February 13, 2025 • 40 mins
The fellas are back for another round! In this episode, Wilmer takes us through his family’s journey from Colombia to the United States, sharing insights into his father’s entrepreneurial spirit and resilience. Wilmer dives into his father’s hustle mentality, from flipping cars to working in various industries, and how it shaped his own drive, especially after a traumatic event when their family car was stolen. As the oldest child, Wilmer reflects on the responsibility he took on early, stepping up as the family translator and learning English in just a year, with performance art and theater becoming essential to his personal growth.
“Dos Amigos” is a comedic and insightful podcast hosted by two friends who’ve journeyed through Hollywood and life together. Wilmer Valderrama and Freddy Rodriguez push through the noise of everyday life and ruminate on a bevy of topics through fun and daring, and occasionally a third amigo joins the mix!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Welcome back to this is Wilmer. Val Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This episode, for me particularly, I'm going to very much
enjoy because we are diving into Amigo's life, his early
life before he became.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Thank you, Thank you for allowing me the space to
dig dig deeper into my life.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I hope we can dig I know, uh uh.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Wilmer has a wonderful book out which everyone should go
and download and buy and read and all that stuff,
And so I hope that we could.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Dig in without giving too much a way where you
feel that.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You no, no, no, I can get all over our way.
I mean, I think that the the thing about the
book that's so interesting.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's like that, even though it's a trajectory there, there's
a couple of deep dogs, like you know, just talking
about the previous episode when we got to know so
much about you, you know, I've never had really the
opportunity to really talk and adapt about you know, my
parents and what they had to do and all that,
and the trajectory was clear, but a lot of it
(01:18):
is attributed to to their journey.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Where where was your mother and your father born?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So my mother is from Peda, Colombia, and my father
was raised in San Cristova, Tachia, between Cuguta and San.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Cristova, back and forth.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
San Cristoa Tauchia is it shares the border with Kuguta,
you know. And in Colombia, Colombia Venezuela, like they're right there.
And then as he was growing up, you know, then
he eventually went to.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
To Caracas, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
But is that where he met your mom?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
No?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
They met later years years years later in Miami.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Oh okay, yeah, they they were living life in Miami,
you know, med and eventually returned to Venezuela. But I,
you know, kind of dig in a little bit deeper
into into where my parents were from. Not until I
was writing an American story Everyone's Invited, which is my memoir,
(02:17):
I got to ask these questions that I for some
reason I felt I knew to then realize I didn't
as you were writing the book, Yeah, and why did
you feel the.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Need to do that?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I felt like, in order to tell my story of
where I am now, I realized that my story would
only be possible if you you know, with you know,
I would only be possible possible with the chapters of
my parents, right, Like I mean, the trajectory of them
as people, what they had to go through in order
for me to be possible. That stuff was really humbling,
(02:53):
you know. I mean, for example, sitting down with my
mom when I was doing the exercise right of the
dissecting of who I am in my world and where
I came from and all that, you know, asking questions
that I hadn't asked before, you know, Like I asked
my mom, Mom, did you ever have a job like
and she literally said to me, he goes, yeah, I
used to be a reception instead a doctor's office. And
I go, what, Like, I literally my only memories of
(03:18):
my mom is being my mother right right? And for
some reason, not that I hadn't forgotten, but I kind
of I felt like I.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Knew my mom's family.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I knew my mom's sisters, I knew my mom's mom
and my grandpa, So I felt like I knew her life, right,
But that specific question like who she was when she
was a teenager and in her early twenties, Like what was
that life like for her before I was a possibility?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And it's something as simple as that, right, Yes, that
was a receptionist that opens up your brain and world.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And then she says something like, yeah, I guess an
uncle of her was a doctor in Colombia and had
a doctor's office and she wanted a job, so the
doctor hooked her up at the job. But nobody at
the doctor's office knew she was a niece. So they thought, oh,
(04:14):
this guy and this young, you know, beautiful woman, like oh,
he gave.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Her a job at the place.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Later they found out a year later, they's like, no,
that's my uncle, right, yeah, I think she was in
her I think she was eighteen or something like that
at that point in y. But the idea that like
at that time they already were living a Spanish still
a novela, you know what I mean, Like already there
was like you know, oh no she's not the side woman,
(04:43):
she's actually her knees, you know, his niece the side.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It's like it's a very interesting thing. But by those
little things, you know. And then I somehow I buried this,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
We talked about grandparents and and yeah, sometimes I docked
a little deeper and I asked, I asked my mom.
I was like, hey, so what in my grandpa do
for living?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You know?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And and then she unlocked a memory for me that
came tumbling down in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
He just I was like, Mom, so he well, he
was a coffeeto. He was a coffee maker.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
He was a coffee maker. You know. He cultivated the
bean and roasted it, he grew the bean.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yes, yeah, he had a coffee farm in Colombia, in Colombia.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And I was like, what, but that makes a lot
of sense, I said, drinking a little thing. But I
so I started asking my my mom was like, wait,
what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And as soon as you say covetereto, I had these
flashes of memories that took me to the farm, that
took me sitting in my grandpa's leg while he was
feeding me apples from the tree, smelling the beans and
smelling with a roasting, you know, like it all start
unlocking for me. And I was like, wow, we come
(05:54):
from a from a family of caffettoes in Colombia.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And he owned the land. He did. He didn't work.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It was thinka.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was just finca and pereta and it was it
was it was beautiful to think about that, you know,
and you know, my my uh and then my my
mom's mother, you know, she was you know, she was
at home, stay at home mom, and for a very
good reason.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
She had fourteen children.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Wow, like my mom.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, she had fourteen children too young, didn't make it
then she had thirteen, right, I think it was like
three men and three.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Men and ten women or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
It was like absolutely, you know they had they had
so many, so many kids.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
You know, they worked the land, right, I mean when
you say this, that's why they had such big families.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Work, I think.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I think that and probably lack of television and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
You know, I think that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
There's absolutely no hobbies except for making babies and changing diapers, right,
and making babies and changing diapers again, you know. But yeah,
my mom is one out of you know, twelve, you know,
thirty people you know, and and and you know, so
I have a gang of cousins all over the world.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Still still there.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yes, a lot of them in Colombia, a lot of
them in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But my dad and my mom's stories are are just
polar opposite, completely different human beings. You know, my mom
grew up in Colombia right in a coffee farm, you know,
and you know, many many siblings my dad grew up
you know, and pretty much in the slums of San
Cristoa and Krakens, you know, and he never met his father,
(07:35):
you know, he he doesn't know who his grandparents were.
You know, really he never had time to ask those questions.
Before his mother passed. He was just hustling and working
his ass off, you know, to making sure that he
maintained his brothers and sisters, you know, because he was
like the older he was. He was the second oldest,
I think, I believe. And you know, he had a
(07:58):
couple of other brothers and you have a couple of
other like maybe you know, one half brother or something
like that. But you know, his mom was a baker.
She you know, she was a bread you know, bread bags.
So she would go to the bakery like after it closed,
she would bake all night and the and the bread
(08:20):
will be freshly put out early in the morning for
the customers to come in. She go home, you know,
try to hang out with kids, do the thing, you know,
put them to school whatever you know that she could,
and then at nighttime she would go and work all
and then you know, the tragic you know, memory of
it is that you know, my dad had a stepdad
(08:40):
who was just not a kind man, who was not
a good man. And everything that my grandma would struggle
to make, he would take it and drink it and
play pool down the street, and you know, and just
and so so it was a pretty sad and abusive trajectory.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
You know, my bread feed the family, that that you're
that you're that she made.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, that was that was she was the bread winner,
quite quite literally, you know. And and uh so my dad,
you know, saw that hustle, but also saw that that tragic,
you know, life that his mother was living. And very young,
I think he was like twelve or thirteen, he decided,
you know, mom, we we got to stop this. And
(09:22):
in the middle of the night, while he was out
there drinking or whatever, he packed all his mom stuff.
I think he was like thirteen or so, thirteen years old,
and he packed up his mom stuff, picked up all
his brothers and sister stuff, and he goes, we're leaving.
And they took a bus and they went to Caracas
and they just disappeared in the middle of the night
and took their family to Karakas to have it to
start a new life.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And and and would Caracas at that time be considered
a more kind of metropolitan or more like a city.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
More of a city.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And you know, back then you're talking about you know,
at that point you're talking about you know, probably sixties,
you know, or so, and uh, it was a more
stable Venezuela. You know, all the way into the eighth
he was a very profitable Venezuela. It was a very
rich country. Nobody lived Venezuela. Now, nobody left Venezuela to
the United States. They came to Miami to vacation and
(10:10):
go back to Venezuela. You know, Venezuela is the third
largest producer of oil in the world, and it says
the number one reserve.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So it was a very rich country.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You know, in the early eighties, there was no need,
there was no need to go anywhere, you know. So
my dad kind of grew up the slumps of Caracas,
you know, and you know, att thirteen fourteen years old,
he was out there hustling to try to bring bread,
winning for the house and you know, mom also working
full time make sure the other kids have food. And
you know, my dad at thirteen fourteen years old, you know,
(10:42):
he go ask for three sandwiches you know, and two
sodas and he would snatch it, run a couple of
blocks where his brothers and sisters were waiting in the
corner and give them the sandwiches, then go to the
next corner over it and you know, or a few more.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Sandwiches and like rand you know, and like that was
that was how he grew up.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And it was that was a hustle and that until
later when he started saying, okay, maybe I can work
out the agriculture industry and all that. So but yeah,
that was the trajectory of them. And you know, my
dad is and it blows my mind how happy he is.
He's a happy man.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Happy now, Yes, he's.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
A very happy man.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
He looks back, doesn't reflect on you know, the sadness
or the tragedy. You know, remembers fondly, you know, the
the years that he worked for you know, for the family,
you know, making sure that the family was good. So
so you know, I think back at like all the
stitching of what I am right, like what I've become.
And you know how how some of some of us
(11:45):
in our families have had to bear right the trauma
and bury it right right and say like there's still
things to celebrate. There's still things to celebrate, right and
and I think as you continue to grow up, you realize,
like that that that that ag of dumb bills in
your backpack is an optional thing you bring along, that
(12:05):
you can start dropping that weight along the way. And
I think there was something that I learned from my dad.
My dad never talked about his trauma, but he celebrated
that right now, at least we have food right now.
At least we have food right now, you know. And
so I grew very grateful of what we could experience.
And you know, and my mom, you know, my mom
was the.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Police, you know, my dad and my mom was the police.
My dad was the party, right like oh no more
than yes, like you know, like streak my back.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
You know, I remember very clear moment when my mom
hit me and it didn't hurt.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And that's when I was like, well, well well.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But the funny thing about it, though, is that at
that point then I had to fake cry to make
sure my mom stop, because I was like, oh no, mommy, no, no,
just stop by the room.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Why would she be like, oh I on't her?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, yeah, I keep going till I heard you know,
but so I pretended it hurt right away, you know,
but I think, like looking back at those things and
seeing my mom working at the the doctor's office. You know,
I had some older sisters that lived in Miami. She
there eventually went I'm going to spend some time in Miami.
My dad, very younger age, started traveling, you know, looking
(13:25):
for himself, ended up in Miami.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
He met my mom.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
What did your dad do? What was sort of his trade? Like?
What was he.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Like?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
What did he do?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Like it doesn't necessarily mean that he was employed somewhere,
but what what was his thing?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
What did he do?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
He was about?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
You know, he was kind of a social butterfly, right
Like he just knew everyone, and everyone loved my dad.
And my dad we walk into a room and he'd
find opportunity. He walked into a room and he saw
a job, he saw he saw a partnership, and you know,
(14:04):
he saw an investment, you know, and like the little
money that he would make, he'd try to make two
dollars out of it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You know, if he had a dollar, he goes, how
do we make five? Oh? We only made three?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Cool, we have two more dollars to keep investing like
he kept moving around. His downfall though, is that he
loves celebrating life so much that he would just spend,
spend the savings, you know, which really caught up to
him later in life with my mom because my mom
was like, this is not going to work, you know.
(14:34):
But in those moments, my dad, you know, my dad
would work different industries, you know, he would import. He
eventually started importing machinery from the United States to work
the land.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Then eventually bought his finger.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, we go to So he started his life in
like he's professional, was professional, he's a professional. At the
time in Miami, he met my mom. They fell in
love right and then. And then the opportunity Inventuela was
so great. The agriculture industry was booming. So my dad
moved back to where the wark was and we moved
(15:06):
back to Venezuela. So now he had married my mom,
But you were born already. Yeah, So my sister Maryland
and I were born in Miami, and when I turned
three years old back in nineteen eighty three, they decided
to move back to Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So I grew up in Venezuela for the following ten years.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
After that, and you know, and like so I didn't
really quite remember where Miami was.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Again, I had just these flashes. It just kind of
came to my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But living in Venezuela, you know, Spanish was my first language,
right and you know, ten years later, never did I
ever think that I was gonna need to learn how
to speak English. You know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
But hay years, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And you think that because ten years.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Is like this, it goes by quick, But when you're
that young, at three years old, it feels like that's
your lifetime. Because I was thirteen by the time we
decided it was time to leave Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
A lot of stuff happened the trajectory of Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know, my dad bought this finca and you know,
this farm and started buying the machineries to level the land.
And then he would rent those machineries to nearby farms
that couldn't afford the machinery.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And you know that my dad had a hustler's farm.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
He was doing corn, he was doing rice, he was
doing cattle, he was doing pigs, he was doing chickens.
And then because we were so close to the Amazon's,
he was chopping up wood too, and selling wood. You know,
so that farm was producing so many different things, like
whatever season way was, he was selling something, you know.
But then, you know, the trajectory was that that eventually,
(16:43):
you know, the you know, the agriculture industry became very competitive,
and little farms like my dad just didn't have a
place anymore because these big corporations were buying their own
farms and they were swallowing up all these small little businesses.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The winters were long.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Right, and so so at some point, you know, we
started struggling, and then all of a sudden, we go
Chavis decided that he was going to pretty cool on
the on the government. They didn't succeed the first time,
and my dad saw that as a just a sign,
a sign of things to come.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
You know, you were living in Venezuela, your mother's from Colombia.
Were you still in contact with her family in Colombia
even though you were living in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, we go back and forth to see them and
all that.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, we got back and forth.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We grew up with them in our lives and my
mom will go visit a lot in Colombia. And my
dad also had so many friends in Colombia. So we
go back and forth, you know, but at some point,
you know, we we fell. It was time, you know,
and my dad all of a sudden one day said hey, MEO, me, I,
We're gonna have to go back.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
To the United States. And I said, where are we going?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He goes next week and I said, what, I've been
failing all my English classes, by the way, yeah, literally
failing English classes.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I was like, I'm never gonna have to speak English.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And I came back to the United States not knowing
how to even counted three, you know, So thirteen years old,
thirteen fourteen years old, imagine, you know, not able to
even ask for where the bathroom is?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And did you word you? Land you when you came Miami.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We went to Miami and there was nothing for us
in Miami. My dad had a brother in Los Angeles.
Then we drove across country, came to Los Angeles, and
you know, we stayed with him for a couple of weeks.
That went south A major chapter on my book on that.
We you know, we didn't stay there long, and that
put a damfort on the savings he had because without
(18:46):
a job, we had to kind of figure out our
housing because we were supposed to be in my dad's
brother's house for a little while while my dad got
a job and got it all together so he didn't
have to deplete his savings. That went south. We had
to go and deplete the savings without a job. So
he set us up at like zero. So we started,
(19:06):
you know, very much. Our story is not very different
than any other you know, immigrant that leads to a
different state or a different country, you know, and starts
from scratch, and you.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Know, and that's kind of how we started.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And what did he do for employment at that point
when the when the savings were depleted.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So my dad so my dad started looking for jobs,
couldn't find anything. And my dad speaks English, but he
pretends he speaks more English. He started realizing that he
had to do what it took. There was no ego here,
there was no anything, you know. We just had to food,
food on the table and keep the light on. So
look story short, you know, he with the little money
(19:42):
he had, he bought this little Mazda, yeah you know,
and he would put a for sale sign on it
and he would drive this car while he did errands
for mechanic shops. So he will bring these parts from
mechanic shop to mechanic shop, or from supplier to mechanic
shop while the car sold. When the car sold for
a little bit more money for a little profit, he'd
buy a more expensive car, put another for sale sign
(20:03):
on it.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
He continued to drive it and huse and house it
back and forth. That's what he would do.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And we were able to get a tiny little house
in Van Eyes when Ice, California, I remember I met
my neighbors were you know, Green Day fans and Metallica fans,
you know, like and Van Eyes and and uh yeah.
So that's how we kind of kicked off. And then
we had to go to school. Didn't know how to
(20:28):
speak English, so everybody looked at us like we were too.
We went to Umholland Junior High and then we went
to Taft High School. Eventually, yeah, way I was. I
was a tour door. But but the the idea that
we were going to go to school with E. S
L classes and we were going to learn how to
speak English with ludicrous. I mean, it was the scariest
(20:50):
experience of my life. And since I was six years old,
I you know, I was always performing and singing and
dancing and whatever. So you know, because I was in Venezuela,
you know, you know in our countries it's mandatory to
how I'm performing. Arts class, you know, is you have
to either sing, you have to pick one. You have
to sing, dance or act.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
You mean like in the in the family structure.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
No, no, in school.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
So it's like math, you know, uh Spanish, you know,
you know Casano right, and then and then dance class, yeah,
you know. So that's how Latinos got down, like they
always had an arts class. So when I came back
to and I say it, anyone I speak English. I
went back to school activities because it was forcing me
to read and force me to speak out loud. And
then that the more I did it, the more my
(21:35):
English became better. But that was a really scary time
of my life, not being able to communicate looking at
somebody with blonde hair and blue eyes, and I was like,
I gotta go the other way because if the person
looked at me in the eyes and think they can
talk to me, I want to want him to be
embarrassed too. I don't want to feel this way, you know.
And it was it was very scary.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Did you did you feel like racism towards you during
that time or did you feel.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
It's tough, because there's definitely a lot of prejudice that
comes with individuals who either don't know how to speak
the language or have an accent. Back then, if you
had an accent, you were uneducated, right, you were inferior.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Literally, most people know that the school academics and in
Latin America are two years ahead of the United States.
I came back to the United States not knowing how
to speak English and grade sixth and seventh, and I
was a straight at student. People like how I had
been taught those things two years prior to my sixth
grade interesting, so, you know, so they thought I was
(22:34):
cheating because they were like, no possible way you know this,
You didn't know how to speak English, So like I
had to fight against all.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
That stuff, and you know, I don't know, I chose
to not. I didn't know racism was.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
A thing in the United States because it just seemed
in the movies and everything, like it was just it's
the happiest place on earth. And actually, judging by the
six o'clock news that I grew up watching in Venezuela
and coming to the United States and watching the six
o'clock's news was the happiest place on.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Earth because of what was happening there at that time.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
The contrast, right, But but I think I remember people
just trying to talk to me, and as soon as
I couldn't communicate, they're like, you know, they would just
wave you off. All of that stuff kind of served
as as fuel to to say, like, all right, I
gotta really learn how to speak English.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
When you were when you were in school and and
the arts were mandatory, what what kind of arts were
you doing in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
In Venezuela, I was singing, so you could sing. I
was singing then, So.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
When are we gonna hear you sing? Man? You talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Should do it collaboration?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
You know, I could definitely do your your pretty angelic
core is what you drop down some mean bars.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You know, there you go.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
But yeah, I was the first voice really I could
I could hit I could hit some really high notes. Uh,
and then my voice changed and I can still hear
some notes, but but not as like as angelic. Yeah,
but yeah, so yeah, so that's this is the stuff
that I kind of grew up doing a lot of
(24:06):
and so coming back to America, you know, I remember
the moment, you know, my dad's car gets stolen.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, which was the family source of income.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was the train, it was the bread device and tool,
and that was the moment, you know. But before that happened,
my dad as soon as we landed in America, my
dad said me, hoo, we came here to work. We
didn't come here to go to Disneyland Universal Studios.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
We're here to work.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
And I was thirteen years old and he said that
to me, and I knew that I was next. So
at a very younger age, I just I had to
really get it together. I have to figure out, like,
at some point, I'm going to have to contribute, right.
And you know, it wasn't that I wanted a choice.
Not having a choice made me realize that sooner or later,
you're going to have to be responsible and no matter
(25:01):
if it's with your own life or others, you're gonna
have to contribute. And uh, and you better figure it
out now because you only have a few years before
you hit haite eighteen and you're expected to keep the
light on, right. That's the generation we grew up in right, Like.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
You came here, there's no like.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Lawn and mound the lawn.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay, cool, get inside. Yeah, what were you expecting five
dollars from moaning the lawn? Like it's your house. You're
gonna moan the lawn in your house, you know, Like
it's that kind of stuff that like you're.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Going to grow up with, you know, and.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
You know I might.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
My dad didn't have enough money to give us for school,
Like we're going to get a bag of chips, we
want to get a sort of from the vending machine
or whatever. So I was like I got to get
a job. So at fourteen, you know, just literally I
arrived here. An uncle of mine worked at this restaurant
called Cafe Issue, right, and I became a bus boy
and I was leveling the butters and picking up you know,
(25:59):
and you know, and again I got hired from the
alleyway right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So it was like no minimum wage, no minimum hours,
you know, like you just have to be there under
the table. Yeah, I mean like they just break me off.
The waiters would just break me off, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
And you know, I remember making I don't know, like
ten dollars for the whole day, you know, something like that,
and I said, you know, fourteen, fifteen years old, you know,
I go to school, and I'm like, I was enough
to buy the bag of chips.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I want it right right right.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So I'm like, oh cool, like I'm making money, you know,
and and yeah, So that was my first gig, and
I remember very clearly the moment where I said I
have to I have to be more. A lady came
in right to your school, No, to the restaurant, to
the restaurant. Lady came in and she weighed me over,
(26:49):
and I should have. Man, when I think back at
this moment, I still like, start my my upper lips
starts sweating, like I have so much trauma from this moment. Right,
she waves me over, and I should have just gotten
a waiter to go there, but instead I went myself.
And when I got to that table, the lady started
(27:10):
you know those like when when Charlie Brown went to
school and the teacher's like whoa.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Whaa wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Wah wah wah, and You're like you can't like that's
all I heard, right, and I just froze. She started
snapping on my face, started clapping on my face. And
she starts pointing at the table, and I had and
I just froze. I'd like thirteen, fourteen years old.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I froze. And I was like, I didn't know. I
didn't even have a word.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I could even I could even say one, two, three
and pretend like I said something, you know, like and
my then the waiter came in and asked her of that,
and apparently she was asking me to refill her water.
And I didn't know what she was asking me about.
And the way she was looking at me was so
heart shattering. I was such a happy kid, you know,
(27:56):
and the way she looked at me, she looked at me,
I was like like I was uneducated, dumb, like I
was inferior, and it really hurt, really hurt. I went
back to the kitchen and I was just quiet, and
my uncle came in and he was like, okay, It's
like I just couldn't even express myself. I couldn't express
the feelings I was going through. And in that moment,
(28:19):
I said, never will anyone ever talk to me like that.
And if I'm ever in a situation of leadership or
you know, or entrepreneurship, whatever environment I create, people have
to feel so empowered to be able to share. I
should never feel shell shocked from contributing because of any perception.
(28:42):
We might build like we should have in constant empowerment.
And it really hurt me, but I really believed that
I was the moment I went home and I said, immediately,
first thing I gotta do is long how to speak English.
And within less than a year, I was speaking English
like I was so petrified to have an encounter like
that again that I was just literally everything that the
(29:05):
teacher would say I was. I was taking it into
my heart and uploaded it into my brain and translated
it into a tool, into a weapon for building, you know,
a reality that that felt more comfortable for me and
my sister. My sister did the same thing. She learned
right away and as soon as I was and you know,
(29:25):
that led me into more theater. I started doing theater,
you know, and I met some of my dreams and
I've never been kissed, and you know, I started doing
on this theater and I was performing words I didn't
know what meant, but I was also performing sentences that
resemble things that I could say outside.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Of that stage.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
And immediately I was like, oh, I'm speaking English on
stage and somebody's looking at me like an equal on stage.
They're talking to me unlike people would talk to me
outside of that stage. And that was a magical moment
when I thought performing arts were going to save my life.
You know, give me people skills that I just couldn't
(30:02):
develop quick enough at my age. And you know, I
was so relentless about it, Like every time I would
ditch a class, it was cool. Yeah, I go to
the drama room to go yeah, and this was that tap.
Yeah high school. Oh interesting, the teacher will go and
have auditions and leave me teaching drama class. Yeah, wow,
(30:25):
because I knew the exercises, I knew everything she was
gonna say anyway, so she wouldn't let me be in
what she knock out for an audition.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Hey, it's funny, how like trauma, what trauma does to
a human being? Right, Like you experienced the trauma right
with that with that person speaking to you, and and
how demeaning it was, and all the other emotions that
you expressed, But.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
It was the motivator, right, and it's it switched your birth.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
But you can either motivate you right, or it could
break any inspiration you might have had.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Very quickly. You have to figure out which one is it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
But maybe it was that survival mode that was the
that was what was pushing you. Right, maybe if you
were comfy and that would have happened, maybe it would have.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well you have to find where is the hunger going
to play a factor? Where is their ambition going to play.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
A factor in it?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And my dad had the drive.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah you know, he gets up a four, went to
sleep at ten, yeah, you know, and not until he
he you know, his car got stolen. I saw the
fear in his eyes. What now the feared in my
mom's eyes right now? That kicked my ass into like
I got to put it in gear. Now I'm next.
I gotta go, I gotta get in the game. That's
(31:53):
a reality that you know, that is that can either
create uncertainty and fear or it could create motivation and
somehow it eliminates a path. Yeah, right, like it kicks
setting to gear for you to be like I got
to find it. And my parents, you know, were.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Did the best they could.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
You know, they did the best they could and I
and I'm so grateful because they sacrificed themselves they sacrificed
their relationship. You know, there was so much heartache, so
much stress that my mom was experiencing that I could
tell that it was drifting them apart in ways to
just like you really really hard. I mean, they were
putting the happy face for us. But you know, I
(32:36):
was at that point too aware at thirteen, At thirteen
years old, you come to America, you're not you're not
just looking at cartoons. You're looking at your parents's faces. Yeah,
you're looking at like what are they thinking?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
What are they saying?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Body language, all that energy, you're you're and.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I was the oldest, you know, so I was very
aware of everything that was happening.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And and and you're the oldest, so there's there's also
that added responsibility for you.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So not only was trauma and survival.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
The motivator, right, you're the oldest, or there's like a
parent component I think to being the oldest, it is.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And also you somehow have to be the first one
to break ground and new terrains, right, you know, for
your sisters, you know what path are we taking?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And my sister and I.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Did everything together, right, Like we were very lucky because
she learned how to read because we were you know,
she was in kindergarten. I was in first grade, and
she learned how to read because I was doing homework
with her. And then so they skipped her up a grade.
So we were in the same classroom until like high school.
Really yeah, it was really cool. I mean she will
tell a different story that, like she did all my homework.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
You know, there were some times where I like, what
did you say for that thing?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
What did you write for that desk?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And she was very smart. She was actually very very smart.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So what what do you attribute?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Because you were saying that that you all of a
sudden were on this path to learn English, and you
would you would listen to the tature and you would
process it. Was that like the was that sort of
the driving force behind you learning English?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Or was it like TV? Was it movies?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Was it like, well funny because I wanted to My
first job at home was to pick up the phone,
answer the door, read the manuals, read the menu at
the restaurants.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Right, ask for what was for dinner tonight? Yeah, bro,
that was my first job.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So like immediately that was my first responsibility. Yeah, I
remember when they remember when they would knock on the door. Yeah,
and my mom and everyone was.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Like, he's gonna answer.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah, Yeah, okay, I'll go, I'll go, yeah, can you lit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I opened the door and I was like.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Hello, right, hello there, Hello there, what can I do
for you?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And it's not like you put in an accent to
pretend that you have an American accent?
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
But yeah, so that that was kind of my first gig.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
That was my first gig.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, that was my first Yeah, I did it for free.
You know, it's just unfortunates sag. No, it wasn't sag,
but it was sereal.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, it was cereal for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
But yeah, I mean that's so that's a little bit
of like my trajectory and and up my family's trajectory.
I mean, this is really a love letter to them,
you know, and as American uh in Venezuelan, Colombia, and
you know, it leads me to this the theme, you know,
which is one of the reasons why I wanted to
write the book at a time right now, where lat
you need that is in question? Where are you one
(35:38):
hundred percent Latino? Are you a one hundred percent American?
And honestly, I can tell you you don't have to pick.
You can be both one, you can be a two
hundred percenter And if you don't speak Spanish, you're still
a Latino and you should be proud of that, right
like you we should talk about that, you know. And
and I learned that growing up because I know there
was perception even for my own community, like if you
(35:58):
don't speak Spanish, you're not a real Latino. That was
a generation of the nineties, or just like it really
sets us back because Latinos that were breaking around in
different industries and entertainment, we're not giving the actual universal.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Love from our people.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
That's interesting, you know, And so that stuff like kind
of leads us a little bit more into into that world.
I think a lot about you know, where did we
draw inspirations because they weren't that many, and like what
inspired us to say, like, hey, you know what, I'm
going to be this against absolutely a tsunami of odds
(36:36):
that your parents proved to be very hard to overcome. Right,
So you think a little bit about like, oh, okay,
well where are we going next?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Like what is what's next? And what can it be me?
And what is that moment that says, yeah, why not me?
If somebody else did it? Why not me? At a
time where like somebody else perhaps hadn't done it the
way you could have done it, we'll do it or
did it? But who were those inspirations?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
What? What what triggered us?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
So when we're before, before I turned pro, I was
on a Saturday morning TV show, I was I was
eating bites of Kentucky fried chicken on a commercial.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Did you like fried Chicken? I did?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know? It was? It was a campaign that had
remember chriss cross everybody, so it was like jumps, like
everyone's just jumping like chicken, you know, and I was
one of the guys.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
We gotta.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Uh. But but that eventually, you know, it was serendipitous,
right because I was happy being in Chicago and and
and getting little gigs here and there, and and making a.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Living at it and living at my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
But little did I know that that those stepping stones
was going to lead to my professional career. What was
so you know, you took us through high school and
your high school I'm a class and the stuff that
you did in Venezuela, Like, what was what was that
moment before you turn pro.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
I mean I never thought I would be turning pro,
but I had the ambition of doing all these things.
When my dad's car gets stolen, I saw my mom
in my dad's eyes and I went up to them
and I said, Dad, Mom, don't worry, because I'm going
to be an actor.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm gonna make this money.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
So you had decided at that moment you were going
to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Because I have been told like, oh, you're kind of
funny in high school, Well you should do some commercials.
And I told me that I'm gonna do some commercials
and make some money. Well, buy a new car, we
want to buy a house and whatever. I was fourteen,
yourself in from yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So it was because of what people were telling you
in high school, and they you saw something in their
eyes that they saw in you.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Convinced you. Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You were like, at the very least, I can do
a commercial and bring that money home. And I said,
I'll have restaurants I'll put over there. And I started
with my dad, you know, at these of tears of
my mom over a crying. My dad literally said to me, uh, okay, Majo,
you can do that, and uh, which by the way great,
(39:12):
great segue into our next episode, What what is you know,
what was that moment that that told you that you
could or that you had to? Yeah, you know, and
you know what other inspirations came into play that said
that maybe you could, which I'd love to hear that
from you, and I'd love to share on that too
in the next episode of Uh Those Amos.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Salute Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and
iHeartMedia's Michael Tuda podcast network, Hosted by me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlison and Sophie Spencer's Levels.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valderama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlason,
and o Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
This episode was edited by Ryan Posts and Aaron Burlison
and features original music by Madison Devenport and halebord Our.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Holtzclaw and special thanks to every single interview for joining
this journey and I hope you continue to enjoy us.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
For more podcasts from I Heart, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
See you or hear us in a week or so.
Welcome back to this is Wilmer. Val Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
This episode, for me particularly, I'm going to very much
enjoy because we are diving into Amigo's life, his early
life before he became.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
No.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Thank you, Thank you for allowing me the space to
dig dig deeper into my life.
Speaker 4 (00:35):
I hope we can dig I know, uh uh.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Wilmer has a wonderful book out which everyone should go
and download and buy and read and all that stuff,
And so I hope that we could.
Speaker 4 (00:48):
Dig in without giving too much a way where you
feel that.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
You no, no, no, I can get all over our way.
I mean, I think that the the thing about the
book that's so interesting.
Speaker 3 (00:58):
It's like that, even though it's a trajectory there, there's
a couple of deep dogs, like you know, just talking
about the previous episode when we got to know so
much about you, you know, I've never had really the
opportunity to really talk and adapt about you know, my
parents and what they had to do and all that,
and the trajectory was clear, but a lot of it
(01:18):
is attributed to to their journey.
Speaker 4 (01:20):
Where where was your mother and your father born?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
So my mother is from Peda, Colombia, and my father
was raised in San Cristova, Tachia, between Cuguta and San.
Speaker 1 (01:34):
Cristova, back and forth.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
San Cristoa Tauchia is it shares the border with Kuguta,
you know. And in Colombia, Colombia Venezuela, like they're right there.
And then as he was growing up, you know, then
he eventually went to.
Speaker 1 (01:47):
To Caracas, you know.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
But is that where he met your mom?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
No?
Speaker 1 (01:51):
They met later years years years later in Miami.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Oh okay, yeah, they they were living life in Miami,
you know, med and eventually returned to Venezuela. But I,
you know, kind of dig in a little bit deeper
into into where my parents were from. Not until I
was writing an American story Everyone's Invited, which is my memoir,
(02:17):
I got to ask these questions that I for some
reason I felt I knew to then realize I didn't
as you were writing the book, Yeah, and why did
you feel the.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
Need to do that?
Speaker 3 (02:31):
I felt like, in order to tell my story of
where I am now, I realized that my story would
only be possible if you you know, with you know,
I would only be possible possible with the chapters of
my parents, right, Like I mean, the trajectory of them
as people, what they had to go through in order
for me to be possible. That stuff was really humbling,
(02:53):
you know. I mean, for example, sitting down with my
mom when I was doing the exercise right of the
dissecting of who I am in my world and where
I came from and all that, you know, asking questions
that I hadn't asked before, you know, Like I asked
my mom, Mom, did you ever have a job like
and she literally said to me, he goes, yeah, I
used to be a reception instead a doctor's office. And
I go, what, Like, I literally my only memories of
(03:18):
my mom is being my mother right right? And for
some reason, not that I hadn't forgotten, but I kind
of I felt like I.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
Knew my mom's family.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
I knew my mom's sisters, I knew my mom's mom
and my grandpa, So I felt like I knew her life, right,
But that specific question like who she was when she
was a teenager and in her early twenties, Like what was
that life like for her before I was a possibility?
Speaker 2 (03:45):
And it's something as simple as that, right, Yes, that
was a receptionist that opens up your brain and world.
Speaker 3 (03:51):
And then she says something like, yeah, I guess an
uncle of her was a doctor in Colombia and had
a doctor's office and she wanted a job, so the
doctor hooked her up at the job. But nobody at
the doctor's office knew she was a niece. So they thought, oh,
(04:14):
this guy and this young, you know, beautiful woman, like oh,
he gave.
Speaker 1 (04:18):
Her a job at the place.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
Later they found out a year later, they's like, no,
that's my uncle, right, yeah, I think she was in
her I think she was eighteen or something like that
at that point in y. But the idea that like
at that time they already were living a Spanish still
a novela, you know what I mean, Like already there
was like you know, oh no she's not the side woman,
(04:43):
she's actually her knees, you know, his niece the side.
Speaker 2 (04:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
It's like it's a very interesting thing. But by those
little things, you know. And then I somehow I buried this,
you know.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
We talked about grandparents and and yeah, sometimes I docked
a little deeper and I asked, I asked my mom.
I was like, hey, so what in my grandpa do
for living?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
You know?
Speaker 3 (05:04):
And and then she unlocked a memory for me that
came tumbling down in so many ways.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
He just I was like, Mom, so he well, he
was a coffeeto. He was a coffee maker.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
He was a coffee maker. You know. He cultivated the
bean and roasted it, he grew the bean.
Speaker 2 (05:20):
Yes, yeah, he had a coffee farm in Colombia, in Colombia.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
And I was like, what, but that makes a lot
of sense, I said, drinking a little thing. But I
so I started asking my my mom was like, wait,
what do you mean.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
And as soon as you say covetereto, I had these
flashes of memories that took me to the farm, that
took me sitting in my grandpa's leg while he was
feeding me apples from the tree, smelling the beans and
smelling with a roasting, you know, like it all start
unlocking for me. And I was like, wow, we come
(05:54):
from a from a family of caffettoes in Colombia.
Speaker 4 (05:57):
And he owned the land. He did. He didn't work.
Speaker 1 (05:59):
It was thinka.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
It was just finca and pereta and it was it
was it was beautiful to think about that, you know,
and you know, my my uh and then my my
mom's mother, you know, she was you know, she was
at home, stay at home mom, and for a very
good reason.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
She had fourteen children.
Speaker 4 (06:18):
Wow, like my mom.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, she had fourteen children too young, didn't make it
then she had thirteen, right, I think it was like
three men and three.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Men and ten women or something like that.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
It was like absolutely, you know they had they had
so many, so many kids.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
You know, they worked the land, right, I mean when
you say this, that's why they had such big families.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Work, I think.
Speaker 3 (06:41):
I think that and probably lack of television and entertainment.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
You know, I think that.
Speaker 3 (06:46):
There's absolutely no hobbies except for making babies and changing diapers, right,
and making babies and changing diapers again, you know. But yeah,
my mom is one out of you know, twelve, you know,
thirty people you know, and and and you know, so
I have a gang of cousins all over the world.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Still still there.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
Yes, a lot of them in Colombia, a lot of
them in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
You know.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
But my dad and my mom's stories are are just
polar opposite, completely different human beings. You know, my mom
grew up in Colombia right in a coffee farm, you know,
and you know, many many siblings my dad grew up
you know, and pretty much in the slums of San
Cristoa and Krakens, you know, and he never met his father,
(07:35):
you know, he he doesn't know who his grandparents were.
You know, really he never had time to ask those questions.
Before his mother passed. He was just hustling and working
his ass off, you know, to making sure that he
maintained his brothers and sisters, you know, because he was
like the older he was. He was the second oldest,
I think, I believe. And you know, he had a
(07:58):
couple of other brothers and you have a couple of
other like maybe you know, one half brother or something
like that. But you know, his mom was a baker.
She you know, she was a bread you know, bread bags.
So she would go to the bakery like after it closed,
she would bake all night and the and the bread
(08:20):
will be freshly put out early in the morning for
the customers to come in. She go home, you know,
try to hang out with kids, do the thing, you know,
put them to school whatever you know that she could,
and then at nighttime she would go and work all
and then you know, the tragic you know, memory of
it is that you know, my dad had a stepdad
(08:40):
who was just not a kind man, who was not
a good man. And everything that my grandma would struggle
to make, he would take it and drink it and
play pool down the street, and you know, and just
and so so it was a pretty sad and abusive trajectory.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
You know, my bread feed the family, that that you're
that you're that she made.
Speaker 3 (09:01):
Yeah, that was that was she was the bread winner,
quite quite literally, you know. And and uh so my dad,
you know, saw that hustle, but also saw that that tragic,
you know, life that his mother was living. And very young,
I think he was like twelve or thirteen, he decided,
you know, mom, we we got to stop this. And
(09:22):
in the middle of the night, while he was out
there drinking or whatever, he packed all his mom stuff.
I think he was like thirteen or so, thirteen years old,
and he packed up his mom stuff, picked up all
his brothers and sister stuff, and he goes, we're leaving.
And they took a bus and they went to Caracas
and they just disappeared in the middle of the night
and took their family to Karakas to have it to
start a new life.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
And and and would Caracas at that time be considered
a more kind of metropolitan or more like a city.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
More of a city.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
And you know, back then you're talking about you know,
at that point you're talking about you know, probably sixties,
you know, or so, and uh, it was a more
stable Venezuela. You know, all the way into the eighth
he was a very profitable Venezuela. It was a very
rich country. Nobody lived Venezuela. Now, nobody left Venezuela to
the United States. They came to Miami to vacation and
(10:10):
go back to Venezuela. You know, Venezuela is the third
largest producer of oil in the world, and it says
the number one reserve.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
So it was a very rich country.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
You know, in the early eighties, there was no need,
there was no need to go anywhere, you know. So
my dad kind of grew up the slumps of Caracas,
you know, and you know, att thirteen fourteen years old,
he was out there hustling to try to bring bread,
winning for the house and you know, mom also working
full time make sure the other kids have food. And
you know, my dad at thirteen fourteen years old, you know,
(10:42):
he go ask for three sandwiches you know, and two
sodas and he would snatch it, run a couple of
blocks where his brothers and sisters were waiting in the
corner and give them the sandwiches, then go to the
next corner over it and you know, or a few more.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Sandwiches and like rand you know, and like that was
that was how he grew up.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
And it was that was a hustle and that until
later when he started saying, okay, maybe I can work
out the agriculture industry and all that. So but yeah,
that was the trajectory of them. And you know, my
dad is and it blows my mind how happy he is.
He's a happy man.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
Happy now, Yes, he's.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
A very happy man.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
He looks back, doesn't reflect on you know, the sadness
or the tragedy. You know, remembers fondly, you know, the
the years that he worked for you know, for the family,
you know, making sure that the family was good. So
so you know, I think back at like all the
stitching of what I am right, like what I've become.
And you know how how some of some of us
(11:45):
in our families have had to bear right the trauma
and bury it right right and say like there's still
things to celebrate. There's still things to celebrate, right and
and I think as you continue to grow up, you realize,
like that that that that ag of dumb bills in
your backpack is an optional thing you bring along, that
(12:05):
you can start dropping that weight along the way. And
I think there was something that I learned from my dad.
My dad never talked about his trauma, but he celebrated
that right now, at least we have food right now.
At least we have food right now, you know. And
so I grew very grateful of what we could experience.
And you know, and my mom, you know, my mom
was the.
Speaker 1 (12:24):
Police, you know, my dad and my mom was the police.
My dad was the party, right like oh no more
than yes, like you know, like streak my back.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
You know, I remember very clear moment when my mom
hit me and it didn't hurt.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
And that's when I was like, well, well well.
Speaker 3 (12:52):
But the funny thing about it, though, is that at
that point then I had to fake cry to make
sure my mom stop, because I was like, oh no, mommy, no, no,
just stop by the room.
Speaker 4 (13:02):
Why would she be like, oh I on't her?
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Yeah, yeah, I keep going till I heard you know,
but so I pretended it hurt right away, you know,
but I think, like looking back at those things and
seeing my mom working at the the doctor's office. You know,
I had some older sisters that lived in Miami. She
there eventually went I'm going to spend some time in Miami.
My dad, very younger age, started traveling, you know, looking
(13:25):
for himself, ended up in Miami.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
He met my mom.
Speaker 4 (13:29):
What did your dad do? What was sort of his trade? Like?
What was he.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Like?
Speaker 4 (13:35):
What did he do?
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Like it doesn't necessarily mean that he was employed somewhere,
but what what was his thing?
Speaker 4 (13:40):
What did he do?
Speaker 1 (13:41):
He was about?
Speaker 3 (13:42):
You know, he was kind of a social butterfly, right
Like he just knew everyone, and everyone loved my dad.
And my dad we walk into a room and he'd
find opportunity. He walked into a room and he saw
a job, he saw he saw a partnership, and you know,
(14:04):
he saw an investment, you know, and like the little
money that he would make, he'd try to make two
dollars out of it.
Speaker 1 (14:09):
You know, if he had a dollar, he goes, how
do we make five? Oh? We only made three?
Speaker 3 (14:13):
Cool, we have two more dollars to keep investing like
he kept moving around. His downfall though, is that he
loves celebrating life so much that he would just spend,
spend the savings, you know, which really caught up to
him later in life with my mom because my mom
was like, this is not going to work, you know.
(14:34):
But in those moments, my dad, you know, my dad
would work different industries, you know, he would import. He
eventually started importing machinery from the United States to work
the land.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
Then eventually bought his finger.
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yes, we go to So he started his life in
like he's professional, was professional, he's a professional. At the
time in Miami, he met my mom. They fell in
love right and then. And then the opportunity Inventuela was
so great. The agriculture industry was booming. So my dad
moved back to where the wark was and we moved
(15:06):
back to Venezuela. So now he had married my mom,
But you were born already. Yeah, So my sister Maryland
and I were born in Miami, and when I turned
three years old back in nineteen eighty three, they decided
to move back to Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
So I grew up in Venezuela for the following ten years.
Speaker 3 (15:23):
After that, and you know, and like so I didn't
really quite remember where Miami was.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Again, I had just these flashes. It just kind of
came to my mind.
Speaker 3 (15:33):
But living in Venezuela, you know, Spanish was my first language,
right and you know, ten years later, never did I
ever think that I was gonna need to learn how
to speak English. You know.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
But hay years, isn't that crazy?
Speaker 4 (15:48):
And you think that because ten years.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Is like this, it goes by quick, But when you're
that young, at three years old, it feels like that's
your lifetime. Because I was thirteen by the time we
decided it was time to leave Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
A lot of stuff happened the trajectory of Venezuela.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
You know, my dad bought this finca and you know,
this farm and started buying the machineries to level the land.
And then he would rent those machineries to nearby farms
that couldn't afford the machinery.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
And you know that my dad had a hustler's farm.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
He was doing corn, he was doing rice, he was
doing cattle, he was doing pigs, he was doing chickens.
And then because we were so close to the Amazon's,
he was chopping up wood too, and selling wood. You know,
so that farm was producing so many different things, like
whatever season way was, he was selling something, you know.
But then, you know, the trajectory was that that eventually,
(16:43):
you know, the you know, the agriculture industry became very competitive,
and little farms like my dad just didn't have a
place anymore because these big corporations were buying their own
farms and they were swallowing up all these small little businesses.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
The winters were long.
Speaker 3 (16:58):
Right, and so so at some point, you know, we
started struggling, and then all of a sudden, we go
Chavis decided that he was going to pretty cool on
the on the government. They didn't succeed the first time,
and my dad saw that as a just a sign,
a sign of things to come.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
You know, you were living in Venezuela, your mother's from Colombia.
Were you still in contact with her family in Colombia
even though you were living in Venezuela.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
Yeah, we go back and forth to see them and
all that.
Speaker 1 (17:37):
Yeah, we got back and forth.
Speaker 3 (17:38):
We grew up with them in our lives and my
mom will go visit a lot in Colombia. And my
dad also had so many friends in Colombia. So we
go back and forth, you know, but at some point,
you know, we we fell. It was time, you know,
and my dad all of a sudden one day said hey, MEO, me, I,
We're gonna have to go back.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
To the United States. And I said, where are we going?
Speaker 3 (18:02):
He goes next week and I said, what, I've been
failing all my English classes, by the way, yeah, literally
failing English classes.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
I was like, I'm never gonna have to speak English.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
And I came back to the United States not knowing
how to even counted three, you know, So thirteen years old,
thirteen fourteen years old, imagine, you know, not able to
even ask for where the bathroom is?
Speaker 4 (18:23):
And did you word you? Land you when you came Miami.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
We went to Miami and there was nothing for us
in Miami. My dad had a brother in Los Angeles.
Then we drove across country, came to Los Angeles, and
you know, we stayed with him for a couple of weeks.
That went south A major chapter on my book on that.
We you know, we didn't stay there long, and that
put a damfort on the savings he had because without
(18:46):
a job, we had to kind of figure out our
housing because we were supposed to be in my dad's
brother's house for a little while while my dad got
a job and got it all together so he didn't
have to deplete his savings. That went south. We had
to go and deplete the savings without a job. So
he set us up at like zero. So we started,
(19:06):
you know, very much. Our story is not very different
than any other you know, immigrant that leads to a
different state or a different country, you know, and starts
from scratch, and you.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
Know, and that's kind of how we started.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
And what did he do for employment at that point
when the when the savings were depleted.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So my dad so my dad started looking for jobs,
couldn't find anything. And my dad speaks English, but he
pretends he speaks more English. He started realizing that he
had to do what it took. There was no ego here,
there was no anything, you know. We just had to food,
food on the table and keep the light on. So
look story short, you know, he with the little money
(19:42):
he had, he bought this little Mazda, yeah you know,
and he would put a for sale sign on it
and he would drive this car while he did errands
for mechanic shops. So he will bring these parts from
mechanic shop to mechanic shop, or from supplier to mechanic
shop while the car sold. When the car sold for
a little bit more money for a little profit, he'd
buy a more expensive car, put another for sale sign
(20:03):
on it.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
He continued to drive it and huse and house it
back and forth. That's what he would do.
Speaker 3 (20:07):
And we were able to get a tiny little house
in Van Eyes when Ice, California, I remember I met
my neighbors were you know, Green Day fans and Metallica fans,
you know, like and Van Eyes and and uh yeah.
So that's how we kind of kicked off. And then
we had to go to school. Didn't know how to
(20:28):
speak English, so everybody looked at us like we were too.
We went to Umholland Junior High and then we went
to Taft High School. Eventually, yeah, way I was. I
was a tour door. But but the the idea that
we were going to go to school with E. S
L classes and we were going to learn how to
speak English with ludicrous. I mean, it was the scariest
(20:50):
experience of my life. And since I was six years old,
I you know, I was always performing and singing and
dancing and whatever. So you know, because I was in Venezuela,
you know, you know in our countries it's mandatory to
how I'm performing. Arts class, you know, is you have
to either sing, you have to pick one. You have
to sing, dance or act.
Speaker 4 (21:10):
You mean like in the in the family structure.
Speaker 1 (21:12):
No, no, in school.
Speaker 3 (21:14):
So it's like math, you know, uh Spanish, you know,
you know Casano right, and then and then dance class, yeah,
you know. So that's how Latinos got down, like they
always had an arts class. So when I came back
to and I say it, anyone I speak English. I
went back to school activities because it was forcing me
to read and force me to speak out loud. And
then that the more I did it, the more my
(21:35):
English became better. But that was a really scary time
of my life, not being able to communicate looking at
somebody with blonde hair and blue eyes, and I was like,
I gotta go the other way because if the person
looked at me in the eyes and think they can
talk to me, I want to want him to be
embarrassed too. I don't want to feel this way, you know.
And it was it was very scary.
Speaker 2 (21:54):
Did you did you feel like racism towards you during
that time or did you feel.
Speaker 3 (21:59):
It's tough, because there's definitely a lot of prejudice that
comes with individuals who either don't know how to speak
the language or have an accent. Back then, if you
had an accent, you were uneducated, right, you were inferior.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
Right.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Literally, most people know that the school academics and in
Latin America are two years ahead of the United States.
I came back to the United States not knowing how
to speak English and grade sixth and seventh, and I
was a straight at student. People like how I had
been taught those things two years prior to my sixth
grade interesting, so, you know, so they thought I was
(22:34):
cheating because they were like, no possible way you know this,
You didn't know how to speak English, So like I
had to fight against all.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
That stuff, and you know, I don't know, I chose
to not. I didn't know racism was.
Speaker 3 (22:46):
A thing in the United States because it just seemed
in the movies and everything, like it was just it's
the happiest place on earth. And actually, judging by the
six o'clock news that I grew up watching in Venezuela
and coming to the United States and watching the six
o'clock's news was the happiest place on.
Speaker 4 (23:01):
Earth because of what was happening there at that time.
Speaker 3 (23:03):
The contrast, right, But but I think I remember people
just trying to talk to me, and as soon as
I couldn't communicate, they're like, you know, they would just
wave you off. All of that stuff kind of served
as as fuel to to say, like, all right, I
gotta really learn how to speak English.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
When you were when you were in school and and
the arts were mandatory, what what kind of arts were
you doing in Venezuela.
Speaker 1 (23:27):
In Venezuela, I was singing, so you could sing. I
was singing then, So.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
When are we gonna hear you sing? Man? You talk about.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
Should do it collaboration?
Speaker 3 (23:37):
You know, I could definitely do your your pretty angelic
core is what you drop down some mean bars.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
You know, there you go.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
But yeah, I was the first voice really I could
I could hit I could hit some really high notes. Uh,
and then my voice changed and I can still hear
some notes, but but not as like as angelic. Yeah,
but yeah, so yeah, so that's this is the stuff
that I kind of grew up doing a lot of
(24:06):
and so coming back to America, you know, I remember
the moment, you know, my dad's car gets stolen.
Speaker 4 (24:15):
Yeah, which was the family source of income.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
It was the train, it was the bread device and tool,
and that was the moment, you know. But before that happened,
my dad as soon as we landed in America, my
dad said me, hoo, we came here to work. We
didn't come here to go to Disneyland Universal Studios.
Speaker 1 (24:37):
We're here to work.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
And I was thirteen years old and he said that
to me, and I knew that I was next. So
at a very younger age, I just I had to
really get it together. I have to figure out, like,
at some point, I'm going to have to contribute, right.
And you know, it wasn't that I wanted a choice.
Not having a choice made me realize that sooner or later,
you're going to have to be responsible and no matter
(25:01):
if it's with your own life or others, you're gonna
have to contribute. And uh, and you better figure it
out now because you only have a few years before
you hit haite eighteen and you're expected to keep the
light on, right. That's the generation we grew up in right, Like.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
You came here, there's no like.
Speaker 1 (25:21):
Lawn and mound the lawn.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
Okay, cool, get inside. Yeah, what were you expecting five
dollars from moaning the lawn? Like it's your house. You're
gonna moan the lawn in your house, you know, Like
it's that kind of stuff that like you're.
Speaker 1 (25:31):
Going to grow up with, you know, and.
Speaker 4 (25:34):
You know I might.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
My dad didn't have enough money to give us for school,
Like we're going to get a bag of chips, we
want to get a sort of from the vending machine
or whatever. So I was like I got to get
a job. So at fourteen, you know, just literally I
arrived here. An uncle of mine worked at this restaurant
called Cafe Issue, right, and I became a bus boy
and I was leveling the butters and picking up you know,
(25:59):
and you know, and again I got hired from the
alleyway right.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
So it was like no minimum wage, no minimum hours,
you know, like you just have to be there under
the table. Yeah, I mean like they just break me off.
The waiters would just break me off, you know.
Speaker 3 (26:11):
And you know, I remember making I don't know, like
ten dollars for the whole day, you know, something like that,
and I said, you know, fourteen, fifteen years old, you know,
I go to school, and I'm like, I was enough
to buy the bag of chips.
Speaker 4 (26:26):
I want it right right right.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
So I'm like, oh cool, like I'm making money, you know,
and and yeah, So that was my first gig, and
I remember very clearly the moment where I said I
have to I have to be more. A lady came
in right to your school, No, to the restaurant, to
the restaurant. Lady came in and she weighed me over,
(26:49):
and I should have. Man, when I think back at
this moment, I still like, start my my upper lips
starts sweating, like I have so much trauma from this moment. Right,
she waves me over, and I should have just gotten
a waiter to go there, but instead I went myself.
And when I got to that table, the lady started
(27:10):
you know those like when when Charlie Brown went to
school and the teacher's like whoa.
Speaker 4 (27:14):
Whaa wow wow wow wow wow wow.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
Wah wah wah, and You're like you can't like that's
all I heard, right, and I just froze. She started
snapping on my face, started clapping on my face. And
she starts pointing at the table, and I had and
I just froze. I'd like thirteen, fourteen years old.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
I froze. And I was like, I didn't know. I
didn't even have a word.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
I could even I could even say one, two, three
and pretend like I said something, you know, like and
my then the waiter came in and asked her of that,
and apparently she was asking me to refill her water.
And I didn't know what she was asking me about.
And the way she was looking at me was so
heart shattering. I was such a happy kid, you know,
(27:56):
and the way she looked at me, she looked at me,
I was like like I was uneducated, dumb, like I
was inferior, and it really hurt, really hurt. I went
back to the kitchen and I was just quiet, and
my uncle came in and he was like, okay, It's
like I just couldn't even express myself. I couldn't express
the feelings I was going through. And in that moment,
(28:19):
I said, never will anyone ever talk to me like that.
And if I'm ever in a situation of leadership or
you know, or entrepreneurship, whatever environment I create, people have
to feel so empowered to be able to share. I
should never feel shell shocked from contributing because of any perception.
(28:42):
We might build like we should have in constant empowerment.
And it really hurt me, but I really believed that
I was the moment I went home and I said, immediately,
first thing I gotta do is long how to speak English.
And within less than a year, I was speaking English
like I was so petrified to have an encounter like
that again that I was just literally everything that the
(29:05):
teacher would say I was. I was taking it into
my heart and uploaded it into my brain and translated
it into a tool, into a weapon for building, you know,
a reality that that felt more comfortable for me and
my sister. My sister did the same thing. She learned
right away and as soon as I was and you know,
(29:25):
that led me into more theater. I started doing theater,
you know, and I met some of my dreams and
I've never been kissed, and you know, I started doing
on this theater and I was performing words I didn't
know what meant, but I was also performing sentences that
resemble things that I could say outside.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
Of that stage.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
And immediately I was like, oh, I'm speaking English on
stage and somebody's looking at me like an equal on stage.
They're talking to me unlike people would talk to me
outside of that stage. And that was a magical moment
when I thought performing arts were going to save my life.
You know, give me people skills that I just couldn't
(30:02):
develop quick enough at my age. And you know, I
was so relentless about it, Like every time I would
ditch a class, it was cool. Yeah, I go to
the drama room to go yeah, and this was that tap.
Yeah high school. Oh interesting, the teacher will go and
have auditions and leave me teaching drama class. Yeah, wow,
(30:25):
because I knew the exercises, I knew everything she was
gonna say anyway, so she wouldn't let me be in
what she knock out for an audition.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Hey, it's funny, how like trauma, what trauma does to
a human being? Right, Like you experienced the trauma right
with that with that person speaking to you, and and
how demeaning it was, and all the other emotions that
you expressed, But.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
It was the motivator, right, and it's it switched your birth.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
But you can either motivate you right, or it could
break any inspiration you might have had.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
Very quickly. You have to figure out which one is it.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
But maybe it was that survival mode that was the
that was what was pushing you. Right, maybe if you
were comfy and that would have happened, maybe it would have.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Well you have to find where is the hunger going
to play a factor? Where is their ambition going to play.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
A factor in it?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
You know?
Speaker 1 (31:27):
And my dad had the drive.
Speaker 3 (31:31):
Yeah you know, he gets up a four, went to
sleep at ten, yeah, you know, and not until he
he you know, his car got stolen. I saw the
fear in his eyes. What now the feared in my
mom's eyes right now? That kicked my ass into like
I got to put it in gear. Now I'm next.
I gotta go, I gotta get in the game. That's
(31:53):
a reality that you know, that is that can either
create uncertainty and fear or it could create motivation and
somehow it eliminates a path. Yeah, right, like it kicks
setting to gear for you to be like I got
to find it. And my parents, you know, were.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
Did the best they could.
Speaker 3 (32:14):
You know, they did the best they could and I
and I'm so grateful because they sacrificed themselves they sacrificed
their relationship. You know, there was so much heartache, so
much stress that my mom was experiencing that I could
tell that it was drifting them apart in ways to
just like you really really hard. I mean, they were
putting the happy face for us. But you know, I
(32:36):
was at that point too aware at thirteen, At thirteen
years old, you come to America, you're not you're not
just looking at cartoons. You're looking at your parents's faces. Yeah,
you're looking at like what are they thinking?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
What are they saying?
Speaker 4 (32:45):
Body language, all that energy, you're you're and.
Speaker 1 (32:49):
I was the oldest, you know, so I was very
aware of everything that was happening.
Speaker 2 (32:53):
And and and you're the oldest, so there's there's also
that added responsibility for you.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
So not only was trauma and survival.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
The motivator, right, you're the oldest, or there's like a
parent component I think to being the oldest, it is.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
And also you somehow have to be the first one
to break ground and new terrains, right, you know, for
your sisters, you know what path are we taking?
Speaker 1 (33:18):
And my sister and I.
Speaker 3 (33:19):
Did everything together, right, Like we were very lucky because
she learned how to read because we were you know,
she was in kindergarten. I was in first grade, and
she learned how to read because I was doing homework
with her. And then so they skipped her up a grade.
So we were in the same classroom until like high school.
Really yeah, it was really cool. I mean she will
tell a different story that, like she did all my homework.
Speaker 1 (33:38):
You know, there were some times where I like, what
did you say for that thing?
Speaker 2 (33:46):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (33:47):
What did you write for that desk?
Speaker 4 (33:48):
You know?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
And she was very smart. She was actually very very smart.
Speaker 4 (33:52):
So what what do you attribute?
Speaker 2 (33:53):
Because you were saying that that you all of a
sudden were on this path to learn English, and you
would you would listen to the tature and you would
process it. Was that like the was that sort of
the driving force behind you learning English?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Or was it like TV? Was it movies?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
Was it like, well funny because I wanted to My
first job at home was to pick up the phone,
answer the door, read the manuals, read the menu at
the restaurants.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Right, ask for what was for dinner tonight? Yeah, bro,
that was my first job.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
So like immediately that was my first responsibility. Yeah, I
remember when they remember when they would knock on the door. Yeah,
and my mom and everyone was.
Speaker 1 (34:38):
Like, he's gonna answer.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
Yeah, Yeah, okay, I'll go, I'll go, yeah, can you lit.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
I opened the door and I was like.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
Hello, right, hello there, Hello there, what can I do
for you?
Speaker 2 (34:58):
You know?
Speaker 1 (34:58):
And it's not like you put in an accent to
pretend that you have an American accent?
Speaker 4 (35:02):
Right right?
Speaker 1 (35:04):
But yeah, so that that was kind of my first gig.
Speaker 4 (35:07):
That was my first gig.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
Yeah, that was my first Yeah, I did it for free.
You know, it's just unfortunates sag. No, it wasn't sag,
but it was sereal.
Speaker 1 (35:15):
Yeah, it was cereal for sure.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
But yeah, I mean that's so that's a little bit
of like my trajectory and and up my family's trajectory.
I mean, this is really a love letter to them,
you know, and as American uh in Venezuelan, Colombia, and
you know, it leads me to this the theme, you know,
which is one of the reasons why I wanted to
write the book at a time right now, where lat
you need that is in question? Where are you one
(35:38):
hundred percent Latino? Are you a one hundred percent American?
And honestly, I can tell you you don't have to pick.
You can be both one, you can be a two
hundred percenter And if you don't speak Spanish, you're still
a Latino and you should be proud of that, right
like you we should talk about that, you know. And
and I learned that growing up because I know there
was perception even for my own community, like if you
(35:58):
don't speak Spanish, you're not a real Latino. That was
a generation of the nineties, or just like it really
sets us back because Latinos that were breaking around in
different industries and entertainment, we're not giving the actual universal.
Speaker 1 (36:12):
Love from our people.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
That's interesting, you know, And so that stuff like kind
of leads us a little bit more into into that world.
I think a lot about you know, where did we
draw inspirations because they weren't that many, and like what
inspired us to say, like, hey, you know what, I'm
going to be this against absolutely a tsunami of odds
(36:36):
that your parents proved to be very hard to overcome. Right,
So you think a little bit about like, oh, okay,
well where are we going next?
Speaker 1 (36:44):
Like what is what's next? And what can it be me?
And what is that moment that says, yeah, why not me?
If somebody else did it? Why not me? At a
time where like somebody else perhaps hadn't done it the
way you could have done it, we'll do it or
did it? But who were those inspirations?
Speaker 2 (37:04):
You know?
Speaker 1 (37:04):
What? What what triggered us?
Speaker 2 (37:06):
So when we're before, before I turned pro, I was
on a Saturday morning TV show, I was I was
eating bites of Kentucky fried chicken on a commercial.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Did you like fried Chicken? I did?
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know? It was? It was a campaign that had
remember chriss cross everybody, so it was like jumps, like
everyone's just jumping like chicken, you know, and I was
one of the guys.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
We gotta.
Speaker 2 (37:33):
Uh. But but that eventually, you know, it was serendipitous,
right because I was happy being in Chicago and and
and getting little gigs here and there, and and making a.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
Living at it and living at my parents' house.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
But little did I know that that those stepping stones
was going to lead to my professional career. What was
so you know, you took us through high school and
your high school I'm a class and the stuff that
you did in Venezuela, Like, what was what was that
moment before you turn pro.
Speaker 3 (38:08):
I mean I never thought I would be turning pro,
but I had the ambition of doing all these things.
When my dad's car gets stolen, I saw my mom
in my dad's eyes and I went up to them
and I said, Dad, Mom, don't worry, because I'm going
to be an actor.
Speaker 1 (38:25):
I'm gonna make this money.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
So you had decided at that moment you were going
to be an actor.
Speaker 3 (38:29):
Because I have been told like, oh, you're kind of
funny in high school, Well you should do some commercials.
And I told me that I'm gonna do some commercials
and make some money. Well, buy a new car, we
want to buy a house and whatever. I was fourteen,
yourself in from yourself.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
So it was because of what people were telling you
in high school, and they you saw something in their
eyes that they saw in you.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
Convinced you. Yes.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
You were like, at the very least, I can do
a commercial and bring that money home. And I said,
I'll have restaurants I'll put over there. And I started
with my dad, you know, at these of tears of
my mom over a crying. My dad literally said to me, uh, okay, Majo,
you can do that, and uh, which by the way great,
(39:12):
great segue into our next episode, What what is you know,
what was that moment that that told you that you
could or that you had to? Yeah, you know, and
you know what other inspirations came into play that said
that maybe you could, which I'd love to hear that
from you, and I'd love to share on that too
in the next episode of Uh Those Amos.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Salute Those Amigos is a production from WV Sound and
iHeartMedia's Michael Tuda podcast network, Hosted by me, Freddie Rodriguez,
and Wilmer Valdorama.
Speaker 3 (39:49):
Those Amigos is produced by Aaron Burlison and Sophie Spencer's Levels.
Speaker 2 (39:54):
Our executive producers are Wilmer Valderama, Freddie Rodriguez, Aaron Burlason,
and o Clem at WV Sound.
Speaker 3 (40:02):
This episode was edited by Ryan Posts and Aaron Burlison
and features original music by Madison Devenport and halebord Our.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
Cover art photography is by David Avalos and designed by Deny.
Speaker 3 (40:13):
Holtzclaw and special thanks to every single interview for joining
this journey and I hope you continue to enjoy us.
Speaker 2 (40:20):
For more podcasts from I Heart, visit the iHeartRadio app
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
See you or hear us in a week or so.
Hosts And Creators
Wilmer Valderrama
Freddy Rodriguez
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