Speaker 1: Welcome back to this is Wilmer. Val Uh.
Speaker 2: This episode, for me particularly, I'm going to very much
Speaker 2: enjoy because we are diving into Amigo's life, his early
Speaker 2: life before he became.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thank you for allowing me the space to
Speaker 3: dig dig deeper into my life.
Speaker 4: I hope we can dig I know, uh uh.
Speaker 2: Wilmer has a wonderful book out which everyone should go
Speaker 2: and download and buy and read and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: And so I hope that we could.
Speaker 4: Dig in without giving too much a way where you
Speaker 4: feel that.
Speaker 1: You no, no, no, I can get all over our way.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that the the thing about the
Speaker 1: book that's so interesting.
Speaker 3: It's like that, even though it's a trajectory there, there's
Speaker 3: a couple of deep dogs, like you know, just talking
Speaker 3: about the previous episode when we got to know so
Speaker 3: much about you, you know, I've never had really the
Speaker 3: opportunity to really talk and adapt about you know, my
Speaker 3: parents and what they had to do and all that,
Speaker 3: and the trajectory was clear, but a lot of it
Speaker 3: is attributed to to their journey.
Speaker 4: Where where was your mother and your father born?
Speaker 3: So my mother is from Peda, Colombia, and my father
Speaker 3: was raised in San Cristova, Tachia, between Cuguta and San.
Speaker 1: Cristova, back and forth.
Speaker 3: San Cristoa Tauchia is it shares the border with Kuguta,
Speaker 3: you know. And in Colombia, Colombia Venezuela, like they're right there.
Speaker 3: And then as he was growing up, you know, then
Speaker 3: he eventually went to.
Speaker 1: To Caracas, you know.
Speaker 4: But is that where he met your mom?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: They met later years years years later in Miami.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, they they were living life in Miami,
Speaker 3: you know, med and eventually returned to Venezuela. But I,
Speaker 3: you know, kind of dig in a little bit deeper
Speaker 3: into into where my parents were from. Not until I
Speaker 3: was writing an American story Everyone's Invited, which is my memoir,
Speaker 3: I got to ask these questions that I for some
Speaker 3: reason I felt I knew to then realize I didn't
Speaker 3: as you were writing the book, Yeah, and why did
Speaker 3: you feel the.
Speaker 4: Need to do that?
Speaker 3: I felt like, in order to tell my story of
Speaker 3: where I am now, I realized that my story would
Speaker 3: only be possible if you you know, with you know,
Speaker 3: I would only be possible possible with the chapters of
Speaker 3: my parents, right, Like I mean, the trajectory of them
Speaker 3: as people, what they had to go through in order
Speaker 3: for me to be possible. That stuff was really humbling,
Speaker 3: you know. I mean, for example, sitting down with my
Speaker 3: mom when I was doing the exercise right of the
Speaker 3: dissecting of who I am in my world and where
Speaker 3: I came from and all that, you know, asking questions
Speaker 3: that I hadn't asked before, you know, Like I asked
Speaker 3: my mom, Mom, did you ever have a job like
Speaker 3: and she literally said to me, he goes, yeah, I
Speaker 3: used to be a reception instead a doctor's office. And
Speaker 3: I go, what, Like, I literally my only memories of
Speaker 3: my mom is being my mother right right? And for
Speaker 3: some reason, not that I hadn't forgotten, but I kind
Speaker 3: of I felt like I.
Speaker 1: Knew my mom's family.
Speaker 3: I knew my mom's sisters, I knew my mom's mom
Speaker 3: and my grandpa, So I felt like I knew her life, right,
Speaker 3: But that specific question like who she was when she
Speaker 3: was a teenager and in her early twenties, Like what was
Speaker 3: that life like for her before I was a possibility?
Speaker 2: And it's something as simple as that, right, Yes, that
Speaker 2: was a receptionist that opens up your brain and world.
Speaker 3: And then she says something like, yeah, I guess an
Speaker 3: uncle of her was a doctor in Colombia and had
Speaker 3: a doctor's office and she wanted a job, so the
Speaker 3: doctor hooked her up at the job. But nobody at
Speaker 3: the doctor's office knew she was a niece. So they thought, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy and this young, you know, beautiful woman, like oh,
Speaker 3: he gave.
Speaker 1: Her a job at the place.
Speaker 3: Later they found out a year later, they's like, no,
Speaker 3: that's my uncle, right, yeah, I think she was in
Speaker 3: her I think she was eighteen or something like that
Speaker 3: at that point in y. But the idea that like
Speaker 3: at that time they already were living a Spanish still
Speaker 3: a novela, you know what I mean, Like already there
Speaker 3: was like you know, oh no she's not the side woman,
Speaker 3: she's actually her knees, you know, his niece the side.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like it's a very interesting thing. But by those
Speaker 1: little things, you know. And then I somehow I buried this,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 3: We talked about grandparents and and yeah, sometimes I docked
Speaker 3: a little deeper and I asked, I asked my mom.
Speaker 3: I was like, hey, so what in my grandpa do
Speaker 3: for living?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 3: And and then she unlocked a memory for me that
Speaker 3: came tumbling down in so many ways.
Speaker 1: He just I was like, Mom, so he well, he
Speaker 1: was a coffeeto. He was a coffee maker.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: He was a coffee maker. You know. He cultivated the
Speaker 1: bean and roasted it, he grew the bean.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, he had a coffee farm in Colombia, in Colombia.
Speaker 1: And I was like, what, but that makes a lot
Speaker 1: of sense, I said, drinking a little thing. But I
Speaker 1: so I started asking my my mom was like, wait,
Speaker 1: what do you mean.
Speaker 3: And as soon as you say covetereto, I had these
Speaker 3: flashes of memories that took me to the farm, that
Speaker 3: took me sitting in my grandpa's leg while he was
Speaker 3: feeding me apples from the tree, smelling the beans and
Speaker 3: smelling with a roasting, you know, like it all start
Speaker 3: unlocking for me. And I was like, wow, we come
Speaker 3: from a from a family of caffettoes in Colombia.
Speaker 4: And he owned the land. He did. He didn't work.
Speaker 1: It was thinka.
Speaker 3: It was just finca and pereta and it was it
Speaker 3: was it was beautiful to think about that, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, my my uh and then my my
Speaker 3: mom's mother, you know, she was you know, she was
Speaker 3: at home, stay at home mom, and for a very
Speaker 3: good reason.
Speaker 1: She had fourteen children.
Speaker 4: Wow, like my mom.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she had fourteen children too young, didn't make it
Speaker 3: then she had thirteen, right, I think it was like
Speaker 3: three men and three.
Speaker 1: Men and ten women or something like that.
Speaker 3: It was like absolutely, you know they had they had
Speaker 3: so many, so many kids.
Speaker 2: You know, they worked the land, right, I mean when
Speaker 2: you say this, that's why they had such big families.
Speaker 1: Work, I think.
Speaker 3: I think that and probably lack of television and entertainment.
Speaker 1: You know, I think that.
Speaker 3: There's absolutely no hobbies except for making babies and changing diapers, right,
Speaker 3: and making babies and changing diapers again, you know. But yeah,
Speaker 3: my mom is one out of you know, twelve, you know,
Speaker 3: thirty people you know, and and and you know, so
Speaker 3: I have a gang of cousins all over the world.
Speaker 1: Still still there.
Speaker 3: Yes, a lot of them in Colombia, a lot of
Speaker 3: them in Venezuela.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: But my dad and my mom's stories are are just
Speaker 3: polar opposite, completely different human beings. You know, my mom
Speaker 3: grew up in Colombia right in a coffee farm, you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, many many siblings my dad grew up
Speaker 3: you know, and pretty much in the slums of San
Speaker 3: Cristoa and Krakens, you know, and he never met his father,
Speaker 3: you know, he he doesn't know who his grandparents were.
Speaker 3: You know, really he never had time to ask those questions.
Speaker 3: Before his mother passed. He was just hustling and working
Speaker 3: his ass off, you know, to making sure that he
Speaker 3: maintained his brothers and sisters, you know, because he was
Speaker 3: like the older he was. He was the second oldest,
Speaker 3: I think, I believe. And you know, he had a
Speaker 3: couple of other brothers and you have a couple of
Speaker 3: other like maybe you know, one half brother or something
Speaker 3: like that. But you know, his mom was a baker.
Speaker 3: She you know, she was a bread you know, bread bags.
Speaker 3: So she would go to the bakery like after it closed,
Speaker 3: she would bake all night and the and the bread
Speaker 3: will be freshly put out early in the morning for
Speaker 3: the customers to come in. She go home, you know,
Speaker 3: try to hang out with kids, do the thing, you know,
Speaker 3: put them to school whatever you know that she could,
Speaker 3: and then at nighttime she would go and work all
Speaker 3: and then you know, the tragic you know, memory of
Speaker 3: it is that you know, my dad had a stepdad
Speaker 3: who was just not a kind man, who was not
Speaker 3: a good man. And everything that my grandma would struggle
Speaker 3: to make, he would take it and drink it and
Speaker 3: play pool down the street, and you know, and just
Speaker 3: and so so it was a pretty sad and abusive trajectory.
Speaker 4: You know, my bread feed the family, that that you're
Speaker 4: that you're that she made.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that was she was the bread winner,
Speaker 3: quite quite literally, you know. And and uh so my dad,
Speaker 3: you know, saw that hustle, but also saw that that tragic,
Speaker 3: you know, life that his mother was living. And very young,
Speaker 3: I think he was like twelve or thirteen, he decided,
Speaker 3: you know, mom, we we got to stop this. And
Speaker 3: in the middle of the night, while he was out
Speaker 3: there drinking or whatever, he packed all his mom stuff.
Speaker 3: I think he was like thirteen or so, thirteen years old,
Speaker 3: and he packed up his mom stuff, picked up all
Speaker 3: his brothers and sister stuff, and he goes, we're leaving.
Speaker 3: And they took a bus and they went to Caracas
Speaker 3: and they just disappeared in the middle of the night
Speaker 3: and took their family to Karakas to have it to
Speaker 3: start a new life.
Speaker 2: And and and would Caracas at that time be considered
Speaker 2: a more kind of metropolitan or more like a city.
Speaker 1: More of a city.
Speaker 3: And you know, back then you're talking about you know,
Speaker 3: at that point you're talking about you know, probably sixties,
Speaker 3: you know, or so, and uh, it was a more
Speaker 3: stable Venezuela. You know, all the way into the eighth
Speaker 3: he was a very profitable Venezuela. It was a very
Speaker 3: rich country. Nobody lived Venezuela. Now, nobody left Venezuela to
Speaker 3: the United States. They came to Miami to vacation and
Speaker 3: go back to Venezuela. You know, Venezuela is the third
Speaker 3: largest producer of oil in the world, and it says
Speaker 3: the number one reserve.
Speaker 1: So it was a very rich country.
Speaker 3: You know, in the early eighties, there was no need,
Speaker 3: there was no need to go anywhere, you know. So
Speaker 3: my dad kind of grew up the slumps of Caracas,
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, att thirteen fourteen years old,
Speaker 3: he was out there hustling to try to bring bread,
Speaker 3: winning for the house and you know, mom also working
Speaker 3: full time make sure the other kids have food. And
Speaker 3: you know, my dad at thirteen fourteen years old, you know,
Speaker 3: he go ask for three sandwiches you know, and two
Speaker 3: sodas and he would snatch it, run a couple of
Speaker 3: blocks where his brothers and sisters were waiting in the
Speaker 3: corner and give them the sandwiches, then go to the
Speaker 3: next corner over it and you know, or a few more.
Speaker 1: Sandwiches and like rand you know, and like that was
Speaker 1: that was how he grew up.
Speaker 3: And it was that was a hustle and that until
Speaker 3: later when he started saying, okay, maybe I can work
Speaker 3: out the agriculture industry and all that. So but yeah,
Speaker 3: that was the trajectory of them. And you know, my
Speaker 3: dad is and it blows my mind how happy he is.
Speaker 3: He's a happy man.
Speaker 4: Happy now, Yes, he's.
Speaker 1: A very happy man.
Speaker 3: He looks back, doesn't reflect on you know, the sadness
Speaker 3: or the tragedy. You know, remembers fondly, you know, the
Speaker 3: the years that he worked for you know, for the family,
Speaker 3: you know, making sure that the family was good. So
Speaker 3: so you know, I think back at like all the
Speaker 3: stitching of what I am right, like what I've become.
Speaker 3: And you know how how some of some of us
Speaker 3: in our families have had to bear right the trauma
Speaker 3: and bury it right right and say like there's still
Speaker 3: things to celebrate. There's still things to celebrate, right and
Speaker 3: and I think as you continue to grow up, you realize,
Speaker 3: like that that that that ag of dumb bills in
Speaker 3: your backpack is an optional thing you bring along, that
Speaker 3: you can start dropping that weight along the way. And
Speaker 3: I think there was something that I learned from my dad.
Speaker 3: My dad never talked about his trauma, but he celebrated
Speaker 3: that right now, at least we have food right now.
Speaker 3: At least we have food right now, you know. And
Speaker 3: so I grew very grateful of what we could experience.
Speaker 3: And you know, and my mom, you know, my mom
Speaker 3: was the.
Speaker 1: Police, you know, my dad and my mom was the police.
Speaker 1: My dad was the party, right like oh no more
Speaker 1: than yes, like you know, like streak my back.
Speaker 3: You know, I remember very clear moment when my mom
Speaker 3: hit me and it didn't hurt.
Speaker 1: And that's when I was like, well, well well.
Speaker 3: But the funny thing about it, though, is that at
Speaker 3: that point then I had to fake cry to make
Speaker 3: sure my mom stop, because I was like, oh no, mommy, no, no,
Speaker 3: just stop by the room.
Speaker 4: Why would she be like, oh I on't her?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I keep going till I heard you know,
Speaker 3: but so I pretended it hurt right away, you know,
Speaker 3: but I think, like looking back at those things and
Speaker 3: seeing my mom working at the the doctor's office. You know,
Speaker 3: I had some older sisters that lived in Miami. She
Speaker 3: there eventually went I'm going to spend some time in Miami.
Speaker 3: My dad, very younger age, started traveling, you know, looking
Speaker 3: for himself, ended up in Miami.
Speaker 1: He met my mom.
Speaker 4: What did your dad do? What was sort of his trade? Like?
Speaker 4: What was he.
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 4: What did he do?
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't necessarily mean that he was employed somewhere,
Speaker 2: but what what was his thing?
Speaker 4: What did he do?
Speaker 1: He was about?
Speaker 3: You know, he was kind of a social butterfly, right
Speaker 3: Like he just knew everyone, and everyone loved my dad.
Speaker 3: And my dad we walk into a room and he'd
Speaker 3: find opportunity. He walked into a room and he saw
Speaker 3: a job, he saw he saw a partnership, and you know,
Speaker 3: he saw an investment, you know, and like the little
Speaker 3: money that he would make, he'd try to make two
Speaker 3: dollars out of it.
Speaker 1: You know, if he had a dollar, he goes, how
Speaker 1: do we make five? Oh? We only made three?
Speaker 3: Cool, we have two more dollars to keep investing like
Speaker 3: he kept moving around. His downfall though, is that he
Speaker 3: loves celebrating life so much that he would just spend,
Speaker 3: spend the savings, you know, which really caught up to
Speaker 3: him later in life with my mom because my mom
Speaker 3: was like, this is not going to work, you know.
Speaker 3: But in those moments, my dad, you know, my dad
Speaker 3: would work different industries, you know, he would import. He
Speaker 3: eventually started importing machinery from the United States to work
Speaker 3: the land.
Speaker 1: Then eventually bought his finger.
Speaker 3: Yes, we go to So he started his life in
Speaker 3: like he's professional, was professional, he's a professional. At the
Speaker 3: time in Miami, he met my mom. They fell in
Speaker 3: love right and then. And then the opportunity Inventuela was
Speaker 3: so great. The agriculture industry was booming. So my dad
Speaker 3: moved back to where the wark was and we moved
Speaker 3: back to Venezuela. So now he had married my mom,
Speaker 3: But you were born already. Yeah, So my sister Maryland
Speaker 3: and I were born in Miami, and when I turned
Speaker 3: three years old back in nineteen eighty three, they decided
Speaker 3: to move back to Venezuela.
Speaker 1: So I grew up in Venezuela for the following ten years.
Speaker 3: After that, and you know, and like so I didn't
Speaker 3: really quite remember where Miami was.
Speaker 1: Again, I had just these flashes. It just kind of
Speaker 1: came to my mind.
Speaker 3: But living in Venezuela, you know, Spanish was my first language,
Speaker 3: right and you know, ten years later, never did I
Speaker 3: ever think that I was gonna need to learn how
Speaker 3: to speak English. You know.
Speaker 1: But hay years, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4: And you think that because ten years.
Speaker 3: Is like this, it goes by quick, But when you're
Speaker 3: that young, at three years old, it feels like that's
Speaker 3: your lifetime. Because I was thirteen by the time we
Speaker 3: decided it was time to leave Venezuela.
Speaker 1: A lot of stuff happened the trajectory of Venezuela.
Speaker 3: You know, my dad bought this finca and you know,
Speaker 3: this farm and started buying the machineries to level the land.
Speaker 3: And then he would rent those machineries to nearby farms
Speaker 3: that couldn't afford the machinery.
Speaker 1: And you know that my dad had a hustler's farm.
Speaker 3: He was doing corn, he was doing rice, he was
Speaker 3: doing cattle, he was doing pigs, he was doing chickens.
Speaker 3: And then because we were so close to the Amazon's,
Speaker 3: he was chopping up wood too, and selling wood. You know,
Speaker 3: so that farm was producing so many different things, like
Speaker 3: whatever season way was, he was selling something, you know.
Speaker 3: But then, you know, the trajectory was that that eventually,
Speaker 3: you know, the you know, the agriculture industry became very competitive,
Speaker 3: and little farms like my dad just didn't have a
Speaker 3: place anymore because these big corporations were buying their own
Speaker 3: farms and they were swallowing up all these small little businesses.
Speaker 1: The winters were long.
Speaker 3: Right, and so so at some point, you know, we
Speaker 3: started struggling, and then all of a sudden, we go
Speaker 3: Chavis decided that he was going to pretty cool on
Speaker 3: the on the government. They didn't succeed the first time,
Speaker 3: and my dad saw that as a just a sign,
Speaker 3: a sign of things to come.
Speaker 2: You know, you were living in Venezuela, your mother's from Colombia.
Speaker 2: Were you still in contact with her family in Colombia
Speaker 2: even though you were living in Venezuela.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we go back and forth to see them and
Speaker 4: all that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got back and forth.
Speaker 3: We grew up with them in our lives and my
Speaker 3: mom will go visit a lot in Colombia. And my
Speaker 3: dad also had so many friends in Colombia. So we
Speaker 3: go back and forth, you know, but at some point,
Speaker 3: you know, we we fell. It was time, you know,
Speaker 3: and my dad all of a sudden one day said hey, MEO, me, I,
Speaker 3: We're gonna have to go back.
Speaker 1: To the United States. And I said, where are we going?
Speaker 3: He goes next week and I said, what, I've been
Speaker 3: failing all my English classes, by the way, yeah, literally
Speaker 3: failing English classes.
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm never gonna have to speak English.
Speaker 3: And I came back to the United States not knowing
Speaker 3: how to even counted three, you know, So thirteen years old,
Speaker 3: thirteen fourteen years old, imagine, you know, not able to
Speaker 3: even ask for where the bathroom is?
Speaker 4: And did you word you? Land you when you came Miami.
Speaker 3: We went to Miami and there was nothing for us
Speaker 3: in Miami. My dad had a brother in Los Angeles.
Speaker 3: Then we drove across country, came to Los Angeles, and
Speaker 3: you know, we stayed with him for a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3: That went south A major chapter on my book on that.
Speaker 3: We you know, we didn't stay there long, and that
Speaker 3: put a damfort on the savings he had because without
Speaker 3: a job, we had to kind of figure out our
Speaker 3: housing because we were supposed to be in my dad's
Speaker 3: brother's house for a little while while my dad got
Speaker 3: a job and got it all together so he didn't
Speaker 3: have to deplete his savings. That went south. We had
Speaker 3: to go and deplete the savings without a job. So
Speaker 3: he set us up at like zero. So we started,
Speaker 3: you know, very much. Our story is not very different
Speaker 3: than any other you know, immigrant that leads to a
Speaker 3: different state or a different country, you know, and starts
Speaker 3: from scratch, and you.
Speaker 1: Know, and that's kind of how we started.
Speaker 4: And what did he do for employment at that point
Speaker 4: when the when the savings were depleted.
Speaker 3: So my dad so my dad started looking for jobs,
Speaker 3: couldn't find anything. And my dad speaks English, but he
Speaker 3: pretends he speaks more English. He started realizing that he
Speaker 3: had to do what it took. There was no ego here,
Speaker 3: there was no anything, you know. We just had to food,
Speaker 3: food on the table and keep the light on. So
Speaker 3: look story short, you know, he with the little money
Speaker 3: he had, he bought this little Mazda, yeah you know,
Speaker 3: and he would put a for sale sign on it
Speaker 3: and he would drive this car while he did errands
Speaker 3: for mechanic shops. So he will bring these parts from
Speaker 3: mechanic shop to mechanic shop, or from supplier to mechanic
Speaker 3: shop while the car sold. When the car sold for
Speaker 3: a little bit more money for a little profit, he'd
Speaker 3: buy a more expensive car, put another for sale sign
Speaker 3: on it.
Speaker 1: He continued to drive it and huse and house it
Speaker 1: back and forth. That's what he would do.
Speaker 3: And we were able to get a tiny little house
Speaker 3: in Van Eyes when Ice, California, I remember I met
Speaker 3: my neighbors were you know, Green Day fans and Metallica fans,
Speaker 3: you know, like and Van Eyes and and uh yeah.
Speaker 3: So that's how we kind of kicked off. And then
Speaker 3: we had to go to school. Didn't know how to
Speaker 3: speak English, so everybody looked at us like we were too.
Speaker 3: We went to Umholland Junior High and then we went
Speaker 3: to Taft High School. Eventually, yeah, way I was. I
Speaker 3: was a tour door. But but the the idea that
Speaker 3: we were going to go to school with E. S
Speaker 3: L classes and we were going to learn how to
Speaker 3: speak English with ludicrous. I mean, it was the scariest
Speaker 3: experience of my life. And since I was six years old,
Speaker 3: I you know, I was always performing and singing and
Speaker 3: dancing and whatever. So you know, because I was in Venezuela,
Speaker 3: you know, you know in our countries it's mandatory to
Speaker 3: how I'm performing. Arts class, you know, is you have
Speaker 3: to either sing, you have to pick one. You have
Speaker 3: to sing, dance or act.
Speaker 4: You mean like in the in the family structure.
Speaker 1: No, no, in school.
Speaker 3: So it's like math, you know, uh Spanish, you know,
Speaker 3: you know Casano right, and then and then dance class, yeah,
Speaker 3: you know. So that's how Latinos got down, like they
Speaker 3: always had an arts class. So when I came back
Speaker 3: to and I say it, anyone I speak English. I
Speaker 3: went back to school activities because it was forcing me
Speaker 3: to read and force me to speak out loud. And
Speaker 3: then that the more I did it, the more my
Speaker 3: English became better. But that was a really scary time
Speaker 3: of my life, not being able to communicate looking at
Speaker 3: somebody with blonde hair and blue eyes, and I was like,
Speaker 3: I gotta go the other way because if the person
Speaker 3: looked at me in the eyes and think they can
Speaker 3: talk to me, I want to want him to be
Speaker 3: embarrassed too. I don't want to feel this way, you know.
Speaker 3: And it was it was very scary.
Speaker 2: Did you did you feel like racism towards you during
Speaker 2: that time or did you feel.
Speaker 3: It's tough, because there's definitely a lot of prejudice that
Speaker 3: comes with individuals who either don't know how to speak
Speaker 3: the language or have an accent. Back then, if you
Speaker 3: had an accent, you were uneducated, right, you were inferior.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Literally, most people know that the school academics and in
Speaker 3: Latin America are two years ahead of the United States.
Speaker 3: I came back to the United States not knowing how
Speaker 3: to speak English and grade sixth and seventh, and I
Speaker 3: was a straight at student. People like how I had
Speaker 3: been taught those things two years prior to my sixth
Speaker 3: grade interesting, so, you know, so they thought I was
Speaker 3: cheating because they were like, no possible way you know this,
Speaker 3: You didn't know how to speak English, So like I
Speaker 3: had to fight against all.
Speaker 1: That stuff, and you know, I don't know, I chose
Speaker 1: to not. I didn't know racism was.
Speaker 3: A thing in the United States because it just seemed
Speaker 3: in the movies and everything, like it was just it's
Speaker 3: the happiest place on earth. And actually, judging by the
Speaker 3: six o'clock news that I grew up watching in Venezuela
Speaker 3: and coming to the United States and watching the six
Speaker 3: o'clock's news was the happiest place on.
Speaker 4: Earth because of what was happening there at that time.
Speaker 3: The contrast, right, But but I think I remember people
Speaker 3: just trying to talk to me, and as soon as
Speaker 3: I couldn't communicate, they're like, you know, they would just
Speaker 3: wave you off. All of that stuff kind of served
Speaker 3: as as fuel to to say, like, all right, I
Speaker 3: gotta really learn how to speak English.
Speaker 2: When you were when you were in school and and
Speaker 2: the arts were mandatory, what what kind of arts were
Speaker 2: you doing in Venezuela.
Speaker 1: In Venezuela, I was singing, so you could sing. I
Speaker 1: was singing then, So.
Speaker 4: When are we gonna hear you sing? Man? You talk about.
Speaker 1: Should do it collaboration?
Speaker 3: You know, I could definitely do your your pretty angelic
Speaker 3: core is what you drop down some mean bars.
Speaker 2: You know, there you go.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was the first voice really I could
Speaker 3: I could hit I could hit some really high notes. Uh,
Speaker 3: and then my voice changed and I can still hear
Speaker 3: some notes, but but not as like as angelic. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but yeah, so yeah, so that's this is the stuff
Speaker 3: that I kind of grew up doing a lot of
Speaker 3: and so coming back to America, you know, I remember
Speaker 3: the moment, you know, my dad's car gets stolen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which was the family source of income.
Speaker 3: It was the train, it was the bread device and tool,
Speaker 3: and that was the moment, you know. But before that happened,
Speaker 3: my dad as soon as we landed in America, my
Speaker 3: dad said me, hoo, we came here to work. We
Speaker 3: didn't come here to go to Disneyland Universal Studios.
Speaker 1: We're here to work.
Speaker 3: And I was thirteen years old and he said that
Speaker 3: to me, and I knew that I was next. So
Speaker 3: at a very younger age, I just I had to
Speaker 3: really get it together. I have to figure out, like,
Speaker 3: at some point, I'm going to have to contribute, right.
Speaker 3: And you know, it wasn't that I wanted a choice.
Speaker 3: Not having a choice made me realize that sooner or later,
Speaker 3: you're going to have to be responsible and no matter
Speaker 3: if it's with your own life or others, you're gonna
Speaker 3: have to contribute. And uh, and you better figure it
Speaker 3: out now because you only have a few years before
Speaker 3: you hit haite eighteen and you're expected to keep the
Speaker 3: light on, right. That's the generation we grew up in right, Like.
Speaker 4: You came here, there's no like.
Speaker 1: Lawn and mound the lawn.
Speaker 3: Okay, cool, get inside. Yeah, what were you expecting five
Speaker 3: dollars from moaning the lawn? Like it's your house. You're
Speaker 3: gonna moan the lawn in your house, you know, Like
Speaker 3: it's that kind of stuff that like you're.
Speaker 1: Going to grow up with, you know, and.
Speaker 4: You know I might.
Speaker 3: My dad didn't have enough money to give us for school,
Speaker 3: Like we're going to get a bag of chips, we
Speaker 3: want to get a sort of from the vending machine
Speaker 3: or whatever. So I was like I got to get
Speaker 3: a job. So at fourteen, you know, just literally I
Speaker 3: arrived here. An uncle of mine worked at this restaurant
Speaker 3: called Cafe Issue, right, and I became a bus boy
Speaker 3: and I was leveling the butters and picking up you know,
Speaker 3: and you know, and again I got hired from the
Speaker 3: alleyway right.
Speaker 1: So it was like no minimum wage, no minimum hours,
Speaker 1: you know, like you just have to be there under
Speaker 1: the table. Yeah, I mean like they just break me off.
Speaker 1: The waiters would just break me off, you know.
Speaker 3: And you know, I remember making I don't know, like
Speaker 3: ten dollars for the whole day, you know, something like that,
Speaker 3: and I said, you know, fourteen, fifteen years old, you know,
Speaker 3: I go to school, and I'm like, I was enough
Speaker 3: to buy the bag of chips.
Speaker 4: I want it right right right.
Speaker 3: So I'm like, oh cool, like I'm making money, you know,
Speaker 3: and and yeah, So that was my first gig, and
Speaker 3: I remember very clearly the moment where I said I
Speaker 3: have to I have to be more. A lady came
Speaker 3: in right to your school, No, to the restaurant, to
Speaker 3: the restaurant. Lady came in and she weighed me over,
Speaker 3: and I should have. Man, when I think back at
Speaker 3: this moment, I still like, start my my upper lips
Speaker 3: starts sweating, like I have so much trauma from this moment. Right,
Speaker 3: she waves me over, and I should have just gotten
Speaker 3: a waiter to go there, but instead I went myself.
Speaker 3: And when I got to that table, the lady started
Speaker 3: you know those like when when Charlie Brown went to
Speaker 3: school and the teacher's like whoa.
Speaker 4: Whaa wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Speaker 3: Wah wah wah, and You're like you can't like that's
Speaker 3: all I heard, right, and I just froze. She started
Speaker 3: snapping on my face, started clapping on my face. And
Speaker 3: she starts pointing at the table, and I had and
Speaker 3: I just froze. I'd like thirteen, fourteen years old.
Speaker 1: I froze. And I was like, I didn't know. I
Speaker 1: didn't even have a word.
Speaker 3: I could even I could even say one, two, three
Speaker 3: and pretend like I said something, you know, like and
Speaker 3: my then the waiter came in and asked her of that,
Speaker 3: and apparently she was asking me to refill her water.
Speaker 3: And I didn't know what she was asking me about.
Speaker 3: And the way she was looking at me was so
Speaker 3: heart shattering. I was such a happy kid, you know,
Speaker 3: and the way she looked at me, she looked at me,
Speaker 3: I was like like I was uneducated, dumb, like I
Speaker 3: was inferior, and it really hurt, really hurt. I went
Speaker 3: back to the kitchen and I was just quiet, and
Speaker 3: my uncle came in and he was like, okay, It's
Speaker 3: like I just couldn't even express myself. I couldn't express
Speaker 3: the feelings I was going through. And in that moment,
Speaker 3: I said, never will anyone ever talk to me like that.
Speaker 3: And if I'm ever in a situation of leadership or
Speaker 3: you know, or entrepreneurship, whatever environment I create, people have
Speaker 3: to feel so empowered to be able to share. I
Speaker 3: should never feel shell shocked from contributing because of any perception.
Speaker 3: We might build like we should have in constant empowerment.
Speaker 3: And it really hurt me, but I really believed that
Speaker 3: I was the moment I went home and I said, immediately,
Speaker 3: first thing I gotta do is long how to speak English.
Speaker 3: And within less than a year, I was speaking English
Speaker 3: like I was so petrified to have an encounter like
Speaker 3: that again that I was just literally everything that the
Speaker 3: teacher would say I was. I was taking it into
Speaker 3: my heart and uploaded it into my brain and translated
Speaker 3: it into a tool, into a weapon for building, you know,
Speaker 3: a reality that that felt more comfortable for me and
Speaker 3: my sister. My sister did the same thing. She learned
Speaker 3: right away and as soon as I was and you know,
Speaker 3: that led me into more theater. I started doing theater,
Speaker 3: you know, and I met some of my dreams and
Speaker 3: I've never been kissed, and you know, I started doing
Speaker 3: on this theater and I was performing words I didn't
Speaker 3: know what meant, but I was also performing sentences that
Speaker 3: resemble things that I could say outside.
Speaker 1: Of that stage.
Speaker 3: And immediately I was like, oh, I'm speaking English on
Speaker 3: stage and somebody's looking at me like an equal on stage.
Speaker 3: They're talking to me unlike people would talk to me
Speaker 3: outside of that stage. And that was a magical moment
Speaker 3: when I thought performing arts were going to save my life.
Speaker 3: You know, give me people skills that I just couldn't
Speaker 3: develop quick enough at my age. And you know, I
Speaker 3: was so relentless about it, Like every time I would
Speaker 3: ditch a class, it was cool. Yeah, I go to
Speaker 3: the drama room to go yeah, and this was that tap.
Speaker 3: Yeah high school. Oh interesting, the teacher will go and
Speaker 3: have auditions and leave me teaching drama class. Yeah, wow,
Speaker 3: because I knew the exercises, I knew everything she was
Speaker 3: gonna say anyway, so she wouldn't let me be in
Speaker 3: what she knock out for an audition.
Speaker 2: Hey, it's funny, how like trauma, what trauma does to
Speaker 2: a human being? Right, Like you experienced the trauma right
Speaker 2: with that with that person speaking to you, and and
Speaker 2: how demeaning it was, and all the other emotions that
Speaker 2: you expressed, But.
Speaker 4: It was the motivator, right, and it's it switched your birth.
Speaker 3: But you can either motivate you right, or it could
Speaker 3: break any inspiration you might have had.
Speaker 1: Very quickly. You have to figure out which one is it.
Speaker 2: But maybe it was that survival mode that was the
Speaker 2: that was what was pushing you. Right, maybe if you
Speaker 2: were comfy and that would have happened, maybe it would have.
Speaker 3: Well you have to find where is the hunger going
Speaker 3: to play a factor? Where is their ambition going to play.
Speaker 1: A factor in it?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And my dad had the drive.
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, he gets up a four, went to
Speaker 3: sleep at ten, yeah, you know, and not until he
Speaker 3: he you know, his car got stolen. I saw the
Speaker 3: fear in his eyes. What now the feared in my
Speaker 3: mom's eyes right now? That kicked my ass into like
Speaker 3: I got to put it in gear. Now I'm next.
Speaker 3: I gotta go, I gotta get in the game. That's
Speaker 3: a reality that you know, that is that can either
Speaker 3: create uncertainty and fear or it could create motivation and
Speaker 3: somehow it eliminates a path. Yeah, right, like it kicks
Speaker 3: setting to gear for you to be like I got
Speaker 3: to find it. And my parents, you know, were.
Speaker 1: Did the best they could.
Speaker 3: You know, they did the best they could and I
Speaker 3: and I'm so grateful because they sacrificed themselves they sacrificed
Speaker 3: their relationship. You know, there was so much heartache, so
Speaker 3: much stress that my mom was experiencing that I could
Speaker 3: tell that it was drifting them apart in ways to
Speaker 3: just like you really really hard. I mean, they were
Speaker 3: putting the happy face for us. But you know, I
Speaker 3: was at that point too aware at thirteen, At thirteen
Speaker 3: years old, you come to America, you're not you're not
Speaker 3: just looking at cartoons. You're looking at your parents's faces. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you're looking at like what are they thinking?
Speaker 1: What are they saying?
Speaker 4: Body language, all that energy, you're you're and.
Speaker 1: I was the oldest, you know, so I was very
Speaker 1: aware of everything that was happening.
Speaker 2: And and and you're the oldest, so there's there's also
Speaker 2: that added responsibility for you.
Speaker 4: So not only was trauma and survival.
Speaker 2: The motivator, right, you're the oldest, or there's like a
Speaker 2: parent component I think to being the oldest, it is.
Speaker 3: And also you somehow have to be the first one
Speaker 3: to break ground and new terrains, right, you know, for
Speaker 3: your sisters, you know what path are we taking?
Speaker 1: And my sister and I.
Speaker 3: Did everything together, right, Like we were very lucky because
Speaker 3: she learned how to read because we were you know,
Speaker 3: she was in kindergarten. I was in first grade, and
Speaker 3: she learned how to read because I was doing homework
Speaker 3: with her. And then so they skipped her up a grade.
Speaker 3: So we were in the same classroom until like high school.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, it was really cool. I mean she will
Speaker 3: tell a different story that, like she did all my homework.
Speaker 1: You know, there were some times where I like, what
Speaker 1: did you say for that thing?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What did you write for that desk?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: And she was very smart. She was actually very very smart.
Speaker 4: So what what do you attribute?
Speaker 2: Because you were saying that that you all of a
Speaker 2: sudden were on this path to learn English, and you
Speaker 2: would you would listen to the tature and you would
Speaker 2: process it. Was that like the was that sort of
Speaker 2: the driving force behind you learning English?
Speaker 4: Or was it like TV? Was it movies?
Speaker 3: Was it like, well funny because I wanted to My
Speaker 3: first job at home was to pick up the phone,
Speaker 3: answer the door, read the manuals, read the menu at
Speaker 3: the restaurants.
Speaker 1: Right, ask for what was for dinner tonight? Yeah, bro,
Speaker 1: that was my first job.
Speaker 3: So like immediately that was my first responsibility. Yeah, I
Speaker 3: remember when they remember when they would knock on the door. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and my mom and everyone was.
Speaker 1: Like, he's gonna answer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, okay, I'll go, I'll go, yeah, can you lit.
Speaker 1: I opened the door and I was like.
Speaker 4: Hello, right, hello there, Hello there, what can I do
Speaker 4: for you?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: And it's not like you put in an accent to
Speaker 1: pretend that you have an American accent?
Speaker 4: Right right?
Speaker 1: But yeah, so that that was kind of my first gig.
Speaker 4: That was my first gig.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was my first Yeah, I did it for free.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just unfortunates sag. No, it wasn't sag,
Speaker 3: but it was sereal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was cereal for sure.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean that's so that's a little bit
Speaker 3: of like my trajectory and and up my family's trajectory.
Speaker 3: I mean, this is really a love letter to them,
Speaker 3: you know, and as American uh in Venezuelan, Colombia, and
Speaker 3: you know, it leads me to this the theme, you know,
Speaker 3: which is one of the reasons why I wanted to
Speaker 3: write the book at a time right now, where lat
Speaker 3: you need that is in question? Where are you one
Speaker 3: hundred percent Latino? Are you a one hundred percent American?
Speaker 3: And honestly, I can tell you you don't have to pick.
Speaker 3: You can be both one, you can be a two
Speaker 3: hundred percenter And if you don't speak Spanish, you're still
Speaker 3: a Latino and you should be proud of that, right
Speaker 3: like you we should talk about that, you know. And
Speaker 3: and I learned that growing up because I know there
Speaker 3: was perception even for my own community, like if you
Speaker 3: don't speak Spanish, you're not a real Latino. That was
Speaker 3: a generation of the nineties, or just like it really
Speaker 3: sets us back because Latinos that were breaking around in
Speaker 3: different industries and entertainment, we're not giving the actual universal.
Speaker 1: Love from our people.
Speaker 3: That's interesting, you know, And so that stuff like kind
Speaker 3: of leads us a little bit more into into that world.
Speaker 3: I think a lot about you know, where did we
Speaker 3: draw inspirations because they weren't that many, and like what
Speaker 3: inspired us to say, like, hey, you know what, I'm
Speaker 3: going to be this against absolutely a tsunami of odds
Speaker 3: that your parents proved to be very hard to overcome. Right,
Speaker 3: So you think a little bit about like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well where are we going next?
Speaker 1: Like what is what's next? And what can it be me?
Speaker 1: And what is that moment that says, yeah, why not me?
Speaker 1: If somebody else did it? Why not me? At a
Speaker 1: time where like somebody else perhaps hadn't done it the
Speaker 1: way you could have done it, we'll do it or
Speaker 1: did it? But who were those inspirations?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: What? What what triggered us?
Speaker 2: So when we're before, before I turned pro, I was
Speaker 2: on a Saturday morning TV show, I was I was
Speaker 2: eating bites of Kentucky fried chicken on a commercial.
Speaker 1: Did you like fried Chicken? I did?
Speaker 2: You know? It was? It was a campaign that had
Speaker 2: remember chriss cross everybody, so it was like jumps, like
Speaker 2: everyone's just jumping like chicken, you know, and I was
Speaker 2: one of the guys.
Speaker 4: We gotta.
Speaker 2: Uh. But but that eventually, you know, it was serendipitous,
Speaker 2: right because I was happy being in Chicago and and
Speaker 2: and getting little gigs here and there, and and making a.
Speaker 4: Living at it and living at my parents' house.
Speaker 2: But little did I know that that those stepping stones
Speaker 2: was going to lead to my professional career. What was
Speaker 2: so you know, you took us through high school and
Speaker 2: your high school I'm a class and the stuff that
Speaker 2: you did in Venezuela, Like, what was what was that
Speaker 2: moment before you turn pro.
Speaker 3: I mean I never thought I would be turning pro,
Speaker 3: but I had the ambition of doing all these things.
Speaker 3: When my dad's car gets stolen, I saw my mom
Speaker 3: in my dad's eyes and I went up to them
Speaker 3: and I said, Dad, Mom, don't worry, because I'm going
Speaker 3: to be an actor.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna make this money.
Speaker 4: So you had decided at that moment you were going
Speaker 4: to be an actor.
Speaker 3: Because I have been told like, oh, you're kind of
Speaker 3: funny in high school, Well you should do some commercials.
Speaker 3: And I told me that I'm gonna do some commercials
Speaker 3: and make some money. Well, buy a new car, we
Speaker 3: want to buy a house and whatever. I was fourteen,
Speaker 3: yourself in from yourself.
Speaker 2: So it was because of what people were telling you
Speaker 2: in high school, and they you saw something in their
Speaker 2: eyes that they saw in you.
Speaker 4: Convinced you. Yes.
Speaker 3: You were like, at the very least, I can do
Speaker 3: a commercial and bring that money home. And I said,
Speaker 3: I'll have restaurants I'll put over there. And I started
Speaker 3: with my dad, you know, at these of tears of
Speaker 3: my mom over a crying. My dad literally said to me, uh, okay, Majo,
Speaker 3: you can do that, and uh, which by the way great,
Speaker 3: great segue into our next episode, What what is you know,
Speaker 3: what was that moment that that told you that you
Speaker 3: could or that you had to? Yeah, you know, and
Speaker 3: you know what other inspirations came into play that said
Speaker 3: that maybe you could, which I'd love to hear that
Speaker 3: from you, and I'd love to share on that too
Speaker 3: in the next episode of Uh Those Amos.
Speaker 2: Salute Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and
Speaker 2: iHeartMedia's Michael Tuda podcast network, Hosted by me, Freddie Rodriguez,
Speaker 2: and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3: Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlison and Sophie Spencer's Levels.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Wilmer Valderama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlason,
Speaker 2: and o Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3: This episode was edited by Ryan Posts and Aaron Burlison
Speaker 3: and features original music by Madison Devenport and halebord Our.
Speaker 2: Cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny.
Speaker 3: Holtzclaw and special thanks to every single interview for joining
Speaker 3: this journey and I hope you continue to enjoy us.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from I Heart, visit the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 2: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1: See you or hear us in a week or so.