Career Cheat Code
Welcome to Career Cheat Code, a podcast that explores the stories of everyday people making an impact in the world through their careers and loving every minute of it. Whether you're already on your path or searching for your purpose, this podcast is for you.
Join us every Monday as we uncover the secrets behind successful careers and inspire you to make your own mark. Formerly known as Thank God It's Monday | TGIM, don't forget to subscribe for updates and share with your friends!
Career Cheat Code
052 | The Quest to End Gun Violence feat. José Alfaro
Imagine a world where your zip code doesn't predict your lifespan, where gun violence is not the norm, and where every voice in the fight for safety is heard. José Alfaro , the Director of Latinx Leadership and Community Engagement at Everytown for Gun Safety, reveals his transformative journey on our latest podcast episode. From dreams of space exploration to the stark realities of urban streets, Jose's life is a landscape of bold decisions and profound mentorship that have shaped his mission to uplift marginalized voices in the battle against gun violence.
Our conversation with José is a tapestry woven with the threads of heritage, struggle, and resilience. He speaks candidly about the summer that forever altered his trajectory, the cultural shock of collegiate life juxtaposed with rough New York beginnings, and the pivotal moments that nearly saw him enlist in the Navy. His story exemplifies how the powerful influences of spirituality and ancestry guide our choices and forge our paths. By sharing his encounters with black liberation intellect and his commitment to community service, José's insights cut to the core of what it means to serve and elevate those around us.
As we trace José's steps from SIT Graduate Institute to the frontlines of political activism, his narrative is a masterclass in the pursuit of purpose-driven work. His ascension to leadership roles in mobilizing Latinx communities and his personal revelations about negotiating fair compensation without forsaking mission alignment are as instructive as they are inspiring. José's openness about his own salary in the social sector is as much about transparency as it is about empowerment. Join us to hear how one man's life is a testament to the belief that every step we take can lead to a greater good.
If you enjoyed this episode, please like, rate, and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you’re using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. For more #CareerCheatCode, visit linktr.ee/careercheatcode. Let's make an impact, one episode at a time!
Host - Radhy Miranda
LinkedIn
Instagram
Producer - Gary Batista
LinkedIn
Instagram
To watch on YouTube
Follow us on our YouTube Clips Channel
Follow us on Instagram
Follow us on TikTok
Follow us on LinkedIn
So I had this, you know, paused and perplexed face. And then my friends are all asking what's wrong, what's going on, who are we gonna go and handle? And one thing leads to another. And I tell my friends that I got accepted to college, and so the train just goes wild. My friends start banging on the windows, everybody's cheering. They're like yo, mommy is going to college, mommy is going to college. And that was a, you know, a climactic moment for me, where I realized that I was going to go off and do something different in my life.
Speaker 3:Welcome to Career Tree Code. In this podcast, you'll hear how everyday people impact the world through their careers. Learn about their journey, career hacks and obstacles along the way. Whether you're already having the impact you want or are searching for it, this is the podcast for you. All right, jose, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1:Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3:I appreciate you taking the time to connect today, and you know let's now waste the audience time. Let's dive right in man. Let's tell the world what it is you do for a living.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm Jose Emanuel Alfarro Flore Para Horazán, just by Alarys, or Jose Alfarro for short. I'm the director of Latinx Leadership and Community Engagement. So that means you know I like to look at my work in four major buckets. One is working across the organization to develop strategies to engage Latinx communities. Two is to work with our national, state and local partners to elevate gun violence as an issue in our communities. Three is identifying Latinx leaders in gun violence spaces or non-conventional gun violence spaces so that we're able to elevate them and also bring them into our ecosystem as an organization, because we have a number of resources. And then three is helping diversify and expand the movement by working with our like Moms Demand Action Chapters and Students Demand Action Chapters, which are grassroots arms of the organization.
Speaker 3:Mm. Okay, so tell me about. So what is ultimately the purpose of your organization, what is it called and what do y'all do?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so every town for gun safety is the nation's largest gun violence prevention organization, and so a lot of our work is really focused on ending gun violence Any and all ways and shapes and forms that it shows up, whether it's gun homicide, gun suicide, police violence. We also, you know, we obviously work in mass tragedies like Uvalde, like Pulse and other mass tragedies that have happened across the United States as well, and so that's what we do.
Speaker 3:Got it. Is this what you always wanted to do for a living?
Speaker 1:No. So you know I have a really unconventional path to this work. A lot of you know my journey kind of has its ups and flows, and so I'm happy to talk a little bit about that. But you know, my earliest memories of what I wanted to be were an astronaut.
Speaker 1:I didn't get the chance to see that in my neighborhood, in my community, and I didn't know what it took to be an astronaut as a young person, and so the next career options for me were to be a drug dealer. You know, I saw members of my community engaged in the drug trade, I saw how lucrative it was, and so that was the really interesting kind of career point or kind of reflection of a career choice that I had. And so, you know, my goals obviously changed over time and through the years. When I finally went to college, I wanted to work with young boys and teens in supporting their healing journey, and so I wanted to be a therapist. And it wasn't until, you know, I was in college that I met a number of really great activists and organizers, a couple of really amazing and influential professors that I got involved in, you know, local work and campus-based mobilizing. So that led me on a trajectory that would be, you know, now, 15 years long.
Speaker 3:Wow, okay. So let's backtrack a little, when you wanted to go to space and the community that you were seeing these drug dealers. Where was that? Where were you born, where were you raised? Where's your family from All of those things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. My parents are from El Salvador, so both of my parents are immigrants to the United States. And you know, I was born and raised in New York City, in Jamaica, queens, and that's where I lived and grew up till I was about 17. You know, for me, my experience is influenced by a number of different factors right, being the son of immigrants and what it means to be the son of immigrants who don't speak English, who don't have formal educations, but are, you know, doing the best that they can to navigate these systems and navigate a new culture and space, while trying to raise children the other pieces that Queens is one of the most diverse places on earth, where the world's burrow.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of my experience is influenced by the community that I was raised in, right, whether it was living with and being in proximity to black communities, to Asian and South Asian communities, to European communities and other Latinx communities.
Speaker 1:My experience was one that was very working class and very immigrant centered. In fact I tell this story often. I don't remember understanding what whiteness was in the context of the United States until I left New York, because a lot of the people who identify as white, who benefit from white privilege, who benefit from these systems, though they may or may not know it, were first generation immigrants or immigrants themselves. They were Polish, they were German, they were Italian, they were Greek, and so a lot of the conversations and even thought processes around social identity were very different than when I went to college in the state of Maryland, where, you know, I was introduced to people who's you know great, great, great grandparents were born and raised in this country, and getting a better understanding of kind of both the differences in whiteness and access to that legacy, but then also getting a better understanding of this country's history.
Speaker 3:That makes a lot of sense. Okay, so you're in high school, you are looking at your surroundings in Queens, recognizing that you're in this the phrase is melting pot, but I like to use bento box of New York City and seeing how, like a lot of you know, it's a lot of us and we're all coexisting, but also many, a lot of folks kind of end up in their own pockets in some regard. So, as you're in Queens, tell me about what happens when you're, like in your junior year. Are you about to graduate and like thinking I'm gonna go to college directly, I'm gonna get a job, or are you looking at things and saying, well, or I could go on this other path and make some money? Like, what are you doing? Circa 10th, 11th grade?
Speaker 1:So I realized that I was a really bad drug dealer.
Speaker 1:It is not an occupation that I was good at, for a number of different reasons, but I did get involved and engaged with street organizations, and at the time, you know, I became a member of the Latin Kings.
Speaker 1:I was in high school but I had a, you know, a series of learning disabilities that weren't identified until, you know, I was well into my teens, and so by that time I remember being in my sophomore year and my guidance counselor telling me that I wasn't going to be able to graduate and in fact I was gonna be getting referred out, or rather pushed out of the public education system, because I hadn't had enough credits to be able to graduate on time with my peers and if I were to try to catch up, I wouldn't be able to catch up till I was at least over 18, or over 20, rather.
Speaker 1:So you know a lot of the ways that I internalized that was that I stopped caring about school altogether. I hung out a lot and I cut school and I was in the streets and I would get into brawls and rumbles. I lived on the other side of Queens, so you know, I went to school in Long Island City, I had Queens Vocational Technical High School, and I lived in Jamaica, and so it was a 45 minute train ride. I took the F to the seven and then hopped off the seven and was in a whole different part of Queens right, and that was.
Speaker 1:That meant that a lot of the dirt that I did in some of those communities never got back to me at home, in my own community as well. You know, by the time that I was 16, I was, I was out of high school and I had to figure out what I wanted to do. When my parents gave me an option, they said you know, get a GED, or you go straight to work or you get out of our house. Solid options, solid, real solid. So I remember going to take my assessment for my GED and you know the results came back in and I had pretty much completed all of the requisites that I needed for English. But I had some math that I needed to work on, and so it was about a three month period that I was in an ADEX Learning Center. It was Jamaica Learning Center on Hillside Avenue and 164th Street.
Speaker 1:That was an experience, because at that point I didn't I still didn't know what I wanted to do and I was working full time. So I was going to the city as a bus boy and waiter In the city in the Chelsea district, and coming back and forth, and I was exposed to in the city, people from different walks of life, right when you go to Manhattan for those who may not be aware, we call Manhattan the city I was exposed to a lot of the hustle and bustle of Manhattan, people that were coming in and transplants who were following their dreams, artists, actors, people who wanted to make it in New York or in the show business on Broadway, and I got exposure to all of these different kinds of folks and I remember one of my colleagues asking me what I wanted to do and I just didn't have any answers for them. These were folks who convinced me to try to think about my future right, and try to go to college and figure out what I wanted to do, help me through my college, my GED journey and, inevitably, through my college journey as well. There came a point where I was walking home from work one day and I saw my former guidance counselor from, I think, junior high school, and my guidance counselor asked me what I was doing.
Speaker 1:But I was up to and I just told him I had finished my GED, I was working in the city but didn't really have any plans. He recommended a book to me which was life-changing. It was the Alchemist by Pablo Coelho, and I would read this book on my way to and from work had a good 45 minute ride on the F to the E, so I would read this book in its entirety, and it talked about following your destiny and learning your path and listening to the world as it comes to you, and at that point I really started to think about where I wanted to go and what I wanted to do, and this guidance counselor then proposed that I signed up for a university that he knew about in this small Christian college in Tacoma Park, maryland, then Columbia Union College, now Washington Adventist University.
Speaker 1:Lo and behold, I applied to the university One day. I'm coming home from far rock, away from the beach, with a bunch of friends, also members of my street organization. We had just finished the rumble and so you can imagine a young teenager in a tank top, bloody knuckles, disgust on his face, timberland prints on my tank top. I get a phone call. This was when cell phones are just kind of coming in, right, I have my little. Next tell. My mom calls me on. My next tell. I have the little flashing antenna with the lights and my mom calls me, crying. She's crying and I'm asking what's wrong, what's going on? My friends kind of pause and it's about like 20 of us in this.
Speaker 1:In our train car, on our way back home into Jamaica, my mom tells me that I got into college and I didn't realize it at the time. I didn't have any expectations of going to college. I didn't have any expectations of getting into any of these schools. So I had this paused and perplexed face and then my friends are all asking what's wrong, what's going on, who are we going to go and handle? And one thing leads to another, and I tell my friends that I got accepted to college, and so the train just goes wild. My friends start banging on the windows, everybody's cheering. They're like yo mommy is going to college, mommy is going to college. And that was a climactic moment for me, where I realized that I was going to go off and do something different in my life.
Speaker 3:That's a very visual and fascinating story and it also seems very movie-esque, right, and that you are coming from literally a fight, a rumble, and in that moment you are presented an opportunity to go in a different direction and I love that your friends embrace that and that your friends cheer that and encourage that at the moment, because that's not always the case.
Speaker 3:I also appreciate you sharing that story right, because I think if you see Jose out hosting a panel or doing his thing, organizing and bringing people together, he's a very professional, human right. And you see him at the White House, you see him in Aspen, you see him in different events and he carries this whole story that we don't always know and we don't know that he's faced life-threatening situations and chose to do so for a while and that was the norm. And he is able to bring those experiences to the job, to any room, any setting. He's able to represent for his peers that are still part of street organizations and are still doing what they have to do to survive in different spaces. But he represents for that and there's a space for that and there's so much value in having that perspective that a lot of other working professionals just would not have. So I appreciate you sharing that and being open about that, because I think it's super important.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I appreciate you just putting me on. I think a lot of what I do is influenced by my past. Without going into too much detail, street organizations by and large serve a number of different purposes. Street organizations will usually have a code of conduct or a compilation of lessons, things that members have to memorize, have to live by in some way, shape or form. This is the way that kids, young people, get G-checked If you don't know your lessons, then you're going to get G-checked and people are going to find out that you're not a member of these street organizations. When I read the manifesto and constitution for this street organization, one of the descriptions for the term kingism was to be in service of and fighting for all oppressed people of the Third World. Now that has different connotations and different spaces in different contexts, but I took that to heart and I think it's guided my decision to do work in different communities and on intersecting issues. I don't think that I would have an intersectional lens without being so tied to that phrase.
Speaker 1:Because, that means all oppressed people, that means LGBTQ family, that means our trans siblings, that means our disabled siblings, that means any and all marginalized groups of people that we oftentimes live on the margins, that are oftentimes not thought of when we think about the freedom and liberation of Latinx folks or brown people.
Speaker 3:And I took that to heart. So you get this. Call Everyone's cheering. Talk to me about time frame. Is this the summertime and you recognize I'm going to go off? In the fall, what happens next? Then tell me about that next phase of this journey, because there's a pivotal moment in your life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this was I want to say mid June. Okay.
Speaker 1:So you know, most folks are out of school. We were, you know, just out and about, and so I was. Usually, if I wasn't working, we were in the handball court where we were trying to tag up a wall or we were just hanging out on a corner. You know, whatever we were able to do, we just we did as young people. And when I told my, when my parents found out, I think we had a realization that our lives were going to change and my parents also now had a out of New York and they had always wanted to leave. You know we were.
Speaker 1:We were in Jamaica living in a 500 square foot apartment. You know there were four of us. It was a two bedroom apartment and I was a teenager at this point, so I wanted my own room. My younger brother, who's four years younger than me, had to sleep in the living room. He slept on a sofa bed for years because I wanted my own room and my parents were working. You know, two jobs, three jobs at a time.
Speaker 1:My mother was a housekeeper, my father worked on transmissions and then they both went to clean offices in the evenings and I came. I would come in and out of the house. I'd be home at all types of night. We had a Roach infestation and we had mice infestations, and so I remember coming home and trying to take showers, and I would literally take the shower handle to wash out all of the roaches that were, that were in the shower tub.
Speaker 1:And so this was a space where my parents finally had an opportunity to think outside of New York City, and my father had always wanted to be in Maryland. His father, my grandfather, had lived in Virginia for a while, and when my father first came to the United States, virginia was his landing point. Fun fact, virginia, the DMV area, is home to one of the largest Salvadorian populations in the country. What, you know, puerto Ricans and Caribbean folks are to New York City, or what Cubans are to Miami, salvadorians are to DC. And so so very rich and thriving Salvadorian culture, where, you know, our communities haven't been influenced by other Latin American groups, and so you can still hear a lot of the accents from the motherland in this very particular region in Washington DC, which I think is really dope.
Speaker 3:That's awesome and, I'm sure, the best food that you can. That reminds you of home around that area.
Speaker 1:Man. I mean you can just get everything here. There are snacks and treats that I can get here, that I can't get in other places, that are just really exciting. So, you know, my parents decide that they don't want my younger brother to go through the New York public education system because they saw how that ended up for me and my brother was going into high school and I was going into college. So, again, four years apart, we you know, he was a freshman in high school, I was a freshman in college and he decides, and so my parents decide to move to Maryland, to Gaithersburg, maryland, and being close proximity to my university, one so that, you know, we could always have a home base if ever I needed one, but two so that my younger brother could have a different education than I did. Montgomery County has, at least at the time, had one of the best rated public education systems in the country, and so it was beneficial for my younger brother to go. And so, you know, we started.
Speaker 1:You know I started college not having any orientation. My parents, again, never went to college. We didn't have anybody in our family that had gone to college, and this is also the story for a lot of you know first generation Americans. My story isn't unique, but we had to figure it all out right Fast-for-applications, student loan applications, taking remedial courses, what it meant for me to now be in a structured environment where before I had no structure. The university had a curfew policy for freshmen and sophomores. We had to be in the home or in our dorms rather by 11 pm and you know, here is a kid who was working until 12 midnight 1 am, then going out to a party or to hang out with the crew and then coming home, you know, really early in the morning to now having to be in this space by 11 o'clock, which I just couldn't comprehend. I was like, why are you giving me a curfew?
Speaker 3:Right, I'm a whole-ass adult. Absolutely, absolutely, for a long time now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow. And so I had to get acclimated to this culture. And I also, you know, I was in school with people whose families had gone to college or who, you know, came from generationally affluent communities, and so that was also a change in the way that I had to comport myself, and I struggled quite a bit. You know, I was a young kid who thought that he knew everything from New York. So, you know, I thought I was the coolest thing. On a block Right, I used to wear my bandana, to the left and I had gold fronts. Wow.
Speaker 1:I'd wear, you know, I'd wear my flags to class pants, sagging my Tim's unlaced, and I would just be in class like what? And that was a very challenging time.
Speaker 3:In retrospect, do you feel like that structure of like the curfew and having a routine that you have to wake up, go to class, all that In retrospect do you feel like that was helpful?
Speaker 1:I'm not there.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm not there.
Speaker 1:So I found a way to bypass the curfew, as many young people tried. So what I didn't mention was that in Queens I grew up also influenced by breakdancers, and so, you know, I, you know, growing up in hip hop culture, being a graffiti artist, being around people who were breakdancing or rapping or trying to get into the music industry, you know this was very much a part of my culture. And so I had met, you know, a former breakdancer who had created his own production company and was hiring dancers to do bar and bat mitzvahs, weddings, parties, events. And so I traveled up and down the East Coast you know doing, you know, breakdancing or dancing at weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, club events, other events on weekends, and I had my then boss write a letter stating that, you know, part of my job is to be out past 11 o'clock and that I needed, I needed some space. Well played, well played.
Speaker 1:Very much. Yeah, you know, I struggled while I was there to find my footing. I thought that college wasn't for me, that it was this like thing that white people do and this thing. That just wasn't. You know, just wasn't something that I was meant to do. So I decided that I wanted to go off to the military. That's a whole other journey that can be very climactic. I think first semester of my sophomore year, maybe second semester of my sophomore year, I go back to New York and meanwhile my parents are here in DC, in the DC area, so I'm bouncing around from house to house, friends to friends, house to friends house Unfortunately girlfriend's house to girlfriend's house at the time. There's room for growth and evolution, absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely, absolutely. We are who we are because we went through what we went through.
Speaker 1:That's right, and me and my best friend had a plan to go off to the Navy under a buddy system. So we go through the military entrance program, the MEPPS program, we study for our ASVABs, we take our tests, we get our placements. This is, you know, over the course of like three or four months, and the night before we are to deploy, a couple of our friends host a little party, a little going away party for us. So you know, it's the crew and cats from the neighborhood. And I see I'm talking to one of the younger brothers of an old friend that was brutally beaten by the police and he was telling me that he was thinking about going to college. He had just graduated high school. He asked me how college was and I was like man, get out of New York.
Speaker 1:Like just get out of New York or even just get out of the city, right, like go upstate or go to Connecticut or go to New Jersey, but like get out of New York, you have to experience this and you have to do that and this and this and dorm life. And you know, I'm talking about all of these experiences that I had kind of processing all of this at the same time, because I don't think that in that moment I had processed all of my experiences. And in that moment a light bulb turns on and I realized and recognized that I don't want to go to the Navy, I want to go back to college. And that was a bittersweet moment because me and my best friend just finished going through this process and me and my best friend had been planning this for months and my best friend was really looking forward to, you know, to us doing this, doing this journey together, right, and that was really difficult.
Speaker 3:Can't do the buddy system without your buddy, you know, doesn't quite work.
Speaker 1:That was really difficult.
Speaker 3:Okay, so what did that mean? So he was supposed to deploy the next day or enroll the next day, or like what happens between that conversation and you now going on this process of figuring out kind of, what is next for you and how do you approach your buddy on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So that night, you know, I'm like yo, I don't think, I don't think I want to go anymore, right, like I don't think I want to do this anymore. He's like what, what you mean? Like we just, we went through this process, we did this thing. We like we were supposed to do this. You're my dog, I'm like we're supposed to, you know, do this together. And we ended up having to talk to our recruiter. My recruiter, you know, advised me, illy advised me, but advised me nonetheless on what to do, and I think my friends still Thought that I was gonna go, mm-hmm. But you know, here, here we were. So the next day, we go to swearing. So the military entrance program ends After you swearing, you sign your papers. You're like, yeah, I am now going to.
Speaker 1:You know, off to bootcamp to do this thing. They tell us not to bring anything, that the government is going to provide Everything that we need. They give us vouchers for food at the airport. They will give you deodorant, socks, you know, soap, all the things that you know one needs to to sustain themselves, if you will. And we then go to a hotel in Staten Island you know, we wait to to go to Newark Airport in New Jersey. And then, when we're at the airport no cell phone, no money, no, you know nothing to my name, mm-hmm they start calling our, our flight to board. And here we are, everybody getting ready to board, and I tell my friend, now I say your piece. And Everybody gets on the plane and he's like yo, like what? What do you want me to say? When you're not there, when you don't go to boot camp, supposed to go to boot camp, it's like I don't, I don't know, man, but I'm not, I'm not getting on this plane. That was a really difficult moment. How about that was?
Speaker 1:a really difficult moment so.
Speaker 3:Are you still friends with this person?
Speaker 1:We keep in touch every once in a while.
Speaker 3:That's fair.
Speaker 1:And I follow up on them.
Speaker 3:you know I keep tabs on him, he keeps tabs on me, but um you know, we've our paths have taken two very different Places and our lives are distinctly different seems to be the case for you, I think, as you continue to grow and evolve and learn and get exposed to things seems like you make decisions that you think make sense for you in your life, in your future, and sometimes that includes others that you have been currently on the journey with. Sometimes it does not yep. Ultimately, that is kind of what leads us to this journey, in this path where we're on now. So you know it all makes sense at the end.
Speaker 1:It all makes sense at some point and I have other reflections about, you know, my, my spirituality, my ancestors, all that guides me and I can share a little bit more about that later. But I'm In this airport, no money, nothing to my name, and At the time I have this girlfriend in Maryland who I call after hounding you know 20, 30 people to let me borrow their cell phone or to give me some change to make a phone call, and I asked her to get me a Greyhound ticket back to Maryland. This is probably April at this point. Okay.
Speaker 1:So I'm cold, I don't have a jacket, like it's just, it's brick city and Get this bus ticket down to back, down to Maryland. And as soon as I get home, my parents welcome me in. They're grateful that I didn't go to the military, but they're also a little bit like why'd you go through this whole process anyway?
Speaker 1:Like you stop going to school. You, you know, move back up to New York. When we were clearly here, you know, there was also some, some resentment around their own sacrifices, and rightfully so. Right, that's when I decided to apply to Morgan State University.
Speaker 3:Why Morgan State?
Speaker 1:that yeah. So Morgan, I think, felt like the safest place for me. It was an environment that felt familiar. It was an environment that felt Welcoming. It was an environment that I didn't feel like I had to Pretend it, and I think the Sometimes privilege and oftentimes also burden of HBC use is that they recognize and understand the systems under which their students are raised under and can empathize and are charged with the task of Supporting in our growth. And I think that Morgan, in retrospect, was the best place for me to be as a young person with learning disabilities, as a young person who had immense potential but didn't know how to unlock it, and as a young person who'd never seen people of color in Professional settings.
Speaker 1:Yeah in the same way that that other people have okay.
Speaker 3:So how old are you at this point, and what did you actually end up majoring in?
Speaker 1:at this point I think I'm 20 1920 okay. Don't like that. So mind you, you know I, I, I transferred schools now and I transferred with, I think, without a particular, without one semester Of courses. So I had to start Sophomore year again. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 1:Some of my credits didn't transfer over, so it was kind of like I was starting college all over again, and it really did take me four years to To graduate right so this is a six and a half year journey for me. Absolutely, when you know young, you know. I know people now that are graduating in three years right, or people who you know are in their master's Programs while working on their bachelor's degrees by year for right so 21, 22 folks are like typically Jumping out.
Speaker 3:So you're at this point looking to graduate at like 23, 24 ish. So you're, yeah, I get that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I'm at Morgan. I decided that I wanted to work with young boys, right, like I said earlier, mm-hmm, I become a psychology major and the rest of my time there is dedicated towards obtaining this degree. But in the interim, I'm also being exposed to black liberation intellect, being exposed to a variety of diverse experiences. Getting a better understanding of blackness in its diversity as well, understanding that blackness is in a model, is Learning what it means to be intersectional, learning about, you know, black feminism, and those create the framework for how I View the world and the way that I think about freedom and liberation, and in that, if black people aren't free, then none of us are free, mm-hmm, if the most marginalized and exploited Aren't free, then how can any one of us be free? Because the same racism, the original racism that engulfed the United States and Took and enslaved and kidnapped people from the African coasts, is the same racism that Latin Americans face, is the same racism that Asian Americans face.
Speaker 1:We may not face it in the same way, but it's the same white supremacy that created these systems of oppression that are At the crux of all of our Socialization right sounds okay, so Were you kind of an involved student while you're learning all these things Like, are you joining clubs and doing other things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, um, I try to be as involved as I could. I think a part of me was still for the streets. You know, along along my my journey, you know, even in in undergrad, I always gravitated towards being in the hood and so I found these little pockets and communities that I would, that I would explore, that I would connect with, that felt like home. You know, I'd be in East Baltimore or I'd go down, I'd go to West Baltimore, I'd hang out in different parts of the city that weren't accessible to one outsiders but then to Latinos. Right, this is a predominantly black city and you know the Latinx community Was still emerging and it was predominantly immigrants from Central America, in some Caribbean communities in a very small section of East Baltimore, you know, the Patterson Park area, the Greek town area, which were, you know, still getting a better sense of what Latinx cultures and communities were.
Speaker 1:Yep and so there was a lot of cultural translating there was. You know, there was also me just being in community and so I would, you know, go to, I would go to, I would go to school during the day, and then I would work, and then, when I wasn't working, I was in community right, that makes sense. And I was also struggling with with alcoholism I hadn't processed all of this trauma that I had gone through over the course of the last, you know, five, six years.
Speaker 1:Where I was now self medicating. I was a functional alcoholic, so sometimes I would be in class and these were a part of you know my my day-to-day struggles, and so I didn't have the foresight to become a part of, you know major clubs and groups. I did join a writer's guild because I I was a writer and I'd always written, written poetry and I wanted to become an alpha and honestly, that saved me because I had to be sober.
Speaker 1:I, you know, was mentally and emotionally trying to prepare myself for a process and I had to have my grades up and so for the next, once I, you know, got exposure to the, you know divine nine organizations and Understood their foundations and kind of their, their philosophies on leadership service, those two things that resonated with me and I, you know, wanted to be an alpha and that meant that I had to change the way that I was living my life.
Speaker 1:You know, I start going through this, this evolutionary process that leads me to, you know, being class more, to, you know, not drinking while I'm, while I'm in school, to, you know, at the time, being more respectable and we can talk about respectability politics, but it's done really two thousands, and you know, we didn't have language for, you know, respectability Politics. And in the same way that we do now, you know, I, I, I Accredited a lot of my journey Into Getting it together to wanting to be a member of this organization. Well, uh, unfortunately, I didn't make child support, I didn't make chapter grades, I made National grades but I never made chapter grades and so I was never able to to go through, you know, the application process and the process in and of itself, but, uh, it served its purpose right it served the purpose for me to to be able to See myself as somebody different than who I was and to transform my life, to be able to graduate.
Speaker 3:Wow, okay, so I love that. So now it's senior year. You have to graduate. You have the grace to graduate, uh, with a psychology major. What do you think you're gonna do and what do you do?
Speaker 1:So I don't know what I'm gonna do for a while, uh, but at this point, you know I'm I'm deeply immersed in community, taking on leadership roles and responsibilities. I start working for an organization called turnaround uh in baltimore, which is a domestic violence and sexual assault advocacy organization, as a community educator, and so I was running up and down baltimore city training, you know, jurors, police officers, ras and, on college campuses, foster care parents. I was training uh, foster care youth on healthy relationships and I was just Zooming up and down the city and I think that was the first time that I built a community that was based on One service for for community, as opposed to, you know, me just being in these streets.
Speaker 3:Got it Okay. So you did that and I I love that. You have that outlook of One. You don't have to like going back to, to what you mentioned about trying to become an alpha like, just because you didn't become one Doesn't mean no dinner service purpose and it wasn't helpful to you. Right, this role, right here Again, it allowed you to be in community and to see yourself as someone that is being of service and as someone that can provide good to the world by virtue of what you're doing. And that has you know, I think, while it may not have been the role that you saw yourself in for the rest of your life, like I think it's a great transition point from one path into now the working class and like how do I build a career from here? So I know you did that for, I think, about two years or so, right.
Speaker 1:About a year or so, okay, and then I had to think about what I wanted to do. Right. Like where you know, and I think again the theme of all oppressed people comes up right.
Speaker 1:And thinking about you know, the work that I've started to do, the things that I like to do in the work, and also not fully understanding systems of oppression. Right, I think I understood it on a micro level, right. What happens in individual situations, what happens when communities are impacted and oppressed? But I didn't fully. I couldn't understand or articulate what oppression was, what systemic oppression was, and I wanted to better understand that. While I was looking for universities to apply to, I was also organizing members of the Latin Kings, both in the US, latin America and Europe, to become more politically engaged. Wow.
Speaker 1:And you know, a lot of my thought process was that I wanted to continue to do this work, and so I needed one, a international lens, and two, a way to understand systems of oppression, but three work through conflict that happens in the context of these organizations.
Speaker 1:So, I naturally chose a school that would accommodate all three of these components, and SIT Graduate Institute was that institution, and SIT is a school for international training, and that you know. That school allowed me the new lenses that I needed to be able to think about macro level systems, and this is where I majored in social justice and conflict resolution. So my official degree is a master's of arts in intercultural service leadership and management, and so it was a combination of nonprofit management and social justice and conflict resolution courses that created my degree.
Speaker 3:While you were still organizing folks and while you were still kind of building this base of ultimately really Latinos becoming more politically involved. Right, and as you said, it's just you know you can kind of subdivide Latinos in different ways. That is one sub of the population, but ultimately what you're really doing is mobilizing Latinos and Latino families to become more politically involved. So did you continue doing that once you finish your master's Like what and what? Two things One, did you get what you wanted out of the master's program? And then, two, what did that ultimately lead you to afterwards?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did, you know. So the grad school was in Vermont, and you know, here I go, from a city that's predominantly black and BIPOC to a state where you know it's me and like three other Latinx folks, right Like we make up the. Latino population of the town. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right and little little old, brattleboro, vermont, 2010,. Right, I'm now 25. And you know I go on my first intentional hike right. Like I am in the mountains, I'm near rivers, I have access to nature. It's the first time that I'm able to connect to the land in a way that that was intentional. And you know I I'd go back and forth to El Salvador and you know I'd hike up to get to my grandmother's house in this little, you know, often secluded part of the country. But I never thought about it in a in a way that allowed for leisure and spirituality to ensue, right it?
Speaker 1:was just kind of me as a kid, as a young person, as an adolescent, you know, going to my motherland without any deeper meaning than just that right, just experiencing and existing.
Speaker 3:And even the hike at El was for destination right.
Speaker 1:So that's so much different experience. Right. So here you know I'm going on my first intentional hikes. I'm. I had my first real salad, like and not just like lechua y tomate, like lettuce and tomatoes, like, like a lot of our folks say. You know, this is a real intentional salad kale, arugula, strawberries, walnuts, you know, blue cheese, like things that I was like I don't even know what this is which also talks to the lack of access that we have in our communities for food.
Speaker 3:You have to be 25 with a masters before you started doing this. Think about that, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was also in a very progressive state and that also helped to shape and form my, my politics and my, my lenses, under which I continue to operate right. So these are, all of these kinds of moments lead to the formation of what is my, you know, my theory of change, my lenses for freedom and liberation, the way that I think about community engagement and community empowerment and building power with community.
Speaker 3:So you ultimately started really doing direct political work, so not not just off of your leisure but like, as you're, a full time thing. Tell me about the path to get there. Like what I understand Vermont kind of played a role in just exposing you to like that progressiveness and going through that HBCU to then getting to this master's, like a lot of things just kind of seem to be aligning for you to, to push you in this direction. But tell me about how you actually got into it and and what your first experiences were there.
Speaker 1:So I leave grad school. It takes me. I leave grad school at the end of 2011. I stay in Vermont for an extra year as an RA and I think this is probably one of the most freeing times of my life, right Like I'm literally working in the morning and at night, and then during the day I have nothing else to do. So I no responsibilities, no bills, I'm just, I'm living, I'm existing and it's it's a very different way of life. Then I go off to write my master's thesis. I come back to Maryland write my master's thesis and finish my master's thesis in the course of a year.
Speaker 1:I graduate by 2012 and I start working back in DC around the Affordable Care Act when it was rolled, being rolled out. So I think this is probably 20, yeah, 2012, 2013. And I'm doing community education work and working with families to get a better understanding of what the new policies are going to be and why they are going to impact them. And then you know Joe Arpaio in Arizona you know, 2,500 miles away is talking about Latino communities and immigrants, and Jan Bauer, then governor of Arizona, is signs into law SB 1070, which allows for police officers to stop you without probable cause, because you look like an undocumented person or you look like an immigrant and ask you for your papers, wow.
Speaker 1:And so this was a direct target and attack on on our communities and I felt compelled to to act. And my then mentor lived in Arizona so I moved in with him while I was also practicing santeria. I was I was an apprentice in the practice of santeria and learning to be a santero. It was also a really interesting time because I didn't know anybody in Arizona except for him. I didn't know the political climate and culture. I didn't have any connections to people in movement, and so it was really difficult for me to kind of integrate myself into the space.
Speaker 1:And that was, I think, one of the, you know, biggest reflections from that time is is very much that sometimes communities are protective and you have to build trust in order for you to come into these communities to be able to support. Right At that time I thought you know here, I got a master's degree, I've been doing community work for a while. I know what it is to mobilize and organize people. Let me go and help. Yeah Right, Not recognizing my own privileges, not recognizing, you know, that communities, even though I'm Latino, like I'm not, I'm not from Arizona, I'm not Mexican, I'm not of this community and like these communities, are also autonomous right.
Speaker 1:They have the power to shift and change their own narratives, and we're doing so right. We saw over the next decade. We saw the immigration rights movement become a force to be reckoned with because of the radicalization of young people then in Arizona who were living this right, absolutely.
Speaker 3:You know, people mobilize when they see things that will impact them, when they see that things are wrong and a lot of times communities have their own solutions already. You know and I see that as someone who's in philanthropy is like we can't go in and propose the solutions. We can't go in and think that we know all the answers because we work in so many different spaces. A lot of times it's just how can we support your movement, how can we support what you're already doing, amplify that, duplicate that, whatever that is, in order to support that. So I'm glad that you went in and understood that lens right and that comes with a lot of growth and a lot of reflection and clearly you're very ensuing and very reflective. Thank you, yeah. Yeah. So it was basically a call to action that you saw and injustice and that brings you directly into politics to say, okay, that's wrong, we need to do something about that.
Speaker 3:You've worked at a couple of other organizations. You want to talk a little bit about your work, any of those or any notable moments in any of those?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I think my real I don't get to do much in Arizona. I end up staying there for like a little under a year and I was working as a telemarketer for the time that I was there and that's also where I'm. It's how my wife and I reconnected my now wife and I reconnected. She's from Connecticut.
Speaker 2:Okay, the great state of Connecticut right. The great state of Connecticut. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yes, the Nutmeg state, that's right, the Constitution state. Holla Chaboy, my wife, is from Connecticut. She grew up in Windsor, connecticut, and they just finished grad school and was working as a therapist in Hartford and we were talking about who was going to move where. You know. I had bounced around the country for so much already I was like what's another state?
Speaker 1:That's fair, I've never been to Connecticut Like I might like it up there and that was really the catalyst for my political engagement work. So I worked for an education advocacy organization and under that education advocacy organization is where I cut my teeth in statewide mobilizing and organizing lobbying and electoral campaign work, particularly on the independent expenditure side, on the IE side. But it's where I really got a handle on. I was able to refine my talents in the field right and put my talents to the test and put theory to practice. And you know we mobilized thousands of parents, teachers, school leaders. We were able to have parents and their state legislators meet over the course of, you know, four legislative sessions. You know this is hundreds of meetings that we organized. It was a time to be had. It was a really great opportunity for me to jump into the political and electoral organizing space. It was a great way for me to be introduced to policy advocacy in a very concrete way and it was really the jumpstart of my career.
Speaker 1:I got my start in Connecticut and it is a state that I will forever be grateful for. Some of my closest friends, the people that are in my circle, the people that I hold dearest, live in Connecticut and are very much a dear part of my life.
Speaker 3:I now live in Connecticut so I'm very biased towards the state. So you know, I am glad that you are seeing so much value in this wonderful, remarkable state. It is Okay. So you did that for about three years or so and then you went off to an organization that a lot of listeners may very well recognize. Where'd you end up going and why?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So you know, 2016 happens and we are coming off of a high of winning, you know, I think, four out of our five electoral campaigns and, like yo, we did the damn thing, let's do it. And then Donald Trump wins the election and we are devastated, right Like I felt it in my gut and I knew that our communities were going to be in trouble, and so I decided to take my talents to the national stage and support work that I thought was going to be intersectional because, again, for all oppressed people, two was going to have a higher impact and three would challenge the ways that we thought organizing was. And so I went to work for Planned Parenthood Federation of America and in this capacity, I was the Raiz program manager, and so I supported, under Melissa Garcia from Arizona's Tucson, arizona, her leadership.
Speaker 1:I supported, you know, a four state program At first it was Florida, arizona, nevada and Pennsylvania and under her leadership we expanded to, I think, about 20 states and we now were one of the largest, if not the largest, organizing program in the United States specific to Latinx communities. And when she left, I then became the associate director of Latinx campaigns, where I ran our electoral and organizing programs, supported all of our organizers doing work in a number of states and on state and local initiatives, and then helped to expand our work into other communities.
Speaker 3:Well okay, and then I know you had, I know there was a brief stint in one more place before you got to where you are. More actually basically too. But you know, I mostly want to hear mentally where you are at this point right, because you've one I know personally. You've come a long way from where you started, right, and I'm very big if you judge me and my peers by progress, and I'm not studied by where we are but by progress. So the starting point to where we are now we're doing pretty freaking great right. So, like you know, we'd love to hear kind of mentally where you are at that point you're now working for at that point working for a national organization. I know you go on to do even more and greater things since that moment, but just generally we'd love to hear about kind of where you are and at that point you're rebuilding this now, marriage, right, and doing all the things together. Tell me, and tell me a little bit about where you are there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, I think one I'm a husband, I'm a son, I'm a brother, I'm a son-in-law, I'm a brother-in-law, like. These are roles that I have come to take very seriously, and I think a part of that has been also because of my own healing journey. Right, one of the greatest gifts that I received as a young person was that therapy was never stigmatized for me as a child, and so I had been in therapy since I can remember, and it has been a natural part of my life, and there were moments where I wasn't in therapy, particularly under grad some of grad school, most of grad school. In the moments where I felt like I absolutely needed to be in therapy, I had no hesitation in being like oh I'm, I'm crazy, or therapies for those crazy people are what are?
Speaker 1:my peers going to think about if they find out that I'm in therapy, so that that was never kind of a part of my lexicon, if you will. And so you know, my healing journey has really been, you know, one in making peace with my past, honoring the different versions of myself and forgiving those versions of myself that didn't know. It is also dreaming and imagining today what the rest, what you know, other phases, that things and parts of my life could look like I had gone from not thinking I would be alive past the age of 18 to, you know, going off to college and being like, oh wow, I did this thing. What now? What next? And then dreaming of all of the things that I could do in this particular scope of work. And you know I, you know, up until this point I've accomplished everything that I thought that I could do.
Speaker 1:a part of my work today is to continue to dream to continue to learn, to evolve, to grow, to be somebody else, somebody different. Still myself, right, but also, in part, somebody who is, who's continuing to want to be, the best version of myself.
Speaker 3:Got it. That makes sense to me, okay. So I love that. And again, you know I think you're very reflective and very entombed. You know I recognize you're also really good at professional development. So we love to hear some of the programs, fellowships, things that you've been a part of that you think have been helpful to your career.
Speaker 1:Let's see. So I think, a couple of things, starting at the local level. There are usually local leadership development organizations or programs that people can get engaged in and get involved in. One of my favorites that I was on a board of for my DC chapter is New Leaders Council NLC. That is a great organization that helps you know people in their mid-level career kind of level up and also connects you to a progressive network of people across the United States in various places and chapters. I would also look at you know other local or statewide opportunities to do leadership development programs and you know if you're organizing.
Speaker 1:You know Midwest Academy is always a great training ground. What was then Wellstone, now Repower, is also a great training ground as well and ensuring that you are staying abreast to all of the things that are, you know, new and developing in your field. The other piece is from a professional standpoint. You know there are a couple of things that I think about. One is like everything is up for negotiation, right. So one, learning the art of negotiation is going to be crucial to your professional development journey.
Speaker 3:Can you give an example of that? Because you don't get what you deserve. You get what you negotiate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right. I'll go into it in a second. To the second piece is that titles and salaries oftentimes dictate what your next jump in profession is going to be. And so you know if you are making 60K now, you're likely going to make 65 or 70K next. It's not always the case, but you know you're not always making bigger leaps. So I would always advise to negotiate higher salaries, or as high as you can go, and also your titles right. If you see yourself as a director in the next you know five years, what is it going to take for you to get there? And if you are an associate and you see yourself as a director in five years, then you have to do some power mapping to think about how your title now is getting you to become a manager or senior manager or a deputy director or a director, because there are multiple levels within these confines, depending on the organization to
Speaker 1:be able to loop into or to be able to jump into, and so if you feel like you are doing work that is senior manager level, but you are a manager or an associate, then advocate, right, negotiate. One of the things that I have tried to make a common practice of is negotiating my time off, particularly because of the work that I do and folks who do, you know community work, who do hard work, who do work that you know impacts the mind and the body can be grueling, and so what I do is that I promise to work as hard as I can from January to November and I will bust ass to do what I need to do for the freedom and liberation of my people, of all oppressed people, and I need a month off. And I need a month off to recover, to rejuvenate, to rest, to realign myself, to strategize, to reflect. I need the time to be in community, to be with family, and all of that is important to the work because it's a part of the work that we're doing to be a better society.
Speaker 1:Like I cannot be effective if I am burnt out, and, in fact, when I'm burnt out, I'm probably raggedy and all of my coping skills go out the door and all of the things that I manage and navigate start to come in and so rest. I think is really important. Reflection is really important. Having time to think and imagineer and dream of what your role is and what it could be and what else you could be doing, I think is going to be extremely important as well.
Speaker 3:I love that I've negotiated titles, pay for sure. But I've never negotiated time off that way and I just think it's important because we don't know what we don't know and a lot of us just accept the offer because we're happy to get the offer. But by the time we get to an offer they're probably really excited to get you. They're not trying to start a process all over. So at that point, ask for what you want. If they cannot meet that like.
Speaker 3:I've gotten folks that meet me halfway. Sometimes they're like I can't give you that salary but I'll give you something to make you feel a little better. But yeah, I mean that five, even 10 extra K I've been able to. You know what I mean. Whatever you're able to negotiate, you aren't going to get it if you didn't ask. So you might as well go for it. So I appreciate that and all of that. I know you were also a Spanish and Philanthropy fellow and I know that because you nominated me for the thing. So I know I am fulfilling my application, so I can hopefully be part of that great legacy, of course, as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I think building out your network, your network, is really important. Through these fellowships you have access to new networks and new people. You were not met because of my fellowship and that also opens other doors and opportunities. So because of a, you know, I was an Aspen Ideas Festival fellow this year and was able to go to Aspen last year. I was in Hispanic and Philanthropy and they supported some of the initiatives and work that we were doing and fiscally sponsored some of that work. We, you know I was able to do new leaders council and became a board member and actively became a mentor to young leaders. And I have a network of people in Washington DC that I love and care for, that are part of my community and you know those are all priceless.
Speaker 3:Got it Okay. You know, as we talked about I know we just mentioned negotiating and all that. I think it's important to talk about salary Things, important for people to recognize that you can do really good mission, aligned work, like you're doing, and get compensated for it. And even, as you mentioned, negotiating, right, like you travel a lot for work too and like you move around a lot. So like having that month off it's not just for I want to hang out, it's like literally I've been busting my asshole over the country. I need to just sit down sometimes. And sometimes your work involves if there is an unfortunate tragedy, like being out and about because of that tragedy at the job of an item, right. So you know, I love that you mentioned that negotiation, but we'd love to also talk about salary.
Speaker 1:I think this is in line with the trajectory of my life, in that I have always wanted to do purpose driven work and have never thought about money and finances being a part of the equation, and there's always internally something for me that said I have enough and I, if I do what I love, then the universe is going to reward me.
Speaker 3:That is such a son of an immigrant mentality.
Speaker 1:It is very different than you know. You know, even in my own circumstances, growing up in low socioeconomic status or, you know, being food insecure or living in food deserts. You know, for me I tried. I don't know if this was intentional, I don't think it was intentional at all but I always had kind of a framework of abundance. I always knew how to work and I always knew how to hustle.
Speaker 1:So for me it was like if I don't, if I, you know get fired, if I lose my job, if I don't get a job like I know how to cut hair, I'm a graffiti artist, I know.
Speaker 1:You know, I know how to do this, this and this, I, I'm always going to be in a position where I can do something else, and I think that that's something that's really important too. It's like what are backups, what are other supplementary, supplementary incomes that you can generate, or how do you utilize your talents and monetize those talents so that you don't have to feel like you're tied into a particular place in space? And I never imagined that my kind of work, one I never thought that my kind of work was possible or was even a field right, that I could make money doing what I loved organizing communities, being an advocate, running you know program, but two, I didn't think that I could make a decent living or live a comfortable life in the kind of work that I do, and so I make over $150,000 a year and that is a part of you know. The way that I think about that allows me some of the flexibility and comfort that I'm able to take advantage of.
Speaker 3:I'm very big on. You know you can do good and do well at the same time, and I think that it's really important because I think I was fortunate enough to see someone in philanthropy when I was 16. But I know a lot of my peers did not see something that clicked for them at that age and especially because, coming from our socioeconomic backgrounds, it has to make sense and it has to make dollars and at that point you're like okay, but can I make money doing that? Right? Like, because if not, I might as well just do the same thing my parents are doing and will be right, right. And you know I love that and I appreciate you being willing to share that. I know you spoke a little bit about the Alchemist. We'd love to hear if there are any other forms of media books, podcasts, things that you read or have read that have influenced you personally or professionally.
Speaker 1:Currently one of my favorite podcasts. Well, a couple of my favorite podcasts are La Brega. La Brega through Future Media is a podcast about Puerto Rico. My wife is Puerto Rican and we spent about two years on the island and I got to know its people intimately and I think that that podcast provides context that allows me to appreciate Puerto Rico, its people, its status, even deeper and it gives me, it makes me feel connected to its people and the island even more. Another podcast is Native, this Land, this Land, by Crooked Media, and that is a podcast that illustrated Indigenous law as it was going through a SCOTUS review.
Speaker 1:So, it gave me perspective on the history of Indigenous people of this land and its relationship to the United States government, and also the stories that come with these communities and these tribal nations right, these political entities that are struggling for either a recognition or resources or justice, right. So those two podcasts, I think, are two of my absolute favorites and I'll play them like. I'll come back to them every once in a while because they're just that good, Awesome. Bombay Estereo. Their latest album they had a couple of EPs Aire, Tierra, Fuego and another element and, on a spiritual level, that combination of, or that collection of, music, I think, was something that was very heartfelt for me and helped me to also reclaim my relationship with the land and the elements in a way that I just wasn't expecting and I didn't realize that I needed. Wow.
Speaker 1:You know, I think there's a book by Ernesto Quiñones, changos Fire.
Speaker 1:It was the first time I read a book about an urban Latino community in New York City this was, I believe, in Spanish Harlem but its characters were people that I felt like I knew and people that could have very well been my own neighbors, and it was the first time I somewhat saw myself in a book.
Speaker 1:It was the first time I saw myself in a book up until this book by Javier Samarra Solito, and this is a book about his migration to the United States and his story as a Salvadorian child, and it was the first time that I could hear and feel El Salvador on a page. It was the first time that the way that we speak Spanish, or caliche is what it's called is on a book and in letters, and it was an experience for me that just cracked me wide open. It was a book that was healing. It provided perspective on the immigrant experience, one of which that I didn't have. It helped me to contextualize my own parents' journey to the United States as well, and that book was absolutely powerful, and I mean I can go on and on.
Speaker 3:No, that's great. I think that's a great list. I love that, thank you, and I. You know it gets people different forms of media right. You get some albums, you get some podcasts and you get some books. I appreciate that. What's your favorite part of you, john?
Speaker 1:Built the community. You know, when I came into the gun violence prevention space I was asking where you know Latinx gun violence prevention leaders, organizations were, and by and large you know people didn't have answers or people said that they didn't exist. And as I traveled the country, as I ran some of our listening tours and as I you know, related communities that I already knew were were filled with Latinx folks and also had been burdened by gun violence. I was able to build a community of you know Latinx leaders, organizers, executive directors, street intervention workers and advocates that I am grateful to be in this fight with, I'm grateful to be building with, I'm grateful to support, and I think that that's the best part of my job is like being able to work with such amazing people who are about that life, like they're about it, about it.
Speaker 1:Like they want to see an end to this hard because our communities have been impacted by gun violence for generations. Absolutely. And yet our voices are only now being heard, and so being a conduit and being a servant to my community, I think, is the best part.
Speaker 3:I love it. Is there anything else we haven't discussed that the world should know about? Jose?
Speaker 1:I love pizza. Pizza is my favorite thing in the world.
Speaker 3:I have witnessed this. This is a fact.
Speaker 1:I absolutely love pizza. I would be remissed if I did not talk about how much I love pizza, and it would be very unbranded of me to not mention that I love pepperoni pizza with extra cheese, and it is one of my heart's purest joys. I become the biggest kid when I eat pizza and I could eat pizza for the rest of my life, and I've had the privilege, because I've traveled so much, to eat pizza in every state that I've been in In over 39 states. Now. I just eat pizza everywhere, everywhere I go, and I don't have an argument for who has the best pizza and the worst pizza. I think all pizza, relative to its environment and its circumstances, is good pizza to somebody, but I do have pizza that I'll remember forever and always, and those are some of the things that I cling to.
Speaker 3:I love that. I appreciate that. Well, thanks for joining us today. This is great.
Speaker 1:Man. Thank you, it's been a privilege, it's an honor. I appreciate the space to be vulnerable. I hope this doesn't come back to by me in the house.
Speaker 3:You be alright. That's great, but I'm grateful Thank you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and believe on the mission we're on, please like, rate and subscribe to this podcast on whatever platform you're using, and share this podcast with your friends and your networks. Make sure you follow us on Instagram and LinkedIn at career cheat code and tell us people or careers you would like to see highlighted. See you next week with some more cheat codes. Peace.
