April 17, 2025 • 48 mins
What happens when power is ignored, abused, or taken back? In this episode, we break down the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man sent to a Salvadoran mega-prison despite a court ruling protecting him—and the Trump administration’s outright refusal to comply with a Supreme Court order. Meanwhile, Puerto Rico faces yet another massive blackout, leaving millions without power and prompting artists like Bad Bunny to speak out. And at Coachella, Latino artists are showing up stronger than ever, reclaiming the spotlight on one of music’s biggest stages. From government defiance to cultural power moves, we explore what resistance looks like across courts, islands, and festival stages.
https://wearemitu.com/wearemitu/news/kilmar-abrego-garcia-deportation-fight-explainer/
https://wearemitu.com/wearemitu/entertainment/bad-bunny-puerto-rico-blackout-callout/
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
Let me talk about talk. Here we go. He said,
you live in Life as a Gringo, where you questioned
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do. This would not that my rapping has really
been this Life as a Gingo. Yes, hello, and welcome
to an episode of Life as a Gringo. I am
dramas of course, and it is Thursday, so I mean
(00:28):
it's time for Thursday trends. Actually, before that, I do
want to address the show itself, Life is a Gringo,
the podcast right that you're listening to right now that
I am beyond grateful for that. People keep showing up
each episode and listening and getting something out of it,
(00:50):
and we have a bunch of new listeners as well.
Big thanks to Apple Podcasts for featuring our our show
as you know, like a noteworthy show, particularly for Financial
Literacy Month and the episodes we've been doing around that.
So really excited about that. Chouaut Michael Tura podcast team
(01:12):
for you know, putting in that work and getting us
that placement. That's huge. With that said, we are I
think we are seven episodes including this one, so after
this six I want to say left in season three
if you're a new listener, there's a lot of catching
up if you're enjoying the content, So have no fear.
(01:34):
There's literally three seasons worth. That is over three hundred
episodes of this podcast, which is fucking insane to say
out loud. Yeah, so this has been roughly four years
of my life of audio recordings that you can go
check out. With that said, I don't want to catch
(01:55):
anybody by surprise. I don't want to you know, bamboozle you,
if that's the right word. As we really have a
few weeks left together in this season, and also season
three will be the final season of Life as a Gingo.
(02:20):
I'm not gonna drag this out. You're not here for that.
We're talk about Thursday trends. But I do want to
give you a heads up on that. Will you know,
elaborate and reflect as we get closer to the end.
But I did just kind of want to let you
all know, who do listen have been listening, that this
(02:41):
is the final season of Life Zago. So we're in
the last month of the show's existence. The blessed to
do it for three seasons and it's absolutely incredible the
rie that it's taking me on. I do have other
things in the works, so it's you know, I'll give
you that Inside Baseball if you will. Again, we have
a lot of new listeners right now. There's three hundred
(03:03):
episodes for you to catch up on in the meantime
until you know, until the next phase of My life appears.
If you if you really enjoy it, so you know,
please still subscribe, and uh, the feed will be active
in some sort of way even after this season ends,
(03:24):
and I'll kind of leave it that. Actually, we have
a couple bonus episodes coming up as well, so that
to look forward to, but just want to kind of
give you guys a heads up. We'll elaborate more as
we get closer to the end. With that said, as
far as the topics we're talking about today, I'm gonna
really just focus in on a few things here. I'm
going to focus in on all that is happening with
(03:47):
this poor man who was wrongfully deported to Al Salvador
is being held in prison, and the US is trying
saying not to bring this man back home even though
they're the ones who fucked up. So we'll talk about
the latest with that. I also want to talk about
(04:07):
Puerto Rico. There was a massive blackout, island wide blackout
yesterday even today as we record this, as we talk it,
I think forty seven percent of the island got power back.
So we'll talk about the latest with all that and
everything's going on, and then on the positive side of
things for me, hint this segment, let's talk about Coachella
(04:30):
and the Latin representation that we saw there. But first
and foremost, as we always do, let's get into the nonsense,
the bs and a segment we call for the people
in the back, say a lot for the people in
the say a lot of the people in the say
(04:53):
a lot of the people of all right, let's start
with the story of this man who's wrong with reported.
His name was kilmar Abrego Garcia. Now he was deported
from Maryland wrongfully because in twenty nineteen a judge granted
him without withholding sorry withholding from removal status, which means
(05:18):
he cannot be deported. So he was given legal status
here in this country, the ability to be here legally
and not be deported. And he has been an upstanding
citizen from every account we can look at, even checking
in with you know, the deportation officers as he's supposed
(05:42):
to working a job raising his family here in in
the States, and now because of Trump and these crazy
deportations and fucking not dotting their eyes and crossing their
te's if you will, you know, measuring once and having
to cut twice, they wrongfully deported this man to a
(06:06):
mega prison in Al Salvador known as CECOT. I don't
know if it's a secat howe the fuck you pronounce it.
And they're saying they've actually admitted, right, the Trump administration
has admitted that this was in fact a mistake, an
administration error. But even with that said, they're refusing to
do anything about it to rectify this problem. They're refusing
(06:29):
to try and get this man back home. Now. They
have accused him of having gang ties to gangs like
MS thirteen. There's been no proof of that whatsoever. There's
a lot of bullshit around that, and it's gotten so
(06:49):
bad that even the Supreme Court took on the case
unanimously ruling that the Trump administration or ulessly ordering I
should say that he be returned home. And again, this
is a Supreme Court that is stacked with Trump supporters,
(07:10):
and rarely do they all agree unanimously on a case.
Right now, the the court order properly requires the government
to quote facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El
Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as
(07:33):
it would have been had he not been improperly sent
to El Salvador. Now, this is a Supreme Court's decision,
basically meaning that their order to help him get back
home and on top of that, pretend like this never happened,
and not have him privied or subject or victim to
(07:55):
any more ICE issues that he you know, necessarily is
experiencing right now. Essentially, again, his status is legal in
this country, he's supposed to be, would be here legally
and should not be being hassled as long as he's
complying with all of the mandates of that status, which
he has been. Now. The Supreme Courts also additionally ordered
(08:16):
that Trump administration to provide evidence of what they're doing
to facilitate the return of, sorry, the return of of
Rigol Garcia to the US. The Trump administration has not
complied with the order. Instead, immigration officials have dug their
heels in and are refusing to cooperate with lawful orders
(08:40):
from the court. This seemingly open defiance is troubling legal
experts who are unaware of how this will end. What
did we expect. This is a person in Donald Trump
who does not respect the idea of law and order, right.
(09:07):
And it's crazy to me because this is supposed to
be the party of law and order. You're supposing you're
supposed to respect law and order in this country, right,
and you're you know, if you're not doing anything wrong,
you should have nothing to be afraid of. We hear
that a lot, a lot, right, And literally, this is
a case of a man not doing anything wrong but
(09:30):
still still being deported wrongfully. And this is the fear
is real. I had I have a friend of mine
at one of the places that I DJ. I drove
him home over the weekend and he's here legally, but
there was some blockage. Some of the streets on the
(09:53):
way to his place were blocked. The cops are blocked,
and there's some sort of event they're prepared for, and
and he was genuinely nervous about ice and potentially getting
stopped by the police and getting hassled even though he's
legally here, Like that's no way for people to live.
(10:15):
That's fucking crazy, and that's sending them to a prison
that has a reputation as being the place where they
send terrorists, a notorious prison that's supposed to be the
worst of the worst. And then in a meeting with
President Trump, you had the president of Al Salvador, President Buchuel,
claiming there was nothing he or Al Salvador could do
(10:36):
to return Abravo Garcia, parrotying the Trump administration's dubious claims
and is offering the army too. President Buchuel painted Albravo
Garcia as a terrorist. There's no proof that he is
connected to gang activity other than wearing a Chicago Bulls
hat and hoodie. Additionally, they relied on one anonymous informant. Guys,
(11:03):
if the sports team you're wearing is a fucking clear
indicator and green light to the poor people, we're all
in trouble. I was in Miami last month wearing a
Chicago Bulls jersey. I've sported Chicago Bulls hats of the
Michael Jordan era and actually even newer ones because I
(11:24):
like the colors black and red together and I love
vintage items. And there's nothing cooler than the Michael Jordan
era and Rodman era of Chicago Bulls history. That's wild.
And I saw a clip on Fox News some guy, uh,
one of these fucking idiots. It was a Jesse Waters
I remember, but break dissecting that how could this man
(11:47):
lives in Maryland be wearing Chicago Bulls gear? See a
Chicago Bulls fan? I bet you can't even name a
player aside from Michael Jordan. Like, what the fuck are
we talking about certain teams? It's it's part of fashion
and culture. The fuck are you talking about? I just
bought a vinto Chicago Bulls polo from a thrift store
(12:10):
here around the corner from my place in New Jersey, Like,
what the fuck are we even talking about now? The
way they're justifying it, it's it's crazy. It's fucking gas
lighting at the end of the day. But it's crazy
like they admit that they're wrong, but then try and
(12:31):
find reasons to villainize this person even though they they've
admitted we fucked up, even though they fucked up, they're
still now trying to justify their fuck up by painting
this person out to be something that they're not. It's
absolutely crazy, and then Trump was set on a hot
mic during that same interaction with the President El Salvador,
(12:52):
that quote home growns are next, meaning criminals that are
American citizens he's proposing to ship out to Elvi Salvador.
Do you know the irony of somebody who is a
convicted felon and somebody who has been convicted in court
(13:12):
even though it civilly as a sexual assaulter A A.
I don't know what the word would be. It's not
a sexual deviant, but fucking essentially found liable of rape
and sexual assault. Him declaring that we should send criminals
(13:36):
to a whole another country. How about you saying yourself
you're included in that. By the way, you're a homegrown criminal.
It's just so wild. And the goal post moving and
listen to everybody moves goal posts to make their point
(13:57):
at times, right and sometimes the messenger changes where you
stand on certain things. But that shouldn't be the case.
We talk about the rule of law and order that
in a democracy, the president has to listen to the courts,
can be held accountable for his or her actions. That's
(14:20):
what this country has founded upon. Imagine if fucking Biden
was defying the Supreme Court. Remember when he lost in
court about student loan forgiveness. He didn't just proceed with it.
They abided by the ruling of the court, because that's
(14:42):
what you're supposed to do. There's the checks and balance
the system. No one person is bigger than the entire system.
Yet here you have a scary situation that I feel
like is not being underlined enough. The Supreme Court ruled,
and yet even with that ruling, the current administration, the
(15:04):
current president, is ignoring it. Where do you go from there?
The Supreme Court is supposed to be the end all,
be all, and now this really brings into question where
is the line? Because now if Donald Trump, and I
(15:28):
can't help but feel like this is a test, by
the way, a test of where the line is for
someone like him, right, I can't help but feel that
way because what he's doing here is saying, in this
sort of smaller instance, right, and it's not small for
the people that are directly affected by this, like this
(15:50):
man and his family, but in a quote unquote smaller
instance that has to do with one person, Let's test
this out and see what happens if I openly defy
the Supreme Court. And if there are no repercussions or
no accountability, we've lost our democracy, because then where's the
(16:13):
line at that point? Truthfully, where's the line? Because they're
already talking about him having a third term even though
the Constitution states two terms. There are people talking about
an Obama versus Trump race at that point. Listen, I'm
a fan of Obama. I don't want to see him
(16:34):
run again. I don't think us just throwing everything away
and accepting it is the answer two terms for a reason.
It's just crazy. And what's crazier is the justification from
(16:57):
people and their quickness to villainize somebody rather than hold
them accountable, as well as their quickness to dude again.
(17:18):
The Republican Party is supposed to be a party of
law and order. Do you not remember Blue Lives Matter? Right?
All those flags we support blue? Then the fucking January
sixth happens. They don't believe in that anymore. Respect law
and order. The courts are supposed to law and order
except for when it rules against who you know, their guy.
(17:40):
It's just hypocrisy left and right. And I don't have
to say that, but this is just egregious you're telling
me the United States of America, the quote unquote most
powerful country in the entire world, can't facilitate the release
of somebody who's wrongfully detained in another country. You set
them there, can't bring them back. And by the way,
(18:02):
them shipping people over there is costing tax payer money.
The money they're paying the government of al Salvador to
take these prisoners is taxpayer money. I thought we were
supposed to you. We were trying to stop the the
unnecessary spending. We're trying to be more efficient. Yet we're
(18:23):
spending millions of dollars sending people to other countries. It's
just wild, man. And I know that sounds repetitive and
not a groundbreaking, you know, summary or hot take, but
I'm at a loss for words as to what comes next.
(18:47):
And I've kind of just been blissfully sort of ignoring
it all, you know, and then it's times like this
when we have to talk about it, I'm like, Fuck,
the implications for this are incredibly scary. And then where
does it stop. If he's not going to respect the
(19:07):
rule of law, if he's not going to listen to
the highest court that we have, and he's going to
openly and publicly defy them. Where does it not end?
At that point, we've lost our democracy. And that's why
people like Chuck Schumer not having a backbone and saying
we haven't gotten to that point yet are dead wrong,
(19:30):
because we are at that point. The President of the
United States is openly defying a ruling, a court order
from the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
There's no more checks and balances system. If he's not
held accountable for this, it's over. There's no stopping him
and his agenda at this point. At that point, I
(19:50):
should say, and I guess we'll wait and see what
happens with all of this. But that said, we'll say
a quick break here and then we'll be right back.
All right, we are back, and now let's talk about
Puerto Rico. You had an island wide blackout in Puerto Rico.
Once again, in the words of bad Bunny, when are
(20:16):
we going to do something Puerto Rico, In the words
of bad Bunny, when are we going to do something?
Blackout after blackout, piss poor service after piss poor service,
overpaying for subpar service, and nobody seems to give a
damn promises that go unkept. The governor Jennifer Gozalez talking about,
(20:42):
you know, threatening that she would cancel Luma's contract. Haven't
seen any action towards that. And the messed up part
about all of this, Aside from the obvious that people
are losing power in hospital, the elderly businesses are losing
(21:03):
money because of these blackouts, losing inmatory, people's groceries going bad,
the irony and the messed up part about this. One
of the more messed up parts about it is that
they then try and make you feel crazy for being upset.
Jennifer Gonzalez is in a press conference pushing back on
(21:25):
a reporter who said people are losing their groceries, which
are already expensive in Puerto Rico, and Jennifer Gonzalez pushes
back and says, you don't lose your groceries in just
twenty four hours. That's your response to justify this horrific
accident and make the victims feel dumb and feel bad
(21:50):
for being upset. It's disgusting, but also not everybody, but
the people of Puerto Rico, in larger numbers than not,
came out and voted for Jennifer Gonzales. You came out
and voted for more of the same. Congratulations, you played yourself.
(22:16):
That's what it is, because this is the problem with
statehood versus independence, and these governors that are so focused
on delivering statehood. Jennifer Gonzales is only focused on kissing
up to the United States of America. She's only focused
(22:37):
on delivering her promise of statehood. She's in DC kissing
the feet of the powers that be, sucking up to
people like Donald Trump. Meanwhile, those who elected her and
those who didn't, the people she's supposed to be representing,
are suffering right now while she's trying to fulfill some
crazy dream that probably will never happen, because the United
(23:00):
States of America has proven time and time again they do.
They want nothing to do with the people of Puerto Rico.
They believe that Puerto Rico is a burden. So while
she's focused on statehood, you on the island are suffering.
And that's the problem with a party and a political
(23:21):
system that focuses on things like statehood versus independence. You're
not actually focusing on the day to day issues of
the everyday people. Okay, she and Puerto Rico as a
whole Puerto Rico shouldn't be having statehood versus independence conversations
(23:49):
until they figure out the very specific issues that are
affecting people on a day to day basis. Figure out
what's happening with Luma, cancel that contract, and have a
plan for energy moving forward. That's not going to change.
If you become a state. Your power company can still
(24:12):
go bankrupt. It went bankrupt in Long Island, New York.
That's not things that change because you become a state.
The massive amount of debt that Puerto Rico's in, they
would still be responsible for it if they became a
state or independent. You have plenty of issues to worry about.
(24:36):
And this hyper fixation on statehood that's her focus. It's
now causing her not to focus on solving the everyday
problems of the people of Puerto Rico. And this is
where y' all messed up because you had a candidate
in Juan dl Mau, who said, regardless of what the
people want statehood versus independence, I want to focus on
(25:01):
making Puerto Rico more self sufficient and not relying on
federal money. How can we make Puerto Rico the economy grow?
How can we create more opportunity here locally to empower ourselves,
rather than what Jennifer Gonzalez is trying to do, which
is just relying on the United States of America. You
(25:25):
had a candidate there and y'all messed up, and I
know it's made a majority of you know, the people
voting and supporting for someone like Jennifer Gozalz are of
a particular generation and older generation who are still hanging
on to this dream of the great White Hope, the
great white savior, who has proven time and time again.
(25:48):
They want nothing to do with you and are scared
of any new idea the people of what and again,
not everybody, but those of you who are not progressive
and not trying to change things and not looking for
(26:11):
something new in the candidates that you select. You are
the biggest hurdle to Puerto Rico becoming more self sufficient,
to fixing the issues that affect your everyday lives, and
statehood is not going to solve all of your problems.
I hate to break it to you, the poorest states
(26:32):
in the United States of America are suffering just like
you are. They're citizens who don't have an excess of money,
don't come from wealth. They're suffering just like you are,
and I can't harp on it enough. Puerto Rico needs
(26:58):
to focus on empowering the people and becoming more self sufficient.
That has to be the focus. If the governor's focus
is just on statehood, she's ignoring all of the issues
that are affecting your everyday life right now. And that's
the problem with the political system, the political parties in
(27:18):
Puerto Rico, because rather than saying, Okay, we have an
issue of an electrical grid, we have a housing crisis
in Puerto Rico and whatever infrastructure problems with the roads
and all these things, she's not focusing her attention in
the way that she should. There. No, she wants to
be in Washington kissing up to the powers that be
(27:41):
so that she can make good on this idea of
statehood and she can reap all the benefits of it. Meanwhile,
the problems back on the island continue to stack up
and continue to be a detriment and affect the lives
of the people of Puerto Rico each and every day.
There's too much scattered, you know, intentions, you have to
(28:02):
go They need somebody who's going to go in there
and say Okay, what can we do right now, because
obviously this is not working on a day to day basis. Yes,
statehood versus independent is an important conversation to have one
hundred percent. But first and foremost, let's fix some of
these problems right now that we can do with our
current status. Let's figure out how to actually improve the
(28:26):
everyday lives of people of Puerto Rico day to day,
the things that they rely on, like electricity and housing
and roads to drive on. How can we improve that.
That needs to be our focus right now. Then we
can start tackling everything else. But again, the way the
political system is set up right now, when somebody gets
into office, they're just trying to push their agenda. And
(28:48):
because you keep voting for somebody who wants statehood, her
only focus is how can I suck up to the
United States? How can I suck up to Donald Trump
and try and make good on the stupid promise that
is not going to deliver all that the people who
are voting for it expect. That's the problem. The focus
(29:08):
is all over the place, rather than on what the
actual everyday needs of the people of Puerto Rico. The
focus is everywhere else except for improving the lives on
a day to day basis of the people of Puerto Rico.
And that's the issue, and that's why nothing gets solved
and everything just keeps happening while you keep having the
(29:30):
same problems over and over again, because nobody's focused on
resolving issues. They're sitting here selling dreams and trying to
make some asinine reality of statehood happen rather than actually
getting to work on solving every day problems first. That's
where we are. And again you had someone in Juanda
Mao who wanted to tackle those actual issues, wanted to
(29:54):
empower the people of Puerto Rico, wanted to make Puerto Rico,
make Puerto Rico far more sell sufficient. But instead you
voted for somebody who wants to spend her time in
DC kissing up to politicians instead of being on the island,
instead of focusing on what can be done for the
everyday person. You went from Juan, you went from Pierre Luisi,
(30:18):
who blocked canceling Luma's contract or spoke out against it,
which then led to it not happening, to then Jennifer Gonzalez,
who claimed she would cancel Luma's contract hasn't done it
and instead has all her energy on becoming Trump's best friend.
(30:42):
That's where we are, and I realized that for those
of you who are you know, up to date on
what's happening, I didn't even explain what happened, but I
just needed to get that off my chest. But the
blackout happened. One point four million people in put Hica
(31:02):
left with that power, hundreds of thousands more without water.
You have people talking out obviously Bad Bunny is talking
out about it, asking when are we going to be
done with this? You have people who are stuck on
the train system over there. Luma is always as usual,
(31:25):
blaming it on a combination of factors, claiming protection system
failure and vegetation on transmission lines. They keep saying over
and over again, if you have an issue with vegetation
on the transmission line, maybe then you should focus on
maintaining that vegetation. If that's a consistent problem, why is
(31:48):
it that they are not focusing their attention on maintaining
the growth of said vegetation. A lot to be upset about.
And again, you need focus. And I'm not saying I
have all the answers. I'm not a fucking expert on this.
(32:10):
I'm not a politician, but I do know what happens
when your mind and your time and your focus is
divided into fifty million different places, you end up being
incredibly unproductive. Whereas if you chose to use your time
wisely and say, Okay, there's a lot of issues to
(32:30):
handle here, a lot of things we want to do,
but what are the two or three main things that
if we solved those problems, would drastically and immediately improve
the lives of the people of Puerto Rico. That's the
mindset you have to have. You have to have a
focus and say we're going to fix these problems, because
(32:56):
instead it's like, no, my focus is statehood, because you
think and you claim that if we get statehood, all
of a sudden, every problem is somehow erased. It's a
stupid and just ridiculous notion and way to go about things.
(33:18):
And people are the right to be angry. And she
should be ashamed of herself, and quite honestly, anybody who
voted for her, you should be ashamed of yourself. You
should be you did your own people and yourself a disservice.
With that said, let's uh talk about some positivity that Poli,
I'm like shortness of bread, Like that cough I've had
(33:39):
from when I had the flu is still fucking lingering
around and now it's just like this weird dry cough
that is just ruining my fucking life right now. With
that said, though, we'll take a quick break and then
we will have some positivity if you are me ente segment.
(34:10):
All right, So I just quickly want to talk about Coachella.
I've never been. I know it's ironic as like a
music guy that I don't love concerts that much. Particularly
festivals are just incredibly stressful. It's a lot of work,
you know, They're they're huge, they're gigantic, it's walking, it's
hot as fuck. I am intrigued about Coachella. It's on
(34:35):
my list, but who knows. Anyway, whatever was I bring
it up. There's a lot of heavy Latin representation at Coachella.
We saw this even in I think it was twenty three.
I want to say Bad Buddy became the first Spanish
language artists a headline Coachella, which was huge. And you've
(34:55):
had a lot of incredible acts of varying sizes. I mean,
we saw Becky G. Becky G has been just fucking
stealing the show. She performed with Tyler and then she
did her own set. I think she had the La
philharmonic As like her backing band for her set, which
is fucking crazy. You had Besto Pluma, you had Gustavo Dudamel.
(35:17):
You Haveayana from Puerto Rico, which I think i've I've
interviewed them on my old TV show, don't know if
I probably used. I probably had the interview on the
podcast as well. You had the Marias, You had Junior
Age Danny Ocean as well for perto Rico, Bacho Ambroso.
And it's just a beautiful thing. I don't really have
(35:40):
much of a story here. I gotta be honest with you,
you know, there's not not much. Just I just wanted
to like give a shout out because you had everything.
I mean, you even had Brazilian DJ Vintage Culture performing.
You had a Peruvian band, Los Milos, Like I think,
(36:01):
what what is awesome? And they do like what people
call Amazonian Cumbia. It's just like crazy, I keep doing
like overusing that fucking word. I just look at this
(36:22):
stuff and like I love where Latin music is right
now because it's not just one thing. And I love
I'm fucking you know, Puerto Rican. I grew up on
that and Southside and all these things, but they're very
much like in the box, right, there's nothing wrong with it.
(36:43):
It's beautiful. I love that music. But also it's amazing
to me now I'm hearing like weird fusions of genre
and when I say weird, I mean in the best
way possible. And they're Spanish vocals over it, and it's
a Latin are and it's like everything like you can
a lot, you can't put it into a fucking genre.
(37:04):
Certain things like I'm on my Spotify, like I liked playlist,
like I have these crazy artists that I've been finding
that are speaking in Spanish but doing just like this
very futuristic and just out there music and sounds and
pushing the boundaries, and like that's what's so exciting to
me about all of this, right, Like it'd be cool
(37:28):
if you know, a Coachella like that Yankee or Dona
Maar was performing, but it's even more interesting to me
that it's Latin artists, but Latin artists doing all types
of genres of music, and I think, you know, I
use I use music as an analogy for life, and
(37:49):
music to me is such a driving force of culture
in general and entertainment is that you know, if you
listen to podcasts for WHI it's not like a fucking
broken record when I say these things. But again, it
pushes the narrative of what it means to be a
quote unquote Latino right like even you know, even my
(38:10):
own journey, let's get life as a good to go,
you know, uh nostalgic for a second here. When we
started this podcast, there weren't like artists doing crazy things
like this in the Latin space that we're finding wide success.
And I'm somebody who's always been into weird shit musically,
from fucking metal to you know, weird fucking indie and
(38:38):
atmospheric and like weird electronic music that is not like
necessarily club music. On top of that, EDM and house
and all these things. And I was looked at as like, oh,
you like white music type of shit, and it was
and it always bothered me. But it was also like
I guess, I mean, like there are there's not that
much representation of people in these jobs doing that type
(39:02):
of music, you know, and even when I had my
other podcast where we interview you know, mainly edm artists. Yeah,
they're primarily white because there weren't people of color crushing
it on the the big stage, if you will, not
a lot. And now I think if I did that
(39:24):
podcast today, how diverse the guest list would look. If
you like, put everybody in a picture, and that's awesome.
It's amazing, right, And to me, it's like exciting because
I guess it, I mean, I guess it justifies young
dramas in like, I just liked good music and there's
no such thing, you know, it didn't like it didn't
(39:49):
mean I wasn't Latin because I liked music that wasn't
stereotypical Latin music. And I love the fact that now
for the next generation, you have these artists that are
broadening people's perspectives about what it means to be Latin
or proving your latinness isn't confined to this fucking small
(40:13):
asenine box or checklist like I go to and I
guess for me, you know, going to Puerto Rico these
last couple of years and like tapping in with people
who are doing so many different things. It's been inspiring,
and I guess I found myself within that of like, oh,
there's like these like gothic kids doing post punk in
(40:34):
Puerto Rico, and like there's a whole electronic scene over there.
There's just so much going on. There's metal bands playing
and punk bands and everything in between. And you know,
they've always existed, but they were like so niche, you know,
and now again going there, it's like, fashion wise, there's
(40:54):
no way to be Latino. There's no like, there's no uniform,
you know, it's like of being Latino anymore. But if
I was, you know, a few years ago, wearing more
you know, like a warped tour looking outfit, looking a
little more like I played in the band, it was like, oh,
you're dressing white. And now it's like, brother's no fucking
boundaries with anything. And that's exciting to me. And again,
(41:15):
the next generation, the innovation that comes from that, and
I think also the perspective or the perception that people
outside of our community have about Latinos inevitably widens and
just becomes I don't know, it just proves that we're
not just one thing, which I think is incredibly important
(41:36):
and a beautiful thing to see, and like it's reflected
in the Latinos who are performing at a big festival
like Coachella, and also the fact that it's such a
fucking diverse lineup of people who are Latino playing that
festival again just like changes the narrative of what it
means to be quote unquote Latino. And that's super super empowering. Now,
(42:00):
with that said, let's tie everything we talked about today
in a neat little boat in a segment we call
conclusion STU time Conclu. All right, y, I really am
like struggling to make it through sentences. This fucking cough
is killing me. I don't know. I'm gonna have to
(42:21):
chat GBT some like dry cough remedies because I got
to get rid of this thing. I've been fighting it.
Like my chest actually hurts from holding back coughs. And
if you heard my voice like breaking, it's because I'm
fucking holding back these coughs. Another one's coming right now.
I gotta get through this. Listen, Trump administration. What's happening
with this gentleman Kinmarbaro Garcia is absolutely atrocious. My heart
(42:45):
genuinely goes out to his family, who haven't even been
able to contact him. They don't, you know, people are
questioning like, is he safe, is he hurt? Is he
even alive? At this point, nobody's talked to him. Just crazy.
But the bigger scary thing about all of this is
now you have a president who's openly defying a ruling
(43:06):
from the Supreme Court, the highest court in our land,
and if he doesn't listen to them, democracy is dead
because at that point he could do whatever the fuck
he wants. The courts. People take him to court, they
sue whatever it is, and he just openly defies it
and there's no retori, there's no consequence. What's to stop
(43:30):
him from any crazy thing that comes to his fucking mind. Again,
democracy is dead at that point. There's no more checks
and balance the system. That's a dictatorship. That's what's really
scary about this, and that's what makes me on edge.
Aside from the fact that I think about how much
suffering this poor man is going through unnecessarily put with
these blackouts, I feel like I spilled my heart out
to you guys when it comes to my feelings for
(43:53):
it or my feelings around it, and it's tough not
to be frustrated because I like y'all. Also I don't
like I don't want to do that. I told you
so it's not helpful. But it's also like y'all fucking
dug your own grave by voting for the same bullshit again,
now look at you and again for those who don't know,
people in Puerto Rico paying more money for electricity than
(44:14):
we do here in the States, yet they have a
subpar service. And the fact that in a public press conference,
this fucking person this is like such Trump methodology is
pushing back and saying your groceries can't go bad in
twenty four hours. The fuck that's your response. So a
(44:37):
milk could go bad in twenty four hours not being refrigerated,
Any food can, especially how fucking hot it is in
Puerto Rico. But that's your response. The lack of empathy
and care is absolutely fucking disgusting and atrocious. I think
I told the story before, I'll tell it one more time.
I was I was in Puerto Rico at the end
(44:58):
of the summer with some friends. There was a blackout
on the first day that they got there, and we
went to one of my favorite spots in old said Juan,
I think it's called drunken cookies. I don't know what
the is called. Just stumbling there, but like they have
these amazing cookies and they give you these like little
shots or whatever every time you buy a cookie, so
they have like a coquito shot or pinocolada whatever. And
(45:23):
they stayed open despite having no power there. The employees
are there in the fucking dark basically, and we went
in there to you know, like all right, they're open,
let's buy some some cookies and definitely support and then
these poor people they're giving us, They're like, you guys
want the milk because it was still the power I
had just got out probably a couple hours or before,
(45:46):
or an hour or so before we got there, So
they're like, hey, do you guys want to take They do,
like like they produce milk on their own, like flavored
milks and stuff like that really good, and they were like, guys,
can we give you, Like, guys want to take some
of these milks with you as well, like for free,
we gotta you know, they're gonna go bad. And I'm like, man,
(46:07):
that breaks my heart because I think about the loss
of money they're having in that product right there. However
much those milks are four dollars whatever ends up being,
that's lost income for them unnecessarily, and nobody's reimbursing them
for that. And that's just one story. And actually the
(46:31):
hotel was staying at Olsa Juan has just amazing rooftop
and they do dinner on the rooftop. That night they
close the rooftop, so you know how much money they
lost from dinner and drinks because it's a popular spot
that they would have had there, and people think, oh, well,
(46:53):
they should have generated for it. That's not the point. Again,
you're victim blaming. They shouldn't have to go through the
expense hassle of getting another generator because they have one
for the hotel make sure that the room stay cold,
but another one for the to power the fucking roof.
It's a boutique hotel like that. It's it's just crazy,
(47:13):
the victim blaming and the gas lighting that happens around
all this, and it really breaks my heart and it's
so frustrating because like, what the fuck can we do?
But at the same time, a part of me is
angry because it's like, y'all voted for this as well,
and I know it wasn't the majority of people, but
(47:34):
enough people voted for it to bring this idiot in
office and have more of the same. So that's that.
How then Coachella, you know, I've said I've kind of
beaten a dead horse at that point, I said everything
with culture and stuff, and again the diversity of the
Latin artists on that lineup, and I think in general
of Latin artists finding success is widening, and that means
(47:59):
it's the the idea of what it means to be
Latino is widening, and that's been my goal with this
podcast all along. And it's amazing and inspiring to see
my personal journey from the day one of this podcast
to where I am now as far as like my
comfort and confidences of the Latino but also I think
where culture is shifting. And also were so many of
(48:19):
your stories that I've been hearing the course of these
three four years, so beautiful stuff to see. More updates
on where the podcast goes. Until then, have an amazing weekend.
I'll talk to y'all soon till then. Life as a
Good INNGO is a production of the micro Thura podcast
Network and iHeartRadio
Let me talk about talk. Here we go. He said,
you live in Life as a Gringo, where you questioned
where you fit in every time you mingle, they say
you do. This would not that my rapping has really
been this Life as a Gingo. Yes, hello, and welcome
to an episode of Life as a Gringo. I am
dramas of course, and it is Thursday, so I mean
(00:28):
it's time for Thursday trends. Actually, before that, I do
want to address the show itself, Life is a Gringo,
the podcast right that you're listening to right now that
I am beyond grateful for that. People keep showing up
each episode and listening and getting something out of it,
(00:50):
and we have a bunch of new listeners as well.
Big thanks to Apple Podcasts for featuring our our show
as you know, like a noteworthy show, particularly for Financial
Literacy Month and the episodes we've been doing around that.
So really excited about that. Chouaut Michael Tura podcast team
(01:12):
for you know, putting in that work and getting us
that placement. That's huge. With that said, we are I
think we are seven episodes including this one, so after
this six I want to say left in season three
if you're a new listener, there's a lot of catching
up if you're enjoying the content, So have no fear.
(01:34):
There's literally three seasons worth. That is over three hundred
episodes of this podcast, which is fucking insane to say
out loud. Yeah, so this has been roughly four years
of my life of audio recordings that you can go
check out. With that said, I don't want to catch
(01:55):
anybody by surprise. I don't want to you know, bamboozle you,
if that's the right word. As we really have a
few weeks left together in this season, and also season
three will be the final season of Life as a Gingo.
(02:20):
I'm not gonna drag this out. You're not here for that.
We're talk about Thursday trends. But I do want to
give you a heads up on that. Will you know,
elaborate and reflect as we get closer to the end.
But I did just kind of want to let you
all know, who do listen have been listening, that this
(02:41):
is the final season of Life Zago. So we're in
the last month of the show's existence. The blessed to
do it for three seasons and it's absolutely incredible the
rie that it's taking me on. I do have other
things in the works, so it's you know, I'll give
you that Inside Baseball if you will. Again, we have
a lot of new listeners right now. There's three hundred
(03:03):
episodes for you to catch up on in the meantime
until you know, until the next phase of My life appears.
If you if you really enjoy it, so you know,
please still subscribe, and uh, the feed will be active
in some sort of way even after this season ends,
(03:24):
and I'll kind of leave it that. Actually, we have
a couple bonus episodes coming up as well, so that
to look forward to, but just want to kind of
give you guys a heads up. We'll elaborate more as
we get closer to the end. With that said, as
far as the topics we're talking about today, I'm gonna
really just focus in on a few things here. I'm
going to focus in on all that is happening with
(03:47):
this poor man who was wrongfully deported to Al Salvador
is being held in prison, and the US is trying
saying not to bring this man back home even though
they're the ones who fucked up. So we'll talk about
the latest with that. I also want to talk about
(04:07):
Puerto Rico. There was a massive blackout, island wide blackout
yesterday even today as we record this, as we talk it,
I think forty seven percent of the island got power back.
So we'll talk about the latest with all that and
everything's going on, and then on the positive side of
things for me, hint this segment, let's talk about Coachella
(04:30):
and the Latin representation that we saw there. But first
and foremost, as we always do, let's get into the nonsense,
the bs and a segment we call for the people
in the back, say a lot for the people in
the say a lot of the people in the say
(04:53):
a lot of the people of all right, let's start
with the story of this man who's wrong with reported.
His name was kilmar Abrego Garcia. Now he was deported
from Maryland wrongfully because in twenty nineteen a judge granted
him without withholding sorry withholding from removal status, which means
(05:18):
he cannot be deported. So he was given legal status
here in this country, the ability to be here legally
and not be deported. And he has been an upstanding
citizen from every account we can look at, even checking
in with you know, the deportation officers as he's supposed
(05:42):
to working a job raising his family here in in
the States, and now because of Trump and these crazy
deportations and fucking not dotting their eyes and crossing their
te's if you will, you know, measuring once and having
to cut twice, they wrongfully deported this man to a
(06:06):
mega prison in Al Salvador known as CECOT. I don't
know if it's a secat howe the fuck you pronounce it.
And they're saying they've actually admitted, right, the Trump administration
has admitted that this was in fact a mistake, an
administration error. But even with that said, they're refusing to
do anything about it to rectify this problem. They're refusing
(06:29):
to try and get this man back home. Now. They
have accused him of having gang ties to gangs like
MS thirteen. There's been no proof of that whatsoever. There's
a lot of bullshit around that, and it's gotten so
(06:49):
bad that even the Supreme Court took on the case
unanimously ruling that the Trump administration or ulessly ordering I
should say that he be returned home. And again, this
is a Supreme Court that is stacked with Trump supporters,
(07:10):
and rarely do they all agree unanimously on a case.
Right now, the the court order properly requires the government
to quote facilitate Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El
Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as
(07:33):
it would have been had he not been improperly sent
to El Salvador. Now, this is a Supreme Court's decision,
basically meaning that their order to help him get back
home and on top of that, pretend like this never happened,
and not have him privied or subject or victim to
(07:55):
any more ICE issues that he you know, necessarily is
experiencing right now. Essentially, again, his status is legal in
this country, he's supposed to be, would be here legally
and should not be being hassled as long as he's
complying with all of the mandates of that status, which
he has been. Now. The Supreme Courts also additionally ordered
(08:16):
that Trump administration to provide evidence of what they're doing
to facilitate the return of, sorry, the return of of
Rigol Garcia to the US. The Trump administration has not
complied with the order. Instead, immigration officials have dug their
heels in and are refusing to cooperate with lawful orders
(08:40):
from the court. This seemingly open defiance is troubling legal
experts who are unaware of how this will end. What
did we expect. This is a person in Donald Trump
who does not respect the idea of law and order, right.
(09:07):
And it's crazy to me because this is supposed to
be the party of law and order. You're supposing you're
supposed to respect law and order in this country, right,
and you're you know, if you're not doing anything wrong,
you should have nothing to be afraid of. We hear
that a lot, a lot, right, And literally, this is
a case of a man not doing anything wrong but
(09:30):
still still being deported wrongfully. And this is the fear
is real. I had I have a friend of mine
at one of the places that I DJ. I drove
him home over the weekend and he's here legally, but
there was some blockage. Some of the streets on the
(09:53):
way to his place were blocked. The cops are blocked,
and there's some sort of event they're prepared for, and
and he was genuinely nervous about ice and potentially getting
stopped by the police and getting hassled even though he's
legally here, Like that's no way for people to live.
(10:15):
That's fucking crazy, and that's sending them to a prison
that has a reputation as being the place where they
send terrorists, a notorious prison that's supposed to be the
worst of the worst. And then in a meeting with
President Trump, you had the president of Al Salvador, President Buchuel,
claiming there was nothing he or Al Salvador could do
(10:36):
to return Abravo Garcia, parrotying the Trump administration's dubious claims
and is offering the army too. President Buchuel painted Albravo
Garcia as a terrorist. There's no proof that he is
connected to gang activity other than wearing a Chicago Bulls
hat and hoodie. Additionally, they relied on one anonymous informant. Guys,
(11:03):
if the sports team you're wearing is a fucking clear
indicator and green light to the poor people, we're all
in trouble. I was in Miami last month wearing a
Chicago Bulls jersey. I've sported Chicago Bulls hats of the
Michael Jordan era and actually even newer ones because I
(11:24):
like the colors black and red together and I love
vintage items. And there's nothing cooler than the Michael Jordan
era and Rodman era of Chicago Bulls history. That's wild.
And I saw a clip on Fox News some guy, uh,
one of these fucking idiots. It was a Jesse Waters
I remember, but break dissecting that how could this man
(11:47):
lives in Maryland be wearing Chicago Bulls gear? See a
Chicago Bulls fan? I bet you can't even name a
player aside from Michael Jordan. Like, what the fuck are
we talking about certain teams? It's it's part of fashion
and culture. The fuck are you talking about? I just
bought a vinto Chicago Bulls polo from a thrift store
(12:10):
here around the corner from my place in New Jersey, Like,
what the fuck are we even talking about now? The
way they're justifying it, it's it's crazy. It's fucking gas
lighting at the end of the day. But it's crazy
like they admit that they're wrong, but then try and
(12:31):
find reasons to villainize this person even though they they've
admitted we fucked up, even though they fucked up, they're
still now trying to justify their fuck up by painting
this person out to be something that they're not. It's
absolutely crazy, and then Trump was set on a hot
mic during that same interaction with the President El Salvador,
(12:52):
that quote home growns are next, meaning criminals that are
American citizens he's proposing to ship out to Elvi Salvador.
Do you know the irony of somebody who is a
convicted felon and somebody who has been convicted in court
(13:12):
even though it civilly as a sexual assaulter A A.
I don't know what the word would be. It's not
a sexual deviant, but fucking essentially found liable of rape
and sexual assault. Him declaring that we should send criminals
(13:36):
to a whole another country. How about you saying yourself
you're included in that. By the way, you're a homegrown criminal.
It's just so wild. And the goal post moving and
listen to everybody moves goal posts to make their point
(13:57):
at times, right and sometimes the messenger changes where you
stand on certain things. But that shouldn't be the case.
We talk about the rule of law and order that
in a democracy, the president has to listen to the courts,
can be held accountable for his or her actions. That's
(14:20):
what this country has founded upon. Imagine if fucking Biden
was defying the Supreme Court. Remember when he lost in
court about student loan forgiveness. He didn't just proceed with it.
They abided by the ruling of the court, because that's
(14:42):
what you're supposed to do. There's the checks and balance
the system. No one person is bigger than the entire system.
Yet here you have a scary situation that I feel
like is not being underlined enough. The Supreme Court ruled,
and yet even with that ruling, the current administration, the
(15:04):
current president, is ignoring it. Where do you go from there?
The Supreme Court is supposed to be the end all,
be all, and now this really brings into question where
is the line? Because now if Donald Trump, and I
(15:28):
can't help but feel like this is a test, by
the way, a test of where the line is for
someone like him, right, I can't help but feel that
way because what he's doing here is saying, in this
sort of smaller instance, right, and it's not small for
the people that are directly affected by this, like this
(15:50):
man and his family, but in a quote unquote smaller
instance that has to do with one person, Let's test
this out and see what happens if I openly defy
the Supreme Court. And if there are no repercussions or
no accountability, we've lost our democracy, because then where's the
(16:13):
line at that point? Truthfully, where's the line? Because they're
already talking about him having a third term even though
the Constitution states two terms. There are people talking about
an Obama versus Trump race at that point. Listen, I'm
a fan of Obama. I don't want to see him
(16:34):
run again. I don't think us just throwing everything away
and accepting it is the answer two terms for a reason.
It's just crazy. And what's crazier is the justification from
(16:57):
people and their quickness to villainize somebody rather than hold
them accountable, as well as their quickness to dude again.
(17:18):
The Republican Party is supposed to be a party of
law and order. Do you not remember Blue Lives Matter? Right?
All those flags we support blue? Then the fucking January
sixth happens. They don't believe in that anymore. Respect law
and order. The courts are supposed to law and order
except for when it rules against who you know, their guy.
(17:40):
It's just hypocrisy left and right. And I don't have
to say that, but this is just egregious you're telling
me the United States of America, the quote unquote most
powerful country in the entire world, can't facilitate the release
of somebody who's wrongfully detained in another country. You set
them there, can't bring them back. And by the way,
(18:02):
them shipping people over there is costing tax payer money.
The money they're paying the government of al Salvador to
take these prisoners is taxpayer money. I thought we were
supposed to you. We were trying to stop the the
unnecessary spending. We're trying to be more efficient. Yet we're
(18:23):
spending millions of dollars sending people to other countries. It's
just wild, man. And I know that sounds repetitive and
not a groundbreaking, you know, summary or hot take, but
I'm at a loss for words as to what comes next.
(18:47):
And I've kind of just been blissfully sort of ignoring
it all, you know, and then it's times like this
when we have to talk about it, I'm like, Fuck,
the implications for this are incredibly scary. And then where
does it stop. If he's not going to respect the
(19:07):
rule of law, if he's not going to listen to
the highest court that we have, and he's going to
openly and publicly defy them. Where does it not end?
At that point, we've lost our democracy. And that's why
people like Chuck Schumer not having a backbone and saying
we haven't gotten to that point yet are dead wrong,
(19:30):
because we are at that point. The President of the
United States is openly defying a ruling, a court order
from the Supreme Court of the United States of America.
There's no more checks and balances system. If he's not
held accountable for this, it's over. There's no stopping him
and his agenda at this point. At that point, I
(19:50):
should say, and I guess we'll wait and see what
happens with all of this. But that said, we'll say
a quick break here and then we'll be right back.
All right, we are back, and now let's talk about
Puerto Rico. You had an island wide blackout in Puerto Rico.
Once again, in the words of bad Bunny, when are
(20:16):
we going to do something Puerto Rico, In the words
of bad Bunny, when are we going to do something?
Blackout after blackout, piss poor service after piss poor service,
overpaying for subpar service, and nobody seems to give a
damn promises that go unkept. The governor Jennifer Gozalez talking about,
(20:42):
you know, threatening that she would cancel Luma's contract. Haven't
seen any action towards that. And the messed up part
about all of this, Aside from the obvious that people
are losing power in hospital, the elderly businesses are losing
(21:03):
money because of these blackouts, losing inmatory, people's groceries going bad,
the irony and the messed up part about this. One
of the more messed up parts about it is that
they then try and make you feel crazy for being upset.
Jennifer Gonzalez is in a press conference pushing back on
(21:25):
a reporter who said people are losing their groceries, which
are already expensive in Puerto Rico, and Jennifer Gonzalez pushes
back and says, you don't lose your groceries in just
twenty four hours. That's your response to justify this horrific
accident and make the victims feel dumb and feel bad
(21:50):
for being upset. It's disgusting, but also not everybody, but
the people of Puerto Rico, in larger numbers than not,
came out and voted for Jennifer Gonzales. You came out
and voted for more of the same. Congratulations, you played yourself.
(22:16):
That's what it is, because this is the problem with
statehood versus independence, and these governors that are so focused
on delivering statehood. Jennifer Gonzales is only focused on kissing
up to the United States of America. She's only focused
(22:37):
on delivering her promise of statehood. She's in DC kissing
the feet of the powers that be, sucking up to
people like Donald Trump. Meanwhile, those who elected her and
those who didn't, the people she's supposed to be representing,
are suffering right now while she's trying to fulfill some
crazy dream that probably will never happen, because the United
(23:00):
States of America has proven time and time again they do.
They want nothing to do with the people of Puerto Rico.
They believe that Puerto Rico is a burden. So while
she's focused on statehood, you on the island are suffering.
And that's the problem with a party and a political
(23:21):
system that focuses on things like statehood versus independence. You're
not actually focusing on the day to day issues of
the everyday people. Okay, she and Puerto Rico as a
whole Puerto Rico shouldn't be having statehood versus independence conversations
(23:49):
until they figure out the very specific issues that are
affecting people on a day to day basis. Figure out
what's happening with Luma, cancel that contract, and have a
plan for energy moving forward. That's not going to change.
If you become a state. Your power company can still
(24:12):
go bankrupt. It went bankrupt in Long Island, New York.
That's not things that change because you become a state.
The massive amount of debt that Puerto Rico's in, they
would still be responsible for it if they became a
state or independent. You have plenty of issues to worry about.
(24:36):
And this hyper fixation on statehood that's her focus. It's
now causing her not to focus on solving the everyday
problems of the people of Puerto Rico. And this is
where y' all messed up because you had a candidate
in Juan dl Mau, who said, regardless of what the
people want statehood versus independence, I want to focus on
(25:01):
making Puerto Rico more self sufficient and not relying on
federal money. How can we make Puerto Rico the economy grow?
How can we create more opportunity here locally to empower ourselves,
rather than what Jennifer Gonzalez is trying to do, which
is just relying on the United States of America. You
(25:25):
had a candidate there and y'all messed up, and I
know it's made a majority of you know, the people
voting and supporting for someone like Jennifer Gozalz are of
a particular generation and older generation who are still hanging
on to this dream of the great White Hope, the
great white savior, who has proven time and time again.
(25:48):
They want nothing to do with you and are scared
of any new idea the people of what and again,
not everybody, but those of you who are not progressive
and not trying to change things and not looking for
(26:11):
something new in the candidates that you select. You are
the biggest hurdle to Puerto Rico becoming more self sufficient,
to fixing the issues that affect your everyday lives, and
statehood is not going to solve all of your problems.
I hate to break it to you, the poorest states
(26:32):
in the United States of America are suffering just like
you are. They're citizens who don't have an excess of money,
don't come from wealth. They're suffering just like you are,
and I can't harp on it enough. Puerto Rico needs
(26:58):
to focus on empowering the people and becoming more self sufficient.
That has to be the focus. If the governor's focus
is just on statehood, she's ignoring all of the issues
that are affecting your everyday life right now. And that's
the problem with the political system, the political parties in
(27:18):
Puerto Rico, because rather than saying, Okay, we have an
issue of an electrical grid, we have a housing crisis
in Puerto Rico and whatever infrastructure problems with the roads
and all these things, she's not focusing her attention in
the way that she should. There. No, she wants to
be in Washington kissing up to the powers that be
(27:41):
so that she can make good on this idea of
statehood and she can reap all the benefits of it. Meanwhile,
the problems back on the island continue to stack up
and continue to be a detriment and affect the lives
of the people of Puerto Rico each and every day.
There's too much scattered, you know, intentions, you have to
(28:02):
go They need somebody who's going to go in there
and say Okay, what can we do right now, because
obviously this is not working on a day to day basis. Yes,
statehood versus independent is an important conversation to have one
hundred percent. But first and foremost, let's fix some of
these problems right now that we can do with our
current status. Let's figure out how to actually improve the
(28:26):
everyday lives of people of Puerto Rico day to day,
the things that they rely on, like electricity and housing
and roads to drive on. How can we improve that.
That needs to be our focus right now. Then we
can start tackling everything else. But again, the way the
political system is set up right now, when somebody gets
into office, they're just trying to push their agenda. And
(28:48):
because you keep voting for somebody who wants statehood, her
only focus is how can I suck up to the
United States? How can I suck up to Donald Trump
and try and make good on the stupid promise that
is not going to deliver all that the people who
are voting for it expect. That's the problem. The focus
(29:08):
is all over the place, rather than on what the
actual everyday needs of the people of Puerto Rico. The
focus is everywhere else except for improving the lives on
a day to day basis of the people of Puerto Rico.
And that's the issue, and that's why nothing gets solved
and everything just keeps happening while you keep having the
(29:30):
same problems over and over again, because nobody's focused on
resolving issues. They're sitting here selling dreams and trying to
make some asinine reality of statehood happen rather than actually
getting to work on solving every day problems first. That's
where we are. And again you had someone in Juanda
Mao who wanted to tackle those actual issues, wanted to
(29:54):
empower the people of Puerto Rico, wanted to make Puerto Rico,
make Puerto Rico far more sell sufficient. But instead you
voted for somebody who wants to spend her time in
DC kissing up to politicians instead of being on the island,
instead of focusing on what can be done for the
everyday person. You went from Juan, you went from Pierre Luisi,
(30:18):
who blocked canceling Luma's contract or spoke out against it,
which then led to it not happening, to then Jennifer Gonzalez,
who claimed she would cancel Luma's contract hasn't done it
and instead has all her energy on becoming Trump's best friend.
(30:42):
That's where we are, and I realized that for those
of you who are you know, up to date on
what's happening, I didn't even explain what happened, but I
just needed to get that off my chest. But the
blackout happened. One point four million people in put Hica
(31:02):
left with that power, hundreds of thousands more without water.
You have people talking out obviously Bad Bunny is talking
out about it, asking when are we going to be
done with this? You have people who are stuck on
the train system over there. Luma is always as usual,
(31:25):
blaming it on a combination of factors, claiming protection system
failure and vegetation on transmission lines. They keep saying over
and over again, if you have an issue with vegetation
on the transmission line, maybe then you should focus on
maintaining that vegetation. If that's a consistent problem, why is
(31:48):
it that they are not focusing their attention on maintaining
the growth of said vegetation. A lot to be upset about.
And again, you need focus. And I'm not saying I
have all the answers. I'm not a fucking expert on this.
(32:10):
I'm not a politician, but I do know what happens
when your mind and your time and your focus is
divided into fifty million different places, you end up being
incredibly unproductive. Whereas if you chose to use your time
wisely and say, Okay, there's a lot of issues to
(32:30):
handle here, a lot of things we want to do,
but what are the two or three main things that
if we solved those problems, would drastically and immediately improve
the lives of the people of Puerto Rico. That's the
mindset you have to have. You have to have a
focus and say we're going to fix these problems, because
(32:56):
instead it's like, no, my focus is statehood, because you
think and you claim that if we get statehood, all
of a sudden, every problem is somehow erased. It's a
stupid and just ridiculous notion and way to go about things.
(33:18):
And people are the right to be angry. And she
should be ashamed of herself, and quite honestly, anybody who
voted for her, you should be ashamed of yourself. You
should be you did your own people and yourself a disservice.
With that said, let's uh talk about some positivity that Poli,
I'm like shortness of bread, Like that cough I've had
(33:39):
from when I had the flu is still fucking lingering
around and now it's just like this weird dry cough
that is just ruining my fucking life right now. With
that said, though, we'll take a quick break and then
we will have some positivity if you are me ente segment.
(34:10):
All right, So I just quickly want to talk about Coachella.
I've never been. I know it's ironic as like a
music guy that I don't love concerts that much. Particularly
festivals are just incredibly stressful. It's a lot of work,
you know, They're they're huge, they're gigantic, it's walking, it's
hot as fuck. I am intrigued about Coachella. It's on
(34:35):
my list, but who knows. Anyway, whatever was I bring
it up. There's a lot of heavy Latin representation at Coachella.
We saw this even in I think it was twenty three.
I want to say Bad Buddy became the first Spanish
language artists a headline Coachella, which was huge. And you've
(34:55):
had a lot of incredible acts of varying sizes. I mean,
we saw Becky G. Becky G has been just fucking
stealing the show. She performed with Tyler and then she
did her own set. I think she had the La
philharmonic As like her backing band for her set, which
is fucking crazy. You had Besto Pluma, you had Gustavo Dudamel.
(35:17):
You Haveayana from Puerto Rico, which I think i've I've
interviewed them on my old TV show, don't know if
I probably used. I probably had the interview on the
podcast as well. You had the Marias, You had Junior
Age Danny Ocean as well for perto Rico, Bacho Ambroso.
And it's just a beautiful thing. I don't really have
(35:40):
much of a story here. I gotta be honest with you,
you know, there's not not much. Just I just wanted
to like give a shout out because you had everything.
I mean, you even had Brazilian DJ Vintage Culture performing.
You had a Peruvian band, Los Milos, Like I think,
(36:01):
what what is awesome? And they do like what people
call Amazonian Cumbia. It's just like crazy, I keep doing
like overusing that fucking word. I just look at this
(36:22):
stuff and like I love where Latin music is right
now because it's not just one thing. And I love
I'm fucking you know, Puerto Rican. I grew up on
that and Southside and all these things, but they're very
much like in the box, right, there's nothing wrong with it.
(36:43):
It's beautiful. I love that music. But also it's amazing
to me now I'm hearing like weird fusions of genre
and when I say weird, I mean in the best
way possible. And they're Spanish vocals over it, and it's
a Latin are and it's like everything like you can
a lot, you can't put it into a fucking genre.
(37:04):
Certain things like I'm on my Spotify, like I liked playlist,
like I have these crazy artists that I've been finding
that are speaking in Spanish but doing just like this
very futuristic and just out there music and sounds and
pushing the boundaries, and like that's what's so exciting to
me about all of this, right, Like it'd be cool
(37:28):
if you know, a Coachella like that Yankee or Dona
Maar was performing, but it's even more interesting to me
that it's Latin artists, but Latin artists doing all types
of genres of music, and I think, you know, I
use I use music as an analogy for life, and
(37:49):
music to me is such a driving force of culture
in general and entertainment is that you know, if you
listen to podcasts for WHI it's not like a fucking
broken record when I say these things. But again, it
pushes the narrative of what it means to be a
quote unquote Latino right like even you know, even my
(38:10):
own journey, let's get life as a good to go,
you know, uh nostalgic for a second here. When we
started this podcast, there weren't like artists doing crazy things
like this in the Latin space that we're finding wide success.
And I'm somebody who's always been into weird shit musically,
from fucking metal to you know, weird fucking indie and
(38:38):
atmospheric and like weird electronic music that is not like
necessarily club music. On top of that, EDM and house
and all these things. And I was looked at as like, oh,
you like white music type of shit, and it was
and it always bothered me. But it was also like
I guess, I mean, like there are there's not that
much representation of people in these jobs doing that type
(39:02):
of music, you know, and even when I had my
other podcast where we interview you know, mainly edm artists. Yeah,
they're primarily white because there weren't people of color crushing
it on the the big stage, if you will, not
a lot. And now I think if I did that
(39:24):
podcast today, how diverse the guest list would look. If
you like, put everybody in a picture, and that's awesome.
It's amazing, right, And to me, it's like exciting because
I guess it, I mean, I guess it justifies young
dramas in like, I just liked good music and there's
no such thing, you know, it didn't like it didn't
(39:49):
mean I wasn't Latin because I liked music that wasn't
stereotypical Latin music. And I love the fact that now
for the next generation, you have these artists that are
broadening people's perspectives about what it means to be Latin
or proving your latinness isn't confined to this fucking small
(40:13):
asenine box or checklist like I go to and I
guess for me, you know, going to Puerto Rico these
last couple of years and like tapping in with people
who are doing so many different things. It's been inspiring,
and I guess I found myself within that of like, oh,
there's like these like gothic kids doing post punk in
(40:34):
Puerto Rico, and like there's a whole electronic scene over there.
There's just so much going on. There's metal bands playing
and punk bands and everything in between. And you know,
they've always existed, but they were like so niche, you know,
and now again going there, it's like, fashion wise, there's
(40:54):
no way to be Latino. There's no like, there's no uniform,
you know, it's like of being Latino anymore. But if
I was, you know, a few years ago, wearing more
you know, like a warped tour looking outfit, looking a
little more like I played in the band, it was like, oh,
you're dressing white. And now it's like, brother's no fucking
boundaries with anything. And that's exciting to me. And again,
(41:15):
the next generation, the innovation that comes from that, and
I think also the perspective or the perception that people
outside of our community have about Latinos inevitably widens and
just becomes I don't know, it just proves that we're
not just one thing, which I think is incredibly important
(41:36):
and a beautiful thing to see, and like it's reflected
in the Latinos who are performing at a big festival
like Coachella, and also the fact that it's such a
fucking diverse lineup of people who are Latino playing that
festival again just like changes the narrative of what it
means to be quote unquote Latino. And that's super super empowering. Now,
(42:00):
with that said, let's tie everything we talked about today
in a neat little boat in a segment we call
conclusion STU time Conclu. All right, y, I really am
like struggling to make it through sentences. This fucking cough
is killing me. I don't know. I'm gonna have to
(42:21):
chat GBT some like dry cough remedies because I got
to get rid of this thing. I've been fighting it.
Like my chest actually hurts from holding back coughs. And
if you heard my voice like breaking, it's because I'm
fucking holding back these coughs. Another one's coming right now.
I gotta get through this. Listen, Trump administration. What's happening
with this gentleman Kinmarbaro Garcia is absolutely atrocious. My heart
(42:45):
genuinely goes out to his family, who haven't even been
able to contact him. They don't, you know, people are
questioning like, is he safe, is he hurt? Is he
even alive? At this point, nobody's talked to him. Just crazy.
But the bigger scary thing about all of this is
now you have a president who's openly defying a ruling
(43:06):
from the Supreme Court, the highest court in our land,
and if he doesn't listen to them, democracy is dead
because at that point he could do whatever the fuck
he wants. The courts. People take him to court, they
sue whatever it is, and he just openly defies it
and there's no retori, there's no consequence. What's to stop
(43:30):
him from any crazy thing that comes to his fucking mind. Again,
democracy is dead at that point. There's no more checks
and balance the system. That's a dictatorship. That's what's really
scary about this, and that's what makes me on edge.
Aside from the fact that I think about how much
suffering this poor man is going through unnecessarily put with
these blackouts, I feel like I spilled my heart out
to you guys when it comes to my feelings for
(43:53):
it or my feelings around it, and it's tough not
to be frustrated because I like y'all. Also I don't
like I don't want to do that. I told you
so it's not helpful. But it's also like y'all fucking
dug your own grave by voting for the same bullshit again,
now look at you and again for those who don't know,
people in Puerto Rico paying more money for electricity than
(44:14):
we do here in the States, yet they have a
subpar service. And the fact that in a public press conference,
this fucking person this is like such Trump methodology is
pushing back and saying your groceries can't go bad in
twenty four hours. The fuck that's your response. So a
(44:37):
milk could go bad in twenty four hours not being refrigerated,
Any food can, especially how fucking hot it is in
Puerto Rico. But that's your response. The lack of empathy
and care is absolutely fucking disgusting and atrocious. I think
I told the story before, I'll tell it one more time.
I was I was in Puerto Rico at the end
(44:58):
of the summer with some friends. There was a blackout
on the first day that they got there, and we
went to one of my favorite spots in old said Juan,
I think it's called drunken cookies. I don't know what
the is called. Just stumbling there, but like they have
these amazing cookies and they give you these like little
shots or whatever every time you buy a cookie, so
they have like a coquito shot or pinocolada whatever. And
(45:23):
they stayed open despite having no power there. The employees
are there in the fucking dark basically, and we went
in there to you know, like all right, they're open,
let's buy some some cookies and definitely support and then
these poor people they're giving us, They're like, you guys
want the milk because it was still the power I
had just got out probably a couple hours or before,
(45:46):
or an hour or so before we got there, So
they're like, hey, do you guys want to take They do,
like like they produce milk on their own, like flavored
milks and stuff like that really good, and they were like, guys,
can we give you, Like, guys want to take some
of these milks with you as well, like for free,
we gotta you know, they're gonna go bad. And I'm like, man,
(46:07):
that breaks my heart because I think about the loss
of money they're having in that product right there. However
much those milks are four dollars whatever ends up being,
that's lost income for them unnecessarily, and nobody's reimbursing them
for that. And that's just one story. And actually the
(46:31):
hotel was staying at Olsa Juan has just amazing rooftop
and they do dinner on the rooftop. That night they
close the rooftop, so you know how much money they
lost from dinner and drinks because it's a popular spot
that they would have had there, and people think, oh, well,
(46:53):
they should have generated for it. That's not the point. Again,
you're victim blaming. They shouldn't have to go through the
expense hassle of getting another generator because they have one
for the hotel make sure that the room stay cold,
but another one for the to power the fucking roof.
It's a boutique hotel like that. It's it's just crazy,
(47:13):
the victim blaming and the gas lighting that happens around
all this, and it really breaks my heart and it's
so frustrating because like, what the fuck can we do?
But at the same time, a part of me is
angry because it's like, y'all voted for this as well,
and I know it wasn't the majority of people, but
(47:34):
enough people voted for it to bring this idiot in
office and have more of the same. So that's that.
How then Coachella, you know, I've said I've kind of
beaten a dead horse at that point, I said everything
with culture and stuff, and again the diversity of the
Latin artists on that lineup, and I think in general
of Latin artists finding success is widening, and that means
(47:59):
it's the the idea of what it means to be
Latino is widening, and that's been my goal with this
podcast all along. And it's amazing and inspiring to see
my personal journey from the day one of this podcast
to where I am now as far as like my
comfort and confidences of the Latino but also I think
where culture is shifting. And also were so many of
(48:19):
your stories that I've been hearing the course of these
three four years, so beautiful stuff to see. More updates
on where the podcast goes. Until then, have an amazing weekend.
I'll talk to y'all soon till then. Life as a
Good INNGO is a production of the micro Thura podcast
Network and iHeartRadio
Host
DJ Dramos
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