Angeles,
Speaker 1: and for me, growing up in southern California, especially during
Speaker 1: that era, what I experienced I thought was normal. I
Speaker 1: didn't think that anything that I was going through at
Speaker 1: the time was anything that anyone else didn't go through, right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until I actually joined the military that I
Speaker 1: realized how abnormal those conditions were. But when I moved
Speaker 1: to Los Angeles, I think that was the time where
Speaker 1: I started becoming a teenager and my world just expanded,
Speaker 1: you know. I started working from the time that I
Speaker 1: was sixteen, and having gone from basically being in Santa
Speaker 1: Ana area and South Orange County and then moving to
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, you do have a change in the education systems.
Speaker 1: But it's not just that. It's it's a change in
Speaker 1: the demographic as well. Right you have inner city Los
Speaker 1: Angeles being probably one of the most prevalent gang infested
Speaker 1: places in the country, and here I was this young
Speaker 1: girl basically moving into that with a young single mother
Speaker 1: and then my younger two siblings. It wasn't just a
Speaker 1: shock for us in regards to some of the things
Speaker 1: that I would experience, but for me it was eye opening.
Speaker 1: I mean, one, I ended up going to six high schools,
Speaker 1: and one of the six high schools I went to
Speaker 1: was really, really bad. They had tried to bust in
Speaker 1: kids from Crenshawn Inglewood. And what a result of it
Speaker 1: was is that you had gangs, you had gang wars,
Speaker 1: and you had people fighting over turf. But there was
Speaker 1: also I think this aspect of racial fighting between the
Speaker 1: predominantly black and the predominantly Hispanic gangs in the area,
Speaker 1: and I saw that. I remember the riots at Santa
Speaker 1: Monica High School and basically all over you'd hear rumors
Speaker 1: of them calling in the cops and shutting down because
Speaker 1: they were having these serious gang issues. We're about to
Speaker 1: get into my story where I tell you guys about
Speaker 1: the gang shooting on my high school campus, So stay tuned.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick break. I remember
Speaker 1: being on campus. It was in the afternoon, and I
Speaker 1: remember hearing two gun shots. I ultimately ended up being
Speaker 1: right outside my classroom. There was a gang shooting on campus.
Speaker 1: Between it was a I think an older boy and
Speaker 1: a younger boy, and I think they're actually I don't
Speaker 1: know what they're fighting over, but I remember leaving the classroom.
Speaker 1: I didn't know what to do, Okay, I was like
Speaker 1: someone pulled the fire alarm. We heard the shots. I'm
Speaker 1: walking out of the classroom. I walk out to see
Speaker 1: this group of kids huddled around. I get it was
Speaker 1: the boy who had been shot, and another boy runs
Speaker 1: away crying. And at the time, like we didn't really
Speaker 1: have cell phones, so I just walked home and I
Speaker 1: remember getting home and my mom grabs me. She's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, are you like kissing me on the forehead.
Speaker 1: She's like, I just heard what happened. I'm never sending
Speaker 1: you back to that school. And that this is, mind you,
Speaker 1: after I had been jumped at that school, actually got
Speaker 1: a concussion, This is after, you know, I was basically
Speaker 1: at this point, so traumas highs from I think the
Speaker 1: education system there. I mean I had girls in my
Speaker 1: Spanish class that would come back in after fighting people
Speaker 1: in the bathroom and one store in particular. And I
Speaker 1: know you guys are probably thinking this is crazy, but
Speaker 1: it's true. Her name was Paula, and she had come
Speaker 1: back in from the bathroom and I noticed her hair
Speaker 1: was messed up. I was like, are you okay? And
Speaker 1: she had told me that she had literally just cut
Speaker 1: some girl's face in the bathroom. Okay. So I got home,
Speaker 1: I told my mom this, and I think after this,
Speaker 1: in conjunction with the shooting and then obviously me being
Speaker 1: jumped to my mom made the good decision of pulling
Speaker 1: me out of that school, and then I ultimately ended
Speaker 1: up graduating barely. But the point was is that, you know,
Speaker 1: these experiences. Again, going back to who I am talking
Speaker 1: about being battle hardened. I really feel like I kind
Speaker 1: of went through all of the fire early on in
Speaker 1: life and it prepared me for this political arena that
Speaker 1: I'm now stepping into. But you know, through all that,
Speaker 1: I did have dreams. I wanted to go to college.
Speaker 1: I just I didn't know how. And I know that's
Speaker 1: a weird concept, but I didn't know how to apply.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that you had to take the A
Speaker 1: C T or the S A T. In fact, I
Speaker 1: didn't even know what that was. I didn't know how
Speaker 1: I was going to pay for it. And the one
Speaker 1: thing that my mom always told me, she goes, you know, like,
Speaker 1: try not to take out loans. And I give her
Speaker 1: so much credit for this because now I think a
Speaker 1: big discussion is about the student loaned up. And for me,
Speaker 1: I just remember my mom saying, you know, you're so caring,
Speaker 1: you would be an incredible doctor, but but don't take
Speaker 1: out the loans, like, try to do it on your own,
Speaker 1: try to pay for it, because she's like, you don't
Speaker 1: want the debt. It can really you know, like her
Speaker 1: you in the long run, And so I always kind
Speaker 1: of kept that in the back of my mind. And
Speaker 1: I stayed in l A probably about a year after
Speaker 1: my mom had left, which would have made me about
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen years old. And then I remember being at
Speaker 1: a party. Of course, you know, being a young kid,
Speaker 1: that's what you do out there, especially when you're on
Speaker 1: your own, and I met this really incredible girl in
Speaker 1: her name was Julianna. It was actually Juliana Redding, and
Speaker 1: you know, I was out close with her, but I
Speaker 1: would see her out and I just remember her being
Speaker 1: so pretty and so kind. And then one day I
Speaker 1: get a call from my friend Michelle to tell me
Speaker 1: that Juliana had actually been murdered. And when that happened,
Speaker 1: I think that that was when I basically cashed in
Speaker 1: my chips with l A. I said, I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not doing this anymore. I like it was just too
Speaker 1: much for me. And I ultimately ended up basically going
Speaker 1: back to my mom's for a little bit and and
Speaker 1: I just I was like, it actually traumatized me. Think,
Speaker 1: And after I got back to my mom's, she was
Speaker 1: she lived near Ocean Side, which is where a large
Speaker 1: Marine Corps based installation is, and I actually ended up
Speaker 1: being out at a house party and I heard these
Speaker 1: two guys talking and they were about my age, maybe
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, and they're talking about how the Marine
Speaker 1: Corps would pay for college. And I really had no
Speaker 1: immediate family in the military, and so I was obviously eavesdropping,
Speaker 1: and I apologized for that, but I said, I'm you know,
Speaker 1: excuse me, but can you just tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit more about that? And I asked them everything that
Speaker 1: you could possibly want to know about the military, was like,
Speaker 1: do you guys live on your own? How does the
Speaker 1: schooling work, what is your training like? And they basically
Speaker 1: convinced me at that point in time, at least with
Speaker 1: their responses, that I should consider going to talk to recruiters.
Speaker 1: So I went on Google. And this is at the
Speaker 1: time when people printed out map quest directions. I know
Speaker 1: everyone has it on their phone now, but I printed
Speaker 1: out map quest directions to go talk to recruiter and
Speaker 1: I showed up, and I think the recruiter thought I
Speaker 1: was joking at first. He took one at me and
Speaker 1: he's like, can I help you? Like, are you lost?
Speaker 1: Are you looking for a CVS? Where are you? And
Speaker 1: I said, now I'm here to talk to you. And
Speaker 1: so I actually I met with my recruiter and I
Speaker 1: was considering joining the army at first, but then settled
Speaker 1: on the Air Force. And I didn't even tell my
Speaker 1: family that I was doing this for me, especially being
Speaker 1: that young. I was excited about it. I looked at
Speaker 1: it like an adventure, but I was also looking at
Speaker 1: it as kind of a way out, a way that
Speaker 1: I could find some form and type of way to
Speaker 1: help my family. And so I enlisted. And mind you,
Speaker 1: this is in the middle of the war in the
Speaker 1: Middle East, And of course, the minute I told my mom,
Speaker 1: I like had to hold my phone away from my
Speaker 1: head because she was like freaking out. She thought I
Speaker 1: was going to die. She was crying. She's like, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, what have I done, Like You're gonna get hurt,
Speaker 1: And obviously I did not. And then you know, later on,
Speaker 1: especially right before I ended up leaving, she was the
Speaker 1: one that actually drove me out to MAPS, which is
Speaker 1: your military in processing station, with my dad, and they
Speaker 1: dropped me off and they ended up being okay with it.
Speaker 1: But having that experience, having joined the military at such
Speaker 1: a young age, if there's one thing I can say
Speaker 1: that was probably one of the best decisions I ever
Speaker 1: made in my life. And having been that young from
Speaker 1: that type of environment and upbringing, a lot of people
Speaker 1: like me are supposed to end up statistics like I
Speaker 1: should have probably been sixteen and pregnant. I probably should
Speaker 1: have a rap sheet, but I don't, and I think
Speaker 1: that that's in large part because I was able to
Speaker 1: literally find some form of structure and find a way
Speaker 1: out that was going to empower me to help myself
Speaker 1: and to help my family. So I left for the
Speaker 1: military in February, and it was in the military that
Speaker 1: I actually ended up meeting my husband. I also shortly
Speaker 1: thereafter started going to school full time after I finished
Speaker 1: my training, and it was also in the military terry
Speaker 1: that I was able to not just pay for college,
Speaker 1: but they literally sat me down, helped me and roll
Speaker 1: told me what the a c T was, and I
Speaker 1: think it helped me develop as an adult, right like
Speaker 1: I spent my young adult life for the first time
Speaker 1: in my life with a structure that I needed to excel.
Speaker 1: I knew that I had rent paid, I knew that
Speaker 1: I had a car because I was getting a reliable job.
Speaker 1: I had health insurance, and my sergeants at my base,
Speaker 1: wherever I was at, they almost more or less took
Speaker 1: this i'd say parental type of role with me and
Speaker 1: really did look out for me. And that's something that
Speaker 1: I think a lot of times when the military, when people,
Speaker 1: especially politicians, they talk about the military said, they say,
Speaker 1: you know, the military, according to these people, unfairly targets minorities.
Speaker 1: And I look at these people and I just I'm
Speaker 1: shocked because if these people saw the environment and the
Speaker 1: circumstance that some of us come from, and the opportunity
Speaker 1: that the military allows and gives you to really succeed
Speaker 1: in life, I think that these people would have a
Speaker 1: different opinion. You know, I worked from people all the
Speaker 1: way from the inner cities of Chicago, Detroit, two kids
Speaker 1: that were trust fund kids that wanted to just prove
Speaker 1: to their parents that they could essentially do it on
Speaker 1: their own. So you're talking about the one place in
Speaker 1: the country probably that everyone is created the same. You
Speaker 1: were the same uniform. You show up to work. You're
Speaker 1: working with people who you would probably never outside of
Speaker 1: that environment maybe talk to because of how they look
Speaker 1: or how they dressed, or where they're from. And yet
Speaker 1: it's in the military where you can come together and
Speaker 1: work towards a common goal and put the mission first,
Speaker 1: and that again is probably one of the most incredible
Speaker 1: experiences I could have had early on, and it was
Speaker 1: in the military that I think I started developing my
Speaker 1: leadership skills. So I was obviously awarded the Air Force
Speaker 1: Accommodation Medal, and when I got to my first duty station,
Speaker 1: I also became the President of the Airman's Council, which
Speaker 1: at the time I didn't think was a big deal.
Speaker 1: I mean, I would help younger airmen work on their EPR,
Speaker 1: which is our enlisted performance reports. I would put together
Speaker 1: food drives and donation drives across base. But I realized
Speaker 1: looking back on it that that was basically me, I
Speaker 1: think early on taking this leadership position, and it was
Speaker 1: one of the first that I had. And also too,
Speaker 1: I was able to work with different airmen to organize
Speaker 1: them for Airmen against drunk driving, which is kind of
Speaker 1: a I say the military did it first, but it
Speaker 1: was basically our version of UBER for military members. If
Speaker 1: you went out, we would actually um come pick you
Speaker 1: up and you would just call a number and then
Speaker 1: we would log it and bring you home safely. So
Speaker 1: that we could avoid DUIs and drunk driving. So that
Speaker 1: was one of my first i'd say big taskings in
Speaker 1: addition to the military that I really wanted to make
Speaker 1: change and I saw a way to do it, and
Speaker 1: so I took that initial action. And then it was
Speaker 1: in the military that again going back to how I
Speaker 1: met my husband Andy, we actually had a mutual friend
Speaker 1: and at the time I did not want to at
Speaker 1: all get involved with anyone. I was trying to just
Speaker 1: focus on my education, kind of like that Beyonce Song.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a young independent woman. And yet
Speaker 1: I met him literally eight months into joining the military,
Speaker 1: and he obviously busted out of the friend zone because
Speaker 1: we were not romantically involved at first. We were just friends,
Speaker 1: but ended up being one of the best things that
Speaker 1: could have happened to me life. He really is one
Speaker 1: of my best friends, and we actually had a looped
Speaker 1: in secret. We did our paperwork at a small coffee
Speaker 1: shop in Missouri, and that was mind you, after finding
Speaker 1: a Justice of the Piece who could literally do our
Speaker 1: paperwork for us on Veterans Day, so that's actually it
Speaker 1: was twenty bucks Veterans Day and we got our marriage
Speaker 1: paperwork signed and then It wasn't until a couple of
Speaker 1: years later that we actually announced publicly that we had
Speaker 1: been married, but that was already after the fact. And then, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: my husband was shot in Afghanistan. And at the time,
Speaker 1: I had actually just separated from my first enlistment to
Speaker 1: start going to school full time UM at the University
Speaker 1: of West Florida. And when I got that phone call,
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about your heart just sinking into your stomach.
Speaker 1: Leading up to that, Andy and I when he would deploy,
Speaker 1: and we would have these time periods that we would
Speaker 1: set up for us talking on Skype, and that's because
Speaker 1: you have your you know, you're there's basically like almost
Speaker 1: like a twelve fourteen hour time difference, and so I
Speaker 1: would want to make sure that I was available to
Speaker 1: speak with him. And I remember talking to him earlier
Speaker 1: that day because he was going out on a mission
Speaker 1: and he tells me, he's like, yeah, this team isn't
Speaker 1: really they're very aggressive, and Andy typically didn't use that
Speaker 1: language a little bit, so I knew something was off.
Speaker 1: And he had been the second j tech which is
Speaker 1: a joint terminal air controller to be replaced on that
Speaker 1: team because the other guy had also been hurt. So
Speaker 1: I was already uncomfortable with the situation. But then he
Speaker 1: told me, he goes, you know, these guys they don't
Speaker 1: really want to get to know me, like they're kind
Speaker 1: of guarded. And I was like, okay, I'm not liking
Speaker 1: the situation. And I had been on the call with
Speaker 1: Andy before at different deployments where I could literally hear
Speaker 1: gunshots in the background, and I was like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is not just like you don't ever want to have
Speaker 1: your significant other, I think in those circumstances. But for me,
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm just gonna push through it,
Speaker 1: pretend like it's all good and mind you. That day
Speaker 1: and he missed his skype calling time, which I think
Speaker 1: was supposed to be around like six or seven, and
Speaker 1: then I just knew at that point in time that
Speaker 1: something I had this incredibly powerful premonition and I will
Speaker 1: get to more of that after our quick break. And
Speaker 1: I remember it was my friend's birthday and I told her.
Speaker 1: I was like, I there's no way that I can
Speaker 1: actually go out with you, like this is not going
Speaker 1: to happen, Like I know something's wrong and so um
Speaker 1: so I fell asleep and I told her. I couldn't go.
Speaker 1: I fell asleep watching Netflix, and then at a round
Speaker 1: four o'clock in the morning, I got this phone call,
Speaker 1: and I'm so angry because I like saw the numbers,
Speaker 1: like it looks like twenty something numbers long, it's like
Speaker 1: a plus whatever the numbers are, and I was like,
Speaker 1: I figured it might have been Andy Boda wasn't sure,
Speaker 1: so I answered, and he goes, hey, babe, what are
Speaker 1: you doing? And so, of course, being sarcastic and ticked off,
Speaker 1: I go, I don't know, sleeping. What do you think
Speaker 1: I'm doing. It's four o'clock in the morning. Why don't
Speaker 1: you call me? I was stressing out word and before
Speaker 1: I could even finish saying what I was going to say,
Speaker 1: Andy literally on the phone, he goes, well, you know,
Speaker 1: nothing's missing, but I got shot. And so I heard that,
Speaker 1: And you want to talk about going from like kind
Speaker 1: of being half asleep and ticked off to just up.
Speaker 1: And I just completely at that point in time, like
Speaker 1: really I didn't know what to expect. I freaked out
Speaker 1: and I saw I was up, and just like my
Speaker 1: heart dropped and then it just went radio silence. And
Speaker 1: at that point, you know, you have so many emotions
Speaker 1: going through your head and you don't really know what's happening.
Speaker 1: And then I'm like, hello, is this a joke? Like Andy?
Speaker 1: And then I realized he wasn't talking and I just
Speaker 1: maybe for about it seemed like years, but it was
Speaker 1: probably about just ten seconds of silence. And then this
Speaker 1: really sweet man gets on the phone. He goes, oh
Speaker 1: my gosh, Anna, UM, I'm so sorry, this is chaplain
Speaker 1: so and so are you okay? I this wasn't supposed
Speaker 1: to happen like this, and so I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: figure out what's really going on. And he had told
Speaker 1: me that Andy had been shot in Afghanistan and that
Speaker 1: it had happened actually because I asked him the time
Speaker 1: frame around the same time that Andy had missed his
Speaker 1: call in time with me that I was freaking out
Speaker 1: to my friends saying I can't go out with you,
Speaker 1: something's wrong and had actually happened around that point in time,
Speaker 1: and I didn't I wasn't notified several hours later. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do believe that, especially when you're really
Speaker 1: connected with someone, that you can just pick up on that.
Speaker 1: I mean, they talk about these twin studies and how
Speaker 1: people see, you know, their family members after they passed,
Speaker 1: or they just know, And for me especially, it was
Speaker 1: one of those things. And it's kind of funny because
Speaker 1: my mom always says that our side of the family,
Speaker 1: that the lunas have this ability to just sense things.
Speaker 1: And I really do believe that after this. I mean,
Speaker 1: my mom knew when her mother passed away. There's been
Speaker 1: other stories about my grandmother, my Grandma Juty, actually knowing
Speaker 1: about when her family members were in trouble or so
Speaker 1: I I really do. I think I have that spiritual
Speaker 1: aspect of me that feels like I had this connection
Speaker 1: with Andy and I was able to just know that
Speaker 1: something was wrong. But after that happened, it wasn't easy
Speaker 1: recovering from that. Andy was actually medivact obviously out of
Speaker 1: that situation, and then he did his He was brought
Speaker 1: to Walter Reed, which is in Maryland, and it was
Speaker 1: in Maryland that I really saw the aspect of war
Speaker 1: that I think a lot of people miss out in
Speaker 1: Hollywood movies. You know, Hollywood tries to make war glamorous.
Speaker 1: They try to make it this romantic thing, and it's
Speaker 1: anything but that. You know, you're talking about being in
Speaker 1: a hospital with young kids, sometimes like seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: because with parental permission, you can actually join the military
Speaker 1: at seventeen, eighteen, nine, twenty years old that probably should
Speaker 1: be off in college. And you're seeing them, you know,
Speaker 1: missing a limb here, like quadriplegics because they got hit
Speaker 1: by an i D. And they're there for years recovering
Speaker 1: and through this process, and you're seeing all this and
Speaker 1: at the time, I must have been maybe twenty three
Speaker 1: years old, and this is what I'm going through now
Speaker 1: with someone that I really very much so love, And
Speaker 1: then I'm realizing, oh my god, Like when my mom
Speaker 1: was freaking out at that call so many years ago,
Speaker 1: it's because she was worried that this would happen to me. Granted,
Speaker 1: my job wasn't anything combat oriented, and I never deployed,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't because I didn't want to. It's just
Speaker 1: because my deployment, my bucket number never came up. But
Speaker 1: when I told that I was leaving, that's what she
Speaker 1: was worried about. And then I understood. But it was
Speaker 1: after Andy left the hospital and we started the recovery
Speaker 1: process that I realized how much information. Although I had
Speaker 1: been a military member and although I sat through so
Speaker 1: many of those briefings talking about post traumatic stress disorder
Speaker 1: and what happens, you know, after a military member comes home,
Speaker 1: it wasn't real to me until that happened. And I
Speaker 1: think that for a lot of military members, there's this
Speaker 1: stigma that exists about PTSD or about what happens in
Speaker 1: these deployment situations. And because that stigma is there, because
Speaker 1: they call it a disorder, people don't want to get
Speaker 1: the help that they need. And we saw it happened
Speaker 1: with so many of our friends. You know, they deploy
Speaker 1: as one person, come back as someone completely separate. Granted,
Speaker 1: of course, if you're experiencing those things, those circumstances, you're
Speaker 1: going to change, right Like I had nowhere near I
Speaker 1: think any of this war situation experience, but it changed
Speaker 1: me as a person. So I could only imagine people
Speaker 1: deploying every six months coming back to an environment that's
Speaker 1: completely different after having seen some of probably the worst
Speaker 1: atrocities that exist in human kind. Is it's what's shown
Speaker 1: in war, and then they come back and they're expected
Speaker 1: to be normal, and it's anything but that. And so
Speaker 1: Andy and I together we reconnected and we started and
Speaker 1: again after experiencing all this part of what kept my
Speaker 1: marriage together as I was able to be Andy's friend
Speaker 1: first and foremost. And I think that a lot of times,
Speaker 1: especially in marriages, people are like, Okay, well, how do
Speaker 1: I reconnect with my spouse? How do we work through this?
Speaker 1: And so I realized with Andy it was ultimately friend first,
Speaker 1: wife second, and and that's really what kept us together.
Speaker 1: So we started shooting together at a range actually on
Speaker 1: the Panhandle, and after that I started using my social
Speaker 1: media to really start working with different veteran nonprofits that
Speaker 1: were specifically dealing with post traumatic stress disorder. So at
Speaker 1: the time, I'd like to make important note that I
Speaker 1: had separated from my first enlistment to essentially focus on
Speaker 1: my undergrad which was in biology study for the MCAT
Speaker 1: and apply to medical school. So during this time period
Speaker 1: Andy gets shot, I started my first full time semester
Speaker 1: of college. I fully withdraw, which pushes my medical school
Speaker 1: application timeline back a full year because at that point,
Speaker 1: having to lose that semester, it was going to push
Speaker 1: all of my classes back literally a year. So I
Speaker 1: was fine with that though, because obviously I wanted to
Speaker 1: be with Andy and he needed my help, and I don't,
Speaker 1: you know, regret that decision at all, But had that
Speaker 1: not happened, I would not have gone the political route.
Speaker 1: And so it's interesting again, Sometimes things happen in your
Speaker 1: life and maybe you don't understand why God is working
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. But let me tell you, if that
Speaker 1: had not happened, hands down, I would not be where
Speaker 1: I'm at today. It was through my work with different
Speaker 1: veteran nonprofits that I came across one in particular that
Speaker 1: was dealing with human trafficking at the US Mexico border.
Speaker 1: And this veteran nonprofit specifically dealt with child trafficking. And
Speaker 1: at the time, like most people my age twentysomething year old,
Speaker 1: just graduating from college, trying to apply to medical school,
Speaker 1: there was a lot going on. So I wouldn't say
Speaker 1: that I was necessarily all that political. But this organization,
Speaker 1: after I started reading into child trafficking, I was so
Speaker 1: almost like frustrated but upset and then heartbroken at the
Speaker 1: same time because of what I saw that these kids
Speaker 1: were going through the whole concept of trafficking that's not
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theory. I was able to request actually wrote
Speaker 1: the State Department and I asked for their human Trafficking Report,
Speaker 1: and they have actually sent me the entire copy of
Speaker 1: it every single year since, and I've gone through it,
Speaker 1: especially reading on Mexico South like portions of South America
Speaker 1: and the United States, because that's right here and in
Speaker 1: our backyard. And when I read through that, I was
Speaker 1: I just knew I had to do something about it.
Speaker 1: So at the time, I started using my social media
Speaker 1: in order to talk on this topic. And I remember
Speaker 1: posting a story about a young woman. Her name was
Speaker 1: Carla jssin though, and I had actually found the article
Speaker 1: on her that was written by CNN, and I think
Speaker 1: it was written in I could be wrong, but it
Speaker 1: was no. It was written so clearly we know that
Speaker 1: CNN is aware that this is an issue. That there
Speaker 1: had been other organizations that at the time, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that they were liberal, but other liberal organizations had
Speaker 1: reported on it, to include Uni Seth. And I had
Speaker 1: all this information and I'm putting it online. I put
Speaker 1: this article about this girl named Carla, and it was
Speaker 1: simply the headline, her photo and the CNN title saying
Speaker 1: she was raped around forty three thousand times other the
Speaker 1: time period that she had been trafficked and I saw that,
Speaker 1: and I mean, you see that number, and it's almost unbelievable, right,
Speaker 1: But the fact is is that people that are trafficked
Speaker 1: are raped, and they're forced into doing things that they
Speaker 1: don't want to do, and they are treated like objects.
Speaker 1: And so those numbers are real. And the alarming thing
Speaker 1: to me was, though, is that so many people after
Speaker 1: I posted this were uninformed as to what was happening.
Speaker 1: And to give you a time period, this was tail
Speaker 1: end of beginning of but so many people were uninformed
Speaker 1: that they thought that was a made up story, that
Speaker 1: it wasn't real, that wasn't happening. And at the time,
Speaker 1: I had maybe on my Instagram around thirty to forty people.
Speaker 1: So what I decided to do is I decided to
Speaker 1: continue posting. And then my kind of light bulb moment
Speaker 1: where I realized that I would have to take a
Speaker 1: political stance on this was in the beginning of mind you,
Speaker 1: this is prior to the November elections. I had heard
Speaker 1: kind of murmurs of a candidate Trump, but I didn't
Speaker 1: necessarily know who that was, and I really I wasn't
Speaker 1: even registered to vote. So to give you some perspective.
Speaker 1: I didn't grow up in a political household. Although I
Speaker 1: didn't know that my mom was actually and I found
Speaker 1: this later on, she was a staunch Democrat. I did
Speaker 1: not know that at the time, but I remember hearing
Speaker 1: a little bit about the border, and I agreed with
Speaker 1: strong border policy because I was now informed as to
Speaker 1: what was happening on the trafficking. And also, to mind you,
Speaker 1: my family is part Mexican, and so I'm not looking
Speaker 1: at this because I'm xenophobic or I'm anti immigrant. I'm
Speaker 1: looking at this because it's it's a literally humanitarian crisis
Speaker 1: and there's bad things happening. And this is happening because
Speaker 1: people are literally able to easily access this country through
Speaker 1: the southern border. And so I started taking a political stance.
Speaker 1: And I remember, at the time I was watching CNN.
Speaker 1: I did not know that political propaganda exist. It does.
Speaker 1: For those that are listening. You're probably nodding your head
Speaker 1: with me. It absolutely does. I was sitting in a
Speaker 1: hotel room and I was working on something for school,
Speaker 1: and I had the TV on in the background and
Speaker 1: it was on CNN, and I wasn't actually really listening
Speaker 1: until I heard them cover a segment, and the guy said,
Speaker 1: this train was stopped because there was women and children
Speaker 1: and cartel members on board, and so at that point
Speaker 1: I kind of just turned from what I was doing.
Speaker 1: I started watching the segment on television, and as the
Speaker 1: reporter continues, they were talking about a train that was
Speaker 1: coming up from South America that had been stopped in
Speaker 1: Mexico City by the federal police because of what was
Speaker 1: all on board. And as I'm listening to the commentator,
Speaker 1: at first I'm thinking that he's going to start talking
Speaker 1: about trafficking, but I was completely wrong. He started talking
Speaker 1: about how here at CNN or here, we believe that
Speaker 1: everyone has the right to access this country. And so
Speaker 1: they actually ended up, from what I remember, putting together
Speaker 1: money someone at the network put together money to bring
Speaker 1: these people to the border, and then they filmed border
Speaker 1: patrol turning them away, and then they ended the segment
Speaker 1: with this Donald Trump person is apparently, according to this segment,
Speaker 1: anti immigrant, and then it was like that was it,
Speaker 1: and it cut to like a pillow commercial. And I
Speaker 1: remember sitting there and I remember looking at this looking
Speaker 1: at the TV screen like I was shocked. And then
Speaker 1: at that point I got angry because I realized that
Speaker 1: these people were being exploited for this political agenda against
Speaker 1: someone who was running that I agreed with as a
Speaker 1: half Hispanic. But I agreed with this person because I knew,
Speaker 1: I was informed as to what was happening at the border,
Speaker 1: and so I didn't know what to do except take
Speaker 1: my phone and I recorded this video and I wish
Speaker 1: I still had it because it went pretty viral. Actually
Speaker 1: ended up removing it though, because I got so much
Speaker 1: hate from this video, and all I said was, look,
Speaker 1: I have worked to kind of help expose what's happening
Speaker 1: with trafficking at the border. I am not racist, I'm
Speaker 1: not xenophobic. In fact, I'm half Hispanic. My grandmother literally
Speaker 1: is from Mexico City. But I don't agree with open borders,
Speaker 1: and I don't agree with what they did, and they
Speaker 1: were literally making the political and it should not be political.
Speaker 1: This is something that's a humanitarian issue, and every single person,
Speaker 1: if you care about people, if you claim to care
Speaker 1: about this country, if you care about humanity, you will
Speaker 1: know that open borders hurt an open border hurts people
Speaker 1: on both sides. And so I posted that video, and
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, it was the worst digital abuse I've
Speaker 1: probably had to this day. I mean, some of the
Speaker 1: messages that I was receiving from people were absolutely vile.
Speaker 1: They were calling me a race trader. They said that
Speaker 1: I was too that I was whitewashed, that I would
Speaker 1: never be Hispanic, that I should be ashamed of myself,
Speaker 1: that I was just, that the Hispanic culture would never
Speaker 1: accept me, and that I was being used by white
Speaker 1: people to pedal a message. I mean, it was so
Speaker 1: vile that even just saying that today on this episode,
Speaker 1: I mean, think about that these people didn't know who
Speaker 1: I was, and yet because of the color of my skin,
Speaker 1: because they were on the other side side of the
Speaker 1: political spectrum, they were going to make such racially charged
Speaker 1: and abuse of comments to me. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I'm not ashamed of the fact that I'm half white.
Speaker 1: I'm not ashamed of the fact that i'm half Hispanic.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm very proud of both. And I'm not
Speaker 1: going to hate just one side because of political ideologies.
Speaker 1: That's completely wrong. That's not how I was raised. And
Speaker 1: in fact, my mother, my sister, my brother, and my
Speaker 1: own father were all different colors of the rainbow. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're all different shades, and so I've never looked at
Speaker 1: someone's skin color to decide for them how they should
Speaker 1: politically vote, or to decide what they were ethnically, because
Speaker 1: the fact is is that the United States is such
Speaker 1: a cultural and ethnic melting pot that there are many
Speaker 1: people of many different mixed races. And I was not
Speaker 1: raised to treat people like that. And so after I
Speaker 1: saw that, I mean, I remember reading through the comments
Speaker 1: and then I stopped myself halfway through and I said,
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna do this to myself. Obviously there's a
Speaker 1: lot of angry, negative people, but it's because they don't know.
Speaker 1: And how can you expect people to understand if they
Speaker 1: don't have all the facts. And so that's when I
Speaker 1: made my decision to use my social media to educate people.
Speaker 1: I realized that I had somewhat of a platform, and
Speaker 1: I figured, I'm going to medical school. That's my game
Speaker 1: plan here. I already worked with some incredible organizations and
Speaker 1: shout out to Global Surgical Medical Support Group because Dr
Speaker 1: Epstein there. He was actually my mentor for the route
Speaker 1: that I was going. And it was Dr Epstein that
Speaker 1: actually helped me decide to pursue politics. Instead of medicine
Speaker 1: and moving forward from that. Maybe a couple of months
Speaker 1: later after I posted that video, I came across Turning
Speaker 1: Point USA, which is a conservative nonprofit. It was founded
Speaker 1: by Charlie Kirk. They called me no kidding the day
Speaker 1: before I was supposed to go to medical school to
Speaker 1: offer me the position as their national Hispanic Outreach director,
Speaker 1: and at the time, Charlie Kirk calls me, and I
Speaker 1: didn't really know who Charlie was, and he goes, Hi
Speaker 1: on end. I remember I was standing out in front
Speaker 1: of my house and he goes, We've been looking at
Speaker 1: what you're doing on your social media and you're one
Speaker 1: of the only young Hispanic conservatives doing that. And actually
Speaker 1: that was kind of the first time that someone had
Speaker 1: actually called me conservative, because I know this sounds weird,
Speaker 1: but I didn't know what a conservative was, and i'd
Speaker 1: even really know, you know, what views I grew up with.
Speaker 1: I know, I never thought about that. I was like,
Speaker 1: that just never crossed my mind. But everything that I
Speaker 1: was fighting for was a conservative value system. And this
Speaker 1: also ties into my story growing up. I mean, you
Speaker 1: want to talk about experiencing violence and especially that of
Speaker 1: quote unquote people that would like to pass anti gun legislation.
Speaker 1: They always used stories like mine. I had been I
Speaker 1: had walked into an armed robbery at nine years old.
Speaker 1: I had a cousin that was actually shot in the
Speaker 1: head by her boyfriend. I had experienced the gang shooting
Speaker 1: on campus. I had a friend later on in life, Juliana,
Speaker 1: that was murdered when I was a nineteen years old.
Speaker 1: And then when I joined the military, I had a
Speaker 1: really scary experience of someone that was breaking into my house.
Speaker 1: So my story, it never once occurred to me that
Speaker 1: guns were bad, but I always knew that it was
Speaker 1: the people that were the problem, not the fire. And
Speaker 1: it was in fact myself that got my concealed carry
Speaker 1: that really empowered me to protect myself again. And I
Speaker 1: was talking about all of these things, but I didn't
Speaker 1: know that that was part of what the conservative value
Speaker 1: system was. And so Charlie calls me, goes, you're the
Speaker 1: only young Hispanic conservative talking about this, and and really
Speaker 1: people media that are Hispanic aren't even talking about it,
Speaker 1: but you are. Can you come work with us? And
Speaker 1: at that point in time, I remember kind of earlier
Speaker 1: that those last couple of days I had a feeling
Speaker 1: that they were going to reach out to me, but
Speaker 1: I just wasn't sure. And I remember walking my dog
Speaker 1: and having this I guess coming to Jesus moment where
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, God, I really was hoping to
Speaker 1: go to medical school. And I assure you that being
Speaker 1: in a library somewhere would probably be more relaxing than
Speaker 1: a political endeavor. But this is how I can best
Speaker 1: help people. Then then this is around a minute ago,
Speaker 1: and I talked to Dr Epstein. He said, you know,
Speaker 1: on a you can help more people through legislation, then
Speaker 1: you would entiree your entire lifetime as a physician. And
Speaker 1: that's not to throw shade it physicians, because I've met
Speaker 1: some incredible physicians, but he was right. Legislation impacts nationally,
Speaker 1: and it impacts people's lives. And if I really wanted
Speaker 1: to make this change, I had to do it through legislation,
Speaker 1: and that meant eventually running for office. And so Charlie
Speaker 1: calls me, and I didn't want to end up like
Speaker 1: Joan in the whale in the Bible, and so I
Speaker 1: asked Charlie said, well, well, Charlie, I'm supposed to leave
Speaker 1: tomorrow to go to medical school, so you know why me?
Speaker 1: And he again he's like, we we need your help,
Speaker 1: like there a lot that we're up against, and you
Speaker 1: have this incredible voice and your story. And he's like,
Speaker 1: we're working alongside right now. Currently we have Candice Owens
Speaker 1: who is our director of urban Engagement. Would you consider
Speaker 1: coming to work with us? And so I googled Candace
Speaker 1: Ellens and I was like, Okay, she's pretty cool. She
Speaker 1: lines with me, people like you had to google her? Yes,
Speaker 1: I had a Google her. And I took the job.
Speaker 1: And I wrote my admissions director at the university that
Speaker 1: I had gotten into and I said I will not
Speaker 1: be in attendance. And it was the next week that
Speaker 1: I flew out to Arizona to meet with the Turning
Speaker 1: Points staff and then I came on board as their
Speaker 1: national director of Hispanic Engagement. And it was through there
Speaker 1: that I started doing outreach, grassroots activism. I was able
Speaker 1: to travel the entire country and really through that talked
Speaker 1: to kids from all colors and creeds. Kind of reminded
Speaker 1: me of the military a little bit, actually, to be
Speaker 1: honest with you, and I was able to debate ideologies,
Speaker 1: which is so important. But I was able to do
Speaker 1: it in a respectful fashion, which I think for most people,
Speaker 1: especially through social media, it's something kind of that we've lost,
Speaker 1: is being able to respectfully debate your opinion. And it
Speaker 1: was through those experiences that I realized very shortly into
Speaker 1: that job, probably two months after taking it, that I
Speaker 1: would have to run for congressional office. I realized that
Speaker 1: the media did not If I wasn't talking about what
Speaker 1: stories the producers wanted me to talk about, they weren't
Speaker 1: going to book me on television. And so I noticed
Speaker 1: that every single news station, even if they didn't like
Speaker 1: the political official that they were talking about, they were
Speaker 1: talking about what the legislators were doing in d C.
Speaker 1: And And that's the biggest Mike is being able to
Speaker 1: get into office and change the discussion nationally, to help
Speaker 1: focus America's attention on what issues are truly going to
Speaker 1: help save this country and how we can take our
Speaker 1: position as a world superpower and use that to make
Speaker 1: a world a better place. And so for me, it
Speaker 1: has been on the immigration topic, and it has been
Speaker 1: on this whole topic of trafficking. Is that's why I
Speaker 1: got politicals because I wanted to help people, And so
Speaker 1: shortly thereafter I started trying to figure out how to
Speaker 1: run for office, and there's no how to run for Congress,
Speaker 1: and I'll actually be doing a separate episode on the
Speaker 1: process of that entirely. But it was after I ran
Speaker 1: and then I fully saw the process and actually was
Speaker 1: able to win the Republican nomination in Florida for Florida's
Speaker 1: third team congressional district, that I fully now understood how
Speaker 1: DC works. I understood about the corporate lobbying. I understood
Speaker 1: about why the media does what they do, and how
Speaker 1: much propaganda is a thing within the mainstream media, but
Speaker 1: not just that, how they will lie to entire demographics
Speaker 1: of people, whether you are black, White, Hispanic, or Asian,
Speaker 1: in order to get a certain voting base, or whether
Speaker 1: you're a woman verse as a man. They do use
Speaker 1: divisive politics in order to get people angry so that
Speaker 1: they'll vote. And I realized all of that, and so
Speaker 1: my story, I think, is again something that I've been
Speaker 1: able to and I felt comfortable sharing because I realized
Speaker 1: how much of an impact it has on people. Knowing
Speaker 1: that you can essentially come from nothing, and only in
Speaker 1: the United States can you come from nothing and attain everything.
Speaker 1: Through hard work and effort. Only in the United States
Speaker 1: can someone like myself who literally grew up young, single
Speaker 1: mother household, had family members literally that were and and
Speaker 1: drugs and violence infecting my family. Would I be able
Speaker 1: to join the military, pay my way through college debt free,
Speaker 1: and essentially become the Republican nominee for US Congress, and
Speaker 1: move forward to not just write a book, but have
Speaker 1: a deal with I heart Radio, but also to I think,
Speaker 1: in the future be one of the most important voices
Speaker 1: to the conservative Hispanic demographic, which is now the largest
Speaker 1: voting minority in the country. And it is through my experiences,
Speaker 1: through that of my family, that I have developed the
Speaker 1: character that I have, And instead of choosing to be
Speaker 1: a victim about it, I embrace it. I use it
Speaker 1: as my armor to help me move forward and fight
Speaker 1: for what I believe is right the American Christian to
Speaker 1: jail value system here in this country. I've experienced these things,
Speaker 1: whether they were bad at the time or not, they
Speaker 1: empowered me to fight what I believe in to this day.
Speaker 1: And I do believe that that was God working in
Speaker 1: my life at an early time, and so I could
Speaker 1: not be happier as to where I'm at today, and
Speaker 1: for all of those tuning in, just remember you are
Speaker 1: the captain of your ship. You are so gifted. You
Speaker 1: are born and lucky to be born in one of
Speaker 1: the greatest countries in the world. So don't let that
Speaker 1: slip by you. Use that be empowered to tell your story,
Speaker 1: to help others and to help save this country. Before
Speaker 1: we go, I wanted to thank you guys very much
Speaker 1: for tuning into my very first episode. If you enjoy
Speaker 1: today's show, please leave us a five star review on
Speaker 1: the Apple Podcast. You can also find me on Twitter, Parlor, Facebook,
Speaker 1: and Instagram at real Anna Paulina. And a very special
Speaker 1: thank you to our producer Drew Steele, writer Aaron Kleigman,
Speaker 1: researcher sets In Bryson, and executive producers Debbie Myers and
Speaker 1: Speaker new Ingridge, part of the Gingridge three sixty network.