Latest / Locatora Radio [A Radiophonic Novela] / Capítulo 048: LA's Tesoro, Yesika Salgado

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Capítulo 048: LA's Tesoro, Yesika Salgado · Locatora Radio [A Radiophonic Novela]

0:02
Speaker 1: Radio Radio Radio nis a myth and bullshit radio phonic
0:16
Speaker 1: novella Look Radio hosted by Malamn. Welcome back, look at Mortis,
0:24
Speaker 1: Welcome back, Welcome back to look at our Radio. This
0:26
Speaker 1: is my lad and this is and we are back
0:29
Speaker 1: with another capitulo, our radio phonic novella coming to you
0:32
Speaker 1: once again from Radio Spacio in boil Heights. Thank you
0:36
Speaker 1: so much for joining us Look at a Radio as
0:38
Speaker 1: a radio phonic novella archiving the legacies, geniuses and brilliance
0:42
Speaker 1: of women and fans of color. Thank you, thank you,
0:45
Speaker 1: thank you for tuning in to fort a. Um. So,
0:51
Speaker 1: last time I Look at our Radio, we interviewed the
0:53
Speaker 1: one and only Curly Velasquez Curly V from Pedal Like.
0:56
Speaker 1: That was a really fun interview. Thank you Curly once
0:59
Speaker 1: again for joining us us. Yes, so, if you haven't
1:01
Speaker 1: tuned into that one just yet, you should go on
1:03
Speaker 1: over to audio Boom, SoundCloud, Spotify or Apple Podcast to
1:06
Speaker 1: do so. And um, we've been busy, We've been busy.
1:11
Speaker 1: We just wanted to do a quick recap before we
1:13
Speaker 1: get into an amazing interview that we have, beautiful interview
1:16
Speaker 1: with beautiful guests. Yes so, um. Last week we were
1:20
Speaker 1: invited to the Latina Writer's Conference that was held up Rasa,
1:26
Speaker 1: and we were on a panel called space Making in
1:29
Speaker 1: the Physical and Digital World and um we were we
1:33
Speaker 1: were joined. Yeah, we had. There were other panelists, other
1:35
Speaker 1: panelista's um such as Julia from Buzzfeeds butt all like
1:40
Speaker 1: Cindy Rodriguez of Salvis Lunch and Laticia Ernandez Leonards, a
1:46
Speaker 1: poet and interdisciplinary artists. It was a great panel. Thank
1:49
Speaker 1: you everybody who showed up, um who came, who asked questions,
1:52
Speaker 1: and it was really fun for us to be at again. Yes,
1:56
Speaker 1: because one of our first panels ever was was there
1:59
Speaker 1: at Less four and even like predate that in high school,
2:06
Speaker 1: I was actually in a writer's cohort um that was
2:10
Speaker 1: in partnership with this. It was us. It was a
2:13
Speaker 1: writing summer program and it was in partnership with cal Arts,
2:16
Speaker 1: the art school. And so I was, you know, at sixteen,
2:19
Speaker 1: performing a song, I mean perform performing a poem about
2:22
Speaker 1: queer love on that stage. Yes, So I'm like, okay, hello,
2:27
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it because like we're such local,
2:31
Speaker 1: we're such local l a bit and don't ever forget
2:35
Speaker 1: ever forget it. We're out here. We've been here in
2:39
Speaker 1: the community, in the spaces. Anyways, we also we did
2:44
Speaker 1: something new, something new on the West Side. On the
2:49
Speaker 1: West Side, we haven't finding ourselves out there, you know,
2:52
Speaker 1: that is really where they are producing the context everything.
2:55
Speaker 1: So we were actually invited to be on Get It
2:58
Speaker 1: Girl TV US, which is a production a TV show
3:04
Speaker 1: that is hosted It's on l A t V. Yeah,
3:07
Speaker 1: so we were asked to be on it and we
3:09
Speaker 1: had a really really cute interview. It's like fixing. The
3:13
Speaker 1: girls are so amazing. Um, the videos the interview is
3:16
Speaker 1: not out yet, so when it is we will let
3:17
Speaker 1: you'll know. But we'll sure want to thank though the
3:20
Speaker 1: women of Get It Girl TV for having us. Yeah,
3:23
Speaker 1: it was incredible and um, you can follow them on Instagram.
3:26
Speaker 1: Get a Girl TV also something super super fresh and
3:30
Speaker 1: knew that was just published today. Um. Yarra Simon is
3:34
Speaker 1: a writer and an editor at Ramescla and she reached
3:37
Speaker 1: out to the ASA and I actually separately, and we
3:39
Speaker 1: had no idea that we were both contributing to this article.
3:42
Speaker 1: It's funny, but anyway, so YadA put this article together
3:46
Speaker 1: for Ramescla about you know how to latin X people
3:50
Speaker 1: really feel about Hispanic Heritage month, So go check that out.
3:54
Speaker 1: We posted it on our Instagram. It's online, um, and
3:58
Speaker 1: we have some reminders. Yes. Oh also real quick, I
4:01
Speaker 1: wanted to share that I am now a contributor for
4:03
Speaker 1: Hip Latina. Yeah. I have been like making my little
4:06
Speaker 1: waves around the internet, um with writing, and I haven't
4:11
Speaker 1: actually shared on the podcast, but I have a few
4:12
Speaker 1: articles that have come out with We Army Do Well
4:15
Speaker 1: Fierce by Hip Latina. So I'm really excited. So head
4:19
Speaker 1: on over to my instagram to check them out. Check
4:21
Speaker 1: that out, Baby girls a writer. We're writing. We're writing. Yes,
4:25
Speaker 1: we out here all right, reminders, So we are booking, booking, booking, booking.
4:30
Speaker 1: We love to book four Fall universities, conferences, community events, um,
4:37
Speaker 1: whatever lame it, we will be there. Parties. We do
4:41
Speaker 1: it all. You know that we do it all here
4:43
Speaker 1: at Look at our radio. Email us, look at our
4:46
Speaker 1: radio at gmail dot com. Even if you don't have
4:48
Speaker 1: an idea of what you want us to do there,
4:51
Speaker 1: just reach out to us. We'll figure it out. We
4:53
Speaker 1: do workshops, we do panels, we do keynotes, fem tech
4:55
Speaker 1: latin X Tech intro to Podcasting, Goddess Workshop, Worship, fem Defense,
5:00
Speaker 1: have you all of our copy pitles can be turned
5:02
Speaker 1: into all of them a latica. And as you know,
5:05
Speaker 1: we fem see we do parties, so keep that in mind. Anyways, anyways, okay,
5:12
Speaker 1: so that we have had to fly through this, we
5:15
Speaker 1: really want to get y'all to this next interview that
5:18
Speaker 1: we have with the one and only Yes or call
5:24
Speaker 1: ros and and and and and and and and and
5:33
Speaker 1: and and and and and and and and and and
5:45
Speaker 1: send and and friends and and um um um from
6:05
Speaker 1: it and and we are back. We're back. We're back.
6:13
Speaker 1: We're back. And we have a very very very very
6:16
Speaker 1: very special guest with us here today. Yes, we have
6:19
Speaker 1: the one and only our home girl, our favorite poet. Yes. Hello, everybody,
6:26
Speaker 1: please please welcome Yessica. She's back on the podcast, back
6:29
Speaker 1: on local. She has new work that has not yet
6:33
Speaker 1: been released. She's going to talk to us about it. Yes,
6:36
Speaker 1: and but before we get into that, um, we actually
6:39
Speaker 1: want to answer some o Yelka's questions with Yessica before
6:43
Speaker 1: we talk about her new book, the Soto and the
6:45
Speaker 1: process and everything that she's going to share with us.
6:48
Speaker 1: So let's get into our segments. All right, all right,
6:52
Speaker 1: so the first question think always always in. So the
6:57
Speaker 1: first question that we have is where is yourself confidence
7:01
Speaker 1: come from? Who wants to start? Who wants to start?
7:05
Speaker 1: That's a big question, and we've been getting asked that
7:07
Speaker 1: question a lot recently on the socials. I think because
7:10
Speaker 1: people see you like stunning on the on the grounds
7:13
Speaker 1: and yeah, so they feel like maybe you're really confident,
7:17
Speaker 1: which possibly, but also like maybe not maybe not. Yeah,
7:21
Speaker 1: Well it's summer too, and I think for summer for
7:23
Speaker 1: many of us like a where we feel most anadequate
7:26
Speaker 1: in our bodies. It's high. We feel gross and ekey,
7:29
Speaker 1: and and it's easy to look at people's pictures and
7:32
Speaker 1: be like they look so fly, Like no, I was
7:34
Speaker 1: s writing my ass out uncomfortable, Like I took that
7:37
Speaker 1: outfit off the minute I took the picture. It's just
7:39
Speaker 1: for the gram, um. But I think a lot of
7:43
Speaker 1: times too, for getting to a place of confidence is
7:46
Speaker 1: about faking it till you make it okay, Like, um,
7:50
Speaker 1: you know, like I feel hell uncomfortable in this outfit,
7:52
Speaker 1: but um, I'm gonna take pictures in it anyway, And
7:55
Speaker 1: then you share it online and you get so much
7:58
Speaker 1: validation that might make you brave enough to wear it
8:01
Speaker 1: like outside of the house, you know. And and I
8:04
Speaker 1: think that that's how a lot of my self growth started,
8:07
Speaker 1: like taking pictures and being like, no, I'm worthy of
8:11
Speaker 1: a picture, I'm worthy of a selfie and Shane it
8:14
Speaker 1: and then Shane and not having anybody boomy, you know,
8:18
Speaker 1: like whatever. Then I was just like okay, all right, cool,
8:22
Speaker 1: I got it. Yeah, Well, that reminds me. You had
8:25
Speaker 1: the hashtag going for a while, the hashtag yes, and
8:30
Speaker 1: that was a really good movement. It was. It was
8:32
Speaker 1: a few years. It was. It's been about two years.
8:34
Speaker 1: I can't believe it. It's been two years. And we
8:36
Speaker 1: were just becoming fine yeah history, yes, and and it
8:41
Speaker 1: was it had a mind of its own. I've been
8:42
Speaker 1: wanting to do it again, but um my following is
8:46
Speaker 1: so much more bigger now than I don't know, I'll
8:48
Speaker 1: be able to wade through other pictures and I hate
8:50
Speaker 1: not being able to share all the pictures, you know.
8:52
Speaker 1: And but it was buns and invited anybody of anybody
8:56
Speaker 1: type to take pictures of themselves and crop tops because
9:00
Speaker 1: it was right when I was all about the top
9:02
Speaker 1: top and it got picked up by like and Huffington everywhere,
9:08
Speaker 1: like it was a very needed movement and and it
9:11
Speaker 1: was really exciting and it was really cool and was
9:15
Speaker 1: in it. I was yes, and a bunch of other
9:18
Speaker 1: like come girls, where lots of people submitted photos. Yeah,
9:21
Speaker 1: because I think that was we were just getting to
9:24
Speaker 1: know each other really, so it was a really good
9:26
Speaker 1: moment I think to share. And then we also did
9:28
Speaker 1: the lipstick one. Yeah, when I did it lipstick one
9:31
Speaker 1: where I invited women of different colors to share them,
9:36
Speaker 1: and that one also got picked up. But yeah, it's
9:39
Speaker 1: it's a lot of us are looking at there, are
9:41
Speaker 1: looking for other confident people or or want to be
9:44
Speaker 1: told her confident. Well that reminds me thinking of the
9:47
Speaker 1: hashtag which is how I got introduced into the film community,
9:50
Speaker 1: is hashtag Fans of Color Visibility, which the l Fans
9:54
Speaker 1: of Color Collective started, and that one the same thing
9:56
Speaker 1: has like had like a mind of its own. It
9:58
Speaker 1: has like over ten thou post now and it's just
10:01
Speaker 1: all these different folks of different body types, like you said,
10:04
Speaker 1: different skin colors, different gender identities, um identifying a spense
10:09
Speaker 1: of color. So also seeing that I'm seeing all these
10:11
Speaker 1: badass people, all these beautiful people sharing photos. It's like, yeah,
10:15
Speaker 1: I have so much to be grateful for in my
10:18
Speaker 1: own body or feel confident in love, you know what
10:20
Speaker 1: I mean? Yeah, I love how you also bring up
10:23
Speaker 1: summer and confidence, Like specifically I think about the fact that,
10:27
Speaker 1: like you're saying, in summer, we're wearing fewer clothing than
10:30
Speaker 1: the rest of the year. And something that I think
10:33
Speaker 1: is huge too, is how that also goes hand in
10:35
Speaker 1: hand with increased street harassment. Yes, and so maybe you
10:40
Speaker 1: get your validation, you get your confidence up, you wear
10:42
Speaker 1: your little outfit out of the house, and then how
10:44
Speaker 1: do you maintain your confidence when you're being targeted and
10:47
Speaker 1: shouted at, being street her at, Because the main purpose
10:51
Speaker 1: of street harressment is aggression. Aggression's not actually a compliment,
10:54
Speaker 1: is to tear you down because you you feel confident
10:57
Speaker 1: and you look confidence, I'm gonna make uncommell. It's intimidation
11:01
Speaker 1: and social control. So for me, I always think of that, like,
11:04
Speaker 1: what what does it mean to be confidence? Exactly? When
11:07
Speaker 1: the confidence is almost like a challenge to like this masculinity,
11:10
Speaker 1: and so they want to make sure that you know,
11:13
Speaker 1: right the kind of power that they have to at
11:15
Speaker 1: least you or to make you feel uncomfortable, intimidate you.
11:19
Speaker 1: Oh my god. I mean I say a lot to that.
11:23
Speaker 1: I have a friend to go the most beautiful when
11:25
Speaker 1: I'm defiant, and I think that, um, for us, beauty
11:29
Speaker 1: is defiance, right, and that not the the stereotypical idea
11:34
Speaker 1: of beauty, but however we each personally define it. But
11:37
Speaker 1: for you to say like I'm worth looking at and
11:39
Speaker 1: I'm worth like being praised is some but not by
11:44
Speaker 1: the male gaze, like this kind of like defiant statement.
11:49
Speaker 1: Absolutely yeah, And I mean, like, you know, we all
11:52
Speaker 1: learn how to weaponize ore are are are badass attitudes
11:55
Speaker 1: to like you were shapes when you're out, or like
11:58
Speaker 1: you take the over to the place and back or
12:01
Speaker 1: are you ready to flip off any car and whatever
12:04
Speaker 1: it along siletto nails? Yes, you know, we weaponize our
12:10
Speaker 1: our bodies however we can. We talked, We've talked about that.
12:15
Speaker 1: I think too is and specifically like I think for us,
12:18
Speaker 1: and I think about myself having pretty privilege and these
12:23
Speaker 1: different things, right, and I fucking I milk the ship
12:27
Speaker 1: out of my pretty privilege as often and as much
12:30
Speaker 1: as I can. Fuck that like, we have only certain
12:33
Speaker 1: things that we can work with. Might as well if
12:35
Speaker 1: this is my capital, this is my capital. I don't
12:38
Speaker 1: have financial capital, I don't have the narrow right, but
12:42
Speaker 1: I can use this. I say, if we're using that
12:44
Speaker 1: privilege to work against which y'all do, to work against patriarchy,
12:47
Speaker 1: off for it, right, because we know better than to
12:50
Speaker 1: use it against other like thems and women and stuff
12:52
Speaker 1: like that. So I think when people here pretty privilege,
12:55
Speaker 1: we think that it's privilege over other women, and we're like, no, no, no,
12:59
Speaker 1: it's a privilege that men think they're giving us. But
13:02
Speaker 1: we turned it around and red on the weizing we're
13:06
Speaker 1: literally using it to our advance. It's a resource for survival.
13:11
Speaker 1: It's a resource for survival. And I also think about
13:14
Speaker 1: how whether it's career or whether it's related to like
13:20
Speaker 1: entertainment or art, how there is this premium and there's
13:24
Speaker 1: this focus put on youth also. So it's like, if
13:28
Speaker 1: we don't do this now, we don't utilize now, then
13:31
Speaker 1: when yeah, people think I'm in my mid thirties and
13:34
Speaker 1: you're mid thirties, you're not You're not invited to a
13:37
Speaker 1: lot of the things that other people are but because
13:40
Speaker 1: I look so young, right, I still get invited to
13:42
Speaker 1: like the up and coming blah blah blah blah blah.
13:45
Speaker 1: I don't correct anybody until I'm sitting on the panel,
13:48
Speaker 1: but like, oh no, I'm thirty four years old, and
13:49
Speaker 1: they're like, we thought you were twenty by them. It's
13:52
Speaker 1: my good jeans exactly. But I'm here alreadything You're not
13:55
Speaker 1: going to tell me to go home exactly, and that's
13:57
Speaker 1: what matters. Yeah, yeah, yes, I cannot believe that we
14:01
Speaker 1: have seen you now through two books. You're like the
14:05
Speaker 1: way So when we met you, of course you were
14:08
Speaker 1: already known and you were being established and really establishing yourself.
14:13
Speaker 1: But now a couple of years later, can you tell us, like,
14:16
Speaker 1: what are the major differences for you? We actually still
14:19
Speaker 1: had another question, Mama, yeah, you know, which is why
14:24
Speaker 1: are you going into because I don't know, I know.
14:27
Speaker 1: I felt like it was time to have that because
14:29
Speaker 1: it's a good segue in in the next question, which
14:32
Speaker 1: was what was the question? The question is how do
14:34
Speaker 1: you deal with friends who vent about negative things? And
14:37
Speaker 1: I'm that friend sometimes and you both know that because
14:40
Speaker 1: you're the people that I've went to too, like my
14:42
Speaker 1: anxiety sometimes gets me dwelling a lot on things that
14:47
Speaker 1: I don't need to be dwelling on. Right, So, like
14:49
Speaker 1: when I start venting, like I'm obsessing over one small
14:52
Speaker 1: thing in the larger picture, and I think what you
14:55
Speaker 1: both are, what you both are good at doing with
14:58
Speaker 1: me is reminding me of the bigger picture being okay,
15:01
Speaker 1: but you know, like you'll like nudge me in the direction,
15:04
Speaker 1: but how was your show yesterday? And then I'd be like,
15:07
Speaker 1: but I want to talk about how this one person
15:09
Speaker 1: didn't didn't acknowledge this one thing. And then you'd be like,
15:13
Speaker 1: but how was your show? Like what are you doing
15:15
Speaker 1: next week? And then I'm like, oh, I need to
15:17
Speaker 1: remember of like I need to remember what's actually happening
15:20
Speaker 1: in my life and that this negative moment is a
15:24
Speaker 1: moment that's going to pass by. You give me the
15:26
Speaker 1: space to talk about it. But then after a while
15:28
Speaker 1: you're like, a right, bitch, let's remember the good things
15:31
Speaker 1: and let's push it along. And I really appreciate like
15:33
Speaker 1: both of you for doing that, like in our in
15:36
Speaker 1: our text messages, because both of us, I text with
15:39
Speaker 1: both of you at least a few times a week,
15:41
Speaker 1: if not every day, and so it's like I enjoy
15:45
Speaker 1: having friends like that, and then like I think it's important.
15:48
Speaker 1: I agree. Yeah, I would say, um, to put up
15:51
Speaker 1: your boundary. I mean at that point, and this is
15:54
Speaker 1: just in general about friends, Like at some point, um,
15:57
Speaker 1: people just like to complain. Yeah, and if you like
16:01
Speaker 1: are offering solutions and it's still like, well there's this
16:04
Speaker 1: and there's that, and it's still complain, complain, complain. Well,
16:06
Speaker 1: it's not really about the issue anymore. It's more about
16:08
Speaker 1: I want to complain. So if that's the case, I
16:11
Speaker 1: can put up your boundary. You've offered a solution. They
16:13
Speaker 1: don't want to take it, that's fine, they can figure
16:15
Speaker 1: it out with someone else or on their own. Yeah. Um,
16:18
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't really feel like I have. I
16:22
Speaker 1: don't feel like I have a lot of friends who
16:25
Speaker 1: are constantly venting about negative thing. Agree. I'm also like,
16:28
Speaker 1: this is why I pay a therapist. Sure, Like you
16:31
Speaker 1: know you and I, yes, you gotta have our heart
16:33
Speaker 1: to heart conversations and like that dynamic and that conversation
16:36
Speaker 1: that you just described, Like I totally agree. I think
16:39
Speaker 1: that's really accurate. But I don't. I've never considered it
16:41
Speaker 1: like you know your life is tied directly to your art,
16:46
Speaker 1: So I like, I understand that these things come up
16:50
Speaker 1: and they're like constant, you know, because you're constantly creating
16:53
Speaker 1: art and reflecting on the things going on in your life.
16:56
Speaker 1: But I feel like to like a lot of my friends,
16:59
Speaker 1: we have of I was just talking to somebody about
17:01
Speaker 1: this because I um still helped to train advocates. So
17:06
Speaker 1: last week I was at Peace Over Violence, still training advocates,
17:08
Speaker 1: and we were joking like, oh, you know, like nobody
17:11
Speaker 1: ever leaves this place. Is it because we love it is?
17:13
Speaker 1: Or is it trauma bonding? You know what I mean?
17:16
Speaker 1: And so we were kind of joking amongst ourselves. And
17:18
Speaker 1: this is very true when I'm with my friends who
17:20
Speaker 1: also have been raped crisis counselors, is that we have
17:23
Speaker 1: this very macabre, very dark sort of humor. And I think,
17:27
Speaker 1: group by group, depending on what kind of life you're
17:29
Speaker 1: living and the work you do in your social life.
17:31
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure amongst poets, you guys have your own
17:34
Speaker 1: humor and you joke about things that I'm going to
17:35
Speaker 1: have no idea with us, we have a very specific
17:39
Speaker 1: type of humor based on experience, you know. So I
17:42
Speaker 1: just feel like I'm surrounded by people who like it's
17:45
Speaker 1: very situational, you know. You know, but um, I kind
17:49
Speaker 1: of if I can't handle like negative conversation anymore negative talk,
17:54
Speaker 1: I just kind of check out and just stop engaging
17:56
Speaker 1: because I just especially if it's online or get text
18:00
Speaker 1: because I just can't. I can maybe pick it up later,
18:03
Speaker 1: but I just disengage. We have texted easy to dip
18:07
Speaker 1: out on the conversation, and um, sometimes you have you know,
18:11
Speaker 1: we all we want all these people that go on rents,
18:13
Speaker 1: on negative rents, like big rents, and then you're kind
18:17
Speaker 1: of like, okay, they're going through something like you and
18:20
Speaker 1: I have had friends, um where we've been like, you know,
18:24
Speaker 1: this person is going through like a couple of days
18:26
Speaker 1: of rent, like should we check in, like we decided
18:29
Speaker 1: we want to check out or not? And they we're
18:31
Speaker 1: like no, we're just gonna give them their space to
18:33
Speaker 1: write it out, and they write it out and then
18:34
Speaker 1: it's fine or whatever. But then that we were there
18:38
Speaker 1: talking about me. No, no, we'll just be following rents.
18:42
Speaker 1: We'll just be following people stuff. And then we're like
18:45
Speaker 1: do we like jump in and like no, we're just
18:47
Speaker 1: gonna let them write it out, and then they write
18:49
Speaker 1: it out and everything's cool, everything's fine. That's why I
18:51
Speaker 1: do appreciate, you know what. Like for the past six
18:53
Speaker 1: seven years, my Twitter has been my place where I
18:56
Speaker 1: have done my venting and my my ship talking and
19:00
Speaker 1: especially anything having to do with like, you know, uh,
19:03
Speaker 1: gender based violence, sexual violence. And I did a thread
19:06
Speaker 1: once on Twitter where I was basically explaining, like you
19:09
Speaker 1: know what on Twitter and on Instagram. On Twitter especially,
19:13
Speaker 1: you can mute specific words. You can mute people. On
19:17
Speaker 1: Instagram you can you can mute people. I utilized the
19:20
Speaker 1: mute feature on Instagram feature and pa the story mute
19:25
Speaker 1: feed I Love you up. When I was working on
19:27
Speaker 1: my book, I was getting really bad fomo. I muted
19:30
Speaker 1: all the mommy, oh my god. I knew they are
19:33
Speaker 1: you know sometimes you have to. I wasn't that of
19:34
Speaker 1: like anything, but I was just in my feelings when
19:39
Speaker 1: Connie was here, shout out. Connie from New York City
19:44
Speaker 1: was sending me like fomo messages on Instagram and I'm like, bitch,
19:47
Speaker 1: you're in Hawaii. Why do you have fomo right now?
19:52
Speaker 1: We we fomo each other so much, but then never
19:55
Speaker 1: see each other. Which is like the weirdest right, Like
19:57
Speaker 1: we're like we all are together without me, Like what
20:00
Speaker 1: you could be here too, right right? Everyone is busy everyone,
20:05
Speaker 1: So I think, like going back to like Jessica, how
20:08
Speaker 1: you started off, how sometimes you feel maybe you're the
20:10
Speaker 1: one who's venting negatively. Um yeah, so I feel like
20:14
Speaker 1: I'm that person. But I try and really only do
20:16
Speaker 1: it online. But you know, I know you can. You
20:18
Speaker 1: you can, bro, you can mute me, bock me, and
20:21
Speaker 1: follow me because I try not to do it too
20:23
Speaker 1: much with my family or with people around me, you
20:27
Speaker 1: know what I mean. My hard thing is that I'm
20:29
Speaker 1: learning is that I don't have that luxourney anymore because
20:33
Speaker 1: I've become so visible and I don't even know how
20:36
Speaker 1: celebrities do it, you know, because I'm not like a celebrity.
20:40
Speaker 1: I mean, you know what I mean. Sure, but a
20:43
Speaker 1: lot of the things that I say are thrown back
20:45
Speaker 1: at me or I already have trolls that already like
20:48
Speaker 1: are hovering around, like most of these are most of
20:51
Speaker 1: these are are are white men that are like waiting
20:54
Speaker 1: for me to say something that they can I was.
20:56
Speaker 1: I shared a video of a cousin of mine, like
21:00
Speaker 1: a distant cousin who's like a Christian rapper and it's awful,
21:04
Speaker 1: And they shared the video on my Instagram on my Twitter,
21:07
Speaker 1: and then I got messages with people saying that I
21:09
Speaker 1: was like ridiculing my cousin and then I'm a terrible
21:13
Speaker 1: person and so like so even things like that, like everything,
21:17
Speaker 1: I always have to be braced. I always have to
21:19
Speaker 1: brace myself to be confrontational online. And I don't think
21:23
Speaker 1: that because there is a softness to me that I
21:25
Speaker 1: don't want to ever have to lose. So I I
21:27
Speaker 1: go to my friends for that and y'all hold that
21:30
Speaker 1: kind of space for me. But yeah, that also that
21:34
Speaker 1: comment made towards you is so freaking annoying. That literally
21:37
Speaker 1: family is for roasting each other. Purpose of family talking
21:42
Speaker 1: and ridiculing one another, but with love. Yeah, And if
21:45
Speaker 1: I was me and I was shooting on my Instagram
21:46
Speaker 1: where I have everybody everybody following me and the Twitter,
21:50
Speaker 1: it's not as many, right right, right, No, people definitely
21:56
Speaker 1: wait around to catch somebody slipping, And it's just it's
21:59
Speaker 1: just a reality that you know, coming to this realization,
22:02
Speaker 1: anything you say canna will be used against you, definitely
22:05
Speaker 1: on your way I would say, I'll give an opinion
22:07
Speaker 1: something small, and then suddenly, um, it's a big deal,
22:12
Speaker 1: like out sometimes I search my name because you miss things.
22:15
Speaker 1: And then somebody's gone in the whole rent about yes,
22:19
Speaker 1: about yes, talking about line breaks in a poem, about
22:23
Speaker 1: what she doesn't like in a poem. And then they're like,
22:25
Speaker 1: but I didn't go to yeah, No, we're not going
22:27
Speaker 1: to go into that. That's a whole different conversation. Yeah.
22:31
Speaker 1: And then because this person goes yeah. Once people get
22:33
Speaker 1: into like published and they're in the literary world, I'm like, bitch,
22:37
Speaker 1: where I didn't want to, like, I don't, I don't.
22:40
Speaker 1: I'm not in the literary world. I'm in yes, because world.
22:44
Speaker 1: You created your own lane. I read your own Yes,
22:48
Speaker 1: and it took me many a decade, right, Well, you
22:51
Speaker 1: talked about that recently on social media, about how folks
22:54
Speaker 1: will just see the success and not actually see all
22:56
Speaker 1: of the work that you put behind it on screen
23:00
Speaker 1: the years. I mean, I didn't finish high school, but
23:03
Speaker 1: even since I was a kid, I knew I wanted
23:05
Speaker 1: to just write, and I knew that's what I wanted
23:07
Speaker 1: to do, and I spent years just in books, not
23:11
Speaker 1: even hanging out with people, just reading and consuming anything
23:14
Speaker 1: I could get my hands on. I worked in a
23:16
Speaker 1: parking structure for almost ten years. I worked retail our
23:20
Speaker 1: jobs that I hated, but gave me the schedule where
23:23
Speaker 1: I could still go to open mics at night or
23:26
Speaker 1: during the weekends. The last year that I was working
23:28
Speaker 1: at at CVS is when we met you. Is when
23:31
Speaker 1: we met you were as I was still at CBS,
23:34
Speaker 1: and I would be so stressed because I didn't want
23:35
Speaker 1: to turn down shows that because I was getting more
23:38
Speaker 1: shows offered. Did you know that my first article that
23:40
Speaker 1: I ever was interviewed for was Better Our Homeguard? I
23:43
Speaker 1: kid for the woman Crushing the Patriarchy? Wednesday, I was
23:47
Speaker 1: at CBS waiting thirty minutes, but she couldn't. She wanted
23:52
Speaker 1: She's on East Coast time, so she wanted to do
23:54
Speaker 1: a certain time. So I was already at work about
23:56
Speaker 1: to block in, and I'm in the back of the
23:58
Speaker 1: store in my work unif form on the phone being
24:01
Speaker 1: interviewed about my poetry to be on a fucking on
24:05
Speaker 1: Latina magazine. And then they're telling me if I could
24:09
Speaker 1: clock in early, and I'm like waving them away because
24:11
Speaker 1: I'm talking to Record, who wasn't my friend yet at
24:14
Speaker 1: the time, and then and then I clock in and
24:16
Speaker 1: get yaled at for eight hours. And then like when
24:19
Speaker 1: you wrote the five article for me, which was like
24:21
Speaker 1: my first huge, huge, well Record's article was huge too,
24:25
Speaker 1: but the five article just kind of went viral everywhere.
24:27
Speaker 1: I love that article article. I was still working at CBS.
24:31
Speaker 1: We couldn't schedule a time because I wasn't working, right,
24:34
Speaker 1: I met I met up with Yes, I met up
24:36
Speaker 1: with you at the Poetry Lounge, and we did like
24:39
Speaker 1: a quick interview outside because that's the only times that
24:42
Speaker 1: I would have because my tuesdays I would every job
24:44
Speaker 1: I would again, I would say I couldn't work Tuesday
24:46
Speaker 1: nights because I had school. Because people never fight you
24:49
Speaker 1: about school, right, but it was my school. It was
24:52
Speaker 1: my lounge. How you learned. That's so funny because Mom
24:56
Speaker 1: and I were talking either day. It's like all these
24:58
Speaker 1: things that you do to get to the point where
25:01
Speaker 1: you're at, Like nobody knows about that, you know. Like
25:04
Speaker 1: Mom and I had to drive for a meeting on
25:07
Speaker 1: the West Side and we had to be there by
25:08
Speaker 1: four o'clock, like punctual. We're both left our jobs at
25:11
Speaker 1: three o'clock. I'm like, I'm like, way on the south
25:15
Speaker 1: side of l A like for my job is and
25:17
Speaker 1: then having to drive like I was stressed driving to
25:20
Speaker 1: the west side, hadn't even changed out of my work clothes,
25:23
Speaker 1: hadn't even put lipstick on, couldn't even start in my hair,
25:26
Speaker 1: like nothing, nothing, nothing, And I'm like, you can't say
25:28
Speaker 1: that we did not hustle to get You can never
25:31
Speaker 1: say to this meeting, you can never say that we
25:33
Speaker 1: didn't hustle. And like being we're at work at our
25:35
Speaker 1: day jobs and we're still whenever we can steal the
25:38
Speaker 1: moment I've taken, like podcast calls, like for future engagements
25:43
Speaker 1: and things just like sneaking out of my office and
25:45
Speaker 1: just taking the call, sneaking out of work a little
25:48
Speaker 1: bit early so that I can get to the other
25:50
Speaker 1: side of town. The car answering, the emails, printing stuff
25:55
Speaker 1: that you're not so opposed to, and supplies homes wrote
26:00
Speaker 1: in buses, I don't I don't drive, so when I
26:03
Speaker 1: was working, I would take the bus everywhere. Because it's funny,
26:06
Speaker 1: I mean more money now than when I had a
26:08
Speaker 1: full time job and was doing poetry, right, But I
26:10
Speaker 1: would take the bus everywhere because I couldn't afford to
26:12
Speaker 1: takeovers and start be on the bus finishing a poem
26:15
Speaker 1: for a thing that I had to do, or answering
26:18
Speaker 1: emails and booking things while fucking being at at the
26:22
Speaker 1: bus stop waiting for the next bus. Um, I'm carrying
26:26
Speaker 1: my clothes with me in my bag and changing in
26:28
Speaker 1: public bathrooms, right, trying to make some semblance of cute
26:34
Speaker 1: while you're like on the go and and people just
26:36
Speaker 1: now they just see, um what they see. And then
26:40
Speaker 1: they try to say that this is some kind of privilege,
26:43
Speaker 1: and then I'm like, in the sense it is, but
26:45
Speaker 1: I thought very very very hard or everything I have,
26:49
Speaker 1: and you don't stop. It's constant, constant producing working. There's
26:55
Speaker 1: always something else that has to be done. It's a
26:57
Speaker 1: constant cycle. There's no like level out. I keep going,
27:02
Speaker 1: you can keep pushing it. You know. I started working.
27:04
Speaker 1: I start working the moment I opened my eyes, I
27:06
Speaker 1: reached for my phone and check my emails, check my
27:10
Speaker 1: d MS, check my Instagram. Everything All of that is work.
27:14
Speaker 1: I'm working from the moment that I wake up to
27:15
Speaker 1: the moment that I go to sleep. And if you
27:18
Speaker 1: tell people, oh, I'm not going to work today. I'm
27:20
Speaker 1: not gonna do something today. There's always somebody in your
27:22
Speaker 1: dams with a question, asking for your time or something
27:25
Speaker 1: like that, and I'm very grateful for it, and I
27:27
Speaker 1: try to do as much as I can. But some
27:29
Speaker 1: days I'm just like, yeah, I need a chill, yeah,
27:33
Speaker 1: and I'm right no, and you know, And I think
27:36
Speaker 1: it's that balance too, because like it's a lot of fun.
27:39
Speaker 1: Like I love everything. I wouldn't trade a minute of it. No,
27:43
Speaker 1: we love it. I love our listeners. I love the
27:45
Speaker 1: engagement online. I love running into listeners out in public.
27:48
Speaker 1: And it happens a lot. It happens all the time.
27:51
Speaker 1: We don't even we're not even thinking about it, and
27:53
Speaker 1: then somebody lets us know, Oh my god, I listen
27:56
Speaker 1: or I follow There was a listener at the gym time,
28:00
Speaker 1: and I was more in fight only because I'm like,
28:02
Speaker 1: you know, not feeling cute at the gym. And then
28:05
Speaker 1: I get a message and she's like, oh my god,
28:07
Speaker 1: I thought it was you. I've been following you in
28:09
Speaker 1: Mala forever and I wanted to die. I mean, she's
28:11
Speaker 1: really cute and we're friends now, but she's my gym friend,
28:14
Speaker 1: but still like like worst fear is being like, you know,
28:18
Speaker 1: like shunk that exactly exactly that happened. Run into people
28:24
Speaker 1: because I run in, I run into people. What you
28:28
Speaker 1: all happen with me? Like we run into we run
28:30
Speaker 1: into we won I do or me or all of
28:33
Speaker 1: us or whatever? Right, Um, I've been at my fucking
28:37
Speaker 1: coffee shop where I do my work and then like
28:40
Speaker 1: like crusty and I just rolled out. I'm like, I
28:43
Speaker 1: gotta get out eight hours of writing in and then
28:46
Speaker 1: someone comes in and like, oh my god, yes, I
28:47
Speaker 1: kind of sitting there like no makeup on my face,
28:49
Speaker 1: like I don't even know if I washed my face
28:52
Speaker 1: before I taking out my house and and I hopped
28:55
Speaker 1: up with coffee crying because I'm working on the sad
28:57
Speaker 1: poem and but it's crossed us. That's the process. It's
29:01
Speaker 1: all really really worth it though, And I'm living my
29:04
Speaker 1: life's calling and so um, it's not like when I
29:08
Speaker 1: used to work retail and I would get up and
29:09
Speaker 1: cry because I had to go do something that I
29:11
Speaker 1: didn't want to do. At least now that I know
29:13
Speaker 1: I might have a flight at seven in the morning
29:14
Speaker 1: and I'm waking up at five it's like, all right,
29:16
Speaker 1: can hear us out? Like, once you get to the
29:19
Speaker 1: city that you're going to, you're gonna be happy. It's
29:21
Speaker 1: gonna be fine. That's really And you know, like so
29:24
Speaker 1: many people are rooting for you and love you, and
29:26
Speaker 1: like I'm so we're so proud of you, so proud
29:29
Speaker 1: of you. And um, I love that you talked about
29:32
Speaker 1: your coffee shop where you right, because I feel like
29:34
Speaker 1: it's a good segue. It's getting into your process. I
29:38
Speaker 1: know that a big part of your posting and preparing
29:42
Speaker 1: people for this Sotto has been talking about how this
29:44
Speaker 1: process of writing this second book has been different versus
29:48
Speaker 1: the process writing Grasson, And I'd love to hear more
29:51
Speaker 1: about your journey from Grasson to this, Soto and what's
29:55
Speaker 1: been the same, what's been different? Oh my goodness. Well
29:58
Speaker 1: when I had when I had Quartetson, I was like
30:02
Speaker 1: Quartetson was in the book that I thought it was
30:04
Speaker 1: going to be right and then becoming something. But the
30:07
Speaker 1: minute that my publisher and I sat down and we
30:09
Speaker 1: signed a contract, I already knew, like the book came
30:12
Speaker 1: to me just like Okay, this is what we're gonna tell.
30:15
Speaker 1: And with the story of relationship, so it's easy the
30:17
Speaker 1: relationship at the beginning, middle, end, and then and then
30:21
Speaker 1: like whatever I want to stay at the end of that, right,
30:23
Speaker 1: like I'm quotason heels yourself, which is what what the
30:27
Speaker 1: ending of it was, right, celebrating the way I love
30:30
Speaker 1: and so um working on that was finding. They said
30:33
Speaker 1: that usually your first book is already written because you
30:36
Speaker 1: have all your material. And my first two books were
30:39
Speaker 1: already written because a lot of the Sooto was already
30:41
Speaker 1: written to going into that. But um and as I
30:45
Speaker 1: was working on quartetson because it was my first book
30:47
Speaker 1: and it was so exciting. I had so many people
30:49
Speaker 1: like or the summer just was different last year. But man,
30:53
Speaker 1: I used to come and sit with me a lot
30:55
Speaker 1: last or other people would randomly come and be with us,
30:59
Speaker 1: or like come through and I hung out with you.
31:01
Speaker 1: I was well at the time because of my job,
31:04
Speaker 1: because I was working on call, you know, I had
31:07
Speaker 1: sometimes like days during the week, during the work day
31:10
Speaker 1: where I was free because maybe I had to work
31:12
Speaker 1: the overnight shift that day. So I would come and
31:14
Speaker 1: sit with you, and like I was, I would try
31:16
Speaker 1: to get work done out a ship done. Now. We
31:17
Speaker 1: would talk and then I would cry we went we
31:21
Speaker 1: were processing. You and I were both processing a lot. Yeah,
31:24
Speaker 1: that summer, definitely a lot because I hadn't been in
31:28
Speaker 1: the hospital and then here I was writing and then
31:31
Speaker 1: a heartbroken and writing this whole book, and then you
31:34
Speaker 1: were I was in the midst of my breakup and
31:36
Speaker 1: messy fucking breakup. And then I remember that a lot
31:39
Speaker 1: of after your conversations with you, I had a different
31:42
Speaker 1: perspective to write certain poems from right. Like I remember
31:46
Speaker 1: walking to the coffee shop and my friend Givan calling
31:48
Speaker 1: me and checking, I mean, because this is my first book.
31:51
Speaker 1: So like people are more like, okay, are you good?
31:54
Speaker 1: Are you good? And so like pushing in the way
31:56
Speaker 1: then not knowing it was pushing me right. So then
31:58
Speaker 1: the STO comes around and people think that They're like, oh,
32:01
Speaker 1: you got it, right, So they give you the space
32:04
Speaker 1: for you to do your book or whatever, because I've
32:06
Speaker 1: done my zines and I've done my first book, so
32:09
Speaker 1: they're like, oh, you got it. And so I'm at
32:11
Speaker 1: the coffee shop and then it was hard because for
32:14
Speaker 1: what I saw, I was very diligent every day from
32:17
Speaker 1: this time to this time, and for the Soto because
32:20
Speaker 1: I'm was just touring. Then I was slamming, then I
32:24
Speaker 1: was doing all these things I was, and then all
32:26
Speaker 1: the other things for courtes so I'm still happening. I
32:28
Speaker 1: was so exhausted that it was so hard to drag
32:30
Speaker 1: myself out of bed and go right. And then I
32:33
Speaker 1: would get there and to go right. And I was
32:35
Speaker 1: by myself for like eight ten hours in the coffee shop.
32:38
Speaker 1: And so it was the soliditary It was a very
32:41
Speaker 1: solitary process. And um, the Soto subject matter kept changing.
32:46
Speaker 1: And then because I had been thinking about it for
32:49
Speaker 1: a year, right and I had been talking about it,
32:50
Speaker 1: and they kept changing, they kept changing. Then I was
32:52
Speaker 1: frustrated that it wasn't what I told everybody was going
32:55
Speaker 1: to be. And then um, and then it started becoming
32:58
Speaker 1: what it is. And and it's a very dense book,
33:01
Speaker 1: and it's very heavy in a in a very free way.
33:06
Speaker 1: But I got lost in the heaviness of it's a
33:08
Speaker 1: while and it felt very lonely, and it wasn't much
33:12
Speaker 1: of a sad lonely, but in then, like at the
33:15
Speaker 1: end of the day, it's just me and these poems.
33:18
Speaker 1: It's just me and my it's me and my story,
33:21
Speaker 1: and it's my job to figure it out and wade
33:24
Speaker 1: through the thick of it, through the mud and just
33:27
Speaker 1: see what we like, get the Sotos and like literally
33:31
Speaker 1: that's what it was, like, where is the treasure? Where
33:33
Speaker 1: what is this motherfucker gonna look like? Because I don't
33:36
Speaker 1: even know, I don't even know, And getting to the
33:39
Speaker 1: treasure of the book. And then at the end, once
33:41
Speaker 1: I put the book together, realized that I wasn't telling
33:44
Speaker 1: the story of the woman in my family. I was
33:45
Speaker 1: telling my story and and yeah, well, you know, thank
33:50
Speaker 1: you for sharing all of that. So the Soto is
33:53
Speaker 1: broken up into five sections, correct, So can you tell
33:57
Speaker 1: us you have your your sections named something like very
34:01
Speaker 1: specific and it's gonna it sets the story, that sets
34:04
Speaker 1: the state the scene for the rest of the story, right,
34:06
Speaker 1: So can you tell us about that process and naming
34:09
Speaker 1: it and how you really organize the book. Yeah? So, um,
34:14
Speaker 1: it was very different too because of Cortes and the
34:16
Speaker 1: titles all have the chapters all have titles, and they're
34:19
Speaker 1: very specific titles, and then they give you kind of
34:22
Speaker 1: an idea what you're going to find in the chapter.
34:25
Speaker 1: In this book, the chapters don't have names, they have numbers,
34:28
Speaker 1: and they have opening quotes and beautiful and that are
34:32
Speaker 1: very beautiful. And if you have read, you recognized the quotes,
34:36
Speaker 1: can I can I read some of them? So the
34:39
Speaker 1: first one, the first opening, the first section is I
34:42
Speaker 1: come from women who fend for themselves. And then the
34:46
Speaker 1: second one is before I knew what I know now,
34:49
Speaker 1: before these palm trees loved me back, just so beautiful,
34:53
Speaker 1: thank you and so and it continues on and on
34:56
Speaker 1: and um the first and so the chapters. I like
35:00
Speaker 1: telling stories in chron chronological order, right. So the first
35:04
Speaker 1: chapter is about the of serving the women in my
35:06
Speaker 1: family and kind of like what what womanhood is to me, right,
35:12
Speaker 1: like by traditional by the women in my family, and
35:15
Speaker 1: so seeing like the woman cook, um, how they take
35:19
Speaker 1: care of their husbands, and also like the abuse and
35:22
Speaker 1: that we endure and how that abuse means love and
35:27
Speaker 1: and then and so there's there's that, right, and then
35:30
Speaker 1: how women aren't allowed to be as free as the men.
35:34
Speaker 1: And then the second chapter about the who I was
35:36
Speaker 1: before I knew what I know now, before these palmptrees
35:38
Speaker 1: ever looked me back. It's me to realize, me discovering
35:42
Speaker 1: my teenage body, my young woman body, like like the
35:48
Speaker 1: first time I have sex, um kind of explained, or
35:51
Speaker 1: the first time that I realized that I'm not beautiful.
35:54
Speaker 1: Like there's a poem I don't know because the copy
35:57
Speaker 1: of the manuscript you did is the one that's being edited,
36:00
Speaker 1: so there's been some changes. But there is also a
36:03
Speaker 1: poem about like the first boy that I fell in
36:05
Speaker 1: love with telling me that I'm not pretty like the
36:08
Speaker 1: other girls, but I'm funny, and so they're realizing that, like, oh,
36:12
Speaker 1: my personality, like I have to make up for it
36:15
Speaker 1: by being nice and agreeable and funny, and and so
36:19
Speaker 1: there's there's and then but as I'm talking about my
36:22
Speaker 1: body and it's changing, I'm also talking I'm kind of
36:25
Speaker 1: talking about l A being gentrified, and so it's kind
36:28
Speaker 1: of like this my city is changing while I'm changing,
36:32
Speaker 1: and and it gives you, like this confusing feeling. But
36:36
Speaker 1: third chapter is the relationship chapter. And of course I know, yes,
36:39
Speaker 1: like a book is going to be a relationship stuff.
36:43
Speaker 1: And but this this chapter is very different to quotes
36:47
Speaker 1: in the sense that it's not centered around a man
36:50
Speaker 1: and um, my biggest it's not a regret her mistake,
36:54
Speaker 1: but a hard time I have a quota someone that
36:57
Speaker 1: it was about a specific person, and I hated the
37:00
Speaker 1: fact that I gave someone so much and and of
37:04
Speaker 1: the book right, especially now it's fine, but at the
37:06
Speaker 1: time when he and I were trying to figure out
37:08
Speaker 1: many things, I had to go to shows or interviews
37:11
Speaker 1: and be asked all these things about this person. And
37:14
Speaker 1: sometimes I'd be madly in love and I had to
37:16
Speaker 1: smile while I was through the interviews. Other times I
37:18
Speaker 1: was just like, funk, I don't want to talk about
37:20
Speaker 1: this again, like I'm still in it, and so um uh.
37:25
Speaker 1: There's a line in the poem that says, every poem
37:27
Speaker 1: I have ever written is about me, And so I
37:29
Speaker 1: centered myself and all of these love poems and these
37:33
Speaker 1: relationship poems where I am the center, like about how
37:36
Speaker 1: I love, how I show up in relationships. Um. There's
37:39
Speaker 1: a poem called Bipolar, when I talk about telling someone
37:41
Speaker 1: in bipolar for the first time. Um. Yeah. And there's
37:44
Speaker 1: a lot and then the next chapter after that is
37:48
Speaker 1: it's the most difficult chapter. And there's a poem in
37:50
Speaker 1: They're called the Soto, which is why the book is
37:52
Speaker 1: named to Soto, and it's about being bilingual and and
37:54
Speaker 1: living in between. Um. The English and the Spanish and that,
38:00
Speaker 1: and and it's a very dense, dense, dense chapter where
38:05
Speaker 1: I'm grieving what I perceived to be my reality and
38:09
Speaker 1: what actually and learning what's the actual things that are happening.
38:13
Speaker 1: So I'm not only mourning the death of my father
38:15
Speaker 1: and my grandmother, but I'm also mourning like who I
38:18
Speaker 1: thought they were, mostly my father, which, yeah, I mean,
38:21
Speaker 1: we go through the stages of grief even when we
38:24
Speaker 1: are either losing someone physically or even just the idea
38:27
Speaker 1: of what the relationship. Changing the idea of who they
38:30
Speaker 1: were in your life and seeing them for who they
38:32
Speaker 1: actually are can also trigger those stages of grief. Yeah,
38:37
Speaker 1: And your your father is always like a big figure
38:39
Speaker 1: in a lot of your poetry, and you talk about
38:43
Speaker 1: I love how in the Soto you ask like where
38:47
Speaker 1: do I begin with my mother, with mydas with my grandmother?
38:50
Speaker 1: And there's this this major question you asked, like, did
38:53
Speaker 1: you survive the men? Didn't they survive? The men were here,
38:56
Speaker 1: even those of us who are still here, we're here,
38:58
Speaker 1: but did we survive the men? Are we surviving the men?
39:01
Speaker 1: And there's the poem in uh In that in that
39:04
Speaker 1: fourth chapter Knives, where It lists all the assaults my
39:09
Speaker 1: mother has been through the assault that I've been through,
39:11
Speaker 1: and realizing that sometimes the men who raised us are
39:15
Speaker 1: the ones that are doing the assault to other people
39:18
Speaker 1: or even to ourselves. Right, And so is this this
39:21
Speaker 1: thing where it's just like, oh, when I see men
39:24
Speaker 1: and ship it even means the ones I love, Oh yeah,
39:27
Speaker 1: we know intimately then are not shipped. We've observed it,
39:31
Speaker 1: we've learned it, we've experienced it, like we know, right,
39:35
Speaker 1: And you performed Knives in front of city Hall for Denim. Yeah,
39:39
Speaker 1: that was a major and that poem. To perform that
39:42
Speaker 1: poem in front of city Hall for such a major
39:44
Speaker 1: audience on Denim Day, you know, a great prevention and
39:48
Speaker 1: education like awareness, like and it's you And I just
39:51
Speaker 1: thought that that was so powerful and amazing. I know
39:54
Speaker 1: everybody there just like felt that poem and loved that poem. Yeah.
39:58
Speaker 1: I had the main sending her behind me and them
40:02
Speaker 1: doing this poem about like there's a line in the
40:04
Speaker 1: poemacies and the man like where I'm listing on this
40:07
Speaker 1: assault and how we women have to share stories like
40:10
Speaker 1: we're surviving a war, right, and how a man will
40:13
Speaker 1: listen to all of that and be like not all
40:15
Speaker 1: of us, and then like and then but we women
40:18
Speaker 1: know that that's that we still even in that conversation,
40:21
Speaker 1: we know that we still got to get ourselves home safe.
40:24
Speaker 1: And so it's like, so these men can sit there
40:27
Speaker 1: and have all this fucking mil rhetoric and explanation eye
40:32
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, I'm the buck, but I'm still going
40:34
Speaker 1: to leave this space. And when I get outside and
40:36
Speaker 1: get hut called some fool, my tryes luck right, you
40:40
Speaker 1: know whatever, I still got to make sure I walked
40:43
Speaker 1: into my home stack. And then when I'm home, I
40:45
Speaker 1: gotta hope that whatever who I live with doesn't do
40:48
Speaker 1: something to me exactly and so and so to do
40:52
Speaker 1: that poem and city Hall, it was fresh when I
40:54
Speaker 1: wrote when I was at City Hall, had just written it. Yes,
40:58
Speaker 1: so it was it was and then black Wood behind.
41:01
Speaker 1: It was a really weird It was a lot. It
41:03
Speaker 1: was a very surreal moment, but it was um um,
41:06
Speaker 1: I'm really grateful that you were able to connect me
41:08
Speaker 1: with with Shirley wanted you. Shirley was like, do you
41:11
Speaker 1: think Yessica? It was Shirley's idea to have you perform it,
41:14
Speaker 1: and she didn't know about that poem. She didn't even
41:16
Speaker 1: know about that poem. But um, and the way you
41:19
Speaker 1: deliver that last line, none of us is like that
41:24
Speaker 1: is like the detail of the poem that like for me,
41:26
Speaker 1: just wraps it all together. You know, thank you, And
41:29
Speaker 1: I will also in this sort of like going back
41:32
Speaker 1: to the beginning of this conversation, you made a statement Yessica,
41:35
Speaker 1: about you know, a woman's youth or her attractiveness sort
41:40
Speaker 1: of being like a green light or permission for men
41:42
Speaker 1: to bother her. And you have this poem excuses about
41:45
Speaker 1: your father and your mother. It's one of my favorite
41:48
Speaker 1: and if I could read a line from it, that's relevant. Right.
41:51
Speaker 1: My mother is a saint. She is rushing home at
41:53
Speaker 1: six o'clock because her husband needs dinner. She has tears
41:56
Speaker 1: over the sink and a tender goodnight. She's the girl
41:59
Speaker 1: three different men tried to push themselves onto. They couldn't help,
42:03
Speaker 1: but want to take, didn't need to ask because her
42:06
Speaker 1: beauty was all the yes they needed. Powerful. My mom
42:10
Speaker 1: tells those stories so casually about all these men, like
42:15
Speaker 1: a lot of women, I feel like our older generations
42:19
Speaker 1: will say things very and very intense, things that happened
42:22
Speaker 1: to them very casually under their breath in passing when
42:29
Speaker 1: they watched like that, it wasn't even them in it,
42:32
Speaker 1: you know, like one was part of this whole dramatic
42:34
Speaker 1: thing where a man trying to kidnap her and all
42:36
Speaker 1: this thing, and then she was to go working like
42:38
Speaker 1: beaded to get away and then like but then men
42:41
Speaker 1: were like that she was still being blamed because they
42:43
Speaker 1: were like, well, what did she do for him to
42:46
Speaker 1: think that he had a right to do that? Right,
42:48
Speaker 1: and so all these things and so as a younger
42:51
Speaker 1: understood how that manifested itself in us being raised. But
42:55
Speaker 1: it was like my mom was very prudish, never talked
42:58
Speaker 1: about and even in that poem made her talks about
43:01
Speaker 1: her first time with my dad. My mom was a
43:03
Speaker 1: virgin when she was with my dad. And then he
43:04
Speaker 1: goes and then she says, then my father was one
43:07
Speaker 1: of these men took her child room said you're not
43:09
Speaker 1: leaving until your mind, and my mother thought it was
43:12
Speaker 1: time that she finally belonged to a man, and then
43:14
Speaker 1: she did and then I showed up right, well that's
43:18
Speaker 1: also this idea. And then definitely like of that generation,
43:22
Speaker 1: not that it doesn't happen now. But it's like, okay,
43:24
Speaker 1: if we're in fear of being raped and assaulted, but
43:27
Speaker 1: if I have a husband, if I have a boyfriend,
43:29
Speaker 1: well then it's less likely to happen to me because
43:32
Speaker 1: I belonged to to someone, to a man already. Or
43:36
Speaker 1: when our partner assaults us, we justify it because like, well,
43:39
Speaker 1: I loved him. I remember some of the first times,
43:43
Speaker 1: and I don't go into it in the book, but
43:46
Speaker 1: I remember the first time that I ever kissed the
43:48
Speaker 1: boy was like like he grabbed me and he like
43:52
Speaker 1: it was like this whole thing, and then I was
43:54
Speaker 1: like no, but then he made me into Then I
43:57
Speaker 1: thought that I could only give into my corn old
44:00
Speaker 1: desires if I pretended I didn't want it, and then
44:03
Speaker 1: they would force me into it. So it was almost
44:05
Speaker 1: as role play that was happening because I thought that
44:07
Speaker 1: that's what that's how it's supposed to because I'm supposed
44:10
Speaker 1: to be a good, modest girl, that quote unquote good right,
44:14
Speaker 1: that doesn't want sex, so I have to let the
44:17
Speaker 1: man take it by force, right. And then for a
44:19
Speaker 1: long time I couldn't overcome that, you know, and then
44:22
Speaker 1: until um, until I got into my whole face. And
44:25
Speaker 1: then after that I was just like, I don't know,
44:28
Speaker 1: I don't want This is why, this is why how
44:31
Speaker 1: is politic Because it's all about autonomy. It's all about
44:34
Speaker 1: autonomy and releasing ourselves from that idea that sex is
44:37
Speaker 1: something that they have to extract from us. Right, Yes,
44:41
Speaker 1: we can't just offer it up because and engage because
44:43
Speaker 1: we want to. Yes, And that's what the last chapter
44:48
Speaker 1: in the book is. The last chapter is, um, I
44:50
Speaker 1: love having My last chapter is always be like very
44:54
Speaker 1: um triumphant, right because I just feel that, like you're resilient. Yes,
45:00
Speaker 1: And and the last chapter has a poem for Siah
45:02
Speaker 1: and Henry Mansanette, and it has like very small poems
45:06
Speaker 1: but about me enjoying sexual moments, Like there's a poem
45:09
Speaker 1: that um me asking a guy like what's your favorite
45:12
Speaker 1: partner of woman's body? And then he goes the clinics
45:15
Speaker 1: because it's designed purely for pleasure, and then that being
45:19
Speaker 1: like the whole moment, and then and then we're making
45:22
Speaker 1: out or like whatever, but that being the moment and
45:25
Speaker 1: we had sex afterwards. But that's not in the poem,
45:27
Speaker 1: but um, like it's one of and this person was
45:30
Speaker 1: someone that I just had like a fling with, but
45:32
Speaker 1: it was one of those beautiful moments where we were
45:35
Speaker 1: both too contenting people that we're enjoying something. And then
45:40
Speaker 1: there's another poem about like me telling a lover like
45:42
Speaker 1: I gotta go right at poem and he's just like,
45:44
Speaker 1: I don't, and I give in to him at the moment,
45:46
Speaker 1: and then I'm like and that's the poem, and that
45:49
Speaker 1: is the poem, like like, you know, we sleep together,
45:52
Speaker 1: and then that there's poetry and two bodies being together
45:55
Speaker 1: willing me and especially as a fat woman, like owning
45:58
Speaker 1: my sexuality. And also it's not a lot of mention
46:01
Speaker 1: of my fatness in this poem in this book as
46:04
Speaker 1: a whole, like there's no um and had the fact
46:07
Speaker 1: girl once love and in the first chapter and then
46:10
Speaker 1: had God in the last chapter, and it this book
46:14
Speaker 1: has one small poem and says the belly asked questions,
46:18
Speaker 1: and then it has uh oh to the factor wearing
46:20
Speaker 1: a crop top. But these aren't long dramatic poems because
46:26
Speaker 1: the trauma of of trying to figure out whether I'm
46:30
Speaker 1: worthy or not worthy of love or not as a
46:32
Speaker 1: fat woman isn't what I'm carrying around me more. I no,
46:34
Speaker 1: I'm worthy of love. So now this is the we're
46:37
Speaker 1: moving into the other conversations that we haven't had. And
46:40
Speaker 1: my mentor, she hn has Um san rank Cleave, amazing poet,
46:45
Speaker 1: but he always tells me, how does your audience grow
46:47
Speaker 1: with you? How what are you giving them that's different?
46:51
Speaker 1: How is this book different than any other than another book?
46:54
Speaker 1: And so I tried very hard to show a different
46:57
Speaker 1: side of me throughout this book. And and I don't
46:59
Speaker 1: know of y'all. I mean y'all don't know me pretty
47:02
Speaker 1: close though, so so you probably saw what you We
47:05
Speaker 1: can definitely see this growth in you as a person,
47:08
Speaker 1: and then to see the to witness this growth as
47:11
Speaker 1: an artist has been incredible. Thank you. No, And I
47:14
Speaker 1: mean I think to the way that you are learning
47:19
Speaker 1: to even handle the greater number of followers, the trolling,
47:25
Speaker 1: I mean, we can even talk about how with grass On,
47:29
Speaker 1: the trolling itself got so bad that they were trying
47:33
Speaker 1: to really affect your book sales on Amazon. It actually helped.
47:36
Speaker 1: It ended up helping because you flipped it on them,
47:39
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, Because you know, all press
47:43
Speaker 1: is good press, and that's what you told me what
47:45
Speaker 1: you told me? I called you. I think I called me,
47:47
Speaker 1: and she's like, tell the people. The people would happen, yes,
47:51
Speaker 1: because so I tweeted, um oh this and then the
47:56
Speaker 1: soda has poems about me not sucking my white people.
47:58
Speaker 1: But that's something that's right, right. But I tweeted, uh
48:04
Speaker 1: something about old white men being exhausting, right, because every
48:08
Speaker 1: time I tell an older white man that I'm a writer,
48:11
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, it's easy to get a book published.
48:13
Speaker 1: They always trying to minimize my success always. And so
48:17
Speaker 1: this poem, this tweet taken out of my the general
48:22
Speaker 1: conversation that I'm always having. I guess upset. I don't
48:26
Speaker 1: know who ended up on Reddy. And then I had
48:28
Speaker 1: all these scary white like those like that kind of
48:33
Speaker 1: white people, right, yeah, and then they decided some sort
48:39
Speaker 1: of fun they orchestrated some attack on me. And then
48:42
Speaker 1: like they had already been been really bothering me on
48:46
Speaker 1: on Twitter, like my Twitter feed was ridiculous, and they
48:50
Speaker 1: had made the way over my Facebook and my Instagram
48:53
Speaker 1: because you can find me by the same name and everywhere, right,
48:56
Speaker 1: and then had made the way everywhere. And when I
48:58
Speaker 1: had told you it was the day that we were
49:00
Speaker 1: at the line, and so we were having dinner and
49:05
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, they're bugging me, whatever, whatever, I don't care.
49:07
Speaker 1: I'm on my little vacation. And um then maybe a
49:11
Speaker 1: day later, my publisher calls me and then he's just like,
49:13
Speaker 1: I have some bad news for you. But everything's okay.
49:16
Speaker 1: We got under control. He's like, you've been getting a
49:19
Speaker 1: spurt of bad reviews on Amazon. And it was a
49:22
Speaker 1: bunch of one stars, but like like maybe twenty or more,
49:27
Speaker 1: probably more, And it was a bunch of them, but
49:29
Speaker 1: they had contacted Amazon and they had shut down anything.
49:32
Speaker 1: And then whatever whatever. And then, um, I don't know
49:36
Speaker 1: if it was my publisher, you mana who suggested that
49:39
Speaker 1: I had my followers to go leave reviews and go
49:43
Speaker 1: leave positive reviews. I'm like, well, I don't want to
49:44
Speaker 1: ask them, but I'll tell them that if it's happen,
49:47
Speaker 1: want to it's almos happening, And they want to their
49:49
Speaker 1: moves to to go share their real story, not not
49:53
Speaker 1: give me five stars, but give me what you think
49:55
Speaker 1: I deserve. And so then folks started like they were
49:59
Speaker 1: just going go in and commenting and commenting. They rallied
50:02
Speaker 1: behind you, and before that, like I think I had
50:04
Speaker 1: like fifteen reviews or like whatever, and now I have
50:07
Speaker 1: over a hundred reviews, which makes people more visible. And
50:10
Speaker 1: it had fallen from the best selling spot and it
50:12
Speaker 1: went back up on best selling and we sold like
50:15
Speaker 1: hell of books because people we're like, what is happening,
50:19
Speaker 1: like what is this book now? And so um it
50:21
Speaker 1: ended up being a very good move for us. Now
50:24
Speaker 1: you can sold over ten tho copies of Yes I
50:27
Speaker 1: have Thank you from an independent publisher. Amazing and um,
50:31
Speaker 1: it's been really really really great. Well, Yes, Sica, we
50:35
Speaker 1: were coming to the end of our time. Now we
50:37
Speaker 1: always love having you on. Look, we're so proud of you.
50:40
Speaker 1: The work is amazing. Of course I'm really excited to
50:43
Speaker 1: see the reception and how people you know, consume it
50:46
Speaker 1: and respond to it. So, as always listeners, you know
50:49
Speaker 1: where to find us. Yes, So before we actually close out,
50:52
Speaker 1: just want to remind folks that Yesica's book is on
50:55
Speaker 1: pre sale um and she can they can find that
50:58
Speaker 1: at an occults out of cult n O T A
51:03
Speaker 1: c U L T dot media. Yes I Instagram for
51:09
Speaker 1: your book is launching November one. We're super excited. Thank you,
51:13
Speaker 1: so much for sharing so much. The manuscript the events
51:16
Speaker 1: copy to us. We feel so special that we got
51:18
Speaker 1: to see your baby before the rest of the world.
51:21
Speaker 1: Of course my girls had to so to close out,
51:25
Speaker 1: We're going to do something a little different today. Yes,
51:28
Speaker 1: So instead of an ultra song, yes, think, I will
51:31
Speaker 1: actually be reading a poem from this atto. Yes. And
51:34
Speaker 1: this is the last poem in the book called at
51:38
Speaker 1: my Funeral and Um. I talked a lot in the
51:41
Speaker 1: book about depression and being bipolar and overcoming a lot
51:45
Speaker 1: of that, and so this is a different twist on
51:48
Speaker 1: the celebration of the overcoming and my funeral. I want
51:53
Speaker 1: you to play beat beat bom bom, followed by back
51:56
Speaker 1: that asset, followed by a fun gavion, followed by anything
52:00
Speaker 1: by drink at my funeral. I want you to eat
52:04
Speaker 1: all that you can. Please, don't turn down my mommy's food.
52:08
Speaker 1: She will be grieving and offer you platefuls. Say yes
52:11
Speaker 1: to each one. This will make your feel closer to
52:13
Speaker 1: me at my funeral. Don't read any of my poems.
52:18
Speaker 1: I wrote those to stay alive. Let them rest, stretch
52:22
Speaker 1: their limbs, pack their bags, find new fingers. At my funeral,
52:26
Speaker 1: Let the men make jokes. I have understood that my
52:29
Speaker 1: chiefsmall only allows them to be tendered through laughter, and
52:31
Speaker 1: I want them soft and sweet during my final goodbye
52:35
Speaker 1: at my funeral. Thank the woman, my mother, my sisters,
52:40
Speaker 1: my girlfriends, kiss their palms, keep their tissues. They are
52:44
Speaker 1: holy and what I am the saddest about leaving at
52:47
Speaker 1: my funeral. Let the babies run free, kiss their heads,
52:50
Speaker 1: Sneak pastries into their chubby hands, watch their faces flesh
52:54
Speaker 1: with delight at my funeral. Find the little girls and
52:57
Speaker 1: let them try on my lipsticks, especially the red ones.
53:00
Speaker 1: Let them walk through the house, each mouth a rosebud
53:03
Speaker 1: made just for me at my funeral. Please don't feel
53:06
Speaker 1: obligated to cry. Dance if that's what your body asked for,
53:09
Speaker 1: Turn the altar into a dance for Remember this body
53:12
Speaker 1: of mine felt most alive beneath strobe, lights and music
53:16
Speaker 1: at my funeral. I will be dead, of course, and
53:20
Speaker 1: this will be a victory. Praise the sudden illness or
53:24
Speaker 1: accident that claimed me. Praised the hospital bed I expelled,
53:27
Speaker 1: and praise the doctors and nurses and prayers that try
53:31
Speaker 1: to keep me. Praise this heart of mine that couldn't
53:34
Speaker 1: anymore Praise all the years that came wrapped themselves around
53:37
Speaker 1: my legs and pulled me away. Praise be my death
53:40
Speaker 1: because it did not come from my own hands, from
53:43
Speaker 1: razor blade or from pill. It came because it was time,
53:47
Speaker 1: because my body or my God said come home. And
53:50
Speaker 1: I collected everything I am and walked through that door.
53:54
Speaker 1: At my funeral. Play a song that says I survived
53:58
Speaker 1: myself is be such a sweet, sweet and thank you,
54:07
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you so much, thank you so much
54:09
Speaker 1: for having me. I love you both, love you, We
54:11
Speaker 1: love you, and thank you everyone for tuning in to
54:14
Speaker 1: another copy love. Look at our radio as you know,
54:16
Speaker 1: you can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Audio Boom,
54:19
Speaker 1: and visit us at YouTube dot com, slash, look at
54:21
Speaker 1: thought a Radio a k A look at Landia and
54:23
Speaker 1: we will catch you next time though,