March 9, 2026 • 59 mins
In this episode of Sacred Lessons, host Mike de la Rocha sits with Jose Arellano, entrepreneur, community leader, Vice President of Operations at Homeboy Industries, and Mike’s business partner at Tepito Coffee. Together they reflect on Jose’s journey from the streets and incarceration to becoming a leader helping others rebuild their lives. This deeply personal conversation explores second chances, brotherhood, and the power of unconditional love to transform a life. Through his work at Tepito Coffee and Homeboy, Jose reminds us that healing is possible, dignity can be restored, and sometimes a simple cup of coffee can bring people from different worlds together.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are the cycles fathers passed down that sons are
left to yield. What if being a man was holding
it all together? I've been learning how to let go.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is a.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Space where that's trus to find the power to heal
and transform.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Mike Dela Rocha. Welcome to say your lessons.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Some men are brothers because of blood. Others become brothers
because of the life they live together, the pain they survived,
and the purpose they share. Welcome to sacred lessons. I'm
Mike Dela Rocha. Today I'm sitting with Jose Ariano, my
business partner at the the Coffee vice president of Operation
(00:42):
at Homebod Industry is the largest gang intervention reentry program
in the world, and one of the closest people in
my life today. Jose is more than a business partner,
more than a community leader. He's a chosen brother. Where
we built a company rooted in the belief that people
deserved second chances, and that sometimes maybe even a first chance,
(01:07):
and that a simple cup of coffee can bring people
together from different worlds. I watched Jose blossom as an entrepreneur,
but more importantly, I've watched him blossom as a father,
as a brother, as a friend, and as a husband.
And in this process, he's taught me more about compassion,
(01:30):
more about loyalty and transformation as much as anyone else
in my life. My dear brother, I'm throwing away everything
because we started this with a prayer, we started this
with saging ourselves. We started this with jumping in to
(01:51):
the unknown and knowing that the net would appear. So
whatever is going to come is going to come. But
before that, I just want to say thank you for
enriching my life. It's a relationship that feels divine and timing,
and a relationship that feels like ancient. It's like we're
each other's halves and mirrors and everything else. And before
(02:14):
we jump in, I just want to say, and you
ready know this because we tell each other this a lot,
but I love you and I'm grateful that you're in
my life. I'm grateful that I get to know your family.
I'm grateful that I get to bear witness to you
blossoming into the person that you are. So thank you
for being on this show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I love you, homie. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, So for those that don't know Jose, you know,
how did you get to the place that you are.
You know, you're not only a co owner of an
incredible coffee company, but you're the vice president of operations
for the largest gang intervention re entry program in the
(02:56):
entire world that is doing really the work of government
meant and municipalities and providing hope and love and service
to those oftentimes ignored or forgotten cage and everything else.
But how did we get here? Who? Who's jose Man?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You want the long version of the short version.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I want the short because I'm gonna dig in some
deep all.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Right, Well, I mean that's a that's a loaded question.
How did I get here? I guess I could start
by saying I made all the wrong decisions to get
to the right place. You know. Uh, my life was
it was a it was a trippy, trippy roller coaster
(03:41):
of a ride. But I started off as a young
hopeful boy. I was a big dreamer, daydreamer. I would
daydream so much that my mom would have to like
snap me out of it. She's still always she would
be like, hey, jose hey boy, And then she was say,
I'll give you opinion for your thoughts, you know, because
(04:04):
I would daydream a lot and dream a lot, and
partly because I think that the life that I was
living just it was just, it was it was rough,
it was hard, you know. It was a lot of
things going on in my in my home, a lot
of trauma. I didn't know the definition of it back then,
but just like alcoholism and uh you know, domestic violence
(04:26):
and just a lot of violence all around me growing up.
So I would escape it by, you know, daydreaming, thinking
about what things could possibly be for me if it
wasn't that. But growing up, so my mom was a
young mother, and so at the time, my grandparents kind
of took me in as their own. So I didn't
(04:47):
know my mom was my mom until I was about
like nine. I thought she was my sister. Uh So,
but it was cool because I looked up to her,
you know, I loved her. She she's a special woman,
you know, very like just inspiring, you know what I mean,
and strong. Like when I looked at her, I looked
at power and straight and fashion. You know. She was
(05:08):
always jeat up. She was a gang member, and she
was always pressed down, creased down, always made sure her
was done and just jeaed up. And I loved that
about her, and I looked up to her, and so
when I found out that she was my mom, I
was happy. I was excited that she was my mom.
I grew up. I didn't have a dad growing up,
but it didn't really matter to me. I didn't feel
(05:29):
no void from not having a dad. I had a
bunch of uncles and cousins, and my mom was like,
you know, she was so rough that she was kind
of like a dad in a sense, you know what
I mean. And I had my grandfather at the time,
who I called dad. I called my grandma and grandpa
dad and mom. And then being raised up with my
uncles and my tias, like if they were my brothers
(05:49):
and sisters. So I was like the youngest of the bunch.
But you know, like anything in life, things either get
progressively better or progressively worse. My mom went from being
a gang member and getting you know, getting involved with
drugs and stuff started to get hard for us. We
grew up poor, just naturally. We were poor, but we
(06:11):
knew how to survive in poverty, you know what I mean.
We knew how to put things together. So when I
was a kid, like we would collect cans and we
made everything fun, you know, what I mean, like collecting cans,
smashing cans. We would high rocks in the cans to
make them heavier when we took them to the recycling center.
You know. Always an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, always a hustler,
(06:32):
and we made the best of what we had, right
But like I said, when my mom, you know, got
involved with drugs, and it was also too after my
grandfather died as well, because he was like when it
came to like financially, he was the backbone. So he
took care of all of us, you know what I mean,
and we didn't really have to worry. We had a
roof over our head. But when he died, we started
(06:56):
to fill that financial burden, you know what I mean.
And my mom did the best could. But you know,
subst abuse issues, that's a powerful thing to navigate on me.
And I didn't know it at the time, but you know,
the experience was just like it was tough, you know,
to say the least, and it was you know, I
(07:16):
was about well, let me just back up just a
little bit before that, because I started to understand the
world through my life experiences, you know, and I remember
being like six years old, seven years old and somebody
comes and knocks at my door. So I go to
the door to answer and it's it's it's it's this
(07:36):
dude and brown, you know, like me. You know, could
have been from the body or whatever. Our house was
the hangout spot, so there was always people at my house.
And he says, he goes, hey, is Mona here? And
that's my mom. My mom's name is Mona. And I said, yeah,
she's here, so go get her. But I want to
surprise her. I'm one of her homies. And I was like,
all right, and I left the door slightly cracked. So
(07:59):
I run and get my mom and she's getting ready
for the day and I say, hey, one of you know,
one of your homies is here, and she said all right,
So she she goes to the door and as soon
as she gets to the door, that food reaches in
and grass her by the wrist and yankster. Yankster off
the porch and he's an undercover cop. He was a cop,
(08:20):
and he slams her on the ground and there's other
cops now and they cough up my mom and they
put her in the and they put her in the
back of the car and I remember vividly. It was
a champagne colored Caprice and my mom was pissed on me.
She was hotter than fish grease. She was yelling and
you know, telling them, why are you gonna do this
in front of my son? Like this is how you're
(08:41):
gonna do me. They didn't care. They're you know, they're
they're getting her into the car and everything. And I
remember her looking at me from the back seat through
the window, and I was looking at her, and they
they jamm whatever. And then I go back inside my
house and I was, like, I said, I was a
little boy, so I'm like a sponge, you know, I'm
trying to understand the world. And my grandmother she was pissed,
(09:06):
you know. She looks down at me and she's screaming.
She's yelling. She's like, why did you do that? You know,
why did you open the door to them? And I
didn't have an answer, you know, I was just a
little boy. And I remember her saying, she says, she
yells at me. She emphasizes this. She says, you never
never trust the cop, you never trust the hoodahs. She says,
(09:30):
I don't care if I'm dying of a heart attack,
don't ever call nine one one because if they come
to our house, they're going to take somebody that you love.
Never never trust the hootahs. And these are lessons, you know,
as I'm growing up, these are things that I'm learning,
you know, I'm learning these lessons through my experiences. So
growing up, you know, these are like the lessons that
(09:52):
are being instilled instilled in me, you know. And then
I was probably like around nine years old, nine years old,
and I had an older cousin of mine and we're
really really close, like brothers. You know, all my family
we're all close. And you know that to this day,
you see a lot of my cousins, you see my brothers.
(10:12):
To this day, we're very close. We're tight knit. And
that's what I mean about like being in a gang.
It wasn't about being in a gang. It was just
like we were a family, you know, and everybody was
from the everybody. So I had an older cousin like
a brother to me, and I remember going into my
grandmother's backyard with him. He calls me to my grandmother's backyard,
(10:34):
and we used to always play in my grandmother's backyard.
Army man, you know, we would have our little our
army man. He would have his and we would you know,
we would battle it out, and we would leave him
there and we would come back and always just pick
up from where we left off at. And so one
day he calls me back there and he says to me,
he says, hey, Primo, no matter what happens, me and
(10:55):
you were not going to get from the Vodrido, no
matter what promised me. And I said, I promise you,
you know, because it wasn't something that like we wanted
for ourselves. We kind of already knew that things were
not good, you know, based off of all the experiences
that we were having with our family. And he extends
(11:16):
his hand to me, and I shake it, and he
tells me, promise me, primo, and he meant it. And
when I and I meant it, I shook his hand.
I said, I promise you, like I promise, I won't
and he goes, all right, no matter what happens me
and you're not going to get from the bodle, I promise, okay.
And we made a pact, you know, in time's going by,
(11:37):
and like I said, things are getting progressively worse by
this time, like our electricity is being turned off, and
even the water, homie, you know, and that's the cheapest
bill you're supposed to pay, you know what I mean,
it's one of the cheapest bills. And even the water
was getting turned off, and so, you know, it just sucked,
(11:58):
to say the least. It just it was horrible growing
up like that, you know, being poor and having to
go to school and not having running water and having
the bird back. You know, we would borrow water from
the neighbor and putting in buckets and we you know,
I learned how the bird bath on the streets before
I every went to prison on me put it that way.
(12:18):
And so my mom at this time was doing her thing,
you know, and I had this voiding me, and I
started to resent her. You know, I didn't understand, like
I said, the addiction and what she was going through,
and so I started to resent my mother. And our
relationship was just rocky, you know, and I felt like
(12:39):
she was choosing other things over us. So I hated
being at home. I just hated it, you know, And
I'd be out in the streets till whatever hour there
was nobody was ever going to come looking for me.
That's just not how we grew up. We could be
outside to whatever time we wanted to. And so the
summer right before junior high school, my cousin, who we
promised each other we weren't going to become, you know,
(13:01):
from the Vadriol, he got jumped into the hood. He
didn't consult with me, We didn't talk about it. It
was just like from one day to the next, he
was a gang member. And I was like, damn, you know,
I didn't go to him or nothing about the promises,
just like, okay, you did that. You know, you chose
your path. And so I would. I would go down
(13:22):
the street to another friend's house that I love being at.
He had like a semi normal life. You know. He
had a mom, and he had a stepdad, and he
had food in his refrigerator, and he had basic cable TV,
you know. So I would go over there and watch TV.
And I love being at his house. I loved it.
It was like my escape. But you know, and you
(13:45):
don't understand this. When you're a kid, you could become burdens,
you know what I mean. And so his mom would
always have to ask me to leave because I just
love being there so much. So it'd be like late
at night or whatever, like ten thirty eleven PM, and
she would be like, hey, Jose, you know you gotta
go home. You know, Christian gots to go to bed.
I hated going home, Homie. I just hated it. And
(14:08):
so I go home reluctantly. And so one night I
go down to his house and I knock at the door,
and somebody comes to the people, but they don't answer.
So I'm like, okay, So I go to the side
window and I knock, and I say, hey, it's me Jose.
And I knocked, and they turned off the living room light,
(14:30):
and they turned off the TV as if to pretend
nobody was home, right, And I just remember feelings so hurt, Homie,
like just so hurt and upset and angry and just
pissed all these feelings at once, you know. And I
(14:50):
walk back home. And so I get back home, and
as always, there's homies there. And another one of my
cousins who was older, like sixteen at the time I
was off, he was sixteen, and he had already been
from the hood for a few years or he'd been
gang banging already. And then another homie, Lefty was was
with him. He was like nineteen and they're stayed in
(15:11):
front of my house and the homie says to me,
he goes, what's up, fool, Why he looks so sad?
Did your dog die or something? And I'm like, I'm
not sad, I'm good, homie. And he says, you want
you want to get jumped into the water. And I
always had an excuse, you know, when I was asked,
I always my answer was always no. Up until that point,
(15:34):
I had like I was in marching band, and I
was in the Gate Program Gifted and Talented Education, and
I did while in school. I loved school. School was
like my escape as well. I loved being at school.
If I could have stayed at school twenty four to seven,
I would have, you know, But that night the heartbreak. Yeah,
that night, I just before I could even think about it,
(15:58):
the words had already left my mouth, and I said, yeah, Helmie,
I'll get jumped into the ward. I'll get jumped in tonight.
And we walked across the street and that's where my
other cousin lived. We walked across the street and they
jumped me. You know, they beat on me, they fucked
me up. Excuse my language. And when they when I
(16:22):
found they kicked me, you know, and they picked me
up and they beat on me some more. And after
they were done, they grabbed me and they embraced me.
And my cousin grabbed me and he said, I love you, fool.
And he had said that before. Maybe I don't know,
but that night it kind of meant something, you know
(16:44):
what I mean. It was a it's a trippy experience,
you know, it's a violent experience. And I think that
experience is important to share because you kind of get
an understanding of the psychology, you know, of a gang member,
of being beaten and embraced and then like love, this
this love, you know, this fragmented, fractured type of love,
(17:09):
you know, this twisted type of love. And uh, from
that point on, my experience with love or of love
or that that that term, you know, that definite, that definition.
It just came with a whole nother meaning, you know, love.
And so after they were done, my cousin goes into
(17:29):
the house and he brings out these pants. There were
Ben Davis's, Uh, there were big, big Ben Davis's. And
he gives them to me. He says, try those on
and I put the pants on. They were like three
times my size. They were permanently creased, and he had
taken them to the cleaners and got them permanently creased.
They were stitched. And I remember putting the pants on
(17:50):
and he looks at me and he's like, you could
sport those, Homie, And I was like, wow, thank you,
you know. And then he looks at me a little
bit more and he says, you know what, prettymo, you
know you can have those pants. And he gave them
to me, and man, I wore those pants for like
a month straight, Homie. Every day I wore those pants,
(18:12):
and one because it was like, you know, I appreciated
the gift. And then on the other hand, it was
because we were so poor, we couldn't afford to go
out and get pants, especially permanently creased pants, you know.
And I wore those pants, you know what I mean.
They meant something to me.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Did you look at your cousin as a father figure
since your father wasn't around at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Or not really, Nah, just looked at him as like
a cousin of homie, just family. You know. I wasn't
really seeking a father, to be honest, I felt like,
as long as I had my mom, I was cool.
You know, I didn't. I didn't have a void that
I could remember of not having a dad. But so
(18:59):
short after that, my cousin Marlowe, whom we made a
pack in my grandmother's backyard and we promise each other
not to be from a gang. He was. She was
shot in the face with a twelve gage shotgun and
he was murdered. He died. He was fourteen years old
when he was murdered. He was still a kid. We
(19:20):
were all kids, homie, you know, we were just young
and you know, good kids, as best as we could be.
But he was killed, and then I just remember after
he died, I was like, damn, you know, this is
my life. I just thought to myself, like, this is
my life, you know, and you can't talk about anything
(19:41):
that you're going through, you know what I mean. I
remember being at his car wash because we don't even
have enough money to bury our dead, you know, so
we had to fundraise and we're at the car wash
and all the homies are there and everybody's talking of
like revenge, you know, and just anger and hatred. And
(20:01):
I didn't feel that, you know, all I felt was
like her, and I felt like, damn, I miss him,
you know, and like who am I going to play
with my toys with? You know, because it's a trip.
Because me and my cousin when we were we were
you know, got when we were game banking, we would
still play with our toys, but we wouldn't tell the homies.
(20:23):
So like we'd be playing with our toys, and when
the homies would come around, we will put them away
and come outside like if we were gee's, you know,
but we were still kids. We still like had that
that childish immature, you know. And what's also a trip
is like after my cousin died for years, homie, like
(20:44):
it's a trip that I had discovered this and unpacked it.
After my cousin died, I would always go to my
grandmother's backyard to look for the army man that we
had buried. And it's crazy because I would get locked
up and I would even come home and I would
always go to the backyard and I would like look
from and I could never find any of the army
(21:05):
man we buried. They were gone to this day, to
this day, you know, and you know, and my life
just kind of my life just kind of went there
and it was like it was like a freeway with
no exits on me, you know, and I was just
just headed in that direction. So at fifteen, I started
(21:30):
to hustle, you know what I mean, Like I said,
we're poor, and I tried to figure out, okay, like
how can I get some income, you know, and to
them to my home. The Wilford check wasn't enough. And
then there was times where my mom would take the check,
you know what I mean, because she was she was
struggling with her addiction, and so we would be without anything.
(21:51):
We had no income. And so I started signing drugs
at fifteen, and that was the first case I got
was it was a drug case, you know, distribution of narcotics.
And I remember getting pulled over when I was fifteen
years old. You know. By this time, now I got
a car and I'm trying to grind. I'm hustling, and
(22:12):
the cop pools me over. They find the drugs and everything,
and I was in the back seat of the car
and he comes to talk to me and he says
to me, goes, man, you're so young, like why do
you have so much drugs in the car? And My
response to him was, I'm just trying to feed my family, homie,
and they put that in the police report. I'll never forget.
(22:33):
And there's something about the system, you know, like once
you get locked up, it's one of those things that's
kind of like hard revolve. Yeah, it's a revolving door.
So you know, I get locked up. I went in
for four months juvenile hall, and then I come home
and at sixteen, I went back again, sixteen to eighteen.
(22:54):
I come home at eighteen. At eighteen, now I'm going
to the county, get locked up again. And I come
home when I was twenty two, And like I said,
by this time, it was just my life was just
passing by me, you know, rapidly. And the relationship with
my mother was so estranged at this point, we didn't
(23:14):
really you know, it wasn't a healthy relationship. I'll give
you an example, like, my mother's from my water, she's
from my neighborhood. So homies would tell me, they come
to me, they be like, hey, your mom's over here,
whoop the whoop, getting high or whatever. You should go
check on her. And my response to them was, I
don't have a mother on me. That's just how much
resentment I had. You know, I was just hurt. I
(23:36):
didn't know it at the time, though. So twenty two
I end up in the county, and this time I
was finding a life sentence, fifty five years of life,
and I was just in there, like, damn, this is it.
You know, we're gonna spend the rest of my life
in here. I'm done, you know, I'm done. Time goes by.
(23:57):
I fight that case for two years, and I eventually
got a plea bargain. Thanks be to God, Homie, get
a plea bargain, and I go upstate. I got six years.
It's crazy. I was supposed to get seven years when
they offered the plea bargain. I signed for seven, but
I ended up getting six, which is a blessing. So
(24:18):
I go upstate for the six years, and as soon
as I got to reception, I got worried that my
mother had died. And you know, like I said, I
thought I was this person. This I created, this character, Homie,
this heartened character that I thought, well, I don't care
(24:42):
about anything, you know, like I don't have a heart
to be broken. That's what I thought. This gang member
tatted up and but when my mother died.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know they talk about heartbreak. It felt like my
spirit was broken ogain on me. It just it crushed me.
It crushed me. And I didn't know. I didn't understand.
I didn't understand what I was feeling, because, like I said,
I had lived I had lived this way for so
long that these emotions that were coming up, it was
(25:19):
it was unbearable. Dog, it was unbearable. I remember, I
would look at myself and I would go, what's happening
to me? Like why can't I get over this? You know?
I stuff it down and I would go to sleep
thinking about her, and I would wake up thinking about her,
and it just hurts so bad, you know, And I
(25:42):
end up in the hole. I mean I did everything
you could think of. I would drink in there, I
would I started getting high just to escape this pain.
And I would try to like run from it. You know,
you can't go far in prison, you know you're in prison.
But whatever I could do to try to escape it,
I would do. And you know, I know what they say,
everywhere you go, there you are. And so I ended
(26:03):
up in the hole, and I'm doing this shoe term
and I'm back there and I'm like, damn, this shit hurts.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You know. What was it from your homis asking hey,
go check on your mom, and you're saying, I don't
have a mom. That was just the pain speaking. And
you always wanted the mom's love. So when she actually
passed and you weren't able to mourn, that's the thing
that just broke.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
You exactly exactly. It was like, yeah, I was just hurt,
and I didn't mean all the things I had said,
you know, And I guess deep down inside, I felt
like one day we could fix all this, you know,
or maybe one day show change. I remember being a
(26:50):
little kid and I was already you know, gang banging
at the time, but probably like after my cousin died,
maybe like thirteen fourteen years old. I would daydream. I
would daydream like I would when I was, like I
was telling you, I would daydream and I would daydream
about my funeral and I would like picture it, and
(27:12):
I would daydream about like who was going to be there,
and I would picture my mom. I would daydream about
my funeral and I could see my mom like crying
for me, you know. And then I would think to myself, well,
I wonder if I die, if I get smoked, maybe
show change, you know, maybe she'll stop getting high. And
(27:34):
now here I am in the pin, a grown man,
and she's gone, you know, like she was gone on me.
And so I started to reflect. I started to think
about my life. I started to daydream again in a sense,
because I was trying to figure out what was wrong
with me. I thought I was losing my manhood dunk.
(27:55):
I was like, damn, what's wrong with me? Why can't
I not get past this pain? And then I started
to think about my life. I would I would start
to reflect, and I could see myself sitting in front
of a TV and watching sitcoms, watching uh, you know,
like family matters, and I could see myself yearning for
(28:19):
the family that I saw on the television set, you know,
yearning for the mom and the dad and when they
would sit down and eat dinner together, being a little
boy watching the sitcom and just thinking like, wow, I
wish I had that life, you know, and then having
to accept that that was never gonna happen for me,
(28:42):
you know what I mean, And being in prison and
being in the home mind you you know, with no
movement control movement, and having to sit with that. It
was hard. It was tough. And then there's these little,
tiny square mirrors and they're stuck to the to the
all the self. And I remember one day I got
(29:03):
up and I looked at myself. I looked at my
reflection in that little mirror, and I looked myself dead
in the eye and inside of myself. I said to myself,
who the fuck are you, homie? Who are you? How
did you get to this point? You know? And man,
(29:24):
they say that if you ask the right questions, you'll
get the right answers, you know. And I started to
sit with that question and just go back and start
to look at my life. And I wasn't able to
change because I was still in the pan, you know,
to an extent. There was books that I wanted to
read that it's just tough in prison, you know what
I mean, because it's its own thing. It's like a
(29:46):
whole different world.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So when you ask yourself that question, that small mirror,
and did you answer it?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I didn't answer it then, but it was the beginning.
And I didn't know it at the time, but it
was the beginning of something different in my life. But
I will say this, and looking back now. It's a trip,
you know, to even it probably isn't even gonna sound crazy,
But my mother did more for me and death than
(30:14):
she was able to do for me in life. Her death,
and I didn't know it at the time, was going
to be the beginning of my life. And I feel
like she sacrificed herself in order to let me live.
You feel me, because I was not going to change, Homie,
(30:35):
I wasn't going to change, and my mom did that
for me. She came through for me. Yeah, I did
the rest of my time. And I didn't even touch it.
(30:55):
I couldn't touch it. I remember I got a letter
in the mail.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And it was her obituary and I pulled it out
and I looked at it and I put it away.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I put it in my locker because prison is not
a place for that. It's not We have a certain
culture in there. You know, you can't be vulnerable. You know,
you can't expose any of that because it will demonstrate weakness.
(31:34):
And I lived like that for so long. So you know,
time went by, and just to give you an example,
you know of how it is in there is so
back in the day a while back, ACLU they want
a lawsuit because they were leaving us too long in
(31:55):
the South, you know, with our thoughts and people were
losing it. So they allowed for therapists to walk the
tears in there at a certain time of the day.
And I remember I used to see the therapists. They
would start their walk in a section and I'd be
right there at my cell door and I'll be watching them,
and they would they would walk the tears and they
(32:17):
would stop in front of every cell. I'm like, hey,
how you doing today? You know, if you want to
talk to anybody, I'm here, I'm available, And they were starting.
I'll be inside. I'll be like, damn, man, I wish
I could talk to somebody, you know, about what I'm feeling.
And then they would get to my section, and then
as soon as they would get to my cell door,
be like, hey, how you doing today. I would say,
(32:38):
get the fuck off mysel don't stop here, keep walking.
But inside I felt like, damn, if only I could
talk to somebody, you know. So I did, you know,
my time, and I came home, but this time I
was different. It just wasn't the same anymore. I you
(33:01):
know that that term losing my mom or whatever it was,
it was just one of those things where you just
kind of passed the point of no return, I guess,
you know. So when I came home, I felt like
I wasn't acclimated anymore. Like I just felt like I
didn't fit in out here, you know. And you know,
I'm blessed, so blessed. I was fortunate, I was married,
(33:24):
I had my wife, I had my family, you know,
I have my kids, and but I just did feel
like I fit in, you know. And so my first
thought was like, Okay, get a job, you know what
I mean, get a job, take care of your responsibilities,
and do what you gotta do, you know, checking with parole.
(33:45):
And so I did all that. I found a job.
I was working in a factory and burning and because
of my background, you know, they were they could, you know,
pretty much do whatever they wanted. You know, they can
fire you whenever they want. I even lied on the
application about being convicted of a felony. So I was
walking on thin ice on me, and they what they
(34:07):
would do was they would give me four hours in
one factory and then they'd be like, well, if you
want to get the whole eight, you gotta drive over
here and work in this factory. And I was doing
that as best as I could, and it was just
a lot and at the same time just not feeling
that I like I fit in anymore. Like I just
couldn't get my set, I couldn't get my footing, you know.
(34:28):
So I started South Medican. I would drink, you know
what I mean. I drink on my lunch break just
to try to like level out what I was feeling.
And so I go to work, I come home and
my father in law at the time would like watch me,
you know, to see if I was going to be responsible.
And I was okay with that because I've always been
a hard worker always. And then one day I come
(34:50):
on from work and he has louping on the newspaper.
And it's funny because father Greg says that he never
did this, but I bullshit you. There was a number
to Homeboy Industries and law oping you. And my father
in law has me the paper and he tells me, hey,
you should call them. They can probably help you with
a job. And I got it and look at it, like,
(35:12):
what is this Homeboy Industries? You know? I remember vaguely
hearing about it, or hearing about father gray, but I
didn't really know what they did, you know, So I
called down there and Homie answers, I could tell you
it was a homie And he says, hey, this is
Homeboy Industries. How can I help you? And I said,
I'm looking for a job. Are you guys hiring? And
(35:34):
he says, well, let me ask you a few questions. First,
go okay, He goes, have you ever been locked up before? Question?
Is this? I'm looking for a job and I said yeah,
I just got out. He goes, okay, have you ever
been involved with gangs? And I go again, what kind
(35:55):
of question? Is this? Right? And I said, yeah, Homie,
I'm a gang member. He goes, okay, are you currently
on probation or parole? Like I'm on high control parole? Hommy, Yes,
I'm on parole. Okay. He goes, one last question, do
you have any visible tattoos, like on your face, head, neck,
or hands? And I remember looking at myself and I'm
(36:16):
all tatted up. I used to be all blasted up,
though I got a lot of my tattoos removed, had
tattoos on my face and I remember looking at myself
and I said, yeah, Homie, I'm all tatted up. He goes, Okay,
we'll give you a job. I'm like what I said,
are you messing with me? He goes, Na, we'll give
you a job. Can you come down here today? And
(36:37):
I went. I went down there, and I would love
to say that the rest was history, but it just
it wasn't, you know. I get there and you know,
you don't It looks and big windows in the front,
and you look and sign and you just see gang
members everywhere, you know. And I remember saying to my wife.
I looked in there, and then I looked at my
(36:58):
wife and I said, I don't eat. This place is
for me, you know what I mean. And she was nervous.
She was always just trying to help me, you know.
And so we get in there, and I even told her,
I said, keep the car running, you know what I mean,
because I don't know what this place is. And I'm
(37:19):
filling out the intake for him, and I'm, you know,
observing everybody. I've always been aware of my surroundings, observing everybody.
And I noticed this homie noticed me, and then he's
walking past and he starts to walk towards me. So
I put the clipboard down. You know, and I'm like,
here it is. And he walks up to me and
(37:42):
he extends his hand and he says, Hi, my name
is Mario. I've never seen you before. Would you like
some water or something to drink? And I'm looking at
him like, and I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck
is this place? You know what I mean? Shake his
hand and and I just countless experiences like that, like
(38:03):
tenderness and compassion and kinship, and it really started to
reshape the way that I viewed things that I viewed myself,
like the way that I looked at the world. You know,
These these experiences begin to reshape my heart. And I
started to feel like I do fit in out here,
you know what I mean, Like there is a place
(38:25):
for me out here in the world, in the real world,
you know. And little by little I started to acting
me and I started to understand that, you know, I
did choose the life, but not all choices are created equal, right,
you feel me, and that there was things in my
childhood that impacted me in such a way that led
(38:49):
me down this path, you know what I mean. Yeah,
And it's just so many things I could share with
you in terms of that experience at homeboy, and then.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Thank you for sharing, thank you for your your vulnerability.
You call someone Pops and his name is father, Gregory Boyle.
What was the first time you met him? Because you
didn't really have a dad, like you said, right, you
(39:24):
looked at your mom as both. But what was that
was it?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Obviously, I mean I don't want to assume anything. My
assumption was that it was foreign. First. I was a
jesuit priest, a white dude, and this guy is like
a walking heart, walking tenderness like you put it. What
was that experience like and how how did that manifest? It?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Was? Man, when I used to see him, I would
like steer clear of him because I thought he was
like I don't know, I just I didn't think I
was good, you know. I thought I was bad, and
so like I would see him from a distance and
I would watch him, and I would just think, man,
he's so incredible, you know, And and then I would
(40:10):
do everything I could to like avoid him. Like if
I was going somewhere and he happened to be coming
down the hallway, I would like bust a U turn
what were you running?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Or like avoiding like the unknown?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
I don't know. I think it was like I felt
like I just wasn't good enough to be around him,
you know, hmm, like I wasn't worthy. And so one
day I had so eventually I brought my brother, you know,
to homeboy. I asked Father G, Hey, you know, I
got my brother, my little brother, and I would it
(40:45):
be okay if I brought him by the office, and
G was like, sure, son, you can. We'll hire him,
you know, part time, and then he can go to
school part time and he could be right here with us.
And so I brought my brother. And back then we
didn't have much, you know, so we would share everything.
And I used to tell my brother I still had
(41:05):
a lot of the old teachings, the old ways. I
would tell my brother, don't ask nobody for nothing, and
just don't really connect with anybody. You just got it's
just me and you, and we'll take care of each other.
And so if I had these pants on today, my
brother would have him on tomorrow. I was a lot
of dinner back then, and so we would share clothes.
And one day we'd come in and the homie at
(41:27):
the front desk says a father G wants to talk
to you guys. So I'm thinking, fuck. I look at
my brother, like, what did you do for? You know?
We're gonna be in trouble or something. And we go
into his office and he has these two serious cards
and he tries to hand them to us and we're like, na,
we don't need anything, Pops, We're good, and he's like,
take these cards, son, and go get yourself some clothes.
(41:51):
And he just continued to extend himself to us, even
though we were trying to avoid him, you know, or
I was trying to avoid him, and he was experiences
like that with him that just changed everything for me.
Even with with like me sharing my story, I never
would have done this before. If it wasn't for him,
(42:11):
he would take me out. I remember he took me
to a talk in Fontana. Is the first time I
ever shared my story. And we drive out there together
and right before we get there, he tells me, he goes, hey, Son,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna do my thing. And then
he's like, you're going to go up there and you're
going to share your story For a couple of minutes.
I was like, what I thought? I was just going
for a ride with you. You know, and I told him, Nah, Pobs,
(42:34):
I can't do that because I don't want to. I
don't want to talk about, you know, what I have
been through. I don't want to shame my mother or whatever.
And he's like, nah, Son, you're free her. You know,
you're free yourself. And it's a trip because little by
little with him, you know, allowing me to share my story,
allowing me to have a voice, I begin to heal,
(42:56):
you know. And I guess I would all also say
what really made the relationship that Pop's son was because
he would always call me son, you know, and he
just has this fatherly figure. He's just like naturally, this
fatherly figure. And because I would ask myself that same question,
(43:18):
like what is it? You know? And then I don't know.
You've read Tattoos on the Heart, right, Okay? So I
eventually read the book Tattoos on the Heart and there's
a homie in one of the stories he talks about
the one he takes to J. C. Penny. Do you
remember this? So he takes this homie to jac Penny
to buy clothes and they're standing in line, and this homie,
from what he explains in the book, is that he's
(43:41):
big like me, and he's tatted up, you know, and
he's standing in line and people are looking at him, right,
and so they do their thing. He buys them the
clothes and then he drops them off at home, and
then later on that night he gets a call. Do
you remember this story? He gets a call and it's
the homie and G wakes ubout it to sleep like hello,
(44:02):
and the Oni goes, hey, pops, he goes, or hey, father,
G whatever, and he says, uh, I have a question
for you. He goes, uh, all my life, you've been
like a father to me, right And G says, sure, son,
and he goes, so that must make me if you're
(44:23):
a father to me, that must make me a son
to you, right And Father Great goes, of course, son,
and he goes, okay, then you shall be my father
and I will be your son. And G says that
in that instance, the homie didn't realize that he had
(44:44):
a father. But in that instance, the Homie realized that
he was a son. You feel me. And when I
read that, I thought to myself, that's what it is.
I became a son. I was able to be a son.
And you know, we're born and that's our first role,
either to be a son or to be a daughter, right,
(45:05):
And so if you don't inhabit that first role fully,
it's kind of hard to be anything else, you know
what I mean. So I was able to be a son,
And because I was able to be a son, now
I'm able to be a dad, a brother, you know,
an entrepreneur, vice president, you know whatever. Because I was
(45:27):
able to be a son.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
That's powerful. Can I ask you to finish that story
with Jojo? When you guys got the cards? Yeah, I'm
jumping around, So it's powerful. Yeah, it is our experiences
shape us. So G gives us the cards. We take
the cards reluctantly and we leave. We're going down Alameda
(45:53):
and going back to the teachings that you know, we
we live by, abide it.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
By growing up was to never cry, you know. And
I'm ashamed to say this, but this is what I
would instill in them. I would tell my brothers, don't
ever cry, don't ever ever demonstrate weakness, because if someone
sees that, they'll take advantage of you. So don't cry.
Now Here we are we're leaving Homeboys with these two
(46:20):
serious cards, and we're going down at the Meeta and
I look over at my brother and he's crying, and
I say to him, I go, hey, what's up for?
Why are you crying on me? And he says to me,
why the fuck do they care about us so much?
He couldn't wrap his head around the love that they
(46:42):
were showering us with, you know. And I didn't have
a response for him, but I remember him saying that
it just was another experience that altered my heart. And
if I could have, I would have said, because you're
a work, because you're a good kid, because you're important,
(47:04):
because you matter, because you deserve love, you know. But
that experience that it was just another experience that just
reshaped my heart, you know, and mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Well, as the son and father now, I think one
of the greatest things that I get to see and
be a part of and bear witness is you being
the father that g is to you, and and you
(47:38):
providing opportunities for your own children. Even the fact that
Josel's like your daughter, is your executive assistant, and that
she gets to see her dad in a way that
no one else in your family can't because she gets
to come to this and she comes to meetings and
(48:00):
she sets your schedule. And I don't know if you
know this, but you know because when we meet at
the Beato, we'll meet outside for our meetings and just
sells inside. And sometimes I go in there and I
just talk to her.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
You know. Do you know this? No? I don't.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
And I go in there and I just the twinkle
in her eye. Bro, the amount of pride, how proud
she is of her dad to be able to call
you her father, to be able to see you navigating
from the deaths a homeboy to some of the most
(48:34):
influential people, to billionaires and millionaires, and be able like,
oh my god, this is normal for her. And Bro,
there's there's no words to describe going to a friend's
daughter and having her just glow in a way that
we all want to glow, and that you weren't able
(48:55):
to glow when you were her age. And Bro, that's
like the greatest gift that I could aspire, you know.
And then even with jose Junior, your namesake, you know,
we gotta pour more into him, but Bro, he he
just walks around this bravado and coffee.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, he's amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
But he's amazing because he's working as Dad's coffee shop.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
And the thing that I'm the proudest of home at
the Beato And you've heard me say this. It's not
it's not the best coffee experience, it's it's not our
relationship with the farmers. It's actually it's it's all of
that and the fact that the Beetle Coffee is the
(49:43):
first business from Homeboy Industries after thirty years that a
homie who started cleaning toilets, then doing the windows, then
working in the train and being a trainee, and then
working as a director and now being a vice president
(50:04):
and now you're an owner of an amazing coffee company.
And when when folks come in from Homeboy, the homegirls
and the Homeboys, and they see you, Bro, You're a
walking example who they are and what they can do.
And you know I always say this, Bro, like sometimes
I'm like, what am I doing here? And I'm like,
I'm doing this for Jose you know, I'm doing it
(50:26):
for me too, my family, But I'm doing it because
your success is mine and vice versa, and Bro, there's
no one else I would want to be on this
journey with on the coffee side.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
But you same, homie. I feel the same, and I
want to. I want to.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I want to do something if you would allow me to,
because you are the biggest day dreamer I know, I
know a lot of people. But even when you were
talking about day dreaming as a and then daydreaming in
the cell, you were painting pictures in your mind, right, yeah,
(51:07):
So if you can, if you it would allow me to,
I would ask you just close your eyes.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Okay, I do nothing weird though. Now I'll touch you later.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
I want you to just close your eyes and I
want to just daydream together. I want you to daydream.
I want you to daydream in twenty years from now,
where's Jose Ariona at? What is in your life? Where's
your family?
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You know?
Speaker 1 (51:40):
And more than anything, not only on the manifestation side,
like where you're at and what you're doing, but I
want you to focus on the feeling, like what are
you feeling? And just hold that and then who's around
you and how do they feel? And when you're ready,
(52:19):
just slowly bro open your eyes and I want you
to tell me what you saw.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I don't know how Kim Kardashian ended up next to me.
Just man, just that a great grandfather. You know, all
twenty years is a little but I did envision like
all my children are grown and have children and we're
(52:51):
we're just there. I'm playing with my with my grandchildren, Yeah,
passing stuff down to them, chilling with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
And how'd you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I found joy on me? Complete joy?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
And how do the people around you feel joy?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (53:12):
And I'm grateful because I wanted to know so that
I can help build that with you. Damn joy, joy, love, tenderness, kinship.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, I love you, homie. I love you too, do
I am.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
We always close with a with a segment called the
Sacred Five, and uh, it's I just asked five questions
you answer in a word or a sentence, and it's
a way for listeners to get practical things that can
do in their life. So, first question, name three things
(53:57):
that make you feel safe, connected.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
And whole, my family, my home and God?
Speaker 1 (54:09):
What song, book, or prayer brings you back to yourself
the song ancestors song. What's one daily ritual or practice
that grounds you.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Every morning's program time, I get up, I do a reading,
meditate on it, and send it out. I'm busting down too.
But the first thing that grounds me is that, and
I gotta bust down every day. Yeah, if I don't
do Birderys or something, I fell off. But that prayer,
(54:46):
that prayer though.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah, what's one small action listeners can take this week
on their healing journey.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Just do it, like Nike, whatever it is you're trying
to accomplish, or you're goal, or you're hoping for something
and you've been trying to do that thing, whatever it is,
just do it.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
And last one share a one line blessing her quote
that inspires you.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
My mom used to always say, want some, get some
bad enough take song.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
And that's for away. It's almost like we started with
the mom, all right. She allowed us to have a
deeper connection and she's like, no, dude, we're gonna end
with me.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
I'll give you one more of hers because this is
one of my favorites of hers too. She just say,
can't stop, won't stop.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yeah, you say that one of the most Actually, you
can't stop, won't stop. So I always end with just
summarizing you know how much you mean to me and
mean to us likewise on and man, yeah, I'm glad
that we have each other because this is an evolving journey.
(56:00):
Not even talking on the business side, I'm talking on
the human side. The business is just an extension of
who we are, just like homeboys, an extension of GE's
heart that beatles extension of our heart. And so my
whole thing is I'm grateful that I have someone that
I could be honest one of a few people can
be completely wrong with each other, because when we don't
(56:20):
have that, that's when the heart gets hardened. Opposite of
what the new lessons or our life are teaching us,
to keep your heart completely open so you can receive
the joy that you are creating and envisioning in your
mind but also in your daily life. So three things
I want to say. One, thank you and your ancestors,
(56:47):
and in particular, thank your mother for giving you life
twice because that second life is changing many lives. The
second thing is that we can become someone's son if
(57:08):
we're open to it. And I just want to say
that you know all the love in the world for
g for having so many sons that always needed a father.
And I've seen you do the same thing. We've been
talking about your biological children, but I know you have
a lot of chosen children and so I want to
(57:30):
honor you for taking not just the lesson but the
action of what G does for you to others. And
the last thing I will just try to reflect back, Bro,
is that you, more than anyone else in my life,
(57:51):
show me that no situation, no matter how desperate, dark, dangerous,
no situation or experience, can determine your fate or the
rest of your life. And that all the different you've
only scratched the surface of your stuff you shared with
(58:11):
me right now, I know so many other things, even
what you shared today or today like most people probably
couldn't handle that, Bro, they would have checked out in
multiple ways. I'll just leave it at that, But you
took that and made it fuel into something so beautiful.
When I walk in the homeboy, everyone talks about G
(58:35):
the biggest g's in my life for like you and
Halfs and Stevie and the people that are walking examples
of what love can do when you on selfishly give.
Because you know, if I love you, then therefore I'm
going to love myself.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
And I hope you know this.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
How worthy and how blessed you are, Bro. You're the
most one and most sacred, sacred man that I know
and you make me a better person just by being
proximate to you. And you've taught me just always stay
proximate to the least of us because they are the
best of us. So I love you and I think
(59:13):
you bro love you to them. Yeah, thank you. Sacred
Lessons is a production my Heart's Michael through it our
podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group. For
more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
What are the cycles fathers passed down that sons are
left to yield. What if being a man was holding
it all together? I've been learning how to let go.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
This is a.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Space where that's trus to find the power to heal
and transform.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
I'm Mike Dela Rocha. Welcome to say your lessons.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Some men are brothers because of blood. Others become brothers
because of the life they live together, the pain they survived,
and the purpose they share. Welcome to sacred lessons. I'm
Mike Dela Rocha. Today I'm sitting with Jose Ariano, my
business partner at the the Coffee vice president of Operation
(00:42):
at Homebod Industry is the largest gang intervention reentry program
in the world, and one of the closest people in
my life today. Jose is more than a business partner,
more than a community leader. He's a chosen brother. Where
we built a company rooted in the belief that people
deserved second chances, and that sometimes maybe even a first chance,
(01:07):
and that a simple cup of coffee can bring people
together from different worlds. I watched Jose blossom as an entrepreneur,
but more importantly, I've watched him blossom as a father,
as a brother, as a friend, and as a husband.
And in this process, he's taught me more about compassion,
(01:30):
more about loyalty and transformation as much as anyone else
in my life. My dear brother, I'm throwing away everything
because we started this with a prayer, we started this
with saging ourselves. We started this with jumping in to
(01:51):
the unknown and knowing that the net would appear. So
whatever is going to come is going to come. But
before that, I just want to say thank you for
enriching my life. It's a relationship that feels divine and timing,
and a relationship that feels like ancient. It's like we're
each other's halves and mirrors and everything else. And before
(02:14):
we jump in, I just want to say, and you
ready know this because we tell each other this a lot,
but I love you and I'm grateful that you're in
my life. I'm grateful that I get to know your family.
I'm grateful that I get to bear witness to you
blossoming into the person that you are. So thank you
for being on this show.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
I love you, homie. Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, So for those that don't know Jose, you know,
how did you get to the place that you are.
You know, you're not only a co owner of an
incredible coffee company, but you're the vice president of operations
for the largest gang intervention re entry program in the
(02:56):
entire world that is doing really the work of government
meant and municipalities and providing hope and love and service
to those oftentimes ignored or forgotten cage and everything else.
But how did we get here? Who? Who's jose Man?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You want the long version of the short version.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
I want the short because I'm gonna dig in some
deep all.
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Right, Well, I mean that's a that's a loaded question.
How did I get here? I guess I could start
by saying I made all the wrong decisions to get
to the right place. You know. Uh, my life was
it was a it was a trippy, trippy roller coaster
(03:41):
of a ride. But I started off as a young
hopeful boy. I was a big dreamer, daydreamer. I would
daydream so much that my mom would have to like
snap me out of it. She's still always she would
be like, hey, jose hey boy, And then she was say,
I'll give you opinion for your thoughts, you know, because
(04:04):
I would daydream a lot and dream a lot, and
partly because I think that the life that I was
living just it was just, it was it was rough,
it was hard, you know. It was a lot of
things going on in my in my home, a lot
of trauma. I didn't know the definition of it back then,
but just like alcoholism and uh you know, domestic violence
(04:26):
and just a lot of violence all around me growing up.
So I would escape it by, you know, daydreaming, thinking
about what things could possibly be for me if it
wasn't that. But growing up, so my mom was a
young mother, and so at the time, my grandparents kind
of took me in as their own. So I didn't
(04:47):
know my mom was my mom until I was about
like nine. I thought she was my sister. Uh So,
but it was cool because I looked up to her,
you know, I loved her. She she's a special woman,
you know, very like just inspiring, you know what I mean,
and strong. Like when I looked at her, I looked
at power and straight and fashion. You know. She was
(05:08):
always jeat up. She was a gang member, and she
was always pressed down, creased down, always made sure her
was done and just jeaed up. And I loved that
about her, and I looked up to her, and so
when I found out that she was my mom, I
was happy. I was excited that she was my mom.
I grew up. I didn't have a dad growing up,
but it didn't really matter to me. I didn't feel
(05:29):
no void from not having a dad. I had a
bunch of uncles and cousins, and my mom was like,
you know, she was so rough that she was kind
of like a dad in a sense, you know what
I mean. And I had my grandfather at the time,
who I called dad. I called my grandma and grandpa
dad and mom. And then being raised up with my
uncles and my tias, like if they were my brothers
(05:49):
and sisters. So I was like the youngest of the bunch.
But you know, like anything in life, things either get
progressively better or progressively worse. My mom went from being
a gang member and getting you know, getting involved with
drugs and stuff started to get hard for us. We
grew up poor, just naturally. We were poor, but we
(06:11):
knew how to survive in poverty, you know what I mean.
We knew how to put things together. So when I
was a kid, like we would collect cans and we
made everything fun, you know, what I mean, like collecting cans,
smashing cans. We would high rocks in the cans to
make them heavier when we took them to the recycling center.
You know. Always an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur, always a hustler,
(06:32):
and we made the best of what we had, right
But like I said, when my mom, you know, got
involved with drugs, and it was also too after my
grandfather died as well, because he was like when it
came to like financially, he was the backbone. So he
took care of all of us, you know what I mean,
and we didn't really have to worry. We had a
roof over our head. But when he died, we started
(06:56):
to fill that financial burden, you know what I mean.
And my mom did the best could. But you know,
subst abuse issues, that's a powerful thing to navigate on me.
And I didn't know it at the time, but you know,
the experience was just like it was tough, you know,
to say the least, and it was you know, I
(07:16):
was about well, let me just back up just a
little bit before that, because I started to understand the
world through my life experiences, you know, and I remember
being like six years old, seven years old and somebody
comes and knocks at my door. So I go to
the door to answer and it's it's it's it's this
(07:36):
dude and brown, you know, like me. You know, could
have been from the body or whatever. Our house was
the hangout spot, so there was always people at my house.
And he says, he goes, hey, is Mona here? And
that's my mom. My mom's name is Mona. And I said, yeah,
she's here, so go get her. But I want to
surprise her. I'm one of her homies. And I was like,
all right, and I left the door slightly cracked. So
(07:59):
I run and get my mom and she's getting ready
for the day and I say, hey, one of you know,
one of your homies is here, and she said all right,
So she she goes to the door and as soon
as she gets to the door, that food reaches in
and grass her by the wrist and yankster. Yankster off
the porch and he's an undercover cop. He was a cop,
(08:20):
and he slams her on the ground and there's other
cops now and they cough up my mom and they
put her in the and they put her in the
back of the car and I remember vividly. It was
a champagne colored Caprice and my mom was pissed on me.
She was hotter than fish grease. She was yelling and
you know, telling them, why are you gonna do this
in front of my son? Like this is how you're
(08:41):
gonna do me. They didn't care. They're you know, they're
they're getting her into the car and everything. And I
remember her looking at me from the back seat through
the window, and I was looking at her, and they
they jamm whatever. And then I go back inside my
house and I was, like, I said, I was a
little boy, so I'm like a sponge, you know, I'm
trying to understand the world. And my grandmother she was pissed,
(09:06):
you know. She looks down at me and she's screaming.
She's yelling. She's like, why did you do that? You know,
why did you open the door to them? And I
didn't have an answer, you know, I was just a
little boy. And I remember her saying, she says, she
yells at me. She emphasizes this. She says, you never
never trust the cop, you never trust the hoodahs. She says,
(09:30):
I don't care if I'm dying of a heart attack,
don't ever call nine one one because if they come
to our house, they're going to take somebody that you love.
Never never trust the hootahs. And these are lessons, you know,
as I'm growing up, these are things that I'm learning,
you know, I'm learning these lessons through my experiences. So
growing up, you know, these are like the lessons that
(09:52):
are being instilled instilled in me, you know. And then
I was probably like around nine years old, nine years old,
and I had an older cousin of mine and we're
really really close, like brothers. You know, all my family
we're all close. And you know that to this day,
you see a lot of my cousins, you see my brothers.
(10:12):
To this day, we're very close. We're tight knit. And
that's what I mean about like being in a gang.
It wasn't about being in a gang. It was just
like we were a family, you know, and everybody was
from the everybody. So I had an older cousin like
a brother to me, and I remember going into my
grandmother's backyard with him. He calls me to my grandmother's backyard,
(10:34):
and we used to always play in my grandmother's backyard.
Army man, you know, we would have our little our
army man. He would have his and we would you know,
we would battle it out, and we would leave him
there and we would come back and always just pick
up from where we left off at. And so one
day he calls me back there and he says to me,
he says, hey, Primo, no matter what happens, me and
(10:55):
you were not going to get from the Vodrido, no
matter what promised me. And I said, I promise you,
you know, because it wasn't something that like we wanted
for ourselves. We kind of already knew that things were
not good, you know, based off of all the experiences
that we were having with our family. And he extends
(11:16):
his hand to me, and I shake it, and he
tells me, promise me, primo, and he meant it. And
when I and I meant it, I shook his hand.
I said, I promise you, like I promise, I won't
and he goes, all right, no matter what happens me
and you're not going to get from the bodle, I promise, okay.
And we made a pact, you know, in time's going by,
(11:37):
and like I said, things are getting progressively worse by
this time, like our electricity is being turned off, and
even the water, homie, you know, and that's the cheapest
bill you're supposed to pay, you know what I mean,
it's one of the cheapest bills. And even the water
was getting turned off, and so, you know, it just sucked,
(11:58):
to say the least. It just it was horrible growing
up like that, you know, being poor and having to
go to school and not having running water and having
the bird back. You know, we would borrow water from
the neighbor and putting in buckets and we you know,
I learned how the bird bath on the streets before
I every went to prison on me put it that way.
(12:18):
And so my mom at this time was doing her thing,
you know, and I had this voiding me, and I
started to resent her. You know, I didn't understand, like
I said, the addiction and what she was going through,
and so I started to resent my mother. And our
relationship was just rocky, you know, and I felt like
(12:39):
she was choosing other things over us. So I hated
being at home. I just hated it, you know, And
I'd be out in the streets till whatever hour there
was nobody was ever going to come looking for me.
That's just not how we grew up. We could be
outside to whatever time we wanted to. And so the
summer right before junior high school, my cousin, who we
promised each other we weren't going to become, you know,
(13:01):
from the Vadriol, he got jumped into the hood. He
didn't consult with me, We didn't talk about it. It
was just like from one day to the next, he
was a gang member. And I was like, damn, you know,
I didn't go to him or nothing about the promises,
just like, okay, you did that. You know, you chose
your path. And so I would. I would go down
(13:22):
the street to another friend's house that I love being at.
He had like a semi normal life. You know. He
had a mom, and he had a stepdad, and he
had food in his refrigerator, and he had basic cable TV,
you know. So I would go over there and watch TV.
And I love being at his house. I loved it.
It was like my escape. But you know, and you
(13:45):
don't understand this. When you're a kid, you could become burdens,
you know what I mean. And so his mom would
always have to ask me to leave because I just
love being there so much. So it'd be like late
at night or whatever, like ten thirty eleven PM, and
she would be like, hey, Jose, you know you gotta
go home. You know, Christian gots to go to bed.
I hated going home, Homie. I just hated it. And
(14:08):
so I go home reluctantly. And so one night I
go down to his house and I knock at the door,
and somebody comes to the people, but they don't answer.
So I'm like, okay, So I go to the side
window and I knock, and I say, hey, it's me Jose.
And I knocked, and they turned off the living room light,
(14:30):
and they turned off the TV as if to pretend
nobody was home, right, And I just remember feelings so hurt, Homie,
like just so hurt and upset and angry and just
pissed all these feelings at once, you know. And I
(14:50):
walk back home. And so I get back home, and
as always, there's homies there. And another one of my
cousins who was older, like sixteen at the time I
was off, he was sixteen, and he had already been
from the hood for a few years or he'd been
gang banging already. And then another homie, Lefty was was
with him. He was like nineteen and they're stayed in
(15:11):
front of my house and the homie says to me,
he goes, what's up, fool, Why he looks so sad?
Did your dog die or something? And I'm like, I'm
not sad, I'm good, homie. And he says, you want
you want to get jumped into the water. And I
always had an excuse, you know, when I was asked,
I always my answer was always no. Up until that point,
(15:34):
I had like I was in marching band, and I
was in the Gate Program Gifted and Talented Education, and
I did while in school. I loved school. School was
like my escape as well. I loved being at school.
If I could have stayed at school twenty four to seven,
I would have, you know, But that night the heartbreak. Yeah,
that night, I just before I could even think about it,
(15:58):
the words had already left my mouth, and I said, yeah, Helmie,
I'll get jumped into the ward. I'll get jumped in tonight.
And we walked across the street and that's where my
other cousin lived. We walked across the street and they
jumped me. You know, they beat on me, they fucked
me up. Excuse my language. And when they when I
(16:22):
found they kicked me, you know, and they picked me
up and they beat on me some more. And after
they were done, they grabbed me and they embraced me.
And my cousin grabbed me and he said, I love you, fool.
And he had said that before. Maybe I don't know,
but that night it kind of meant something, you know
(16:44):
what I mean. It was a it's a trippy experience,
you know, it's a violent experience. And I think that
experience is important to share because you kind of get
an understanding of the psychology, you know, of a gang member,
of being beaten and embraced and then like love, this
this love, you know, this fragmented, fractured type of love,
(17:09):
you know, this twisted type of love. And uh, from
that point on, my experience with love or of love
or that that that term, you know, that definite, that definition.
It just came with a whole nother meaning, you know, love.
And so after they were done, my cousin goes into
(17:29):
the house and he brings out these pants. There were
Ben Davis's, Uh, there were big, big Ben Davis's. And
he gives them to me. He says, try those on
and I put the pants on. They were like three
times my size. They were permanently creased, and he had
taken them to the cleaners and got them permanently creased.
They were stitched. And I remember putting the pants on
(17:50):
and he looks at me and he's like, you could
sport those, Homie, And I was like, wow, thank you,
you know. And then he looks at me a little
bit more and he says, you know what, prettymo, you
know you can have those pants. And he gave them
to me, and man, I wore those pants for like
a month straight, Homie. Every day I wore those pants,
(18:12):
and one because it was like, you know, I appreciated
the gift. And then on the other hand, it was
because we were so poor, we couldn't afford to go
out and get pants, especially permanently creased pants, you know.
And I wore those pants, you know what I mean.
They meant something to me.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Did you look at your cousin as a father figure
since your father wasn't around at the time.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Or not really, Nah, just looked at him as like
a cousin of homie, just family. You know. I wasn't
really seeking a father, to be honest, I felt like,
as long as I had my mom, I was cool.
You know, I didn't. I didn't have a void that
I could remember of not having a dad. But so
(18:59):
short after that, my cousin Marlowe, whom we made a
pack in my grandmother's backyard and we promise each other
not to be from a gang. He was. She was
shot in the face with a twelve gage shotgun and
he was murdered. He died. He was fourteen years old
when he was murdered. He was still a kid. We
(19:20):
were all kids, homie, you know, we were just young
and you know, good kids, as best as we could be.
But he was killed, and then I just remember after
he died, I was like, damn, you know, this is
my life. I just thought to myself, like, this is
my life, you know, and you can't talk about anything
(19:41):
that you're going through, you know what I mean. I
remember being at his car wash because we don't even
have enough money to bury our dead, you know, so
we had to fundraise and we're at the car wash
and all the homies are there and everybody's talking of
like revenge, you know, and just anger and hatred. And
(20:01):
I didn't feel that, you know, all I felt was
like her, and I felt like, damn, I miss him,
you know, and like who am I going to play
with my toys with? You know, because it's a trip.
Because me and my cousin when we were we were
you know, got when we were game banking, we would
still play with our toys, but we wouldn't tell the homies.
(20:23):
So like we'd be playing with our toys, and when
the homies would come around, we will put them away
and come outside like if we were gee's, you know,
but we were still kids. We still like had that
that childish immature, you know. And what's also a trip
is like after my cousin died for years, homie, like
(20:44):
it's a trip that I had discovered this and unpacked it.
After my cousin died, I would always go to my
grandmother's backyard to look for the army man that we
had buried. And it's crazy because I would get locked
up and I would even come home and I would
always go to the backyard and I would like look
from and I could never find any of the army
(21:05):
man we buried. They were gone to this day, to
this day, you know, and you know, and my life
just kind of my life just kind of went there
and it was like it was like a freeway with
no exits on me, you know, and I was just
just headed in that direction. So at fifteen, I started
(21:30):
to hustle, you know what I mean, Like I said,
we're poor, and I tried to figure out, okay, like
how can I get some income, you know, and to
them to my home. The Wilford check wasn't enough. And
then there was times where my mom would take the check,
you know what I mean, because she was she was
struggling with her addiction, and so we would be without anything.
(21:51):
We had no income. And so I started signing drugs
at fifteen, and that was the first case I got
was it was a drug case, you know, distribution of narcotics.
And I remember getting pulled over when I was fifteen
years old. You know. By this time, now I got
a car and I'm trying to grind. I'm hustling, and
(22:12):
the cop pools me over. They find the drugs and everything,
and I was in the back seat of the car
and he comes to talk to me and he says
to me, goes, man, you're so young, like why do
you have so much drugs in the car? And My
response to him was, I'm just trying to feed my family, homie,
and they put that in the police report. I'll never forget.
(22:33):
And there's something about the system, you know, like once
you get locked up, it's one of those things that's
kind of like hard revolve. Yeah, it's a revolving door.
So you know, I get locked up. I went in
for four months juvenile hall, and then I come home
and at sixteen, I went back again, sixteen to eighteen.
(22:54):
I come home at eighteen. At eighteen, now I'm going
to the county, get locked up again. And I come
home when I was twenty two, And like I said,
by this time, it was just my life was just
passing by me, you know, rapidly. And the relationship with
my mother was so estranged at this point, we didn't
(23:14):
really you know, it wasn't a healthy relationship. I'll give
you an example, like, my mother's from my water, she's
from my neighborhood. So homies would tell me, they come
to me, they be like, hey, your mom's over here,
whoop the whoop, getting high or whatever. You should go
check on her. And my response to them was, I
don't have a mother on me. That's just how much
resentment I had. You know, I was just hurt. I
(23:36):
didn't know it at the time, though. So twenty two
I end up in the county, and this time I
was finding a life sentence, fifty five years of life,
and I was just in there, like, damn, this is it.
You know, we're gonna spend the rest of my life
in here. I'm done, you know, I'm done. Time goes by.
(23:57):
I fight that case for two years, and I eventually
got a plea bargain. Thanks be to God, Homie, get
a plea bargain, and I go upstate. I got six years.
It's crazy. I was supposed to get seven years when
they offered the plea bargain. I signed for seven, but
I ended up getting six, which is a blessing. So
(24:18):
I go upstate for the six years, and as soon
as I got to reception, I got worried that my
mother had died. And you know, like I said, I
thought I was this person. This I created, this character, Homie,
this heartened character that I thought, well, I don't care
(24:42):
about anything, you know, like I don't have a heart
to be broken. That's what I thought. This gang member
tatted up and but when my mother died.
Speaker 1 (24:53):
Damn.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
You know they talk about heartbreak. It felt like my
spirit was broken ogain on me. It just it crushed me.
It crushed me. And I didn't know. I didn't understand.
I didn't understand what I was feeling, because, like I said,
I had lived I had lived this way for so
long that these emotions that were coming up, it was
(25:19):
it was unbearable. Dog, it was unbearable. I remember, I
would look at myself and I would go, what's happening
to me? Like why can't I get over this? You know?
I stuff it down and I would go to sleep
thinking about her, and I would wake up thinking about her,
and it just hurts so bad, you know, And I
(25:42):
end up in the hole. I mean I did everything
you could think of. I would drink in there, I
would I started getting high just to escape this pain.
And I would try to like run from it. You know,
you can't go far in prison, you know you're in prison.
But whatever I could do to try to escape it,
I would do. And you know, I know what they say,
everywhere you go, there you are. And so I ended
(26:03):
up in the hole, and I'm doing this shoe term
and I'm back there and I'm like, damn, this shit hurts.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
You know. What was it from your homis asking hey,
go check on your mom, and you're saying, I don't
have a mom. That was just the pain speaking. And
you always wanted the mom's love. So when she actually
passed and you weren't able to mourn, that's the thing
that just broke.
Speaker 2 (26:28):
You exactly exactly. It was like, yeah, I was just hurt,
and I didn't mean all the things I had said,
you know, And I guess deep down inside, I felt
like one day we could fix all this, you know,
or maybe one day show change. I remember being a
(26:50):
little kid and I was already you know, gang banging
at the time, but probably like after my cousin died,
maybe like thirteen fourteen years old. I would daydream. I
would daydream like I would when I was, like I
was telling you, I would daydream and I would daydream
about my funeral and I would like picture it, and
(27:12):
I would daydream about like who was going to be there,
and I would picture my mom. I would daydream about
my funeral and I could see my mom like crying
for me, you know. And then I would think to myself, well,
I wonder if I die, if I get smoked, maybe
show change, you know, maybe she'll stop getting high. And
(27:34):
now here I am in the pin, a grown man,
and she's gone, you know, like she was gone on me.
And so I started to reflect. I started to think
about my life. I started to daydream again in a sense,
because I was trying to figure out what was wrong
with me. I thought I was losing my manhood dunk.
(27:55):
I was like, damn, what's wrong with me? Why can't
I not get past this pain? And then I started
to think about my life. I would I would start
to reflect, and I could see myself sitting in front
of a TV and watching sitcoms, watching uh, you know,
like family matters, and I could see myself yearning for
(28:19):
the family that I saw on the television set, you know,
yearning for the mom and the dad and when they
would sit down and eat dinner together, being a little
boy watching the sitcom and just thinking like, wow, I
wish I had that life, you know, and then having
to accept that that was never gonna happen for me,
(28:42):
you know what I mean, And being in prison and
being in the home mind you you know, with no
movement control movement, and having to sit with that. It
was hard. It was tough. And then there's these little,
tiny square mirrors and they're stuck to the to the
all the self. And I remember one day I got
(29:03):
up and I looked at myself. I looked at my
reflection in that little mirror, and I looked myself dead
in the eye and inside of myself. I said to myself,
who the fuck are you, homie? Who are you? How
did you get to this point? You know? And man,
(29:24):
they say that if you ask the right questions, you'll
get the right answers, you know. And I started to
sit with that question and just go back and start
to look at my life. And I wasn't able to
change because I was still in the pan, you know,
to an extent. There was books that I wanted to
read that it's just tough in prison, you know what
I mean, because it's its own thing. It's like a
(29:46):
whole different world.
Speaker 1 (29:47):
So when you ask yourself that question, that small mirror,
and did you answer it?
Speaker 2 (29:52):
I didn't answer it then, but it was the beginning.
And I didn't know it at the time, but it
was the beginning of something different in my life. But
I will say this, and looking back now. It's a trip,
you know, to even it probably isn't even gonna sound crazy,
But my mother did more for me and death than
(30:14):
she was able to do for me in life. Her death,
and I didn't know it at the time, was going
to be the beginning of my life. And I feel
like she sacrificed herself in order to let me live.
You feel me, because I was not going to change, Homie,
(30:35):
I wasn't going to change, and my mom did that
for me. She came through for me. Yeah, I did
the rest of my time. And I didn't even touch it.
(30:55):
I couldn't touch it. I remember I got a letter
in the mail.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
And it was her obituary and I pulled it out
and I looked at it and I put it away.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
I put it in my locker because prison is not
a place for that. It's not We have a certain
culture in there. You know, you can't be vulnerable. You know,
you can't expose any of that because it will demonstrate weakness.
(31:34):
And I lived like that for so long. So you know,
time went by, and just to give you an example,
you know of how it is in there is so
back in the day a while back, ACLU they want
a lawsuit because they were leaving us too long in
(31:55):
the South, you know, with our thoughts and people were
losing it. So they allowed for therapists to walk the
tears in there at a certain time of the day.
And I remember I used to see the therapists. They
would start their walk in a section and I'd be
right there at my cell door and I'll be watching them,
and they would they would walk the tears and they
(32:17):
would stop in front of every cell. I'm like, hey,
how you doing today? You know, if you want to
talk to anybody, I'm here, I'm available, And they were starting.
I'll be inside. I'll be like, damn, man, I wish
I could talk to somebody, you know, about what I'm feeling.
And then they would get to my section, and then
as soon as they would get to my cell door,
be like, hey, how you doing today. I would say,
(32:38):
get the fuck off mysel don't stop here, keep walking.
But inside I felt like, damn, if only I could
talk to somebody, you know. So I did, you know,
my time, and I came home, but this time I
was different. It just wasn't the same anymore. I you
(33:01):
know that that term losing my mom or whatever it was,
it was just one of those things where you just
kind of passed the point of no return, I guess,
you know. So when I came home, I felt like
I wasn't acclimated anymore. Like I just felt like I
didn't fit in out here, you know. And you know,
I'm blessed, so blessed. I was fortunate, I was married,
(33:24):
I had my wife, I had my family, you know,
I have my kids, and but I just did feel
like I fit in, you know. And so my first
thought was like, Okay, get a job, you know what
I mean, get a job, take care of your responsibilities,
and do what you gotta do, you know, checking with parole.
(33:45):
And so I did all that. I found a job.
I was working in a factory and burning and because
of my background, you know, they were they could, you know,
pretty much do whatever they wanted. You know, they can
fire you whenever they want. I even lied on the
application about being convicted of a felony. So I was
walking on thin ice on me, and they what they
(34:07):
would do was they would give me four hours in
one factory and then they'd be like, well, if you
want to get the whole eight, you gotta drive over
here and work in this factory. And I was doing
that as best as I could, and it was just
a lot and at the same time just not feeling
that I like I fit in anymore. Like I just
couldn't get my set, I couldn't get my footing, you know.
(34:28):
So I started South Medican. I would drink, you know
what I mean. I drink on my lunch break just
to try to like level out what I was feeling.
And so I go to work, I come home and
my father in law at the time would like watch me,
you know, to see if I was going to be responsible.
And I was okay with that because I've always been
a hard worker always. And then one day I come
(34:50):
on from work and he has louping on the newspaper.
And it's funny because father Greg says that he never
did this, but I bullshit you. There was a number
to Homeboy Industries and law oping you. And my father
in law has me the paper and he tells me, hey,
you should call them. They can probably help you with
a job. And I got it and look at it, like,
(35:12):
what is this Homeboy Industries? You know? I remember vaguely
hearing about it, or hearing about father gray, but I
didn't really know what they did, you know, So I
called down there and Homie answers, I could tell you
it was a homie And he says, hey, this is
Homeboy Industries. How can I help you? And I said,
I'm looking for a job. Are you guys hiring? And
(35:34):
he says, well, let me ask you a few questions. First,
go okay, He goes, have you ever been locked up before? Question?
Is this? I'm looking for a job and I said yeah,
I just got out. He goes, okay, have you ever
been involved with gangs? And I go again, what kind
(35:55):
of question? Is this? Right? And I said, yeah, Homie,
I'm a gang member. He goes, okay, are you currently
on probation or parole? Like I'm on high control parole? Hommy, Yes,
I'm on parole. Okay. He goes, one last question, do
you have any visible tattoos, like on your face, head, neck,
or hands? And I remember looking at myself and I'm
(36:16):
all tatted up. I used to be all blasted up,
though I got a lot of my tattoos removed, had
tattoos on my face and I remember looking at myself
and I said, yeah, Homie, I'm all tatted up. He goes, Okay,
we'll give you a job. I'm like what I said,
are you messing with me? He goes, Na, we'll give
you a job. Can you come down here today? And
(36:37):
I went. I went down there, and I would love
to say that the rest was history, but it just
it wasn't, you know. I get there and you know,
you don't It looks and big windows in the front,
and you look and sign and you just see gang
members everywhere, you know. And I remember saying to my wife.
I looked in there, and then I looked at my
(36:58):
wife and I said, I don't eat. This place is
for me, you know what I mean. And she was nervous.
She was always just trying to help me, you know.
And so we get in there, and I even told her,
I said, keep the car running, you know what I mean,
because I don't know what this place is. And I'm
(37:19):
filling out the intake for him, and I'm, you know,
observing everybody. I've always been aware of my surroundings, observing everybody.
And I noticed this homie noticed me, and then he's
walking past and he starts to walk towards me. So
I put the clipboard down. You know, and I'm like,
here it is. And he walks up to me and
(37:42):
he extends his hand and he says, Hi, my name
is Mario. I've never seen you before. Would you like
some water or something to drink? And I'm looking at
him like, and I'm thinking to myself, what the fuck
is this place? You know what I mean? Shake his
hand and and I just countless experiences like that, like
(38:03):
tenderness and compassion and kinship, and it really started to
reshape the way that I viewed things that I viewed myself,
like the way that I looked at the world. You know,
These these experiences begin to reshape my heart. And I
started to feel like I do fit in out here,
you know what I mean, Like there is a place
(38:25):
for me out here in the world, in the real world,
you know. And little by little I started to acting
me and I started to understand that, you know, I
did choose the life, but not all choices are created equal, right,
you feel me, and that there was things in my
childhood that impacted me in such a way that led
(38:49):
me down this path, you know what I mean. Yeah,
And it's just so many things I could share with
you in terms of that experience at homeboy, and then.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Thank you for sharing, thank you for your your vulnerability.
You call someone Pops and his name is father, Gregory Boyle.
What was the first time you met him? Because you
didn't really have a dad, like you said, right, you
(39:24):
looked at your mom as both. But what was that
was it?
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Uh?
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Obviously, I mean I don't want to assume anything. My
assumption was that it was foreign. First. I was a
jesuit priest, a white dude, and this guy is like
a walking heart, walking tenderness like you put it. What
was that experience like and how how did that manifest? It?
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Was? Man, when I used to see him, I would
like steer clear of him because I thought he was
like I don't know, I just I didn't think I
was good, you know. I thought I was bad, and
so like I would see him from a distance and
I would watch him, and I would just think, man,
he's so incredible, you know, And and then I would
(40:10):
do everything I could to like avoid him. Like if
I was going somewhere and he happened to be coming
down the hallway, I would like bust a U turn
what were you running?
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Or like avoiding like the unknown?
Speaker 2 (40:22):
I don't know. I think it was like I felt
like I just wasn't good enough to be around him,
you know, hmm, like I wasn't worthy. And so one
day I had so eventually I brought my brother, you know,
to homeboy. I asked Father G, Hey, you know, I
got my brother, my little brother, and I would it
(40:45):
be okay if I brought him by the office, and
G was like, sure, son, you can. We'll hire him,
you know, part time, and then he can go to
school part time and he could be right here with us.
And so I brought my brother. And back then we
didn't have much, you know, so we would share everything.
And I used to tell my brother I still had
(41:05):
a lot of the old teachings, the old ways. I
would tell my brother, don't ask nobody for nothing, and
just don't really connect with anybody. You just got it's
just me and you, and we'll take care of each other.
And so if I had these pants on today, my
brother would have him on tomorrow. I was a lot
of dinner back then, and so we would share clothes.
And one day we'd come in and the homie at
(41:27):
the front desk says a father G wants to talk
to you guys. So I'm thinking, fuck. I look at
my brother, like, what did you do for? You know?
We're gonna be in trouble or something. And we go
into his office and he has these two serious cards
and he tries to hand them to us and we're like, na,
we don't need anything, Pops, We're good, and he's like,
take these cards, son, and go get yourself some clothes.
(41:51):
And he just continued to extend himself to us, even
though we were trying to avoid him, you know, or
I was trying to avoid him, and he was experiences
like that with him that just changed everything for me.
Even with with like me sharing my story, I never
would have done this before. If it wasn't for him,
(42:11):
he would take me out. I remember he took me
to a talk in Fontana. Is the first time I
ever shared my story. And we drive out there together
and right before we get there, he tells me, he goes, hey, Son,
I'm gonna go I'm gonna do my thing. And then
he's like, you're going to go up there and you're
going to share your story For a couple of minutes.
I was like, what I thought? I was just going
for a ride with you. You know, and I told him, Nah, Pobs,
(42:34):
I can't do that because I don't want to. I
don't want to talk about, you know, what I have
been through. I don't want to shame my mother or whatever.
And he's like, nah, Son, you're free her. You know,
you're free yourself. And it's a trip because little by
little with him, you know, allowing me to share my story,
allowing me to have a voice, I begin to heal,
(42:56):
you know. And I guess I would all also say
what really made the relationship that Pop's son was because
he would always call me son, you know, and he
just has this fatherly figure. He's just like naturally, this
fatherly figure. And because I would ask myself that same question,
(43:18):
like what is it? You know? And then I don't know.
You've read Tattoos on the Heart, right, Okay? So I
eventually read the book Tattoos on the Heart and there's
a homie in one of the stories he talks about
the one he takes to J. C. Penny. Do you
remember this? So he takes this homie to jac Penny
to buy clothes and they're standing in line, and this homie,
from what he explains in the book, is that he's
(43:41):
big like me, and he's tatted up, you know, and
he's standing in line and people are looking at him, right,
and so they do their thing. He buys them the
clothes and then he drops them off at home, and
then later on that night he gets a call. Do
you remember this story? He gets a call and it's
the homie and G wakes ubout it to sleep like hello,
(44:02):
and the Oni goes, hey, pops, he goes, or hey, father,
G whatever, and he says, uh, I have a question
for you. He goes, uh, all my life, you've been
like a father to me, right And G says, sure, son,
and he goes, so that must make me if you're
(44:23):
a father to me, that must make me a son
to you, right And Father Great goes, of course, son,
and he goes, okay, then you shall be my father
and I will be your son. And G says that
in that instance, the homie didn't realize that he had
(44:44):
a father. But in that instance, the Homie realized that
he was a son. You feel me. And when I
read that, I thought to myself, that's what it is.
I became a son. I was able to be a son.
And you know, we're born and that's our first role,
either to be a son or to be a daughter, right,
(45:05):
And so if you don't inhabit that first role fully,
it's kind of hard to be anything else, you know
what I mean. So I was able to be a son,
And because I was able to be a son, now
I'm able to be a dad, a brother, you know,
an entrepreneur, vice president, you know whatever. Because I was
(45:27):
able to be a son.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
That's powerful. Can I ask you to finish that story
with Jojo? When you guys got the cards? Yeah, I'm
jumping around, So it's powerful. Yeah, it is our experiences
shape us. So G gives us the cards. We take
the cards reluctantly and we leave. We're going down Alameda
(45:53):
and going back to the teachings that you know, we
we live by, abide it.
Speaker 2 (45:58):
By growing up was to never cry, you know. And
I'm ashamed to say this, but this is what I
would instill in them. I would tell my brothers, don't
ever cry, don't ever ever demonstrate weakness, because if someone
sees that, they'll take advantage of you. So don't cry.
Now Here we are we're leaving Homeboys with these two
(46:20):
serious cards, and we're going down at the Meeta and
I look over at my brother and he's crying, and
I say to him, I go, hey, what's up for?
Why are you crying on me? And he says to me,
why the fuck do they care about us so much?
He couldn't wrap his head around the love that they
(46:42):
were showering us with, you know. And I didn't have
a response for him, but I remember him saying that
it just was another experience that altered my heart. And
if I could have, I would have said, because you're
a work, because you're a good kid, because you're important,
(47:04):
because you matter, because you deserve love, you know. But
that experience that it was just another experience that just
reshaped my heart, you know, and mind. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (47:18):
Well, as the son and father now, I think one
of the greatest things that I get to see and
be a part of and bear witness is you being
the father that g is to you, and and you
(47:38):
providing opportunities for your own children. Even the fact that
Josel's like your daughter, is your executive assistant, and that
she gets to see her dad in a way that
no one else in your family can't because she gets
to come to this and she comes to meetings and
(48:00):
she sets your schedule. And I don't know if you
know this, but you know because when we meet at
the Beato, we'll meet outside for our meetings and just
sells inside. And sometimes I go in there and I
just talk to her.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
You know. Do you know this? No? I don't.
Speaker 1 (48:14):
And I go in there and I just the twinkle
in her eye. Bro, the amount of pride, how proud
she is of her dad to be able to call
you her father, to be able to see you navigating
from the deaths a homeboy to some of the most
(48:34):
influential people, to billionaires and millionaires, and be able like,
oh my god, this is normal for her. And Bro,
there's there's no words to describe going to a friend's
daughter and having her just glow in a way that
we all want to glow, and that you weren't able
(48:55):
to glow when you were her age. And Bro, that's
like the greatest gift that I could aspire, you know.
And then even with jose Junior, your namesake, you know,
we gotta pour more into him, but Bro, he he
just walks around this bravado and coffee.
Speaker 2 (49:15):
You know, he's amazing.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
But he's amazing because he's working as Dad's coffee shop.
Speaker 2 (49:21):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (49:22):
And the thing that I'm the proudest of home at
the Beato And you've heard me say this. It's not
it's not the best coffee experience, it's it's not our
relationship with the farmers. It's actually it's it's all of
that and the fact that the Beetle Coffee is the
(49:43):
first business from Homeboy Industries after thirty years that a
homie who started cleaning toilets, then doing the windows, then
working in the train and being a trainee, and then
working as a director and now being a vice president
(50:04):
and now you're an owner of an amazing coffee company.
And when when folks come in from Homeboy, the homegirls
and the Homeboys, and they see you, Bro, You're a
walking example who they are and what they can do.
And you know I always say this, Bro, like sometimes
I'm like, what am I doing here? And I'm like,
I'm doing this for Jose you know, I'm doing it
(50:26):
for me too, my family, But I'm doing it because
your success is mine and vice versa, and Bro, there's
no one else I would want to be on this
journey with on the coffee side.
Speaker 2 (50:38):
But you same, homie. I feel the same, and I
want to. I want to.
Speaker 1 (50:45):
I want to do something if you would allow me to,
because you are the biggest day dreamer I know, I
know a lot of people. But even when you were
talking about day dreaming as a and then daydreaming in
the cell, you were painting pictures in your mind, right, yeah,
(51:07):
So if you can, if you it would allow me to,
I would ask you just close your eyes.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Okay, I do nothing weird though. Now I'll touch you later.
Speaker 1 (51:20):
I want you to just close your eyes and I
want to just daydream together. I want you to daydream.
I want you to daydream in twenty years from now,
where's Jose Ariona at? What is in your life? Where's
your family?
Speaker 2 (51:39):
You know?
Speaker 1 (51:40):
And more than anything, not only on the manifestation side,
like where you're at and what you're doing, but I
want you to focus on the feeling, like what are
you feeling? And just hold that and then who's around
you and how do they feel? And when you're ready,
(52:19):
just slowly bro open your eyes and I want you
to tell me what you saw.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I don't know how Kim Kardashian ended up next to me.
Just man, just that a great grandfather. You know, all
twenty years is a little but I did envision like
all my children are grown and have children and we're
(52:51):
we're just there. I'm playing with my with my grandchildren, Yeah,
passing stuff down to them, chilling with them. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (53:00):
And how'd you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:01):
I found joy on me? Complete joy?
Speaker 1 (53:06):
And how do the people around you feel joy?
Speaker 2 (53:11):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (53:12):
And I'm grateful because I wanted to know so that
I can help build that with you. Damn joy, joy, love, tenderness, kinship.
Speaker 2 (53:27):
Yeah, I love you, homie. I love you too, do
I am.
Speaker 1 (53:36):
We always close with a with a segment called the
Sacred Five, and uh, it's I just asked five questions
you answer in a word or a sentence, and it's
a way for listeners to get practical things that can
do in their life. So, first question, name three things
(53:57):
that make you feel safe, connected.
Speaker 2 (53:59):
And whole, my family, my home and God?
Speaker 1 (54:09):
What song, book, or prayer brings you back to yourself
the song ancestors song. What's one daily ritual or practice
that grounds you.
Speaker 2 (54:25):
Every morning's program time, I get up, I do a reading,
meditate on it, and send it out. I'm busting down too.
But the first thing that grounds me is that, and
I gotta bust down every day. Yeah, if I don't
do Birderys or something, I fell off. But that prayer,
(54:46):
that prayer though.
Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah, what's one small action listeners can take this week
on their healing journey.
Speaker 2 (54:54):
Just do it, like Nike, whatever it is you're trying
to accomplish, or you're goal, or you're hoping for something
and you've been trying to do that thing, whatever it is,
just do it.
Speaker 1 (55:05):
And last one share a one line blessing her quote
that inspires you.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
My mom used to always say, want some, get some
bad enough take song.
Speaker 1 (55:17):
And that's for away. It's almost like we started with
the mom, all right. She allowed us to have a
deeper connection and she's like, no, dude, we're gonna end
with me.
Speaker 2 (55:29):
I'll give you one more of hers because this is
one of my favorites of hers too. She just say,
can't stop, won't stop.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Yeah, you say that one of the most Actually, you
can't stop, won't stop. So I always end with just
summarizing you know how much you mean to me and
mean to us likewise on and man, yeah, I'm glad
that we have each other because this is an evolving journey.
(56:00):
Not even talking on the business side, I'm talking on
the human side. The business is just an extension of
who we are, just like homeboys, an extension of GE's
heart that beatles extension of our heart. And so my
whole thing is I'm grateful that I have someone that
I could be honest one of a few people can
be completely wrong with each other, because when we don't
(56:20):
have that, that's when the heart gets hardened. Opposite of
what the new lessons or our life are teaching us,
to keep your heart completely open so you can receive
the joy that you are creating and envisioning in your
mind but also in your daily life. So three things
I want to say. One, thank you and your ancestors,
(56:47):
and in particular, thank your mother for giving you life
twice because that second life is changing many lives. The
second thing is that we can become someone's son if
(57:08):
we're open to it. And I just want to say
that you know all the love in the world for
g for having so many sons that always needed a father.
And I've seen you do the same thing. We've been
talking about your biological children, but I know you have
a lot of chosen children and so I want to
(57:30):
honor you for taking not just the lesson but the
action of what G does for you to others. And
the last thing I will just try to reflect back, Bro,
is that you, more than anyone else in my life,
(57:51):
show me that no situation, no matter how desperate, dark, dangerous,
no situation or experience, can determine your fate or the
rest of your life. And that all the different you've
only scratched the surface of your stuff you shared with
(58:11):
me right now, I know so many other things, even
what you shared today or today like most people probably
couldn't handle that, Bro, they would have checked out in
multiple ways. I'll just leave it at that, But you
took that and made it fuel into something so beautiful.
When I walk in the homeboy, everyone talks about G
(58:35):
the biggest g's in my life for like you and
Halfs and Stevie and the people that are walking examples
of what love can do when you on selfishly give.
Because you know, if I love you, then therefore I'm
going to love myself.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
And I hope you know this.
Speaker 1 (58:52):
How worthy and how blessed you are, Bro. You're the
most one and most sacred, sacred man that I know
and you make me a better person just by being
proximate to you. And you've taught me just always stay
proximate to the least of us because they are the
best of us. So I love you and I think
(59:13):
you bro love you to them. Yeah, thank you. Sacred
Lessons is a production my Heart's Michael through it our
podcast network, Sacred Lessons Media, and the Prince Group. For
more of your favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.