Sharing the Legacy of Beauty Rituals w/Ana Flores + Luvvie Ajayi Jones

Today’s episode is all about the ritual of beauty. Jess speaks with Ana Flores, speaker and founder of the We All Grow Latina network, about the beauty rituals that were handed down to her as a young woman from El Salvador. 

Now as a mother herself, Ana is conscious about the beauty rituals and ideas she chooses to hand down to her 14 year old daughter. She shares how she talks with her daughter about beauty and the male gaze, and how she heals ancestral wounds. And she gives us a beautiful definition for what true beauty is. 

Later on in the episode, Jess sits down with the professional troublemaker, Luvvie Ajayi Jones, to talk about beauty in the workplace and “bringing your full self to work.” 

Luvvie is an author and speaker. She specializes in shaking up norms within the workplace. “The living embodiment of The Do,” as Jess calls her, Luvvie’s hot takes and advice can help you be more yourself at work. 

To sign the CROWN act petition to end hair discrimination in the workplace, and to find resources to help you boost hair confidence with a young person in your life, visit dove.com/thecrownact, or Google, “Dove, My Hair, My Crown.” 

You can connect with Ana @anaflores_me, or @weallgrowlatina. And you can find Luvvie @Luvvie across social media, or at her Awesomely Luvvie Facebook page. 

Please rate, review, subscribe and share Dominant Stories with everyone you know. 

If you want to learn more about Dominant Stories and how you can challenge and change them, visit jessweiner.com or follow Jess on Instagram @imjessweiner. 

You can also email us about your Dominant Stories and how you are changing them - [e-mail] or leave us a voicemail at 213 259 3033

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Shonda Rhymes and we're bringing the Dominant Stories created
by Shawn land Audio in partnership with the Self Steam Project.
Who is she aware of when she's thinking about what
she looks like? Again? Is it for her and her
health and how she wants to feel? And that's what
I've been trying to make sure that she understands or

(00:20):
is it for somebody else? From the beginning, How are
we having these conversations with our children? Yeah? Hey, I'm
Jess Wiener and this is Dominant Stories, the podcast that
helps us reclaim and rewrite the stories we tell ourselves
about ourselves, about our bodies, our beauty, our creativity, and

(00:43):
our identities. So today I wanted to talk about the
power of beauty rituals, and specifically the beauty rituals that
might have been passed down to us from within our
families or within our communities. Just so that I'm clear,

(01:05):
when I talk about a ritual, I'm really thinking about
a repetitive pattern or maybe a behavior that helps you
ground and connect to yourself and others. Because I've been
really curious about what these rituals might teach us about ourselves,
how they help us form our identity in the world
and what happens if you have really strong beauty rituals.

(01:28):
Let's say, but you live in a culture where there
is discrimination about our beauty. What happens when our rituals
are erased and what do we do to combat that?
So I have two incredible guests who can speak to
the nuance and the multidimensionality and ultimately the confidence that
can come from experiencing powerful beauty rituals passed down from

(01:52):
within our communities. First up, I'm excited to talk with
on A Floras, who is the founder and CEO of
We'll Grow Latina, which is the first network of Latina
digital influencers. I wanted to talk with Anna about her
upbringing in childhood in El Salvador and how it helped
to shape her dominant stories around beauty and now as

(02:14):
a single mom, what kind of messages and legacies is
she hoping to pass down to her teenage daughter Camila.
And then later I'm going to be joined by love
E a gi E Jones, an incredible author and speaker
and podcast host and her latest book that just came
out is called Professional Troublemaker. She encourages all of us
to create trouble in the face of any kind of

(02:37):
appearance based discrimination. So I can't wait for you to
hear this convo. And as always, if you enjoy these conversations,
let me know what you think by subscribing and writing
a review wherever you're listening. All right, let's dig in.

(02:57):
I am excited to dig into this conversation with you
about beauty rituals and the passing down of those rituals
and families, especially from mothers to daughters. Because you were
born in Houston, right, raised for a period in El Salvador,
talk to me about what little Anna was like. I
was curious, like, who were you as a as a
little girl, as a little girl, So I feel I

(03:19):
went through through a few stages because yes, my parents
got divorced when I was six years old, and that's
when we moved back to side with my mom and
my sister on the oldest and that initial period, I
went through many years of being like a sad girl. Honestly,
now that I look back, I'm like, I actually put
a post other day where on Instagram where it so
like I don't have a lot of pictures of myself

(03:40):
when I was little, as an eight year old, ten
year old, eleven year old, where I was smiling like,
I don't have a lot of those when I'm smiling.
So there's a lot to dig into that. We're not
going to dig into that right now, but um, but
more than anything, I was always surrounded by family. It
was a small nucleus. It was my mom on myself
and I. I've always been surrounded by women, which tells

(04:03):
you a lot about what I do now. I didn't
grow up with my dad, right I did see him
every summer, etcetera. And I didn't have brothers, so my
life was always surrounded by by women. That's amazing. What
what is your mom like and what was your relationship
like with her? My mom grew up in a military family.
My dad, my grandfather was a general. My other grandfather

(04:24):
was a colonel and El Salvador, So she she grew
up very much having to fit in the mold, in
the standard of a lot of what we say in
Spanish uma, when we put a lot of emphasis into
beauty and staying in your role. You know, speaking up
doesn't make you a beautiful person. Speaking up is not

(04:45):
your role. And she was beautiful. She still is beautiful,
and she was a go getter. She was an entrepreneur,
she was a single mom and she did everything that
she needed to do to make sure that that we
were okay. And that's how I always saw her, like
a very strong, beautiful, independent woman that now as I

(05:05):
look back, I see that she was always also holding
back a lot, right, the secrets, these ga you know,
not speaking up, those type of things that you you
end up integrating into your life. Yeah, well, how did
she feel about her beauty? Did you even know that?
Were you even aware? What would she say about herself?
It was more what she did, and so she was

(05:27):
always always had time for herself. We grew up in
on Salvedoran, and we grew up in a privileged society
because it was during the Civil War and I was
in the capital and we we we were privileged. And
she actually had and still to this date has I
think the same woman Eddie Guff that comes to her
house once per week to do her nails. She had

(05:49):
a massage bed in her bedroom. She always had had
somebody come and do her massage. Always a hair is impeccable,
even if she was playing tennis every day, like at
the country club, and etcetera. Her help hair was impeccable.
As an entrepreneur, she had the Benetton franchise, so she
was always fashionable, looking beautiful. UM, and beauty was always

(06:11):
very important to my mom and the way that she
would show up and present herself. I love hearing about
your mom's emphasis on rituals, rituals of nails and massage
and like and kind of the care and keeping of
her body. I'm curious as you were growing up as
a little girl in all Salvador, and I appreciate the
perspective you were sharing about the class you were growing

(06:31):
up in, the privilege that you were able to experience.
I'm curious if there was a lot of conversation about
indigenous rituals. Not at all. None. None. Yeah, Salva or
is a very very divided country. Rate I grew up
right in the in a society that was incredibly racist, um,
incredibly colorist and classist. Absolutely no denying. I mean, I

(06:54):
grew up listening to phrases likes you know, which means
like improving the race one phrase that and gosh, my
mom will hit me repeating this, but I hope she
feels ashamed of it now. Not back then, because she
did it, you know, it was it was a different
reality Mona Sea. It means even if the monkey dresses

(07:15):
with silk, a monkey, they will be it's horrible. So
part of what has passed down is that is that
recognition of the part that you play in society and
how you're supposed to act in that privilege that you
have without even calling it privilege, because it just is.
So A lot of that was what I had to
break through when I turned eighteen and I moved to

(07:36):
the to the States or to college and just make
my own identity and start opening up my eyes and
realizing what I wanted to bring into into my world.
And as far as beauty and beauty rituals, that I
feel that she passed out more than the rituals themselves.
It was the importance of having to put beauty and
the way my appearance and the way I looked with

(07:57):
the strong emphasis of who I was going to attract, right.
There was a purpose for there was a purpose. You know,
it's interesting when you talk about the phrases that get
embedded in in culture and get repeated down I think
so much of this is about the legacy that we
passed down around, especially when you mentioned colorism and the
idea that lighter skin is more beautiful, thinner bodies are

(08:18):
more beautiful. This don't come out of thin air. These
are really embedded and sort of and then embodied where
we kind of live those ideals as a little girl,
did you have an awareness of your beauty and people
around like, were you comparative then to what your skin
color looked like, what your hair looked like, what your
body looked like. Do you remember those active thoughts as
a kid. So not necessarily the skin itself, because and

(08:43):
a Salvador, we we worshiped the sun. At least my
generation did, like we would put coca cola on, you know,
just to get darker. For us, like tanned was important,
but also tanned in that sense of like, oh, I
can be out in the beach for a weekend tanning
or by the pool is another form of privilege, right,
So that was form of the class that you belong to,
that you can afford to be tanned. But at the

(09:04):
same time, right right, like you're getting too dark. My
mom's generation, it was about being the porcelain white and
maintaining that. When you were talking about putting Coca cola on.
I was thinking about I grew up in Miami and
I was do lipped in tea bags in the backyard, right.
I read that one lipped in tea and laying out.

(09:25):
But you're right, I think an interesting piece that we
don't think about me because I'm a kid of the
eighties and so, like, you know, you wanted to get
as dark as you can. But I appreciate that you said,
you know that having the leisure time at the beach
to get tan is a message in and of itself
versus I am. My skin is darkened by the sun
because of the labor that I'm producing. And and I
was curious, like as a kid, I mean, so you
said not your skin color wasn't But did you think

(09:47):
about hair? Did you think about body? Like I'm curious?
Oh gosh, yeah. So I actually got my first perm
when I was I think thirteen. Mom she took me
to this on she would invest in me getting my perm,
like those were the type of things that she didn't
mind spending money in. So you're in a laugh at
this one. But my high school graduation gift, it was

(10:09):
a nose job. Wow, so not a full reconstruction, just
the scraping of the bridge that was my high school graduation.
You conscious of your nose prior I was, but I
don't remember being obsessed over it, right, I'm so like,
how did that happen? Did I like beg her for
it or it was something more? But then I go
back to like ten years ago when I was I

(10:30):
went to visit and all solve it or and like
I think the last day that I was there, she's like, oh,
let's go visit my dermatologist. She's like, I think you
need a filler already here, and I think you need
to you know, like those sor of things that that
she noticed this and that she's that's her way of
sharing her love with me and making this assumption. But
I think for your mom's generation, my mom's generation, those

(10:52):
aspirations were not questioned. They were expected, right. You know.
It's funny and even in prep for this interview, like
I didn't want to make an assumption of out el
Salvadorian beauty ideals and so like I'm doing some research
on it and like low and behold, like all the
images that come up if you sort of like put
in like ideal body type Al Salvador deal be you know,
beauty image El Salvador comes up, light skin, thin body,

(11:13):
big boobs, big butt, small waist, very traditional like how
we see around the world beauty standards right, very colonized,
beauty absolute. And so I was curious, like, if that
is something now in the work that you do globally,
if you see the proliferation of that kind of continued colorism,
racist like thin bodied sort of bias. Yes, from I'm

(11:37):
going to say probably even my generation and above. I
love what I'm seeing from the younger generations, from the
young millennials and the gencs, especially coming out of our countries,
and they're reclaiming and I'll solve it or something really
beautiful has happened. I mean, you have to understand that
I was raised told that there were no black people
and I'll salve it, or and that it was done
to protect them from slavery. In the constitution, black people

(12:03):
are not allowed in Salvador. Well, go to Instagram and
you will find very loud, africle Salvadorian voices that have
been coming out and it's just coming out. It's even
this discovery of who they are and being accepted into
society because they were completely completely made non existent. So

(12:25):
if we even come from that background and that understanding
of the type of society it is, I mean, it
has come a long way just by the fact that
year fact that now because of this democratization of media
and people are able to represent themselves, we're starting to
see shift in the younger generations because they're now understanding
that it's not just what they see around them, right,
and and the society is opening up. So that leads

(12:48):
me to think that we definitely are going to be
seen a big shift. It hasn't happened yet, unfortunately. It's
really interesting when you talk about the democratization of media
and the way that we see beauty images, especially in
and around hair. I mean, I think now about the
natural hair movement. I think about seeing people reclaim their
curls and talk about texture, talk about Karen keeping of texture,
and I just remember being a kid like having really

(13:10):
naturally curly hair, never finding a hairdresser who understood how
to cut it. I always had some weird like triangular
haircut where they would just tell me, oh, just pull
down your curls. We ever told that, Like all I
was told was just like, keep pulling at them and
you'll make them longer. I was just you know, iron
them out. I mean we literally iron and then iron.
I mean I did straighteners because I really wanted again

(13:31):
growing up as a kid in the eighties, I wanted
the waterfall bangs that was like my I wanted them
so badly, and all I had were these like two
proofs of girls like I couldn't I if my hair
was wet, I could get it there. But for me,
outside of all the body image issues that I did
have as a kid growing up, like hair was a
big one. And I'm curious in all these experiences now
that you had off like your parents getting divorced, being

(13:53):
raised predominantly by women and around women, and then now
you are a single mom raising your beautiful daughter, you know,
who's four, And I'm curious, like, in now, in this
transition in your life, how you think about talking to
Kamila about beauty rituals or traditions, Like how have you
how have you addressed that with her? Oh? I love it.

(14:16):
I bought this image of my mom that actually is
really beautiful because so many conversations that I've had with
her and still till now have happened when she's sitting
in her vanity putting her creams and her makeup on,
or doing her hair, and she sits in the vanity
and has everything and gets it all done right. It's
not the rushing about it. It's actually part of she

(14:37):
will not leave the house. That's her morning ritual. That
is her morning ritual with my daughter. It's very common
in Latin American countries. The first thing that you do
is observe somebody's weight, right, you you need to eat more,
you need to eat less. I mean, you're you're just
never enough. It's always something that you're not doing right right.

(14:57):
And that's a conversation that I have banned the grandmother's
grandparents anyone to have around her ever since she was little,
like so every time I talk to her about that,
it's about her health. Right. So now at fourteen, she
does understand that there's different standards. So she is a
huge OLIVERA. Rodrigo Rodrigo and Taylor Swift fan. Of course,

(15:19):
she is a Swifty and she's an actor. She wants
to act, that's what she's always wanted to do. So
she has a lot of people that she follows but
she's also very conscious, and I know it's because of
the environment that she's growing up with me and all
the women and on that I'm surrounded with, and that
she's very conscious about what when she starts to compare
and when it's not healthy for her. So she will

(15:40):
I think she's off TikTok right now again, and she
will like she will delete it and she'll be like, oh,
it's affecting me. Wow, I'm starting to compare. How does
she know? Do you know? Like what starts? Did? She
feels anxiety? She feels anxiety, and she already knows how
to recognize that anxiety and her body and it really
is her because of terms, I'll push her. I'm like, well,

(16:01):
if you want to act, then Instagram needs to be public.
And it's just like, no, I'm not starting. I'm not
feeling good about my startment being public anymore. I'm gonna
it's gonna be private. I'm like, Okay, that's up to you.
She's like, don't push me. I'm like, I'm not pushing you.
They can go private, right, It's like the other way. So, yes,
we have had these conversations, but a lot of it
comes directly from from her understanding who she wants to be. Yeah,
what I think about I mean, thank god in a

(16:23):
way with all of my body and securities growing up
in beauty and securities that like, I didn't grow up
in social media where I had so much compared and
to spare opportunities. I do think about kids today who
are inheriting so many different messages about what is beautiful. Right,
So you've got her dominant conversation with you about beauty
and femininity and power, and then you know all these

(16:43):
influences culturally and publicly about what it could look like.
And I'm sure if you love somebody like a celebrity
that you just mentioned, who they have like long straight hair,
that becomes also the aspirational and kind of mainstream beauty quality. Absolutely,
And I think that's where it's important as a parent
or as a friend to those conversations and be like, Okay,
this is what can we do with the within the

(17:03):
range of what you were given, right, this is the
texture of your hair, this is what your hair is
going to do. What can we do together like to
make it In that case, it was like less frizzy,
or she wanted a different haircut to help with the
volume that she has. You know, those are the things
that are under your control, and that why not, right?
Why not if it makes you feel more secure in

(17:24):
a certain way. Why not if it makes your beauty routine,
if it makes it easier. Right, That's why we have
products that are meant for different styles of hair. Now
we have so much more access to that we do. Hey,
where are you going? There's so much more this juicy
convo coming right up. Welcome to the other side of

(17:56):
the ad break. Now let's get back to the show.
I think that's the common misnomer around empowerment, is that somehow,
when we are building confidence or more empowerment, we have
to issue beauty standards we have to like, not care about.
And I've actually found a deepening in my connection to
wanting to feel my best self what that means for me.

(18:17):
But it's a it's a given take of like always
asking myself, like why do I want that? Like why
am I aspiring for that? Is that truly something inside
of me? Or is that something like societally that I've,
like we were talking about with your mom, kind of
absorbed and then internalized. I think that's the important part, right,
asking yourself that question, because I do love looking at
myself in the mirror and feeling good, right, I mean, like, oh,

(18:40):
I like how that looks. I like that haircut, I
like how this shirt fits on me. And that gives
you a sense of like self confidence, empowering the way
that you're going to show up. I love wearing sneakers,
but I also know what a good heel does from
my confidence and where I need to show up in
certain meetings in certain places, and I will feel different
if I'm wearing a good pair of heels. I mean,
I'm five two, so that also helps. Right. Um, that's

(19:02):
something that my daughter is actually very self conscious about.
She's she's my same height, and she really wants to
be tall, and she really thinks that bian taller is
going to help her more in life in general. So
that's a misconception or something that she has to deal
with in her own and I'm like, it doesn't really matter,
but that's something that for her actually does matter a lot. Well,
you said something that's very interesting, which was about doing

(19:24):
the best with what you've been given, and it made
me think about something. I printed this out because I
wanted to read back to you. A quote that you
had said. I think it was when you were doing
an interview with lead In on the power of womanhood.
So I don't know if you'll remember this or not,
but I want to get your take on it again,
because there was something really powerful in having conversations, especially
with young women or next generation, around the power of

(19:45):
choice and beauty. So whether a ritual had been passed
down to you or not, whether you've picked it up
from society, like that self determination of like why am
I focusing on these things? So you said something and
this kind of goes back to your origin story that
you were sharing. You said, my grandfather, dad, and stepdad
they ever took care of me. Yet I still believed
I needed a man's guidance. I kept hiding my true
potential behind that belief, and it was time to let

(20:07):
it free. I leaned back from my husband, releasing him
from the pressure of being our family savior and provider,
and I leaned into myself. From that day forward, I
pledged to take care of myself first. I was not
a victim of my circumstances. And besides, I had a
little girl that needed me to lead the way for her.
And it made me think about male gaze and beauty

(20:30):
for the relationship we have, and being chosen by a man,
let's say, in certain cultures, and the power of choosing yourself. Yeah.
So that was a very powerful say that I wrote
for Lenan, And it was the moment that I almost
along divorced now, but that was the first time I
was like, Okay, this is probably going to go. My

(20:50):
daughter was a year old. So when you say right now,
male gaze, the first thing I thought was that definitely
Latinas we we love to look good or our man,
at the end of the day, we really are doing
it for each other, for women, how we're showing up
in that group and that society among ourselves that even
deeper more than that, it really is about who you're

(21:11):
looking in the mirror, right. I think what came up
for me when I was reading that quote was we
think about being chosen for our universus, choosing ourselves that
you're in your life and maybe in that decision time
in your life, I love that you just that I
was leaning into myself. I thought that to be very
powerful and actually applicable to thinking about our relationship to

(21:32):
our own appearance. Yeah, and it goes back to the
famous phrase right now, self love? Right, what does that
look like at the end of the day. Self love
is choosing yourself, is choosing that and seeing a lot
of times when we are in difficult situations, whether it'd
be like a failed relationship or when we're having to
just be consumed by the hustle and the responsibilities and etcetera,

(21:54):
the first thing that we let go is of taking
care of ourselves. And probably that first usually will be
our nutrition, our exercise, and our beauty rituals. We don't
have time for that anymore. And the moment that we
say we want to have time for that anymore, we're
saying I don't have time for me. Is that meditating?
Is that exercising? I mean, all of that is beauty

(22:16):
because all of that feeds the beauty from within, right,
Because beauty isn't only the makeup that we wear, how
we choose to to do our hair, but it is
how are we feeding ourselves from the inside, because that's
the actual glow that's going to then lead to us
looking in the mirror and be like, I want to
take care of you, And I think why I resonated
with that quote to you about your relationship at the time.

(22:36):
Was I've certainly I mean been in relationships and have
thought about relationships in a way where my value or
my worth was assigned to how somebody was experiencing me
or thinking about me. And I just think about that
as a powerful beauty legacy to pass down to your daughter,
that sort of body autonomy, that's sort of independence. Is
that something I mean? From the beginning, just it was

(22:57):
crazy how conscious I was when she was around family
members and making sure that those phrases, those words of
endearment and etcetera, were not embedded into her psyche from
the beginning, and from the books I chose in Spanish
to read her because I had to filter those two, Right,

(23:17):
what were the messages that she was receiving? And of
what you're saying, who is she aware of when she's
thinking about what she looks like? Again? Is it for
her and her health and how she wants to feel?
And that's what I've been trying to make sure that
she understands or is it for somebody else? From the beginning,
How are we having these conversations with our children? What

(23:39):
has it done for your body image and and kind
of connection to your to your beauty now like as
you became a mom and as now as you're parenting
a teenage daughter. So it made me very self aware
of how I spoke to myself in front of her
and just in general, because as much as I was
putting boundaries for her and protecting her from family members

(24:01):
and loved ones, etcetera, I had to do the same myself.
So that meant that I had to always have an
inventory of the words that I was using that we're
not self aware of that I could be looking at
myself in mirror and be like, I look five that
those type of things I filtered. I started being very conscious,
and by being very conscious about that for her, it

(24:23):
ended up benefiting me. And now that as I'm aging
and forty nine, how am I reflecting to her what
the process of aging looks like, it feels like, and
how I am in my acceptance of my stage so
that she can be an acceptance of the stage that
she's going through, which is probably one of the most

(24:45):
difficult ones to be going to puberty. The gaze now
is of her friends of her group, how they each
identify and look at each other and judge each other
at the end of the day. So for me right now,
it's again it's it's always continuing with the conversation of
how what help is to me? And I want to
be open to her with the choices of me, like,

(25:05):
for example, I haven't I haven't had botox yet, but
I will. I know I will. I'm already looking into
it right and I want to and I want to
be able to share it with her why I'm doing
and how I'm doing, what what my reasons are. When
I talk to her about it. Right now, she'd be like, no,
you're beautiful. And she's always telling me that. Do you
know that My friends when they tell when they see you,
they always tell me that I have a beautiful mom,

(25:27):
Like it's something that makes her proud for her to
be able to see them, for us to be able
to openly have the conversations. So it really for me
is is how am I going to continue being aware
as I enter this very difficult stage of of starting
to see the actual process of aging manifest in front
of me. It's so much of that, and it's looking

(25:47):
at the reality of aging on our bodies, and then
it's also the world around us that disappears women of
a certain age from media. But I'm also looking at
healing generational pain and gen rational trauma, and I know
that that's something that you are working on as well.
You've talked about kind of in that way. I'm curious
if we could talk about what it's like to heal

(26:09):
ancestral wounds with your daughter as a different kind of
legacy to pass down. Oh. I am so proud that
I know that so many things have stopped with me,
so many of those patterns and so many of those
wounds I know are not being passed down to her.
Just in the role of women in society in the
sense of not speaking up for ourselves has definitely been

(26:33):
very prevalent in my lineage of women. That is something
that she definitely is not picking up, not picking up
at all. I mean, if anything, she has been surrounded
by this tribe of woman that feel a power, that
are using that power in positive ways, that are breaking

(26:55):
through all these ancestral patterns and all these ancestral wounds
and are taking care of themselves. And that's what she
sees around the narrative that is around her right now.
That is incredible. And when I think about honoring the
work that you've done with we all grow Summit and
then we all grew Amigas and all of the work
that you're doing around wellness in the Latina community. I'm

(27:17):
curious how you talk with her and speak with her
about her heritage and beauty and what she's thinking about
being a young Latina woman in the world and what
that means for her. Oh, she loves it. She went
to We've had five wheel Grow Summits and she's been
to all five. But when it comes to her Latina
heritage in general, it really wasn't until during the pandemic

(27:40):
that we moved to Mexico for eight months and actually
living in Mexico and her being immersed with the culture
and with the people completely changed her image in general.
We have been there for about four weeks and remember
somebody asked her, like, so, what is it that you
like the moves? Are you loving it? What do you
like about being here? She's just like the people. And

(28:01):
it was because of that sense of community and family
that we have and being surrounded with my friends, mostly women,
and that most of them treat her as equal and
would tell her when she's doing something wrong. And what
you know, we're from enter in a loving and kind
way and then just like having this sense of always
just happiness and joy. And once we came back, that's

(28:26):
when I really felt that she started completely identifying proudly
as a Latina. She had to have those interactions and
those experiences herself, and that's such a powerful reclaiming of identity. Right.
But I think the big piece I keep hearing in
like the theme of what you're saying is this like
integrated intersectionality of beauty. This like idea that there are

(28:49):
many ways that we could express and take care of
and that I definitely want to model for her. I
don't want to give her any expectations or the way
that things need to be done. This is how I
do it, This is how it feels to me, and
I invite you to be part of it. What feels
good to you. Yeah, And if you're listening and you
didn't have the benefit of growing up with rituals and

(29:11):
the way that we're talking about it, the idea that
it's never too late to start exactly and and that
you find what works for you. Taking care of yourself
is beauty. Wellness and rest is beauty. How to folks listening,
support the work that you're doing. What's a good way
for them to learn more about you and what you're
up to in the world. I'm definitely active on Instagram
and Twitter. Those are my two main I've tried TikTok,

(29:32):
it's just not I'm not but I'm not performative on video.
It just doesn't work for me. What are your hand
what are your hands for? Ideas Anna Florida's underscore me
I mean, and the work that we all grow Latina.
It doesn't matter if you're Latina or not. We're just
very much about inspiring and you will get to also
if you're not Latina, you will get to really see

(29:53):
what this beautiful group of women of Latinas that are
really about uplifting each other, how we show up and
are the things that matter to us. So we are
at We all girl Latina across the board and everything
including tech talk and everything else amazing. I'm so happy
to see you. I'm so happy to hear from you,
and I'm so happy to hear how well you're doing.
So thank you for joining. I'm always always available to

(30:15):
you guys, always happy to show a space. I know
the next time I was actually picking up a lot
in the Spanish in this episode. My husband, I hope
he's listening to that. All right, thank you, thank you. Hey.
If you enjoyed that combo, don't go anywhere, because I

(30:37):
have a very special interview coming up with love e
Agii Jones, also known as the Professional Troublemaker, and she's
here to talk to us about so many things, ranging
from speaking your truth to power and beauty in the workplace.
I don't care if my team is wearing sweatpants or
a soup. We all zoom. I'm encouraging us to get

(31:00):
these people used to us all showing up as ourselves.
And what we're seeing is change can happen very quickly.
That's coming up right after these messages. Hey, hey, welcome back.

(31:22):
We're here with lovey Agi e Jones. Ready to dig in. Well,
Hi sweetness, all right, Hi, it's just so good to
see you. And it's like such a weird thing that
I'm going to formally talk to you through this interview.
This is who you are to me, This is how
I experience the loveliness in the world. I've known you

(31:43):
for years. One of the things that I've actually loved
in your evolution, at least in the content that you're
making for social lately. That I've been absorbing is you
share these incredible rituals for self care and for beauty
and for connecting and for grounding in spirit. So anything
from Auntie Robes to Sunday hospital Time. How has beauty
talked about growing up for you? Were there other conversations

(32:06):
with women in your family about beauty expectations and about
what you were supposed to do in order to care
and keep of yourself in the world. No, that I
don't think my family really talked about beauty, but we
embodied it growing up. Like I watched my mom every
day she put on a red lipstick and she would
just look bomb, like she's wearing this like fire skirts

(32:27):
suits going to work. And I watched my grandmother, Like
my grandma didn't really wear makeup, but she'd wear her
gal she'd wear her opulent outfits, you know, when she's
going out, and you know, the women and my family
really took pride in taking care of himselves. So for me,
I've been wearing red lipstick since I was five. There's

(32:48):
a picture from my fifth birthday party where I have
red lipstick on I love it, so even though we
didn't talk about it, we embodied it. So I was
watching them basically be these women out in the world.
We've never shied away from bright colors like so I
really kind of embraced that idea that you can show
up in a room looking like you might have one yellow,

(33:10):
you might have on paink purple. My grandmother loved purple.
My mom even gave me her favorite red listed years ago.
I still have it because I don't wear it as
often because I'm always like I wanting to be out
of sck. You want to save it, I'm gona be
saving it. Yeah, you know, we I've never I've talked
to you about a lot of things, but I don't
know if I've talked to you a lot about or
know about a lot about your childhood. And I'm curious.

(33:32):
You know, I know you came to the u S
when you were nine, right, yep, I was nine when
we talk about rituals and why I wanted to dive
into this episode about rituals and traditions passed down within
family and community and the sacredness of it, but also
what happens when culture begins to erase it. And destroy
it in a certain way, and so I wanted to.
I kind of was curious when you landed as little

(33:53):
Levy here, like what did you notice about rituals and
culture around beauty in the US. Do you remember how
they any thoughts of that as you were a young
girl growing up. So when we came to the US,
we started going to a Nigerian church here because in Chicago,
and one thing about Nigerians in terms of beauty, we

(34:13):
love gold, we love jewelry. I think one of the
traditions I was in my family at that point was
like every kid got a gold pendant with their name
on it. I've been wearing a gold chain around my
next since I was born basically still continue to this day.
The cross, multiple different crosses. So coming here going to

(34:36):
the Nigerian church, everybody was also like that people's beauty
still came through people who still had on their red
list sticks. People still had I mean, everybody looked like
a rapper all the gold jewelry. Just coming here. I
was like, oh, man, so this is just us to
do this. Like the rest of my classmates didn't have
on gold jewelry. I didn't have gold chains, and I

(34:56):
was nine with two piercons in my ears, both with
earrings in it. Most of them had one if that,
but it's something that I was just like, Oh, so
I guess they don't operate like that. Okay, it's cool. Yeah.
I think one thing I have been thinking a lot
about as we talk about beauty rituals. And you know,
I grew up with naturally curly hair. I've gone on

(35:16):
and off with straightening it and curling it and changing
it and not really loving the texture of it. And
I think the natural hair conversation has really like I
wish that twelve year old me could have been a
part of those conversations and and been able to kind
of find more role models and products and all this
kind of stuff. But I've often dreamed about cutting it short,
like really really short. Does it feel super liberating? So

(35:40):
I had locks for six and a half years down
to the middle of my back. I loved it. It
was fun, But when I was done, I was done.
The day that I got the advanced copies of my
first book, I'm Judging You, it was a thousand sixteen,
I literally was like, I'm cutting my hair off today.
I told nobody called the barber, and I said, I

(36:03):
need to come cut my hair. He was like, all right,
I have a time at six o'clock. I shut up.
At six o'clock. He's like, before I do it, you're
sure as I cut it off. I cut it off,
and I was like, I see my face again. It
was so liberating. I think everybody should cut their heads
me once in their life, especially as women. We tie

(36:26):
beauty to hair so much to how long our hair is.
Imagine tying like how attractive you are to something as
temporary as hair, something that's ever changing his hair. You
have to cut it otherwise it's gonna get too long.
A lot of women will say like, oh, I don't
have the face for it, or I don't have the

(36:47):
hair for it, or I don't have the head for it.
Try it one time, and then here's the thing. Here's
a beautiful thing. If you don't like it, grow it back.
I've often thought I didn't have the face for it,
but now I'm not going to say that anymore. I'm
gonna everybody has the face, short hair, do it? You
heard it here first? Hey, can we talk about shaking

(37:10):
ship up a little bit because your professional troublemaking is
my love language. And I tout and share your books
to anybody who will listen. And we've worked together on
a bunch of things, but mostly a lot of our
work together has been about speaking truth to power inside
of corporate settings. And and I've been dying to have
this part of the conversation with you, which is everybody
talking about bringing them full their full selves to work.

(37:34):
And I want to know what you think about that,
because what are they really meaning by that? Because I
think like chat at work has always been bringing his
full self. So I want to know when you hear that,
especially around appearance and beauty, and you know cultural differences.
When people say they want to bring their full selves
to work at a company, what do you think that
really means? So, Jess, do you remember, is this the

(37:55):
last time I saw you in person? Um? Did it?
Talk at a major company the most senior executives. The
dress code was business casual And on that day I
decided I'm not gonna do that. And I have no
problem with business casual because I'm usually dressing business casual.
I used on a regular day. I have on a

(38:16):
Roth Lauren polo and and some like boots and a blazer.
But on that day, I was just like because I
wanted to show what excellence looked like in a different package.
So I came wearing a bright red sweatshirt that had
grills on the front, gold grills, and some red and

(38:37):
black and white snakeskin Adidas that says you are beautiful
and jeans. I was very casual, but it was flat
fly casual. And I remember walking into the room and
one of the senior executives of this major company walks
up to me. It was like, oh my god, I
love your outfit. And I was like, thank you. And
I got on the stage and I killed. They loved

(38:57):
my work so much that on the spot like by Gottles,
like we should talk. And it was such an important
moment because who I am in the world is to
partially show that you can be exactly who you are.
You can be opinionated, you can be a woman or

(39:18):
be black, you can be on some margins be who
you are and still thrive. So when we say bring
your whole self to work, it's all the diversity of
not just diversity of experience, diversity of tone, diversity of expression,
diversity of style. You don't have to have the straight hair.
And if you are at a company that dang you

(39:41):
for not having straight hair, that is not a company
that deserves your gifts. There are other places. I run
a team of six, I don't care if my team
is wearing sweatpants or a suit. We all zoom like sure.
If we're going to an extraoral, meaning we might have
to dress up a little bit. Even then you're dressing

(40:01):
up might also look like ninekes, you know, as long
as they clean. So bringing your whole full stuff to
work means you're not showing up as a representative of yourself.
You're putting full energy into the work without having to
act and bend yourself to fit whatever boxes you think
they want you to be in. And because that's too
much work. So I'm encouraging us two get these people

(40:27):
used to us all showing up as ourselves. And what
we're seeing is change can happen very quickly. That is
how change actually happens. So more of us have to
double down on being who we are. But here's an
important part. By being who you are, bring your full
self to work and be excellent. If you're bringing your

(40:48):
full self to work and you do have rainbow hair,
but you are the best marketer on my team. What
do I have to say? Why would I want to
now ding you? So the part I feel like a
lot of people are missing in this whole bring yourself
to work is make yourself indisposable. Yeah, and I think
I mean co sign all of that, But I still

(41:10):
just got through with hosting a workshop where you know,
black and Hispanic employees are talking to me about how
they get up early and practice their tone of how
they're going to be on a meeting, or they dressed themselves.
Love this. One woman was sharing how she'd like changed
her outfit to make sure she you know, code switched
into company culture in a way that she wouldn't be

(41:30):
called out for being a fiery Latino or an angry
black woman. And I think about those women and men
and everybody who are still struggling with the balance and
knowing that there's a lot of discrimination that still exists
in the workplace when you are fully who you are.
And so I want to play I want to play
this clip of you at it you're doing a TED interview,

(41:53):
because for me, it sort of summarizes like a call
to action. I would love for people to think about
in aligning their been in their public selves, and you
talk about this really beautifully, So we're gonna go ahead
and play a little clip. Okay, you know, you can
talk a good talk, but if you're not doing work,
then what's the point of the talk. Ultimately, we have
to put action to our beliefs, to our ideas, to

(42:16):
our convictions. So you can be like, yes, uh, you know,
black lives matter. But if you're a boss who hasn't
promoted your most senior black staff and somebody who just
started got promoted over them, then the words that you
said did not matter. So the do of it all
is important. It's an exclamation point. What do you think
about when you hear yourself saying those things? I'm like, yes,

(42:39):
I agree, self, I agree, I agree, hey self, hey self,
you did that? But yes, true, that's as like all
these empty words. It's the reason why I broke professional
Troublemaker down to three secsions be say, do none of
the other to matter if you don't put action to it.
And people have learned how to sound good, People have

(43:02):
learned how to interview well. People have learned to give
great sound bites and then who they are behind the
scenes does not match up. So if that does not
match up, all those words were for not you know,
going back to earlier in this interview where you were like,
what did your parents say about beauty? And I was like,
they didn't have to say anything, but I watched what
they did. The do of it all is what's most important.

(43:22):
Who we are in this world is what's most more important.
If you watch the person who's always quiet on social media,
but you are behind the scenes making sure black staff
is promoted, you're doing way more than the food who
put up the black square and said black lives matter. Meanwhile,
behind the scenes they are gas lighting. So while everybody
wants to make it sound good, do good. Yes, And

(43:47):
for people I think listening who you know want to
speak up and out against appearance related discrimination and things
that they might be experiencing in the workforce. There. I
think sometimes people hear about signing a petition and they
and they might be like, well, if I sign something,
what does that really do? But you know, sometimes the
collective voice rises up in multiple ways, and I always
to encourage people to find the spaces where they can

(44:11):
be most active and most effective and do not release
that pressure like continue that pressure because we've seen things
get canceled and shifted. We've seen legislation shift because of
a mass you know, agreement. But you also talk a
lot about how you speak up, how you speak truth
to power, how you stay committed and consistent in that courage.
One of the reasons I wanted to to have your

(44:32):
voice in particular in this conversation was the embodiment for me,
taking action is beautiful. That's the part of me that
feels most beautiful and has very little to do with
my hair, my skin, my eyes and those are like.
It is about my embodiment of who I am. And

(44:54):
so I'm thinking about, as it's all ties together, what's
the legacy that you want to leave for girls and women,
the little lovees everywhere, about standing in their truth, about
embracing their beauty, their identity there troublemaking. I think I
want my legacy to be that because people see me

(45:15):
that I give them permission to be exactly who they are.
You know, look like who you are, sound like who
you are, dressed like who you are, embody who you
are proudly without apology, take up space. So I really
want to be somebody who people say, Lovey was able
to do all of that, and she still wants I

(45:37):
should be able to do all I want to do
and still win living embodiment of the do. M M. Correct.
That's what you are. That's what you are to me,
That's what you are to so many. I was let's
just let's talk about the book. Let's do all the
plug in all the so Love Nation, I'm super excited
about it. Imagine the best business conference where you then

(46:00):
have the most lit after parties. It is like if
Lincoln was swaggy. Okay, if Lincoln was was for disruptors
only and troublemakers only. I'm welcoming people into Love Nation's
l u v V and a T I O N
dot com. Come in. We have a resource hub where
you can take classes, challenges. Jess, You're about to teach

(46:21):
a class in there, so I'm excited. Yeah, you know,
you have mentorship by me, you have discussion rooms, so
I'm excited for that. I'm inviting people to join. And
of course my book Professional Troublemaker, The fear Fieder Manual.
I wrote this book to loan people courage to be
this voice for the moment when you do want to
be yourself for the moment where you want to ask

(46:42):
for the raise, when you want to have the tough
conversation with a friend. It is my best work yet,
I agree, And it's a beautiful environment of everything we
just talked about in this convo and then some and
I know we don't have time to do it now,
but if you've not followed loves highlights on Instagram about
white people and Showergate, I need you to do that
and Caucassity Audacity documentaries of crazy white people. We will

(47:06):
talk about that, Honest to God, You've got some great takes,
and we'll we'll talk about um celebs not bathing in
the future. Oh my god, God bless it. But you
are amazing. Thank you for always seeing me and sharing
space with me. Friends, Mom, I love you. Oh you know,

(47:29):
just having amazing, nuanced conversations that could go on forever
with two people that I highly admire. Um. So here's
a couple of things that are top of mind for me.
In both conversations. We touched on the power of family.
The rituals sometimes that we're getting from our families are
spoken and unspoken. It's also about watching and absorbing the

(47:51):
world around us, watching and absorbing how our parents and
our families think and feel about their beauty, how they
speak about other people. It is really our response stability,
as love You pointed out, to protect the young people
in our life and know that we're so influential and
how they create stories around beauty, and that the legacies
we can pass down can be both positive and not

(48:11):
so positive. I think the other big takeaway for me
is that taking care of ourselves is beauty. Wellness and
rest is beauty. That how we feed ourselves from the inside,
as Anna talked about, so beautifully creates that blow from
the outside. And then lastly, and this obviously speaks to
my heart being the living embodiment of action, of us

(48:35):
being the do. So there are lots of different ways
that we can stay involved in the things that really
matter to us. I think job number one is to
stay in form, get informed, get educated obviously when you can,
if you can, volunteer, and of course one of the
greatest ways to be the do is to vote. You know.

(48:58):
In this episode, we've had such rich conversations with Honor
and love E exploring the nuances of our beauty rituals
and the role that our families have and developing our
relationship to our beauty and to our very identity. But
in this conversation I would be remiss not to talk
about the other very real, cultural and systemic biases that

(49:21):
also can shape our relationship to our beauty and to
our identity, especially and particularly for Black women. This is
something that I address a lot in my role as
a consultant with organizations because bipop communities are disproportionately affected
by discriminatory policies and unexamined bias. And let me give
you an example. Black women's hair is over three times

(49:44):
more likely to be perceived as unprofessional and that kind
of bias can lead somebody to feel like they have
to code switch, which is when somebody feels the need
or the pressure to hide or alter parts of who
they are in order to fit in to a domin
in culture or group. And research has shown us that
of black women say that they have to change their

(50:06):
hair from its natural state in order to fit in
at the office. As a response to this, Dove has
helped to co found the Crown Coalition to help advance
anti hair discrimination legislation called the Crown Act, and it
is a law that prohibits discrimination based on natural hair
texture and protective hairstyles. As of today, fourteen states have

(50:31):
passed the Crown Act and we have thirty six more
to go. So if you want to continue to get involved,
you know we've already addressed you can sign that Crown
Act petition at Dove dot com bat slash Crown Act.
But on that same site there is a template for
you to use if you want to draft a letter
to your state legislators or your US representatives to encourage
them to pass this anti hair discrimination legislation. And then, lastly,

(50:55):
if you are a parent, or a teacher, mentor somebody
who works with young people and you're looking for a
creative way in to have this conversation, I'm very proud
to say that I have helped to co develop a
piece of curriculum with Dove called My Hair, My Crown,
and it is a free tool. It is an academically
validated tool that helps to boost hair confidence in kids

(51:17):
with coils, curls, waves, and protective styles as well. This
curriculum helps to build ally ship in others around this
very important topic, and all of us together can then
continue to be the do in helping to create a
respectful and open world for natural hair. If you're interested

(51:46):
in learning more about dominant stories and how you can
change them and challenge them, I teach workshops and courses
on those, and you can sign up for them at
j Weiner dot com, where you can follow me on
Instagram at I'm Jess Weener. And as always, we've really
want to hear from you. We're building this super awesome
community of folks talking about the stories that they're changing
in their life, and so we want to hear from you.

(52:07):
Are are you rewriting a dominant story? If so, tell
us about it. You can write to us at podcast
at dominant stories dot com, or we'd love for you
to leave us a voicemail. You can call us at
two one three to nine three zero three three. Don't stress,
I'm gonna put all this in the show notes. Next week.

(52:28):
We're gonna be talking about what it means to break
the binary with incredible guests including educator and lgbt Q
plus advocate Addison Rose Vincent, and fashion writer and creative
consultant focused on plus size inclusivity and lgbt Q inclusivity
Nicolette Mason. These conversations are so insightful and nuanced, I

(52:48):
am still thinking about them. I cannot wait for you
to listen. Thank you so much for your support of
the show. Don't forget to write a review wherever you're
tuning in right now. It really super duper duper help
us out a lot, and remember we are always learning
and we are always growing. Dominant Stories with Jess Winer

(53:21):
is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with I
Heart Radio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, visit the
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