February 10, 2026 • 41 mins
Some historians trace this idea of the American dream back to the first European settlers and colonizers. American businessman, James Truslow Adams, popularized the phrase in his book: The Epic of America. But this notion of a single Americcan dream isn't so cut and dry. This week, Kal talks to Rafael Agustin, TV writer, film producer, and author of the memoir, Illegally Yours, about the weight of inheriting someone else's American dream.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Oh, the American Dream. Some historians trace this idea of
the American dream back to the first European settlers and colonizers,
right the people who came to North America to escape tyranny,
religious and political persecution, and poverty, and ended up creating tyranny,
religious and political persecution, and poverty for other people. It's
(00:22):
also been traced back to the American businessman James Trusslo Adams,
who popularized the phrase in his book The Epic of America,
and it's evolved over centuries to bring about different things
for different people, upholding ideas of equality, owning your own land, privatization, capitalism,
upward mobility, the white picket fence. The way I see it,
(00:44):
the American dream today isn't really that cut and dry.
It's defined by who you are and where you're from
and what you were told success is supposed to look like.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
All my friends were starting to drive, so I wanted
to drive too, So I went to the DMB without
telling my parents. Then I came home and they had
to break the news to me. That's tool, by the way,
you don't have a Social Security number, And I was like, wait,
I don't have a green card, but I have a
blue card either. Like I was feeling very dizzy when
they were like laying it all out for me.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
In this episode, I speak with Rafael Augustine, author of
the memoir Illegally Yours, about breaking a cycle, the weight
of inheriting someone else's American dream, Because when the American
dream you're handed doesn't actually belong to you, what does
it take to build one that does?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Pre cleen o aon agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Here? Clean? How about now?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Cal? Is a pleasure to meet you, man.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, likewise, today i'm speaking with.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
My name is Raphail Augustine. I am a TV writer.
I wrote for the show Jane the Virgin for several years.
I'm a book author. I wrote the new comedic memoir
Illegally Yours. And I am a film producer. I'm currently
producing the new rock documentary on the band Los Lobos.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so you wrote a memoir in twenty twenty two,
so it's called Illegally Yours And basically you said This
was really the story of your parents, and at the
end of the first chapter you kind of close it
with this line, because the greatest lesson my parents ever
learned in this country was that the American dream is
not for you, but for your children today. I kind
(02:49):
of really wanted to talk with you about this idea,
what the American dream is and how people chase it.
And I would imagine there is not a monolithic definition
of it, and everybody brings their own kind of version
of it to the table, and yours are so eloquently
laid out in your book. So before we jump into
that full idea, I figured the best place to start
would be if you can tell me a little bit
(03:10):
about yourself, specifically your journey from Ecuador to the United States.
How old were you when you moved? What do you
remember most? Was there like a singular seminal moment where
you're like, Okay, I'm in America. This is what America means.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Ah. So, born in Ecuador, South America. My parents. My
dad was a pediatric surgeon over there, my mother was
an anesthesiologist. So I come from a background of a
lot of lawyers and medical doctors. We came to the
United States in nineteen eighty eight to Los Angeles. To
be specific. There's not that many Ecuadorians in Los Angeles.
(03:42):
They're all Miami or New York. It was such an
exciting time because it was like, the Lakers won the Championship,
the Dodgers won the World Series. Guns and Roses was
the biggest band in the world. I was like, Ell,
it was the place to be. And I can honestly
say that I came as a privileged thing thinking he
was white, because it's all I ever knew in Ecuador
(04:02):
to landing in America, living in you know, immigrant communities
that weren't well off economically, and had the heart realization that,
oh my god, I'm not white. And what's funny about
that is that I grew up consuming so much American
(04:25):
film and TV shows and I only saw white, blue
eyed folks on screen. So I was like, that's America
and that's who I am too. And I was obsessed
with this movie. I don't even know if you remember it.
It was called American Ninja.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh man oh.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
It starred American heart throb Michael Dudakov, who went on
to make American Ninja two. At the Annihilation, a American
Ninja three the conference out, he just went on to
do the American industries. But I was obsessed, obsessed with
one becoming a ninja and the other becoming American. So
(05:01):
we land in the United States. I go to public
school for the first time, coming from private schools. I
am confronted with the beauty and diversity of this country.
But I'm just so like flabbergasted. And I saw them.
I saw the you know, the African American kids, the
Asian American kids. But when I saw the Mexican American
and the Central American kids and realized that I look
more like them than the white kids, I was like, oh,
(05:24):
my seven year old head like blue open, Like, Oh,
America is not what it portrays in the film and
TV shows. And I think that was my origin story
because by the time I become a young adult and
want to work as a writer in the entertainment industry,
I go back to that moment to realizing, oh, I've
always just wanted to see myself represented in film and TV.
(05:46):
So in academia, there's this concept called symbolic annihilation. I
don't know if you've ever heard of it, but symbolic
annihilation is when a group of people are excluded or
underrepresented in mass met and I feel like that's what
I've been dealing with my whole life, because at best,
symbolic annihilation resulted a young immigrant boy like me who
(06:09):
didn't see himself growing up in film and TV and
theater and books, so I didn't feel like I was
part of the fabric of this nation growing up. That's
at best, But at worst, symbolic annihilation results on a
mass murderer, like what happened in El Paso, Texas, when
this deranged gunman killed innocent Americans because he saw them
(06:31):
as illegals or invaders. And to me, that is truly
what people of color fighting in Hollywood. We're fighting this
idea of symbolic annihilation.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, I'll go
academic for a second too.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The I know you can. That's why talk nerdy to me.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
It's oftentimes challenging, I feel to explain to somebody who
maybe either hasn't experienced that feeling that you describe, and
I want to be clear, like this is even with
folks in the South Asian community who maybe don't have
the same I mean, I think we all grew up.
(07:10):
If you're of my generation or even ten twenty years younger,
you generally grew up not seeing faces that looked like
yours on screen. That only changed relatively recently. But this
idea of how that leads to or contributes to, not
necessarily the leads, but there's correlation between that and dehumanization.
There's a media theorist, I hope I'm getting this right.
His name is Peter Feng, and he has this thing
(07:32):
on like if you look at im media depiction or
a character or a role and you say, okay, is
this positive or is this negative? That immediately robs us
of the humanity and the reality that exists within people,
Like when I go to choose characters, I hope they're flawed.
I hope they're deeply problematic. I hope they experience joy
(07:54):
and pain and sorrow. I hope they make mistakes, right,
Like to me, there's nothing more boring than like theater
is good?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I think we're so used to positing these things
as is this depiction of positive or a negative? And
to me that misses the point entirely, because both of
them contribute to a certain dehumanization.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And that has been the challenge for your career, right
as you choose roles, as you define what kind of
actor you want to be. I've heard so many stories
like you know that famous saying by Denzel Washington when
he won the Oscar and he said, I'm standing here
not just for all the roles I did, I'm here
for all the roles I didn't do. And I used to.
(08:34):
I used to work closely with Edward James almost right,
he standing Deliverer and Selena and all that stuff. He
once shared with me a story that he was offered
the role of John Malkovich of in the Line of Fire.
Do you remember that movie In the Line of Fire? Yeah,
Clint Eastwood, secret service agent who has to stop this
guy who's trying to kill the president. He was offered
(08:56):
that role and he said no because I don't want
to Maryors to see it. Chakano trd to kill the president.
Oh wow, that is so deep to be that conscientious
of your own representation within greater mass media.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
There have been murderers and on I think on one
occasion a terrorists that I played, and my view or
in those I mean, I've certainly said no to plenty
of roles, but I think in the cases where I
said yes, I was mindful of that and I kind
of had a chip on my shoulder about it, where
I was like, why the hell do I not get
to play a role that I want? Like I understand,
(09:32):
we don't exist in a vacuum, but like things that
I'm scared of include terrorists and guns. Therefore, this is
a great acting challenge for me if I believably play
this guy right, because I'm personally terrified of these things.
But you're right, it's a it's a it's it's not
a straightforward kind of a kind of a conversation. Anyway,
we can get back to that. I don't want to
(09:53):
go too too far off the topic of this.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And okay, but before we move on, because of this underrepresentation,
because of the symbolic annihilation, there are movies and roles
that have stuck with me that I didn't realize how
they impacted me back then. I think Benny, the Jet,
Rodriguez and the Sandlot. I think of Rufio and Hook,
and I definitely think of Perrelyn Kumar.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Oh wow, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
These are characters and stories that I didn't realize how
much I needed to see until many many years later.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh that means a lot, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's the only reason I said yes to do in
this interview.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, thank you. The that then reminds me of like,
you know, when I'm reading a breakdown for a character
or a script, and this is generally been the case
for a while, but like, you can be picky to
some extent and then you can't be picky to some extent.
You just can't, depending depending on what's out there and
the time criminal that. But one thing that really kind
of makes my eyes roll is when I'm reading a
(10:54):
breakdown of a character or somebody's pitching me a pardon
something and they go, okay, so it's about this Indian guy,
who I'm like, done, next, what do you mean? Like,
you don't if the first thing out of your mouth
is the guy's identity. Either it's an identity story and
I'm generally not interested, or it's not an identity story
and you're pitching it that way, which shows me that
(11:15):
you don't know how to write for somebody who looks
like me. So in both cases I'm out, because like,
if I'm playing the part, unless I'm like you know,
unless I'm like white chicksing it and putting on full prosthetics,
it is kind of obvious that no matter what the
guy is called or what the what the plot line is,
you look at me and you understand what you know,
(11:37):
what his background may be. By the way, huge disagreements
even within the South Asian community about what I just said.
But but that's been my experience where I'm like to
light up right now. Kind of good, we kind of
we could use that for the clicks. That's fine. Going
back to you coming here, you were seven, Like your
parents told you it was just a vacation, right, They
didn't tell you were fully moving.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, my parents one hold a lot of secrets too,
have lied to me an awful lot. They said we
were going on vacation. I remember like nine months, and
I'm like, this is the world's longest vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And it includes a public school in going to school.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
This is a this is a shitty vacation. I think
when we started talking, you said, how I end my
first chapter that my hardest lesson my parents ever learned
is that the American dream was not for you, but
for your children. I just wanted to say that. As
as sad as that statement is, it freed me from
(12:36):
so much pressure and trauma that I had been carrying
all my life. And I'm good. Full circle back to
Harold and Kumar, because you're gonna laugh at this. I've
been trying to understand why we came to this country
my whole life. I've been trying to understand why we
were on document. I've been trying to understand why my
parents were for being doctors to working like a car wash,
you know. And I've been trying to understand why I
(12:59):
carried this sense of I must be successful to justify
my parents sacrifice to come to this country. I grew
up with this narrative of my parents sacrificed everything for me,
so if I'm not successful, I not only will I
let myself down, I will let them and their sacrifices
(13:19):
in their journey to this country down. And that was
so much pressure to grow up with. Then one day
i think I'm listening to a podcast on like the
Asian American Experience done by NPR, and John cho is
talking about this very thing, and he said it took
a lot of therapy, and it took a lot of
(13:40):
understanding that my parents came to this country for themselves
and then realized that the system was not made for them,
and then they transferred all their hopes and dreams onto me.
When he said that, cal it blew my fricking mind,
because I was like, that's it. That's how I free
myself from all this pressure of needing to be perfect
(14:01):
and successful. It's understanding that my parents didn't come just
for me, that it was all just him him. He
came for themselves. My dad literally thought he can walk
into children's hospital and be a pediatric surgeon the day
he landed here. That's how delusional he was.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And I think it took him and my mom realizing, oh,
this system is not meant to support immigrants, refugees or
on documented Americans for him to be like, okay, in
that case, the sacrifices for my child and that little
distinction really really freed me from a lot of trauma
and pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's very well said, and I think it gets to
a question that I wanted to ask you later, because
basically what you're describing is that version of the American
dream is like what we think of it as is
obviously in pop culture or in the zeitgeist of the
phrase and the way that I mean you mentioned Harold
and Kamar. There's one of my favorite monologue is the
one that Kamar gets to say about what the American
(15:00):
dream means to him. But then the way you're describing
it is like the part that we always forget is
like all the fine print and the fact that it's
not necessarily universally applicable, right, especially in immigrant communities, the
vast diversity of experience of how people came here, under
what circumstance, what drove their parents to do it. Was
(15:21):
there a seminal moment when you realized, a, this was
not a vacation, And what was your early definition of America, like,
before you understood any of the politics or the systems
or the things that we're talking about right now, what
was your like, what was the emotional reaction?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Like I think I can narrow it down to heinz Ketchup.
It's because like ketchup in South America is terrible and
we're so like wanting to be European that we eat
French fries with mayo. It's bad. Then we come to
the United States and I remember maybe it was McDonald's
(15:59):
or something, and we order French fries with ketchup, and
I lost my fucking mind. I had never tasted anything
so good, so sweet, with so much crack in it,
and I became addicted to like heins ketchup. So every
time someone asked me what does America be to you,
I'm like, it's fucking heinz ketchup. You have no idea
how bad ketchup is around the world.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I'm now thinking about, like I should ask every everybody
if they have a ketchup story. Here's the at least
through my lens. The Indian ketchup story. Is it when
we would go visit our grandparents as kids in India, So, like,
you know, you're a sort of classic story of Okay,
you spend the summers with grandparents in India. When pizza
(16:42):
arrived in Mumbai, forget it, I'm talking late eighties. Okay,
pizza was a roti with ketchup and cheese on it. Okay,
that's what it was. So when you're not years old
eating that, you're like, ugh, no, this is not pizza.
(17:06):
And so then you're like, this is but I do
love ketchup and like, and now as an adult, there's
you know, like I'll mix high fruct toast corn syrup
American not food ketchup with like the most fresh Indian
chutney that I can make, because when you combine them,
(17:26):
it's the sweet and the savory. That's like the perfect
dipping sauce. And I feel like I can have this
conversation with very few people. So thank you for opening
the door to that core memory of what pizza was.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And I'll go I'll go one step further. When pizza
lands in Ecuador, it becomes a status thing. It became
like fine dining. So when I come to the United
States and I see my poor neighbors eating pizza every day,
I'm like, oh my god, they must be rich. They're
eating pizza every night. That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
What was the moment you found out that you were
undocumented in high school and how did that How did
that change your perception of things, if at all?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, I went from being the all American kid to
discovering that I wasn't American. So so in high school,
I'm a senior. Now I'm like an overachiever. I'm the
class president, the prom king, in the top ten percent
of my class. Then I applied to go to college,
and more precisely, I also applied to get a driver's license.
(18:33):
All my friends were starting to drive, so I wanted
to drive too. So I went to the DMV without
telling my parents.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Story Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Then I came home and they had to break the
news to me as tool, by the way, you don't
have a social Security number, And I was like, wait,
I don't have a green card, but I have a
blue cart either, Like I was, I was feeling very
dizzy when they were like laying it all out for me.
It felt like the usual, the usual suspects, like oh
my god, everything's no wonder. You wouldn't let me go
(19:03):
on like pert my Yara trip with the seniors, like
you know, or I had this memory of every time
my dad I'm gonna be president one day, He's like,
I don't think, you know, I don't think that's fir
so at all. I started like making sense, and immediately
after I got very depressed. You know, I felt like
my life, my all American life, just came crashing down
(19:26):
on me. And in those few months, I truly feel
like I couldn't dream or I wasn't gonna achieve my
dreams and It took my mom to tell me this quote,
which I wrote in the book, and I refused to
give her royalties for it because I asked her. I said,
why didn't you like you're actually SMSA, you tell me everything.
You gossiped like crazy, like how would you not? How
(19:47):
could you keep this for me? And she said, your
dad and I didn't tell you because we didn't want
you to grow up feeling different, because dreams should not
have borders.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's very sweet.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Oh, that that blur in my mind, That lit a
fire under my ass. I was like, oh, you know what,
You're right, and that's what led me to community college
because I was on my way to a four year university,
but I couldn't afford that anymore. So I was like, okay,
what can I afford? So I began a new kind
of dream, a new kind of journey in community college.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
You had said in a previous interview, a lot of
Americans say things like we don't like refugees, we don't
like undocumented workers, but then we need to stop creating them.
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
To me, it was all these years of understanding why
my parents came to this country landed on a simple
premise that oh, we were just product of empire. And
I never thought of it that way because when we
think of empire, I think classically we think about what
happened in India, right, But the economic empire that the
United States has all over Latin America has a great pool.
(20:57):
And it took me understanding that, oh, oh wow, there's
a lot of Indians in the UK, just like there's
a lot of Algerians in France. Because the colonized always
go to the land of the colonizer, do you know
what I mean. I think that was what really truly
brought us here. But I really struggled with writing my
(21:19):
book because what I didn't want is to show us
as a perfect model minority family. I didn't want people
to read and go like, oh, but they're okay, you
know what I mean. That's why I wanted to write
a lot of like the fucked up shit that I
did and that and the stuff that wasn't the kosher
that my parents did, because I wanted them to see
warts and all that regardless of what we did and
(21:42):
didn't do, we belonged to be here. I believe everyone
who contributes to this economy who's whose strength strengthened our community.
They're they're American. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yes, you hit the nail and all of this is
why I was so fascinated with the idea of what
the American dream means to different people. And when I
was reading that your your parents' realization that the American
dream wasn't for them, how did their dreams for their
lives transfer to you? Meaning how did that explicitly express
(22:18):
itself in expectations. You mentioned that there was pressure and
that you felt the persson, But what did they say,
What did they exactly say?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, well, my dad was very direct. He's like, at
this point, I'm just waiting for you to grow up
and be okay so I could move back.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And that was also some pressure added to my life
where I was like, okay, I have to be successful.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And what was their definition of success? What do they
mean by.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That economically well off? Right? That the least stable well off?
And by the way, you, of all people, understand what
it is to tell immigrant parents, I want to be
an artist.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Oh my parents did not move here for me to
smoke weed and slide off a half naked woman in
a movie that is not at all why they moved here. Furthermore,
there's a huge difference between being economically stable and being
economically well off, and both obviously fall under a lot
(23:19):
of immigrants definition of capitalism or our own American definition
of capitalism. I think, as an artist, my definition of
the American dream includes a whole lot of happiness, a
happiness quotient that is not there when a lot of
people define the American dream.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And let me share this insight. When I wrote the book,
I thought I knew who I was writing it for.
I thought this might be for immigrants, for Latinos, for
undocumented students. But the people who have most reached out
to me about this book have been children of immigrants.
It has been first generation Indian Americans, first generation Filipino Americans,
(23:57):
first generation Chinese Americans. Everyone who's been like, oh my god,
your fights with your immigrant parents were my fight Your
hang ups were my hang ups. Me trying to pursue
my dreams, but my parents weren't happy with It's the
same thing I dealt with. It was so mind blowing
for me to understand that I didn't even know the
audience I was writing this book for. It I feel
(24:19):
like it truly is for children of immigrants. I had
to read Eddie Want's Fresh off the Boat to be like,
we could talk about our immigrant parents this way, like
we're allowed to talk about our cultural hangups and all
the fucked up shit they did to us. Okay, it's on.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
For me, it was watching Margaret Show and John Leguizamo My.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Cad so ahead of their time too, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, way ahead of its time. Right when your
when your dad told you that he wanted to go
back to Ecuador, was there a like I feel like
the podcast version of this is like I don't think
we have music that comes in mercifully, but you know,
you'd have like a little violin and like, okay, this
(25:03):
is a moment. This is the moment in the ninety
minute script where he is giving up on the American Dream.
I find that in practical life, though it's not generally
how it works out, it's like chipping away at a
bigger block. Did he experience defeat, sadness, happiness, some combination
(25:24):
of those, and how did that apply to the American dream?
When he said, you know, I'm my plan is to
go back to Ecuador once you're once you're all good.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So a couple of things. One, I feel like I
always fought with my dad. Me and him always were
butting heads, and we were always fighting over everything, including
my mom's affection. Right. But I do realize looking back
on my life that there must have been a small
level of jealousy that I can grow up dumb and oblivious,
(25:58):
because again, they didn't tell me we ondocumented. I didn't
find out until high school. I'm graduating, right, they kept
that fear from me and a sense of jealousy that
I can pursue my dreams and he couldn't, right, he
was stuck in minimum wage, keeping up with the mortgage
and stuff. So when he tells me that as soon
(26:20):
as you're on your own, ready to fly, we're gone.
It turns out that was the second time he said that,
because I never knew that he had told my mom.
I guess like five years in to being in the
United States, realizing how hard it was, like, let's go back,
and my mom said absolutely not. We're not going back
until he finishes his education. And I was like, oh
(26:43):
my god, this dude must have really resented me. And
then when this is this is the like the silver lining.
They go back to Ecuador and he goes back to
being a doctor. Wow, so you know he went to
he went to pursue his American dream in a different
part of America. He went to South America. American dream.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Okay, definitionally, if we if we agree with this definition.
So Encyclopedia Britannica defines the American dream as the ideal
that the United States is a land of opportunity that
allows the possibility of upward mobility, freedom and equality for
(27:25):
people of all classes who work hard and have the
will to succeed. So there's not a singular we. It's
I feel like it's specific, but it's broad enough that
we can all attach our immigrant baggage to this shit
in really dynamic ways. So who do you think the
American dream is for?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That's a great question, because I went from how do
you define the American dream? To who is allowed to dream?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That's what I've been I've been struggling with an awful lot.
I like the definition you gave us. But remember dictionaries,
they don't define words. They give us popular usage. We
define the words. I remember I was in college when
I first read that the idea of life liberty and
the pursuit of happiness was originally thought of as life
(28:20):
liberty and property, but they quickly realized that not everyone
could get property, so they changed the language. So I
always go back to that idea of the pursuit of
happiness and how it always should have been property. And
I feel like my American dream is tied in that
because I truly didn't feel like I was successful. I
truly didn't feel like I made it. I truly didn't
(28:42):
feel like I was a an immigrant success story until
I was able to buy my mama house, okay, and
if like at the bare bar minimum, that to me
was my American dream to be able to take care
of my a rergrand parents.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you do feel like you achieved it?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yes, I feel like I achieved it for them to
honor their sacrifice, because we've been talking so much about
that and so much of my therapy has been around that. Yeah,
And I was like, Okay, I did that. Now it's
time for me to go achieve mine. And yeah, you know,
I had a set goal and dream for myself in
this industry, in the entertainment industry that there's so few
of us to begin with, and it's infuriating to see
(29:30):
how it's like the ground is shifting from under us,
and how our in our industry is shrinking, and I'm
still trying to figure out how do I stay on
top of everything to be that thing that I always
wanted to achieve for myself and my community for others.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
You were bumping on a piece of this that I
remember feeling when I was in when I was in college,
where what's your metric or definition of success? So I
would apply it to the American dream here, which is
I think there were there were people who went to
school with who were like, my definition of success is
if I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Like, Okay,
(30:10):
well that's not a real thing. And by the way,
I wouldn't say no to.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
One if anyone's listening, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, but it's not a real thing. Meaning to me
that that is not reflective of my success as an
artist exclusively. So my definition at the time was I
would consider my self successful if I can pay my
rent and living expenses entirely from my art, from my
writing and acting, I would consider that successful. And I
(30:41):
think people have different benchmarks of that, and I'm always
curious about that application to something like the American dream,
where if your definition of the American dream is I
am happy by doing this. I feel that I'm not
persecuted in the pursuit of something the way that I
would in another country. To some people, that may be
the American dream, and to others it's like if I
(31:03):
ain't driving that s class, I have not achieved the
American dream. And I'm I'm around plenty of Indian doctors
for whom the definition of the American dream is exclusively capitalist.
It's exclusively this model of car. At this particular time.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
You just made me realize something. You asked, Oh, do
you feel like you achieved the American dream? And I
was like yes.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
And the reason I hesitated from being like it's a
done journey is because all of us are one recession
away from all.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Of that being taken from us.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And that's why I keep going back to who is
allowed to dream? It feels like the American dream is
not attainable for the filthy rich, and the rest of
us are going to be continually caught in this, in
this rat race, and not to not to get to personally,
you just reminded me that I was redefining what happiness
and achieving this dream was to me. Not too long ago,
(31:58):
I lived with my I have the honor to live
with my one hundred year old grandmother. Awesome. And on
Thanksgiving she slipped and broke her hip, and at one
hundred she needed surgery and she survived. And as she
was I was driving to and from the hospital, I
started crying out of gratefulness that my grandmother taught me
(32:21):
yet another lesson, because I kept thinking, I need to
sell my next TV show, I need to set up
my next business to be economically sound so that I
can spend more time with the people I love. Only
to realize that when I have to take care of
my grandma in these past six months, I will go
(32:42):
lay down next to her with my laptop and write
as she's like resting next to me. And that is
what success is to me.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That is what the dream define, truly, is being able
to spend that kind of time with your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
If someone told you early on that the American dream
was never meant for them, what would you say to them?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Well, this goes back to me growing up oblivious and
stupid because so much of that is my mom My
mom allowing me to dream wildly and freely. I think
that's why I've been able to at least come close
to achieving the things I wanted to achieve, Because if
I grew up with that kind of fear my mom
saying oh it's not for us, maybe I would have
(33:37):
like not even tried. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean my answer to this
is not that different. It's like, it's called the American dream,
it's not called the American reality, right. So the whole
point of it is that it should be aspirational. The
whole point of it is that, yeah, the shit's not easy.
That's why it's called the American dream.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
There are going to be enormous setbacks. It's just the
idea that is the path forward, one that you have
the freedom to explore and the freedom to fail, and
the freedom to work hard knowing that you may not
attain the goal that you have.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's almost like it's both things. It's like, we have
to believe in the dream to see what we can
realize in this world. But secondly, we have to address
the American dream gap because there's a lot of people
who are being left out of the American dream.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So so far, we've been talking about this concept of
the American dream as either in your case, an immigrant
or in my case, someone who's the kid of immigrants
but was born and raised in the US. And the
one very large group of people who I think were
not really acknowledging are people who maybe have been Americans
(34:53):
for generations and generations who also don't feel like this
idea of the American dream. However you define that, whether
that's job stability, whether that's being able to afford your
rent or groceries, whether that's being able to afford a
home or take care of your kids in a stress
free way. We keep hearing, Oh, it wasn't like that
(35:15):
in the eighties. It wasn't like that, you know, in
the early whatever. That whole thing is. Obviously, our politics
today are reflecting a whole lot of distrust in institutions
and affordability crisis across the political spectrum. What do you
think that says about this idea of the American dream? Like,
(35:41):
where are we today? What are you experiencing with people
from across the across the spectrum in the work that
you do.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
What I'm experiencing is that there is an American dream gap.
It's the idea that if in the future, if everyone
is going to be able to dream, then there's going
to have to be someit to this. There has to
be a way to ensure that we're all taken care
of by our society. Right. I don't know if that's
(36:11):
the importance of universal health care so it doesn't destroy us.
And again the dream gets taken from underneath us because
of the economy. It always to me it all comes
down to the economics. Will we be able to make
a living, to sustain ourselves, to provide for our families
as there's more deregulation, more consolidation, more money going to
(36:35):
the top. Right, say what you will about this administration.
I feel like what Democrats did wrong is that they
didn't acknowledge this American dream gap in the last election.
They didn't acknowledge how badly people have been hurting economically. Yes,
the policies were better, but you didn't communicate that or
how it's going to address affordability for folks. I think
(36:59):
when we actually actually do that, people will be able
to dream. But until we address not just wealth inequality,
but this transfer of wealth to the very very top,
like zero point zero five percent of Americans. Until we
address that, I don't think a lot of us are
gonna be able to dream.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I appreciate that. I also appreciate that the definition of
what the American dream means to you know, like we said,
to different people, is different. But then there are themes
to how most people think about it. How are you
feeling about the future.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I feel very hopeful. I'm just a dumb optimistic person,
so I you know, being hopeful, it's just my go to.
But what's going on in the nation at large. It
reminds me so much of what was going on in
California in the early nineties during the Pete Wilson era
(37:55):
in proposition one eighty seven. When things are bad, when
inequality is bad, when affordability is bad, when people can't
pursue their American dreams, it is so easy to target
and blame others. But in California back then, all of
that really really backfired. It allowed for a lot of
(38:15):
like Latin Americans and Mexican Americans in particular, and Central
Americans to be like, oh, we need to take power back,
we need to be involved in a political process. We
need to go and really take over Sacramento, which is
kind of what happened, and I'm hoping that that's going
to also be the case post this administration.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And then lastly, is there anything I didn't ask you
that you wish I did, Anything you wanted to plug
or talk about?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh? Man, no, no again, it was such an honor
to meet you, as such an honor to talk to you.
I'm going to continue to be out there writing our
stories into existence. The next project I have going is
I just got to hire two write the Father Gregory
Boyle biopic. He's the awesome home Boys in Way Industries. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(39:06):
so I'm I'm very excited to be doing that. And
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Man. When when Homeboy Industries opened up at LAX, I
was like, oh, this is this is next level, this
is like yeah, that's that's how you know they made it. Yeah,
it's like, this is this is to take to for
for people who don't know. Just because I'm such a fan,
can you can you give us the like thirty second?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, Homeboy Industries.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Is father Gregory Boyle was a radical Jesuit priest who
created the largest anti gang gang rehabilitation program in the world,
and he did it in East Los Angeles during the
Decade of Death, where there was more deba gang deaths
than violence in East Los Angeles than anywhere else in
the world. And what's so beautiful about his work is
(39:53):
that at that time everyone thought he was naive, stupid,
Like he literally had to win over not just the
local families, that hey, we need to treat people with compassion,
this is about mental health, it's not really about the
gang violence of it all. He not only did he
have to convince the mothers in the community, he had
(40:13):
to convince the lapd, he had to convince the archdiasis
like he had to convince his own order. And you know,
now they're going up to like fifty years of this
work and it all has come full circle to everyone
realizing he was right. Everyone thinks that his work is
with changing the minds and hearts of gang members, but
(40:35):
truly his work was changing the hearts and minds of everyone.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And everybody else. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Well, thanks Rafael, thanks
thanks for being on. Here we go again. Really enjoyed
our conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, thank you, my brother, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
That was my guest TV and film writer and author
of the memoir Illegally Yours, Rafael Augustine. Here we Go
Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo Media
in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers are
me Calpen, ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is
(41:16):
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our
associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson,
Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and Megan Halson.
Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane
(41:36):
Klein and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we Go Again, I'm Kelpen
Oh, the American Dream. Some historians trace this idea of
the American dream back to the first European settlers and colonizers,
right the people who came to North America to escape tyranny,
religious and political persecution, and poverty, and ended up creating tyranny,
religious and political persecution, and poverty for other people. It's
(00:22):
also been traced back to the American businessman James Trusslo Adams,
who popularized the phrase in his book The Epic of America,
and it's evolved over centuries to bring about different things
for different people, upholding ideas of equality, owning your own land, privatization, capitalism,
upward mobility, the white picket fence. The way I see it,
(00:44):
the American dream today isn't really that cut and dry.
It's defined by who you are and where you're from
and what you were told success is supposed to look like.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
All my friends were starting to drive, so I wanted
to drive too, So I went to the DMB without
telling my parents. Then I came home and they had
to break the news to me. That's tool, by the way,
you don't have a Social Security number, And I was like, wait,
I don't have a green card, but I have a
blue card either. Like I was feeling very dizzy when
they were like laying it all out for me.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
In this episode, I speak with Rafael Augustine, author of
the memoir Illegally Yours, about breaking a cycle, the weight
of inheriting someone else's American dream, Because when the American
dream you're handed doesn't actually belong to you, what does
it take to build one that does?
Speaker 2 (01:35):
Pre cleen o aon agon Agon.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Hey, I'm Cal Penn and this is Here we Go Again,
a show that takes today's trends and headlines and asks
why does history keep repeating itself?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Here? Clean? How about now?
Speaker 1 (02:06):
How's it going?
Speaker 2 (02:08):
Cal? Is a pleasure to meet you, man.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah, likewise, today i'm speaking with.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
My name is Raphail Augustine. I am a TV writer.
I wrote for the show Jane the Virgin for several years.
I'm a book author. I wrote the new comedic memoir
Illegally Yours. And I am a film producer. I'm currently
producing the new rock documentary on the band Los Lobos.
Speaker 1 (02:26):
Okay, so you wrote a memoir in twenty twenty two,
so it's called Illegally Yours And basically you said This
was really the story of your parents, and at the
end of the first chapter you kind of close it
with this line, because the greatest lesson my parents ever
learned in this country was that the American dream is
not for you, but for your children today. I kind
(02:49):
of really wanted to talk with you about this idea,
what the American dream is and how people chase it.
And I would imagine there is not a monolithic definition
of it, and everybody brings their own kind of version
of it to the table, and yours are so eloquently
laid out in your book. So before we jump into
that full idea, I figured the best place to start
would be if you can tell me a little bit
(03:10):
about yourself, specifically your journey from Ecuador to the United States.
How old were you when you moved? What do you
remember most? Was there like a singular seminal moment where
you're like, Okay, I'm in America. This is what America means.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Ah. So, born in Ecuador, South America. My parents. My
dad was a pediatric surgeon over there, my mother was
an anesthesiologist. So I come from a background of a
lot of lawyers and medical doctors. We came to the
United States in nineteen eighty eight to Los Angeles. To
be specific. There's not that many Ecuadorians in Los Angeles.
(03:42):
They're all Miami or New York. It was such an
exciting time because it was like, the Lakers won the Championship,
the Dodgers won the World Series. Guns and Roses was
the biggest band in the world. I was like, Ell,
it was the place to be. And I can honestly
say that I came as a privileged thing thinking he
was white, because it's all I ever knew in Ecuador
(04:02):
to landing in America, living in you know, immigrant communities
that weren't well off economically, and had the heart realization that,
oh my god, I'm not white. And what's funny about
that is that I grew up consuming so much American
(04:25):
film and TV shows and I only saw white, blue
eyed folks on screen. So I was like, that's America
and that's who I am too. And I was obsessed
with this movie. I don't even know if you remember it.
It was called American Ninja.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Oh man oh.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
It starred American heart throb Michael Dudakov, who went on
to make American Ninja two. At the Annihilation, a American
Ninja three the conference out, he just went on to
do the American industries. But I was obsessed, obsessed with
one becoming a ninja and the other becoming American. So
(05:01):
we land in the United States. I go to public
school for the first time, coming from private schools. I
am confronted with the beauty and diversity of this country.
But I'm just so like flabbergasted. And I saw them.
I saw the you know, the African American kids, the
Asian American kids. But when I saw the Mexican American
and the Central American kids and realized that I look
more like them than the white kids, I was like, oh,
(05:24):
my seven year old head like blue open, Like, Oh,
America is not what it portrays in the film and
TV shows. And I think that was my origin story
because by the time I become a young adult and
want to work as a writer in the entertainment industry,
I go back to that moment to realizing, oh, I've
always just wanted to see myself represented in film and TV.
(05:46):
So in academia, there's this concept called symbolic annihilation. I
don't know if you've ever heard of it, but symbolic
annihilation is when a group of people are excluded or
underrepresented in mass met and I feel like that's what
I've been dealing with my whole life, because at best,
symbolic annihilation resulted a young immigrant boy like me who
(06:09):
didn't see himself growing up in film and TV and
theater and books, so I didn't feel like I was
part of the fabric of this nation growing up. That's
at best, But at worst, symbolic annihilation results on a
mass murderer, like what happened in El Paso, Texas, when
this deranged gunman killed innocent Americans because he saw them
(06:31):
as illegals or invaders. And to me, that is truly
what people of color fighting in Hollywood. We're fighting this
idea of symbolic annihilation.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I'm glad you brought that up. I mean, I'll go
academic for a second too.
Speaker 2 (06:45):
The I know you can. That's why talk nerdy to me.
Speaker 1 (06:50):
It's oftentimes challenging, I feel to explain to somebody who
maybe either hasn't experienced that feeling that you describe, and
I want to be clear, like this is even with
folks in the South Asian community who maybe don't have
the same I mean, I think we all grew up.
(07:10):
If you're of my generation or even ten twenty years younger,
you generally grew up not seeing faces that looked like
yours on screen. That only changed relatively recently. But this
idea of how that leads to or contributes to, not
necessarily the leads, but there's correlation between that and dehumanization.
There's a media theorist, I hope I'm getting this right.
His name is Peter Feng, and he has this thing
(07:32):
on like if you look at im media depiction or
a character or a role and you say, okay, is
this positive or is this negative? That immediately robs us
of the humanity and the reality that exists within people,
Like when I go to choose characters, I hope they're flawed.
I hope they're deeply problematic. I hope they experience joy
(07:54):
and pain and sorrow. I hope they make mistakes, right,
Like to me, there's nothing more boring than like theater
is good?
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Right?
Speaker 1 (08:02):
And I think we're so used to positing these things
as is this depiction of positive or a negative? And
to me that misses the point entirely, because both of
them contribute to a certain dehumanization.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
And that has been the challenge for your career, right
as you choose roles, as you define what kind of
actor you want to be. I've heard so many stories
like you know that famous saying by Denzel Washington when
he won the Oscar and he said, I'm standing here
not just for all the roles I did, I'm here
for all the roles I didn't do. And I used to.
(08:34):
I used to work closely with Edward James almost right,
he standing Deliverer and Selena and all that stuff. He
once shared with me a story that he was offered
the role of John Malkovich of in the Line of Fire.
Do you remember that movie In the Line of Fire? Yeah,
Clint Eastwood, secret service agent who has to stop this
guy who's trying to kill the president. He was offered
(08:56):
that role and he said no because I don't want
to Maryors to see it. Chakano trd to kill the president.
Oh wow, that is so deep to be that conscientious
of your own representation within greater mass media.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
There have been murderers and on I think on one
occasion a terrorists that I played, and my view or
in those I mean, I've certainly said no to plenty
of roles, but I think in the cases where I
said yes, I was mindful of that and I kind
of had a chip on my shoulder about it, where
I was like, why the hell do I not get
to play a role that I want? Like I understand,
(09:32):
we don't exist in a vacuum, but like things that
I'm scared of include terrorists and guns. Therefore, this is
a great acting challenge for me if I believably play
this guy right, because I'm personally terrified of these things.
But you're right, it's a it's a it's it's not
a straightforward kind of a kind of a conversation. Anyway,
we can get back to that. I don't want to
(09:53):
go too too far off the topic of this.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
And okay, but before we move on, because of this underrepresentation,
because of the symbolic annihilation, there are movies and roles
that have stuck with me that I didn't realize how
they impacted me back then. I think Benny, the Jet,
Rodriguez and the Sandlot. I think of Rufio and Hook,
and I definitely think of Perrelyn Kumar.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Oh wow, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:19):
These are characters and stories that I didn't realize how
much I needed to see until many many years later.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
Oh that means a lot, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2 (10:28):
It's the only reason I said yes to do in
this interview.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Well, thank you. The that then reminds me of like,
you know, when I'm reading a breakdown for a character
or a script, and this is generally been the case
for a while, but like, you can be picky to
some extent and then you can't be picky to some extent.
You just can't, depending depending on what's out there and
the time criminal that. But one thing that really kind
of makes my eyes roll is when I'm reading a
(10:54):
breakdown of a character or somebody's pitching me a pardon
something and they go, okay, so it's about this Indian guy,
who I'm like, done, next, what do you mean? Like,
you don't if the first thing out of your mouth
is the guy's identity. Either it's an identity story and
I'm generally not interested, or it's not an identity story
and you're pitching it that way, which shows me that
(11:15):
you don't know how to write for somebody who looks
like me. So in both cases I'm out, because like,
if I'm playing the part, unless I'm like you know,
unless I'm like white chicksing it and putting on full prosthetics,
it is kind of obvious that no matter what the
guy is called or what the what the plot line is,
you look at me and you understand what you know,
(11:37):
what his background may be. By the way, huge disagreements
even within the South Asian community about what I just said.
But but that's been my experience where I'm like to
light up right now. Kind of good, we kind of
we could use that for the clicks. That's fine. Going
back to you coming here, you were seven, Like your
parents told you it was just a vacation, right, They
didn't tell you were fully moving.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Yeah, my parents one hold a lot of secrets too,
have lied to me an awful lot. They said we
were going on vacation. I remember like nine months, and
I'm like, this is the world's longest vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
And it includes a public school in going to school.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
This is a this is a shitty vacation. I think
when we started talking, you said, how I end my
first chapter that my hardest lesson my parents ever learned
is that the American dream was not for you, but
for your children. I just wanted to say that. As
as sad as that statement is, it freed me from
(12:36):
so much pressure and trauma that I had been carrying
all my life. And I'm good. Full circle back to
Harold and Kumar, because you're gonna laugh at this. I've
been trying to understand why we came to this country
my whole life. I've been trying to understand why we
were on document. I've been trying to understand why my
parents were for being doctors to working like a car wash,
you know. And I've been trying to understand why I
(12:59):
carried this sense of I must be successful to justify
my parents sacrifice to come to this country. I grew
up with this narrative of my parents sacrificed everything for me,
so if I'm not successful, I not only will I
let myself down, I will let them and their sacrifices
(13:19):
in their journey to this country down. And that was
so much pressure to grow up with. Then one day
i think I'm listening to a podcast on like the
Asian American Experience done by NPR, and John cho is
talking about this very thing, and he said it took
a lot of therapy, and it took a lot of
(13:40):
understanding that my parents came to this country for themselves
and then realized that the system was not made for them,
and then they transferred all their hopes and dreams onto me.
When he said that, cal it blew my fricking mind,
because I was like, that's it. That's how I free
myself from all this pressure of needing to be perfect
(14:01):
and successful. It's understanding that my parents didn't come just
for me, that it was all just him him. He
came for themselves. My dad literally thought he can walk
into children's hospital and be a pediatric surgeon the day
he landed here. That's how delusional he was.
Speaker 1 (14:18):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (14:19):
And I think it took him and my mom realizing, oh,
this system is not meant to support immigrants, refugees or
on documented Americans for him to be like, okay, in
that case, the sacrifices for my child and that little
distinction really really freed me from a lot of trauma
and pressure.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
That's very well said, and I think it gets to
a question that I wanted to ask you later, because
basically what you're describing is that version of the American
dream is like what we think of it as is
obviously in pop culture or in the zeitgeist of the
phrase and the way that I mean you mentioned Harold
and Kamar. There's one of my favorite monologue is the
one that Kamar gets to say about what the American
(15:00):
dream means to him. But then the way you're describing
it is like the part that we always forget is
like all the fine print and the fact that it's
not necessarily universally applicable, right, especially in immigrant communities, the
vast diversity of experience of how people came here, under
what circumstance, what drove their parents to do it. Was
(15:21):
there a seminal moment when you realized, a, this was
not a vacation, And what was your early definition of America, like,
before you understood any of the politics or the systems
or the things that we're talking about right now, what
was your like, what was the emotional reaction?
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Like I think I can narrow it down to heinz Ketchup.
It's because like ketchup in South America is terrible and
we're so like wanting to be European that we eat
French fries with mayo. It's bad. Then we come to
the United States and I remember maybe it was McDonald's
(15:59):
or something, and we order French fries with ketchup, and
I lost my fucking mind. I had never tasted anything
so good, so sweet, with so much crack in it,
and I became addicted to like heins ketchup. So every
time someone asked me what does America be to you,
I'm like, it's fucking heinz ketchup. You have no idea
how bad ketchup is around the world.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
I'm now thinking about, like I should ask every everybody
if they have a ketchup story. Here's the at least
through my lens. The Indian ketchup story. Is it when
we would go visit our grandparents as kids in India, So, like,
you know, you're a sort of classic story of Okay,
you spend the summers with grandparents in India. When pizza
(16:42):
arrived in Mumbai, forget it, I'm talking late eighties. Okay,
pizza was a roti with ketchup and cheese on it. Okay,
that's what it was. So when you're not years old
eating that, you're like, ugh, no, this is not pizza.
(17:06):
And so then you're like, this is but I do
love ketchup and like, and now as an adult, there's
you know, like I'll mix high fruct toast corn syrup
American not food ketchup with like the most fresh Indian
chutney that I can make, because when you combine them,
(17:26):
it's the sweet and the savory. That's like the perfect
dipping sauce. And I feel like I can have this
conversation with very few people. So thank you for opening
the door to that core memory of what pizza was.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
And I'll go I'll go one step further. When pizza
lands in Ecuador, it becomes a status thing. It became
like fine dining. So when I come to the United
States and I see my poor neighbors eating pizza every day,
I'm like, oh my god, they must be rich. They're
eating pizza every night. That's incredible.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
What was the moment you found out that you were
undocumented in high school and how did that How did
that change your perception of things, if at all?
Speaker 2 (18:09):
Well, I went from being the all American kid to
discovering that I wasn't American. So so in high school,
I'm a senior. Now I'm like an overachiever. I'm the
class president, the prom king, in the top ten percent
of my class. Then I applied to go to college,
and more precisely, I also applied to get a driver's license.
(18:33):
All my friends were starting to drive, so I wanted
to drive too. So I went to the DMV without
telling my parents.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
Story Wow. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Then I came home and they had to break the
news to me as tool, by the way, you don't
have a social Security number, And I was like, wait,
I don't have a green card, but I have a
blue cart either, Like I was, I was feeling very
dizzy when they were like laying it all out for me.
It felt like the usual, the usual suspects, like oh
my god, everything's no wonder. You wouldn't let me go
(19:03):
on like pert my Yara trip with the seniors, like
you know, or I had this memory of every time
my dad I'm gonna be president one day, He's like,
I don't think, you know, I don't think that's fir
so at all. I started like making sense, and immediately
after I got very depressed. You know, I felt like
my life, my all American life, just came crashing down
(19:26):
on me. And in those few months, I truly feel
like I couldn't dream or I wasn't gonna achieve my
dreams and It took my mom to tell me this quote,
which I wrote in the book, and I refused to
give her royalties for it because I asked her. I said,
why didn't you like you're actually SMSA, you tell me everything.
You gossiped like crazy, like how would you not? How
(19:47):
could you keep this for me? And she said, your
dad and I didn't tell you because we didn't want
you to grow up feeling different, because dreams should not
have borders.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
That's very sweet.
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Oh, that that blur in my mind, That lit a
fire under my ass. I was like, oh, you know what,
You're right, and that's what led me to community college
because I was on my way to a four year university,
but I couldn't afford that anymore. So I was like, okay,
what can I afford? So I began a new kind
of dream, a new kind of journey in community college.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
You had said in a previous interview, a lot of
Americans say things like we don't like refugees, we don't
like undocumented workers, but then we need to stop creating them.
What does that mean to you?
Speaker 2 (20:32):
To me, it was all these years of understanding why
my parents came to this country landed on a simple
premise that oh, we were just product of empire. And
I never thought of it that way because when we
think of empire, I think classically we think about what
happened in India, right, But the economic empire that the
United States has all over Latin America has a great pool.
(20:57):
And it took me understanding that, oh, oh wow, there's
a lot of Indians in the UK, just like there's
a lot of Algerians in France. Because the colonized always
go to the land of the colonizer, do you know
what I mean. I think that was what really truly
brought us here. But I really struggled with writing my
(21:19):
book because what I didn't want is to show us
as a perfect model minority family. I didn't want people
to read and go like, oh, but they're okay, you
know what I mean. That's why I wanted to write
a lot of like the fucked up shit that I
did and that and the stuff that wasn't the kosher
that my parents did, because I wanted them to see
warts and all that regardless of what we did and
(21:42):
didn't do, we belonged to be here. I believe everyone
who contributes to this economy who's whose strength strengthened our community.
They're they're American. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Yes, you hit the nail and all of this is
why I was so fascinated with the idea of what
the American dream means to different people. And when I
was reading that your your parents' realization that the American
dream wasn't for them, how did their dreams for their
lives transfer to you? Meaning how did that explicitly express
(22:18):
itself in expectations. You mentioned that there was pressure and
that you felt the persson, But what did they say,
What did they exactly say?
Speaker 2 (22:26):
Yeah, well, my dad was very direct. He's like, at
this point, I'm just waiting for you to grow up
and be okay so I could move back.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (22:34):
And that was also some pressure added to my life
where I was like, okay, I have to be successful.
Speaker 1 (22:40):
And what was their definition of success? What do they
mean by.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
That economically well off? Right? That the least stable well off?
And by the way, you, of all people, understand what
it is to tell immigrant parents, I want to be
an artist.
Speaker 1 (22:57):
Oh my parents did not move here for me to
smoke weed and slide off a half naked woman in
a movie that is not at all why they moved here. Furthermore,
there's a huge difference between being economically stable and being
economically well off, and both obviously fall under a lot
(23:19):
of immigrants definition of capitalism or our own American definition
of capitalism. I think, as an artist, my definition of
the American dream includes a whole lot of happiness, a
happiness quotient that is not there when a lot of
people define the American dream.
Speaker 2 (23:32):
And let me share this insight. When I wrote the book,
I thought I knew who I was writing it for.
I thought this might be for immigrants, for Latinos, for
undocumented students. But the people who have most reached out
to me about this book have been children of immigrants.
It has been first generation Indian Americans, first generation Filipino Americans,
(23:57):
first generation Chinese Americans. Everyone who's been like, oh my god,
your fights with your immigrant parents were my fight Your
hang ups were my hang ups. Me trying to pursue
my dreams, but my parents weren't happy with It's the
same thing I dealt with. It was so mind blowing
for me to understand that I didn't even know the
audience I was writing this book for. It I feel
(24:19):
like it truly is for children of immigrants. I had
to read Eddie Want's Fresh off the Boat to be like,
we could talk about our immigrant parents this way, like
we're allowed to talk about our cultural hangups and all
the fucked up shit they did to us. Okay, it's on.
Speaker 1 (24:34):
For me, it was watching Margaret Show and John Leguizamo My.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Cad so ahead of their time too, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, yeah, way ahead of its time. Right when your
when your dad told you that he wanted to go
back to Ecuador, was there a like I feel like
the podcast version of this is like I don't think
we have music that comes in mercifully, but you know,
you'd have like a little violin and like, okay, this
(25:03):
is a moment. This is the moment in the ninety
minute script where he is giving up on the American Dream.
I find that in practical life, though it's not generally
how it works out, it's like chipping away at a
bigger block. Did he experience defeat, sadness, happiness, some combination
(25:24):
of those, and how did that apply to the American dream?
When he said, you know, I'm my plan is to
go back to Ecuador once you're once you're all good.
Speaker 2 (25:32):
So a couple of things. One, I feel like I
always fought with my dad. Me and him always were
butting heads, and we were always fighting over everything, including
my mom's affection. Right. But I do realize looking back
on my life that there must have been a small
level of jealousy that I can grow up dumb and oblivious,
(25:58):
because again, they didn't tell me we ondocumented. I didn't
find out until high school. I'm graduating, right, they kept
that fear from me and a sense of jealousy that
I can pursue my dreams and he couldn't, right, he
was stuck in minimum wage, keeping up with the mortgage
and stuff. So when he tells me that as soon
(26:20):
as you're on your own, ready to fly, we're gone.
It turns out that was the second time he said that,
because I never knew that he had told my mom.
I guess like five years in to being in the
United States, realizing how hard it was, like, let's go back,
and my mom said absolutely not. We're not going back
until he finishes his education. And I was like, oh
(26:43):
my god, this dude must have really resented me. And
then when this is this is the like the silver lining.
They go back to Ecuador and he goes back to
being a doctor. Wow, so you know he went to
he went to pursue his American dream in a different
part of America. He went to South America. American dream.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Okay, definitionally, if we if we agree with this definition.
So Encyclopedia Britannica defines the American dream as the ideal
that the United States is a land of opportunity that
allows the possibility of upward mobility, freedom and equality for
(27:25):
people of all classes who work hard and have the
will to succeed. So there's not a singular we. It's
I feel like it's specific, but it's broad enough that
we can all attach our immigrant baggage to this shit
in really dynamic ways. So who do you think the
American dream is for?
Speaker 2 (27:48):
That's a great question, because I went from how do
you define the American dream? To who is allowed to dream?
Speaker 1 (27:57):
Right?
Speaker 2 (27:57):
That's what I've been I've been struggling with an awful lot.
I like the definition you gave us. But remember dictionaries,
they don't define words. They give us popular usage. We
define the words. I remember I was in college when
I first read that the idea of life liberty and
the pursuit of happiness was originally thought of as life
(28:20):
liberty and property, but they quickly realized that not everyone
could get property, so they changed the language. So I
always go back to that idea of the pursuit of
happiness and how it always should have been property. And
I feel like my American dream is tied in that
because I truly didn't feel like I was successful. I
truly didn't feel like I made it. I truly didn't
(28:42):
feel like I was a an immigrant success story until
I was able to buy my mama house, okay, and
if like at the bare bar minimum, that to me
was my American dream to be able to take care
of my a rergrand parents.
Speaker 1 (29:02):
So you do feel like you achieved it?
Speaker 2 (29:05):
Yes, I feel like I achieved it for them to
honor their sacrifice, because we've been talking so much about
that and so much of my therapy has been around that. Yeah,
And I was like, Okay, I did that. Now it's
time for me to go achieve mine. And yeah, you know,
I had a set goal and dream for myself in
this industry, in the entertainment industry that there's so few
of us to begin with, and it's infuriating to see
(29:30):
how it's like the ground is shifting from under us,
and how our in our industry is shrinking, and I'm
still trying to figure out how do I stay on
top of everything to be that thing that I always
wanted to achieve for myself and my community for others.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
You were bumping on a piece of this that I
remember feeling when I was in when I was in college,
where what's your metric or definition of success? So I
would apply it to the American dream here, which is
I think there were there were people who went to
school with who were like, my definition of success is
if I have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Like, Okay,
(30:10):
well that's not a real thing. And by the way,
I wouldn't say no to.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
One if anyone's listening, it's.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Right, but it's not a real thing. Meaning to me
that that is not reflective of my success as an
artist exclusively. So my definition at the time was I
would consider my self successful if I can pay my
rent and living expenses entirely from my art, from my
writing and acting, I would consider that successful. And I
(30:41):
think people have different benchmarks of that, and I'm always
curious about that application to something like the American dream,
where if your definition of the American dream is I
am happy by doing this. I feel that I'm not
persecuted in the pursuit of something the way that I
would in another country. To some people, that may be
the American dream, and to others it's like if I
(31:03):
ain't driving that s class, I have not achieved the
American dream. And I'm I'm around plenty of Indian doctors
for whom the definition of the American dream is exclusively capitalist.
It's exclusively this model of car. At this particular time.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
You just made me realize something. You asked, Oh, do
you feel like you achieved the American dream? And I
was like yes.
Speaker 3 (31:24):
And the reason I hesitated from being like it's a
done journey is because all of us are one recession
away from all.
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Of that being taken from us.
Speaker 1 (31:36):
Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2 (31:38):
And that's why I keep going back to who is
allowed to dream? It feels like the American dream is
not attainable for the filthy rich, and the rest of
us are going to be continually caught in this, in
this rat race, and not to not to get to personally,
you just reminded me that I was redefining what happiness
and achieving this dream was to me. Not too long ago,
(31:58):
I lived with my I have the honor to live
with my one hundred year old grandmother. Awesome. And on
Thanksgiving she slipped and broke her hip, and at one
hundred she needed surgery and she survived. And as she
was I was driving to and from the hospital, I
started crying out of gratefulness that my grandmother taught me
(32:21):
yet another lesson, because I kept thinking, I need to
sell my next TV show, I need to set up
my next business to be economically sound so that I
can spend more time with the people I love. Only
to realize that when I have to take care of
my grandma in these past six months, I will go
(32:42):
lay down next to her with my laptop and write
as she's like resting next to me. And that is
what success is to me.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
Awesome.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That is what the dream define, truly, is being able
to spend that kind of time with your loved ones.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
If someone told you early on that the American dream
was never meant for them, what would you say to them?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Well, this goes back to me growing up oblivious and
stupid because so much of that is my mom My
mom allowing me to dream wildly and freely. I think
that's why I've been able to at least come close
to achieving the things I wanted to achieve, Because if
I grew up with that kind of fear my mom
saying oh it's not for us, maybe I would have
(33:37):
like not even tried. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1 (33:40):
Yeah, it makes sense. I mean my answer to this
is not that different. It's like, it's called the American dream,
it's not called the American reality, right. So the whole
point of it is that it should be aspirational. The
whole point of it is that, yeah, the shit's not easy.
That's why it's called the American dream.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Right.
Speaker 1 (33:57):
There are going to be enormous setbacks. It's just the
idea that is the path forward, one that you have
the freedom to explore and the freedom to fail, and
the freedom to work hard knowing that you may not
attain the goal that you have.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
It's almost like it's both things. It's like, we have
to believe in the dream to see what we can
realize in this world. But secondly, we have to address
the American dream gap because there's a lot of people
who are being left out of the American dream.
Speaker 1 (34:29):
So so far, we've been talking about this concept of
the American dream as either in your case, an immigrant
or in my case, someone who's the kid of immigrants
but was born and raised in the US. And the
one very large group of people who I think were
not really acknowledging are people who maybe have been Americans
(34:53):
for generations and generations who also don't feel like this
idea of the American dream. However you define that, whether
that's job stability, whether that's being able to afford your
rent or groceries, whether that's being able to afford a
home or take care of your kids in a stress
free way. We keep hearing, Oh, it wasn't like that
(35:15):
in the eighties. It wasn't like that, you know, in
the early whatever. That whole thing is. Obviously, our politics
today are reflecting a whole lot of distrust in institutions
and affordability crisis across the political spectrum. What do you
think that says about this idea of the American dream? Like,
(35:41):
where are we today? What are you experiencing with people
from across the across the spectrum in the work that
you do.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
What I'm experiencing is that there is an American dream gap.
It's the idea that if in the future, if everyone
is going to be able to dream, then there's going
to have to be someit to this. There has to
be a way to ensure that we're all taken care
of by our society. Right. I don't know if that's
(36:11):
the importance of universal health care so it doesn't destroy us.
And again the dream gets taken from underneath us because
of the economy. It always to me it all comes
down to the economics. Will we be able to make
a living, to sustain ourselves, to provide for our families
as there's more deregulation, more consolidation, more money going to
(36:35):
the top. Right, say what you will about this administration.
I feel like what Democrats did wrong is that they
didn't acknowledge this American dream gap in the last election.
They didn't acknowledge how badly people have been hurting economically. Yes,
the policies were better, but you didn't communicate that or
how it's going to address affordability for folks. I think
(36:59):
when we actually actually do that, people will be able
to dream. But until we address not just wealth inequality,
but this transfer of wealth to the very very top,
like zero point zero five percent of Americans. Until we
address that, I don't think a lot of us are
gonna be able to dream.
Speaker 1 (37:19):
I appreciate that. I also appreciate that the definition of
what the American dream means to you know, like we said,
to different people, is different. But then there are themes
to how most people think about it. How are you
feeling about the future.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I feel very hopeful. I'm just a dumb optimistic person,
so I you know, being hopeful, it's just my go to.
But what's going on in the nation at large. It
reminds me so much of what was going on in
California in the early nineties during the Pete Wilson era
(37:55):
in proposition one eighty seven. When things are bad, when
inequality is bad, when affordability is bad, when people can't
pursue their American dreams, it is so easy to target
and blame others. But in California back then, all of
that really really backfired. It allowed for a lot of
(38:15):
like Latin Americans and Mexican Americans in particular, and Central
Americans to be like, oh, we need to take power back,
we need to be involved in a political process. We
need to go and really take over Sacramento, which is
kind of what happened, and I'm hoping that that's going
to also be the case post this administration.
Speaker 1 (38:37):
And then lastly, is there anything I didn't ask you
that you wish I did, Anything you wanted to plug
or talk about?
Speaker 2 (38:45):
Oh? Man, no, no again, it was such an honor
to meet you, as such an honor to talk to you.
I'm going to continue to be out there writing our
stories into existence. The next project I have going is
I just got to hire two write the Father Gregory
Boyle biopic. He's the awesome home Boys in Way Industries. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
(39:06):
so I'm I'm very excited to be doing that. And
that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (39:10):
Man. When when Homeboy Industries opened up at LAX, I
was like, oh, this is this is next level, this
is like yeah, that's that's how you know they made it. Yeah,
it's like, this is this is to take to for
for people who don't know. Just because I'm such a fan,
can you can you give us the like thirty second?
Speaker 2 (39:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Yeah, Homeboy Industries.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Is father Gregory Boyle was a radical Jesuit priest who
created the largest anti gang gang rehabilitation program in the world,
and he did it in East Los Angeles during the
Decade of Death, where there was more deba gang deaths
than violence in East Los Angeles than anywhere else in
the world. And what's so beautiful about his work is
(39:53):
that at that time everyone thought he was naive, stupid,
Like he literally had to win over not just the
local families, that hey, we need to treat people with compassion,
this is about mental health, it's not really about the
gang violence of it all. He not only did he
have to convince the mothers in the community, he had
(40:13):
to convince the lapd, he had to convince the archdiasis
like he had to convince his own order. And you know,
now they're going up to like fifty years of this
work and it all has come full circle to everyone
realizing he was right. Everyone thinks that his work is
with changing the minds and hearts of gang members, but
(40:35):
truly his work was changing the hearts and minds of everyone.
Speaker 1 (40:37):
And everybody else. Yeah, yeah, amazing. Well, thanks Rafael, thanks
thanks for being on. Here we go again. Really enjoyed
our conversation.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
Yeah, thank you, my brother, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
That was my guest TV and film writer and author
of the memoir Illegally Yours, Rafael Augustine. Here we Go
Again as a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snaffo Media
in association with New Metric Media. Our executive producers are
me Calpen, ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Alissa Martino, Andy Kim,
Pat Kelly, Chris Kelly, and Dylan Fagan. Meghan tan Is
(41:16):
our producer and writer. Dave Shumka is our producer and editor.
Our consulting producer is Romin Borsolino. Tory Smith is our
associate producer. Theme music by Chris Kelly, logo by Matt Gosson,
Legal review from Daniel Welsh, Caroline Johnson and Megan Halson.
Special thanks to Glenn Bassner, Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane
(41:36):
Klein and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson,
Carrie Lieberman and Nikki Etour. Thanks for listening. Everybody, tell
your friends write a review. All of this helps. I
appreciate you listening, and until we Go Again, I'm Kelpen
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