January 10, 2023 • 30 mins
What does it mean to be Brown Enough in America today? That's a question Dominican-Colombian-American actor, storyteller, and podcaster Christopher Rivas has been navigating his whole life. Listen to this special episode of Brown Enough as Chris discusses the question "What are you?" with journalist and cartoonist Malaka Gharib. Brown Enough is the stories between Black and white. Listen to these stories every Wednesday on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or wherever you listen.
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Push it. Hey, Ben, Hey, we are bringing our listeners
something really special today. Do you remember earlier this year
when we talked to Christopher vas about the real James
Bond named Portfideo Rubiosa. Of course I remember that was amazing,
What a great conversation episode. As well. Chris has his
(00:37):
own podcast called brown Enough, where he breaks down what
it means to be brown enough in America today. I've
been listening to that podcast and he discusses identity, careers
and being proud of who you are with other brown activists,
creators and change makers. We think our listeners will really
like it. So we're sharing right here one of our
(00:58):
favorite episodes, and it's about that question what are you? Yeah?
What are you? If you like? What are you? If
you like what you're hearing? You can listen to brown
Enough right now, Stitch or Apple Podcasts or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. I am an artist and a
writer and a cartoonist. This is Molica Garb. If her
(01:21):
voice sounds familiar, that's probably because you've heard her on MPR,
where she reports on things like the refugee crisis, gender equality,
and women's health. And when she's not doing that she
is drawing up a storm. It took me a long
time to admit to myself that I was an artist.
But I just felt like as a kind of person
who needed to sort things out by writing or drawing,
(01:43):
sort my emotions out. And I think that that is
my true calling. And after spending years carrying a diary
in her backpack where she wrote and doodled her feelings out,
she finally answered her calling to become an artist. She
just published a graphic memoir called It Won't Always Be
Like This. It's sort of a follow up story to
her first book, I Was There, American Dream And with
(02:06):
a title like that, you know I needed to hear more.
In this book, filled with red, white and blue colors,
Molica shares her story about growing up as a first
generation Filipino Egyptian American and trying to sort out her
identity in the pre Internet world before tweets, selfies, TikTok videos,
(02:27):
and Instagram posts were a thing. We're talking about a
time when teens were heavenly influenced by pop culture. I'm
talking about like when Sean Combs became p Diddy, or
when Dawson from Dawson's Creek was every girl's illusion of
love or when mean girls was a sort of actual
reflection of what clicks and high schools were like. You know,
the pop rockers, skaters, jocks, geeks. I wonder what new
(02:49):
clicks they have these days. Anyway, Molica and I share
the experience of having immigrant parents, and this graphic memoir
is a tribute to families like ours who came to
the US and tried to achieve this so called American dream.
Today we are talking to Molica about her journey of
own her artistry, navigating between three cultures and two religions,
(03:13):
and that sticky, sticky question we have all heard before,
what arguing I'm Christopher Reevas and this is brown enough
stories between black and white? Here we go. I have
(03:45):
this true admiration and love for artists, y'all. I think
what we contribute to society gives us a better understanding
of the world. And so I was surprised when I
heard Molika say it took her some time to own
that title of artists. Why did it take you so long?
Because in my opinion, artists are like the most valuable
parts of a society. You know, when a coup happens,
(04:06):
they try and killed like the doctors of the lawyers
in the art. So what took you so long to
love that? I think I tried to fit the mold
that my parents wanted me to sort of fit in,
and that was, you need to do well in school,
you need to graduate and do this big important thing
working for a big important brand. And my aunt once
(04:29):
told me about how in life everybody has a calling
and it's not necessarily the work that you do on
an everyday basis. It's about it's a thing that drives you.
It's your emo, it's your modus operandi. I'd always been
thinking about what that calling was for me, and it
sort of clicked one day when I realized that I
just kept a diary all the time, a notebook all
(04:51):
the time in my bag in my twenties, and if
anything that I saw that was happening to me, if
I was angry, if I was sad, and I remember
one day I drew a notebook doodle while I was
riding the bus that said, gosh, I can't wait to
write about this in my diary when I get home,
because I had had bad day. And I realized that
that's what artists do they mean they need to make
(05:14):
things in order to understand the way the world works.
And it was a really late realization for me. I
only started cartooning in the past, you know, since I
was thirty and I'm now thirty six, but had always
been sort of a casual doodler. And once I realized
that I was, like, it just clicked and things started
moving for me professionally in my creative life. Molica turned
(05:37):
her casual doodles in scribbles into cartoons with story arcs.
Her comics have now been featured in places like The
New York Times, the New Yorker, and you can also
find them on MPR's website, like a recent one she
did that I love called how to Stay Cool Without
an Air Conditioner. They're really quite delightful and fun no
matter who she's making comics for, though, Molicica is always
(05:59):
taking inspiration from her own life. When she was growing up,
that life was pretty unique thanks to her parents very
diverse backgrounds. Your dad is from Egypt, your mom's from
the Philippines. They both seemed very incredible in their own right.
(06:19):
My mom this is before the me too area, obviously,
but my mom was my dad's secretary. My dad was
a general manager of a hotel in downtown La Or
I think it was in Hollywood. My dad asked her
out for a date and they went to go see
like some Indiana Jones movie. That was it. They got
married after six months, and they spoke English at home, obviously,
(06:40):
because my dad is a native Arabic speaker and my
mom's a native Tagalog speaker. And you know, the marriage
didn't last. They obviously had a lot of cultural differences.
And you know, I'm really glad that it didn't work out,
because I got some really awesome siblings in their following marriages.
But they're still really good friends. So they come from
very different cultures, as you just said, and it didn't
(07:02):
work out. But what did they have in common? That's
a really, really good question that I've never considered before. Gosh,
what do they have in common? I think they both
really loved traveling. They had sort of set it up
where my mom would be working for an airline and
my dad worked for hotels, so for a while when
they were married, they would travel around everywhere for free.
(07:24):
So they both loved that. They're both very funny people.
My dad has a great sense of humor, and my
mom is hilarious. She's very sharp. They're both very smart.
I think that they're both news junkies in a way.
I think my mom corrects me on my own news knowledge,
especially when it comes to celebrity news, and so does
my dad, So they both liked to keep up on things.
(07:47):
In twenty nineteen, you came out with your first graphic novel.
I was their American dream. Who is they? They is
my parents and my family who supported me and raised
me as a young person and still do today. What
do you think their dream was. I think their dream
for me, like many immigrant parents of their generation who
(08:12):
came to the United States, was that they wanted a
child who could assimilate well into the United States, who
would get the best education, go to the best colleges,
have the best career opportunities, and sort of skip what
they had to struggle with trying to adapt in America.
Because I was naturally and perfectly American, I would just
(08:35):
slide right into perfection of the American dream of owning
a home and everything. And I think one of the
biggest things that my parents said, well, my dad said this,
He said, I just didn't know that you had your
own set of struggles being of, you know, second generation American.
I thought that once we came here, like things would
be perfect for you and great, And I was like,
(09:00):
you didn't anticipate that I would have identity issues. He
had always said to me, like, you have an American passport,
you're American, and it's like you can say that all
you want, but I don't really believe those words, like
unless you I don't know. I felt like I had
to do the work to actually believe those words, emotional work.
If you could define assimilation in like a sentence, what
(09:24):
would it be, well, I think in the olden days,
when I was a kid in high school, assimilating meant
shedding all aspects of my cultural identity, my Filipino noess
and Egyptian noss and sort of and sort of taking
on and being quote unquote white, which was what I
(09:47):
equated with American. And once I could achieve passing as white,
then I would be fully assimilated. And now I don't
think that's true at all. Obviously. I think that's a
very warped and horrible way of viewing what assimilation means.
(10:07):
I think it's being really comfortable in your own cultural skin,
like your own being really comfortable in who I am
as a Filipino and Egyptian, and understanding the important role
that my presence in America plays to this society, and
feeling an immense sense of belonging in my own skin.
(10:31):
And I think, in my today's definition, when I think
about my own parents, I think about these are twenty
year old kids, children with children who came from not
much and decided to give their children something. And I
believe that sometimes what we call assimilation is often just survival.
Trying to give my child opportunity and trying to invest
(10:53):
in the American dream, which is really just the story
of mobility. And whatever I have to do to receive
a check in order to make that happen, often from
white employers, is what I am going to do or
teach or facilitate. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean I remember,
(11:14):
I mean, I remember I was taught that, you know,
from my parents and family. I mean, um, one of
the biggest I mean, I wrote this about this in
my book. I was their American Dream. But you know,
my uncle Titomorrow Tito means uncle Intagalog. You know, he
told me that I was so lucky for going to
a white school, like predominantly white school like Syracuse, where
(11:38):
I could really learn from the white people and I
would get this first this first class, you know, look
at an examination. I could at this first class front
row seat into into white people and to really observe
their manner of dress and how they ate with a
(11:59):
fork and a knife, and how they introduced themselves. And
you know, it just makes me sad thinking about it.
That was telling me to carry myself with the confidence
of a mediocre white man. Did you really say that
to you? Yeah? Or me knowing as a child to
be on the subway, like looking at the Wall Street boys,
(12:19):
because I would take the sixth down to Wall Street.
I had like a little job down there, and I
would go from the Upper East Side to Wall Street
and I would watch these these these men, often white men,
who seem to not have a worry in the world,
and I would study them, study that would study absolutely.
(12:40):
I would absolutely study them too. And you know what
I hate is that when I did graduate, you know,
my family was right to some extent, right, there is
a code, there's like some code that I didn't learn
from them, But I learned from observing of how to
be and how to act in a predominantly white space,
(13:03):
A lot of confidence when you introduced yourself. You know,
in Filipino culture you're very deferential and very very gentle
when you enter a space. You don't want to make
too much draw too much attention to yourself you have
you don't in American culture. The early bird catches the worm.
The loudest duck, you know, you know, makes moves, and
(13:25):
that's not how how Filipinos exert or sort of show
their power. So in reading your book, I was fascinated
by what felt like heavy diversity in your high school.
Can you tell me about city those, California. Yeah, it
was such a great place to grow up. So Cerritos
is south of la It was a predominantly Asian and
(13:49):
Hispanic community. A lot of Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese people, a
lot of Mexican people, a lot of Portuguese people, and
there were a few black and white people, maybe almost equal,
I would say. And a lot of the leadership in
Cerritos were Asian, which was pretty cool. Our mayor have
been Asian when I was growing up. People who worked
(14:12):
at the library, you could see that they were Asian
and Hispanic, like, it was very diverse all around. Yeah, all,
I gotta say, said, ETOs reminds me of my own hometown, Queens,
New York. I was very fortunate to grow up around
so much diversity. Queens is the melting pot, y'all. If
(14:33):
you take the seven train down Roosevelt Avenue, you will
get a taste of just about everything. Warm Colombian pastry,
spicy Indian curry, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, Italian ICs. I
could go on and make a menu, but we don't
have time for that. Did you know that that was
an amazing thing then? No? I mean now, looking back, like,
(14:53):
I feel like it's freaking amazing. I wrote about this
in the La Times and like a comic op ed
about how I reminisced with my high school friends. Dude,
why didn't we ever talk about how amazing it was
to grow up in a place like Cerritos when we
were in high school? And we talked about how conversation
around race has changed so much in the past few decades,
(15:13):
and we were able to sort of reflect on that
a little bit in that piece. But one of the
things that was really cool about it was that there
was this like cultural exchange and this profound sensitivity around
other people's cultures. Now, going back to Queens again, if
you find yourself in Jackson Heights where you have Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian,
(15:35):
or Mexican communities, there's an understanding between them and respect.
The district embraces and celebrates each country with gratitude. So
I was struck when I got to her chapter about
the most important question in her high school what are you?
What did it mean to you back then in high school?
And how is it evolved? Okay, to be real, what
(15:58):
are you? Question really almost was like social currency, right,
Like there was a hierarchy of Asians, which I'm sure
you've heard about the hierarchy of Asians. I've heard about it,
but tell others have not, Okay, So, like the hierarchy
of Asians was this horrible thing that I'd learned in
high school. And I hope that others like, I mean,
(16:19):
this is awful, And I just knew that Filipinos like
myself or at the bottom of the hierarchy of Asians.
But um, so it was like all the East Asians
at the top, like the Japanese, then like Chinese and Korean,
and then like all the brown Asians, like if you
were Vietnamese or from Laos or Cambodia, you know, you
were sort of at the bottom. And I think that
(16:40):
that was also like some weird people could be like, oh, okay,
so you're Filipino. Okay. And it's also like a way
of like a lot of people in school was still
pretty segregated. So if you were Korean, you would be
hanging out likely with a bunch of other Korean girls.
If you were Mexican American into hot topic, like you
(17:01):
had your own group. If you were Chinese and love
like magic the gathering, like you were in your own subgroup.
I I think that it was a understanding what your
culture was because I think that there was a high
level of sensitivity for that, but also be understanding where okay,
so what's your social standing in the list of like
(17:24):
cool races, which is also horrible. So for example, like
Portuguese guys at Cerrito's high school were considered the quote
unquote whitest guys, and being like a white Portuguese guy
was like better than being like a white Hispanic guy.
This is look I'm only repeating things that are that
was from high school. Please don't crucify me for this
(17:45):
on Twitter. I'm just saying what we believe back then. Horrible. Seriously, y'all,
don't crucify Milico on Twitter. She's sharing her high school experience,
one that I can also relate to. I'm back home
in New York. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans were at the
top of the hierarchy, and maybe because we got the
(18:06):
biggest parades, we earned some extra points. All right, y'all,
We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,
Molica is going to tell us how that what are
you question changed when she went to college. Yo, we
(18:36):
are back with journalist and cartoonist Malica Gharib. When you
get to college, you realize no one's asking this question,
and you sort of miss being asked it. Correct. Yeah,
I did. I was around a lot of white people,
a lot of white students and friends, and it just
seemed like a very very awkward thing to broach. People
(18:56):
didn't know how to talk about it. I found it
a very crucial point for me to mention that I
was Filipino and Egyptian. It seemed very important to share
or disclose as part of If they really wanted to
know who I was, then they should also understand these
aspects of myself. But it felt like that time and
(19:17):
the moment never really came up, and it was always
like a little awkward because I think they just didn't
want to address it at all, because they didn't know,
they didn't want to say anything quote unquote racist. So
only after my book came out, I was their American dream.
I had a lot of college friends coming back to
me and saying like, I'm so sorry. I never like
(19:39):
asked you about like your culture or like things that
you like doing at home with your family, or you know.
I had a lot of like subtle racist things being
told to me by friends. Had a roommate once who
my mom shipped this plastic container of I think it
was like caldaretta, which is like some beef stew, and
she would always comment every day about how the fridge
(20:01):
smelled so intense and anyway, I was like, I just
wish that we could have had more open conversations about race,
but nobody know how talk about it. Then. You know,
that was like two thousand four. I mean people are
still struggling to talk about it now. Yeah, please do
some enlightening for us, because I think the world still
struggles with this. What is another less rude way to say?
(20:23):
What are you? Um? How do you identify? And I
think that for a lot of people that that opens
up a lot. Everyone could be asked that question. We
have to ask that now at work for a diversity
questionnaire with every source that we interview, and it's an
open ended question and people could answer it in any
way they like. It's a question for everybody. You mentioned
(20:45):
your uncle Tito earlier, and in the book you talk
about him a lot. He told you about the real world.
He said there will be expectations on you as a
brown woman and that you needed to learn them. Was
your uncle Tito right? Yeah he was, And that's um
tit tomorrow to you. That's right, my bad. He was
absolutely right, it was. It was shockingly accurate. I think
(21:09):
that one of the first places I worked was a
corporate ad agency and I highly observed, you know, how
other people dressed collared shirts. I came from like a
punk style in la where people were very casual and
laid back and had surfer style and that kind of thing,
(21:29):
and I just had sort of had to adapt to
that environment. I once was invited to a dinner with
like a professor and another colleague of his and some students,
and like we were eating at a fancy dinner table
with like lots of forks and knives, and I had
to like I literally had like a movie moment where
I was like, um, I'll ordered the chicken extra rare,
(21:50):
like you know what I mean. Like, I just like
didn't know what to do, so I just like copied
whatever my other white classmates were doing. But lots of
little moments like that, learning how to pronounce things. I
once said prove it proven instead of proven in a
meeting and got laughed at and I was like, all right,
there's like a way that I have to be, which sucks.
(22:10):
But I had to put on my white voice. That
was way back in the day. I just wanted to
preface it with that that was a long time ago.
I do not do that anymore. Do you have your
book on you by chance? Yeah? Can you read us
page forty seven? Yeah? Of course. I wish that I
(22:30):
could have smushed them all together into one faith. So
for most of my childhood I did dear God and
the Virgin Mary, but sorry, not you Jesus. Please let
me get the good grade on my quiz tomorrow, and
don't let me get in trouble at math class. Please
watch over Mom and Dad and mimminentti tomorrow and nanayantatai Amen,
I mean a mean how Muslims say? Amen? Can you
(22:54):
imagine being in these two worlds? Catholics have Jesus and
Adam and Eve, Muslims have Mohammed. Catholics celebrate Christmas and
Muslims do not. Catholics can eat just about everything, but
Muslims can't eat pork. As complicated as it seemed, Monica
always honored and respected what her parents taught her to
believe in. Both my mom and dad were very religious.
(23:20):
I mean not like fanatically religious, but they were certainly
like you know, my mom had a statue of the
Virgin Mary in her bedroom and believed in that one day,
you know, the Virgin Mary had appeared to her. And
my father did go to the mosque every Friday. So
I understood from the jump that my parents religion was
deeply important to them, and therefore I should respect that.
(23:44):
And by respecting that, as a young person. You sort
of are instilled with this code of conduct. And for
me that was you know, if my mom asked me
to go to church with her, I would go. If
she wanted me to go to Catholic school, I was
obedient and I said yes. I went through Confirmation and
Communion and all of it, and with my dad. My
(24:04):
dad really wanted me to memorize suras, which is like
the prayers from the Koran, and one how to pray,
you know, dress conservatively when I was around him, and
just in Egypt in general, and you know, not eat
pork and things like that. What are your favorite things
you learn from both religions? You know, I really like
the pomp and circumstance of Catholicism, Like I love the
(24:26):
big churches and cathedrals. I love the music, the choral music.
I love that everything is very somber and serious, and
you really feel a great and overpowering sense of reverence
and awe to a God above you. And I find
real comfort in knowing that there's you know, the Virgin Mary,
(24:49):
a woman figure is there is very maternal figure that
you don't see in many other religions but play such
an important role in Catholicism and Islam. I also love
that the text never changed, the Quran never changed. And
so when you're learning suras, when you're saying the Fatah,
you know you're really learning something that you're learning, you're
(25:12):
reciting something that people for hundreds and hundreds of years
have recited. And that's also very powerful for me. Do
you practice or continue to practice either of these religious
aspects or components? No, I think that I one of
the things that's been hard to understand or like put
(25:33):
together in my head is that like in Islam, like
Jesus is not God, but in Catholicism, Jesus as God.
So I've had to sort of in my mind be like, Okay,
I believe in God, but I don't believe in Jesus.
But I definitely love the Virgin Mary because she's cool.
So like I have some kind of like hybrid religion
in my head. I don't practice any of the elements
(25:54):
of both Catholicism and Islam. Like I haven't gone to
a mosque, I haven't like prayed in the Muslim sense
and ages. And I do, however, sometimes go into pop
into a Catholic church and like light a candle and
say a prayer every now and then, But I would
hardly call that being Catholic. If someone asked me how
(26:16):
I identify lately, you know, part of my journey is
I just say brown. You know, I'm just a brown man.
We can get into the into the nuances of being
half Dominican, half Colombian, Afro Latino, but mainly I choose brown.
Do you use brown in the book? Do you relate?
What is brownness to you? I have changed, my thought
(26:39):
has changed a lot over the past couple of years.
Even it's also fluids similar to you, and I think
that's really interesting and important to talk about. When I
was writing the book, I use the word brown to
express solidarity with fellow people of color who were going
through the same identity crisis that I was going through,
and who we're also on a path of understanding who
(27:01):
they are, understanding their cultural identities and going on there all.
I call it their like wokeness journey right like into yourself.
I don't know why I call it that, because I
felt like I had suddenly been decolonized at like age
twenty eight, and then like I radicalized quickly after that.
But one thing that I recently have thought about. Was
(27:24):
that saying who you are as a person, what your
cultural identity, is so freaking radical in and of itself.
Why should I have spent decades trying to hide that
I am Filipino, an Egyptian, and in favor of whiteness.
So why now should I have to hide and say
(27:45):
that I am not those things? This time, now, more
than ever, I want to freaking scream it from the rooftops.
This is what an Egyptian Filipino looks like with a
Muslim dad and a Catholic mom. And if that's new
for you, then that sucks. But you should wake up
(28:07):
and realize that a lot of people around you are
different things. Embrace who you are, folks. What is rooted
in our veins is what makes us special. And if
you are lucky enough, like Molica to be living in
these two different worlds filled with so much color and
life and more power to you. Molica just released her
(28:29):
second graphic novel called It Won't Always Be Like This,
So go and get your copy today. You won't be disappointed. Y'all.
We want to hear from you, so please get in touch. Specifically,
we are looking for your stories about your names. Do
you have a name that's unique, one that's hard for
others to say? Do you have a funny story in
(28:51):
origin story? What do you think is special or beautiful
about your name? Let us know. Send us an email
or a voice memo to brown Enough at stitcher dot com. Again,
that's brown Enough at Stitcher dot com. You could wind
up on a future episode brown And as a production
of Stitcher. It's created and hosted by me Christopher Reevas,
(29:13):
and I'm also an executive producer. Our team includes producer
Manolo Morales, Senior producer Abigail Keel, Technical director Casey Holford,
Production assistant Gabrielle Gladney, and executive producer Camille Stanley. Original
music by Casey Holford. Special thanks to Brendan Burns. Workhouse
Media is a contributing producer to this podcast. Carlos I
(29:35):
Hernandez of Ekey Guy Management is also an executive producer
of Brown Enough and don't forget to subscribe y'all or
follow brown Enough so you never miss an episode. And
if you got a minute, leave us a review a
nice one. It goes a long way. Thanks witness Stocks
(30:01):
from Stitcher. We hope you enjoyed that preview of Brown
Enough with Chris stepher reav Us. Listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to
follow brown Enough so you don't miss an episode
Push it. Hey, Ben, Hey, we are bringing our listeners
something really special today. Do you remember earlier this year
when we talked to Christopher vas about the real James
Bond named Portfideo Rubiosa. Of course I remember that was amazing,
What a great conversation episode. As well. Chris has his
(00:37):
own podcast called brown Enough, where he breaks down what
it means to be brown enough in America today. I've
been listening to that podcast and he discusses identity, careers
and being proud of who you are with other brown activists,
creators and change makers. We think our listeners will really
like it. So we're sharing right here one of our
(00:58):
favorite episodes, and it's about that question what are you? Yeah?
What are you? If you like? What are you? If
you like what you're hearing? You can listen to brown
Enough right now, Stitch or Apple Podcasts or wherever you
listen to your podcasts. I am an artist and a
writer and a cartoonist. This is Molica Garb. If her
(01:21):
voice sounds familiar, that's probably because you've heard her on MPR,
where she reports on things like the refugee crisis, gender equality,
and women's health. And when she's not doing that she
is drawing up a storm. It took me a long
time to admit to myself that I was an artist.
But I just felt like as a kind of person
who needed to sort things out by writing or drawing,
(01:43):
sort my emotions out. And I think that that is
my true calling. And after spending years carrying a diary
in her backpack where she wrote and doodled her feelings out,
she finally answered her calling to become an artist. She
just published a graphic memoir called It Won't Always Be
Like This. It's sort of a follow up story to
her first book, I Was There, American Dream And with
(02:06):
a title like that, you know I needed to hear more.
In this book, filled with red, white and blue colors,
Molica shares her story about growing up as a first
generation Filipino Egyptian American and trying to sort out her
identity in the pre Internet world before tweets, selfies, TikTok videos,
(02:27):
and Instagram posts were a thing. We're talking about a
time when teens were heavenly influenced by pop culture. I'm
talking about like when Sean Combs became p Diddy, or
when Dawson from Dawson's Creek was every girl's illusion of
love or when mean girls was a sort of actual
reflection of what clicks and high schools were like. You know,
the pop rockers, skaters, jocks, geeks. I wonder what new
(02:49):
clicks they have these days. Anyway, Molica and I share
the experience of having immigrant parents, and this graphic memoir
is a tribute to families like ours who came to
the US and tried to achieve this so called American dream.
Today we are talking to Molica about her journey of
own her artistry, navigating between three cultures and two religions,
(03:13):
and that sticky, sticky question we have all heard before,
what arguing I'm Christopher Reevas and this is brown enough
stories between black and white? Here we go. I have
(03:45):
this true admiration and love for artists, y'all. I think
what we contribute to society gives us a better understanding
of the world. And so I was surprised when I
heard Molika say it took her some time to own
that title of artists. Why did it take you so long?
Because in my opinion, artists are like the most valuable
parts of a society. You know, when a coup happens,
(04:06):
they try and killed like the doctors of the lawyers
in the art. So what took you so long to
love that? I think I tried to fit the mold
that my parents wanted me to sort of fit in,
and that was, you need to do well in school,
you need to graduate and do this big important thing
working for a big important brand. And my aunt once
(04:29):
told me about how in life everybody has a calling
and it's not necessarily the work that you do on
an everyday basis. It's about it's a thing that drives you.
It's your emo, it's your modus operandi. I'd always been
thinking about what that calling was for me, and it
sort of clicked one day when I realized that I
just kept a diary all the time, a notebook all
(04:51):
the time in my bag in my twenties, and if
anything that I saw that was happening to me, if
I was angry, if I was sad, and I remember
one day I drew a notebook doodle while I was
riding the bus that said, gosh, I can't wait to
write about this in my diary when I get home,
because I had had bad day. And I realized that
that's what artists do they mean they need to make
(05:14):
things in order to understand the way the world works.
And it was a really late realization for me. I
only started cartooning in the past, you know, since I
was thirty and I'm now thirty six, but had always
been sort of a casual doodler. And once I realized
that I was, like, it just clicked and things started
moving for me professionally in my creative life. Molica turned
(05:37):
her casual doodles in scribbles into cartoons with story arcs.
Her comics have now been featured in places like The
New York Times, the New Yorker, and you can also
find them on MPR's website, like a recent one she
did that I love called how to Stay Cool Without
an Air Conditioner. They're really quite delightful and fun no
matter who she's making comics for, though, Molicica is always
(05:59):
taking inspiration from her own life. When she was growing up,
that life was pretty unique thanks to her parents very
diverse backgrounds. Your dad is from Egypt, your mom's from
the Philippines. They both seemed very incredible in their own right.
(06:19):
My mom this is before the me too area, obviously,
but my mom was my dad's secretary. My dad was
a general manager of a hotel in downtown La Or
I think it was in Hollywood. My dad asked her
out for a date and they went to go see
like some Indiana Jones movie. That was it. They got
married after six months, and they spoke English at home, obviously,
(06:40):
because my dad is a native Arabic speaker and my
mom's a native Tagalog speaker. And you know, the marriage
didn't last. They obviously had a lot of cultural differences.
And you know, I'm really glad that it didn't work out,
because I got some really awesome siblings in their following marriages.
But they're still really good friends. So they come from
very different cultures, as you just said, and it didn't
(07:02):
work out. But what did they have in common? That's
a really, really good question that I've never considered before. Gosh,
what do they have in common? I think they both
really loved traveling. They had sort of set it up
where my mom would be working for an airline and
my dad worked for hotels, so for a while when
they were married, they would travel around everywhere for free.
(07:24):
So they both loved that. They're both very funny people.
My dad has a great sense of humor, and my
mom is hilarious. She's very sharp. They're both very smart.
I think that they're both news junkies in a way.
I think my mom corrects me on my own news knowledge,
especially when it comes to celebrity news, and so does
my dad, So they both liked to keep up on things.
(07:47):
In twenty nineteen, you came out with your first graphic novel.
I was their American dream. Who is they? They is
my parents and my family who supported me and raised
me as a young person and still do today. What
do you think their dream was. I think their dream
for me, like many immigrant parents of their generation who
(08:12):
came to the United States, was that they wanted a
child who could assimilate well into the United States, who
would get the best education, go to the best colleges,
have the best career opportunities, and sort of skip what
they had to struggle with trying to adapt in America.
Because I was naturally and perfectly American, I would just
(08:35):
slide right into perfection of the American dream of owning
a home and everything. And I think one of the
biggest things that my parents said, well, my dad said this,
He said, I just didn't know that you had your
own set of struggles being of, you know, second generation American.
I thought that once we came here, like things would
be perfect for you and great, And I was like,
(09:00):
you didn't anticipate that I would have identity issues. He
had always said to me, like, you have an American passport,
you're American, and it's like you can say that all
you want, but I don't really believe those words, like
unless you I don't know. I felt like I had
to do the work to actually believe those words, emotional work.
If you could define assimilation in like a sentence, what
(09:24):
would it be, well, I think in the olden days,
when I was a kid in high school, assimilating meant
shedding all aspects of my cultural identity, my Filipino noess
and Egyptian noss and sort of and sort of taking
on and being quote unquote white, which was what I
(09:47):
equated with American. And once I could achieve passing as white,
then I would be fully assimilated. And now I don't
think that's true at all. Obviously. I think that's a
very warped and horrible way of viewing what assimilation means.
(10:07):
I think it's being really comfortable in your own cultural skin,
like your own being really comfortable in who I am
as a Filipino and Egyptian, and understanding the important role
that my presence in America plays to this society, and
feeling an immense sense of belonging in my own skin.
(10:31):
And I think, in my today's definition, when I think
about my own parents, I think about these are twenty
year old kids, children with children who came from not
much and decided to give their children something. And I
believe that sometimes what we call assimilation is often just survival.
Trying to give my child opportunity and trying to invest
(10:53):
in the American dream, which is really just the story
of mobility. And whatever I have to do to receive
a check in order to make that happen, often from
white employers, is what I am going to do or
teach or facilitate. Yeah, that's really interesting. I mean I remember,
(11:14):
I mean, I remember I was taught that, you know,
from my parents and family. I mean, um, one of
the biggest I mean, I wrote this about this in
my book. I was their American Dream. But you know,
my uncle Titomorrow Tito means uncle Intagalog. You know, he
told me that I was so lucky for going to
a white school, like predominantly white school like Syracuse, where
(11:38):
I could really learn from the white people and I
would get this first this first class, you know, look
at an examination. I could at this first class front
row seat into into white people and to really observe
their manner of dress and how they ate with a
(11:59):
fork and a knife, and how they introduced themselves. And
you know, it just makes me sad thinking about it.
That was telling me to carry myself with the confidence
of a mediocre white man. Did you really say that
to you? Yeah? Or me knowing as a child to
be on the subway, like looking at the Wall Street boys,
(12:19):
because I would take the sixth down to Wall Street.
I had like a little job down there, and I
would go from the Upper East Side to Wall Street
and I would watch these these these men, often white men,
who seem to not have a worry in the world,
and I would study them, study that would study absolutely.
(12:40):
I would absolutely study them too. And you know what
I hate is that when I did graduate, you know,
my family was right to some extent, right, there is
a code, there's like some code that I didn't learn
from them, But I learned from observing of how to
be and how to act in a predominantly white space,
(13:03):
A lot of confidence when you introduced yourself. You know,
in Filipino culture you're very deferential and very very gentle
when you enter a space. You don't want to make
too much draw too much attention to yourself you have
you don't in American culture. The early bird catches the worm.
The loudest duck, you know, you know, makes moves, and
(13:25):
that's not how how Filipinos exert or sort of show
their power. So in reading your book, I was fascinated
by what felt like heavy diversity in your high school.
Can you tell me about city those, California. Yeah, it
was such a great place to grow up. So Cerritos
is south of la It was a predominantly Asian and
(13:49):
Hispanic community. A lot of Filipinos, Koreans, Chinese people, a
lot of Mexican people, a lot of Portuguese people, and
there were a few black and white people, maybe almost equal,
I would say. And a lot of the leadership in
Cerritos were Asian, which was pretty cool. Our mayor have
been Asian when I was growing up. People who worked
(14:12):
at the library, you could see that they were Asian
and Hispanic, like, it was very diverse all around. Yeah, all,
I gotta say, said, ETOs reminds me of my own hometown, Queens,
New York. I was very fortunate to grow up around
so much diversity. Queens is the melting pot, y'all. If
(14:33):
you take the seven train down Roosevelt Avenue, you will
get a taste of just about everything. Warm Colombian pastry,
spicy Indian curry, Mexican tacos, Italian pasta, Italian ICs. I
could go on and make a menu, but we don't
have time for that. Did you know that that was
an amazing thing then? No? I mean now, looking back, like,
(14:53):
I feel like it's freaking amazing. I wrote about this
in the La Times and like a comic op ed
about how I reminisced with my high school friends. Dude,
why didn't we ever talk about how amazing it was
to grow up in a place like Cerritos when we
were in high school? And we talked about how conversation
around race has changed so much in the past few decades,
(15:13):
and we were able to sort of reflect on that
a little bit in that piece. But one of the
things that was really cool about it was that there
was this like cultural exchange and this profound sensitivity around
other people's cultures. Now, going back to Queens again, if
you find yourself in Jackson Heights where you have Colombian, Dominican, Ecuadorian,
(15:35):
or Mexican communities, there's an understanding between them and respect.
The district embraces and celebrates each country with gratitude. So
I was struck when I got to her chapter about
the most important question in her high school what are you?
What did it mean to you back then in high school?
And how is it evolved? Okay, to be real, what
(15:58):
are you? Question really almost was like social currency, right,
Like there was a hierarchy of Asians, which I'm sure
you've heard about the hierarchy of Asians. I've heard about it,
but tell others have not, Okay, So, like the hierarchy
of Asians was this horrible thing that I'd learned in
high school. And I hope that others like, I mean,
(16:19):
this is awful, And I just knew that Filipinos like
myself or at the bottom of the hierarchy of Asians.
But um, so it was like all the East Asians
at the top, like the Japanese, then like Chinese and Korean,
and then like all the brown Asians, like if you
were Vietnamese or from Laos or Cambodia, you know, you
were sort of at the bottom. And I think that
(16:40):
that was also like some weird people could be like, oh, okay,
so you're Filipino. Okay. And it's also like a way
of like a lot of people in school was still
pretty segregated. So if you were Korean, you would be
hanging out likely with a bunch of other Korean girls.
If you were Mexican American into hot topic, like you
(17:01):
had your own group. If you were Chinese and love
like magic the gathering, like you were in your own subgroup.
I I think that it was a understanding what your
culture was because I think that there was a high
level of sensitivity for that, but also be understanding where okay,
so what's your social standing in the list of like
(17:24):
cool races, which is also horrible. So for example, like
Portuguese guys at Cerrito's high school were considered the quote
unquote whitest guys, and being like a white Portuguese guy
was like better than being like a white Hispanic guy.
This is look I'm only repeating things that are that
was from high school. Please don't crucify me for this
(17:45):
on Twitter. I'm just saying what we believe back then. Horrible. Seriously, y'all,
don't crucify Milico on Twitter. She's sharing her high school experience,
one that I can also relate to. I'm back home
in New York. Dominicans and Puerto Ricans were at the
top of the hierarchy, and maybe because we got the
(18:06):
biggest parades, we earned some extra points. All right, y'all,
We're gonna take a quick break, and when we come back,
Molica is going to tell us how that what are
you question changed when she went to college. Yo, we
(18:36):
are back with journalist and cartoonist Malica Gharib. When you
get to college, you realize no one's asking this question,
and you sort of miss being asked it. Correct. Yeah,
I did. I was around a lot of white people,
a lot of white students and friends, and it just
seemed like a very very awkward thing to broach. People
(18:56):
didn't know how to talk about it. I found it
a very crucial point for me to mention that I
was Filipino and Egyptian. It seemed very important to share
or disclose as part of If they really wanted to
know who I was, then they should also understand these
aspects of myself. But it felt like that time and
(19:17):
the moment never really came up, and it was always
like a little awkward because I think they just didn't
want to address it at all, because they didn't know,
they didn't want to say anything quote unquote racist. So
only after my book came out, I was their American dream.
I had a lot of college friends coming back to
me and saying like, I'm so sorry. I never like
(19:39):
asked you about like your culture or like things that
you like doing at home with your family, or you know.
I had a lot of like subtle racist things being
told to me by friends. Had a roommate once who
my mom shipped this plastic container of I think it
was like caldaretta, which is like some beef stew, and
she would always comment every day about how the fridge
(20:01):
smelled so intense and anyway, I was like, I just
wish that we could have had more open conversations about race,
but nobody know how talk about it. Then. You know,
that was like two thousand four. I mean people are
still struggling to talk about it now. Yeah, please do
some enlightening for us, because I think the world still
struggles with this. What is another less rude way to say?
(20:23):
What are you? Um? How do you identify? And I
think that for a lot of people that that opens
up a lot. Everyone could be asked that question. We
have to ask that now at work for a diversity
questionnaire with every source that we interview, and it's an
open ended question and people could answer it in any
way they like. It's a question for everybody. You mentioned
(20:45):
your uncle Tito earlier, and in the book you talk
about him a lot. He told you about the real world.
He said there will be expectations on you as a
brown woman and that you needed to learn them. Was
your uncle Tito right? Yeah he was, And that's um
tit tomorrow to you. That's right, my bad. He was
absolutely right, it was. It was shockingly accurate. I think
(21:09):
that one of the first places I worked was a
corporate ad agency and I highly observed, you know, how
other people dressed collared shirts. I came from like a
punk style in la where people were very casual and
laid back and had surfer style and that kind of thing,
(21:29):
and I just had sort of had to adapt to
that environment. I once was invited to a dinner with
like a professor and another colleague of his and some students,
and like we were eating at a fancy dinner table
with like lots of forks and knives, and I had
to like I literally had like a movie moment where
I was like, um, I'll ordered the chicken extra rare,
(21:50):
like you know what I mean. Like, I just like
didn't know what to do, so I just like copied
whatever my other white classmates were doing. But lots of
little moments like that, learning how to pronounce things. I
once said prove it proven instead of proven in a
meeting and got laughed at and I was like, all right,
there's like a way that I have to be, which sucks.
(22:10):
But I had to put on my white voice. That
was way back in the day. I just wanted to
preface it with that that was a long time ago.
I do not do that anymore. Do you have your
book on you by chance? Yeah? Can you read us
page forty seven? Yeah? Of course. I wish that I
(22:30):
could have smushed them all together into one faith. So
for most of my childhood I did dear God and
the Virgin Mary, but sorry, not you Jesus. Please let
me get the good grade on my quiz tomorrow, and
don't let me get in trouble at math class. Please
watch over Mom and Dad and mimminentti tomorrow and nanayantatai Amen,
I mean a mean how Muslims say? Amen? Can you
(22:54):
imagine being in these two worlds? Catholics have Jesus and
Adam and Eve, Muslims have Mohammed. Catholics celebrate Christmas and
Muslims do not. Catholics can eat just about everything, but
Muslims can't eat pork. As complicated as it seemed, Monica
always honored and respected what her parents taught her to
believe in. Both my mom and dad were very religious.
(23:20):
I mean not like fanatically religious, but they were certainly
like you know, my mom had a statue of the
Virgin Mary in her bedroom and believed in that one day,
you know, the Virgin Mary had appeared to her. And
my father did go to the mosque every Friday. So
I understood from the jump that my parents religion was
deeply important to them, and therefore I should respect that.
(23:44):
And by respecting that, as a young person. You sort
of are instilled with this code of conduct. And for
me that was you know, if my mom asked me
to go to church with her, I would go. If
she wanted me to go to Catholic school, I was
obedient and I said yes. I went through Confirmation and
Communion and all of it, and with my dad. My
(24:04):
dad really wanted me to memorize suras, which is like
the prayers from the Koran, and one how to pray,
you know, dress conservatively when I was around him, and
just in Egypt in general, and you know, not eat
pork and things like that. What are your favorite things
you learn from both religions? You know, I really like
the pomp and circumstance of Catholicism, Like I love the
(24:26):
big churches and cathedrals. I love the music, the choral music.
I love that everything is very somber and serious, and
you really feel a great and overpowering sense of reverence
and awe to a God above you. And I find
real comfort in knowing that there's you know, the Virgin Mary,
(24:49):
a woman figure is there is very maternal figure that
you don't see in many other religions but play such
an important role in Catholicism and Islam. I also love
that the text never changed, the Quran never changed. And
so when you're learning suras, when you're saying the Fatah,
you know you're really learning something that you're learning, you're
(25:12):
reciting something that people for hundreds and hundreds of years
have recited. And that's also very powerful for me. Do
you practice or continue to practice either of these religious
aspects or components? No, I think that I one of
the things that's been hard to understand or like put
(25:33):
together in my head is that like in Islam, like
Jesus is not God, but in Catholicism, Jesus as God.
So I've had to sort of in my mind be like, Okay,
I believe in God, but I don't believe in Jesus.
But I definitely love the Virgin Mary because she's cool.
So like I have some kind of like hybrid religion
in my head. I don't practice any of the elements
(25:54):
of both Catholicism and Islam. Like I haven't gone to
a mosque, I haven't like prayed in the Muslim sense
and ages. And I do, however, sometimes go into pop
into a Catholic church and like light a candle and
say a prayer every now and then, But I would
hardly call that being Catholic. If someone asked me how
(26:16):
I identify lately, you know, part of my journey is
I just say brown. You know, I'm just a brown man.
We can get into the into the nuances of being
half Dominican, half Colombian, Afro Latino, but mainly I choose brown.
Do you use brown in the book? Do you relate?
What is brownness to you? I have changed, my thought
(26:39):
has changed a lot over the past couple of years.
Even it's also fluids similar to you, and I think
that's really interesting and important to talk about. When I
was writing the book, I use the word brown to
express solidarity with fellow people of color who were going
through the same identity crisis that I was going through,
and who we're also on a path of understanding who
(27:01):
they are, understanding their cultural identities and going on there all.
I call it their like wokeness journey right like into yourself.
I don't know why I call it that, because I
felt like I had suddenly been decolonized at like age
twenty eight, and then like I radicalized quickly after that.
But one thing that I recently have thought about. Was
(27:24):
that saying who you are as a person, what your
cultural identity, is so freaking radical in and of itself.
Why should I have spent decades trying to hide that
I am Filipino, an Egyptian, and in favor of whiteness.
So why now should I have to hide and say
(27:45):
that I am not those things? This time, now, more
than ever, I want to freaking scream it from the rooftops.
This is what an Egyptian Filipino looks like with a
Muslim dad and a Catholic mom. And if that's new
for you, then that sucks. But you should wake up
(28:07):
and realize that a lot of people around you are
different things. Embrace who you are, folks. What is rooted
in our veins is what makes us special. And if
you are lucky enough, like Molica to be living in
these two different worlds filled with so much color and
life and more power to you. Molica just released her
(28:29):
second graphic novel called It Won't Always Be Like This,
So go and get your copy today. You won't be disappointed. Y'all.
We want to hear from you, so please get in touch. Specifically,
we are looking for your stories about your names. Do
you have a name that's unique, one that's hard for
others to say? Do you have a funny story in
(28:51):
origin story? What do you think is special or beautiful
about your name? Let us know. Send us an email
or a voice memo to brown Enough at stitcher dot com. Again,
that's brown Enough at Stitcher dot com. You could wind
up on a future episode brown And as a production
of Stitcher. It's created and hosted by me Christopher Reevas,
(29:13):
and I'm also an executive producer. Our team includes producer
Manolo Morales, Senior producer Abigail Keel, Technical director Casey Holford,
Production assistant Gabrielle Gladney, and executive producer Camille Stanley. Original
music by Casey Holford. Special thanks to Brendan Burns. Workhouse
Media is a contributing producer to this podcast. Carlos I
(29:35):
Hernandez of Ekey Guy Management is also an executive producer
of Brown Enough and don't forget to subscribe y'all or
follow brown Enough so you never miss an episode. And
if you got a minute, leave us a review a
nice one. It goes a long way. Thanks witness Stocks
(30:01):
from Stitcher. We hope you enjoyed that preview of Brown
Enough with Chris stepher reav Us. Listen on Stitcher, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to podcasts, and don't forget to
follow brown Enough so you don't miss an episode
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