The Urban Jibaro - Embracing Heritage to Forge Impactful Digital Narratives - George Torres - How Do You Say Success in Spanglish?

Episode Transcript
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Raul Lopez (00:04):
This is Raul Lopez, and you're listening to.
How Do you Save Success inSpanglish?
The path to success isn't easyFor minorities and people of
color.
Many attempt to join you withlittle to no guidance.
Join me as I sit down withindividuals who share their
stories of perseverance so thattogether, we can learn how to
save success in Spanish.

(00:28):
What's good, mi, gente?
It's your boy, Raul.
Welcome back Today on the show.
I got a good friend of mine,George Torres.
How's it going, George?

George Torres (00:38):
Yeah, bye, son, I'm good man.
Thank you for having me.

Raul Lopez (00:40):
Oh no, thank you.
I appreciate you being hereJust to kind of tell you a
little bit about George.
George is a digital storyattorney, community builder.
George is an award-winningdynamic storyteller, producer,
workshop facilitator, changeagent and social media
visibility consultant whopassionately elevates Latino
culture, with a strong focus onpreserving and promoting our
heritage.
George works tirelessly toraise awareness about brands and

(01:03):
initiatives that celebrate therichness of Latino culture.
Driven by a lifelongdisappointment in the absence of
Latino stories from historytextbooks, george embarked on a
journey inspired by thepotential of new media and his
grandmother's community work.
In 1997, he created Sofrito foryour Soul, the first Latino
storytelling website dedicatedto celebrating our history and
providing context to our legacy.

(01:25):
George aims to create a futurewhere Latino stories are
cherished, celebrated and firmlywoven into the fabric of our
collective history.
George, welcome to the show.

Gracias, gracias.

Raul Lopez (01:34):
Yeah, man, that's awesome man.
I really appreciate it, and youwere very supportive of me as
well when I started this journeyas well, and so I can see
firsthand that you'd like to getyour fingers involved and make
sure that the stories are beingtold and being presented.
So once for me personally, justto start off, I want to thank

(01:56):
you for guiding me and helpingme out through this process as
well, so it's been really reallyhelpful.
But to kind of start off, Iguess we'll start off with you
Tell me who is George.

I mean so many different things.
So El Hijo de Calmen y ElNiento de Gloria, so foremost,
so that's how I like to frame it.
I'm just a regular person whois trying to build things that
weren't available for me when Iwas younger.
That's kind of where I stand inthe space right now, just me

(02:32):
trying to be a solution or, likeGandhi said, be the change.

Raul Lopez (02:37):
Yeah, it's great you mentioned that stuff that we
didn't have.
So you grew up in New York.
Tell me a little bit about lifegrowing up in New.

York.
So I grew up in Brooklyn, inEast New York, brooklyn in the
middle of the 80s, so the crackepidemic in New York, very, very
hard times.
In general.
I am the name Urban Heavado,kind of like I existed in two
spaces at once.
I existed in Brooklyn, new York, and also in Puerto Rico, so I

(03:06):
got like the best experiencesfrom both.
Right, I was street savvy, butthen I also had a very firm
grasp on culture and tradition,so that kind of like weaves into
like my whole persona onlineetc.
Like you know it's, it's, it'spart of who I am.
It's really cool I am.
It's just like it's that oldschool street savvy dude that

(03:28):
actually knows where he comesfrom and is constantly learning
more about that every single day.

Raul Lopez (03:33):
Yeah, for me growing up, I think a lot of it was a
battle between my like you callyourself, the Urban Heavado you
know, for me, the urban life I'mliving versus my Latino culture
and what I was living at home.
And I grew up we did have, youknow, dominican, puerto Ricans
and stuff like that, but I waslike early on I was really I

(03:55):
wanted to be more black than Iwas Latino.
I cared more about blackcultures than Latino culture and
I'd say I don't care aboutblack culture but I still care
about black culture.
But you know I was reallyingrained into the black urban
culture that I grew up in andthen when I got older I got into
more involved with my Latinoculture and who I was as a
Caribbean American here.

(04:16):
So did you ever feel you werebattling who you were growing up
?

Well, it's interesting you say that because
I grew up in Brownsville inEast New York and it was a very
mixed community.
There weren't too many othercultures other than just black
and Puerto Rican.
At the time, Right, I wasMexican, but almost no Central
South American Mexican.
It was Puerto Rican dominant atthe time.
I too had the same type ofidentity crisis, you know, prior

(04:44):
to me having my culturalawakening.
You know, I definitely hung outwith.
Everybody in the community wasAfrican American, right.
When I was in Brownsville, whenI went to East New York, it
diversified a little bit but Ialways felt very comfortable in
black spaces, right.
And one of the reallyinteresting things about the
time that I grew up in is thatwe didn't have a big racial

(05:07):
divide when it came to blacksand Puerto Ricans.
It didn't matter whatcomplexion you were If you were
Puerto Rican, you were PuertoRican and you were one of them.
You know they didn't alienateyou.
I recently had an interview withsomebody out in Europe.
Somebody interviewed me from aEuropean radio station and they
asked me how I felt about that,about that whole process of

(05:29):
growing up in a blackneighborhood, and if I felt, if
I ever felt like I wasvictimized because of my race,
and I've never been victimizedas a young person.
I wasn't victimized because Iwas Puerto Rican or white
passing.
I was victimized because kidswere assholes.
Maybe, at the end of the day,that's what it was right.
I was victimized, however, bywhite people.

(05:49):
I was victimized by the policebrutality.
I was victimized by the systemjust because I was Puerto Rican,
Because I was obviously livingmy truth.
Right, I was living as a PuertoRican.
I was starting to learn aboutmy culture.
I was engulfed in hip hopculture as it was developing
here in New York, so I gotracially profiled for that, not

(06:14):
for my skin complexion, which isa very interesting and
different take when you actuallylook at it, based on what's
happening today.

Raul Lopez (06:23):
Yeah, I think it's hard to find people of color who
may not have ever experiencedit.
If they haven't, that'swonderful, but I think a lot of
us have at some point in timefelt we were outcast or looked
down upon, the typical beingfollowed at the supermarket or
the store because what you looklike.

And think about this I got blue eyes man.
Yeah.
I look white and I have blueeyes and I still got racially
profiled.
But it was more of a culturalthing.
Right, it was what I waswearing, it was how I was
talking, it was who I washanging out with.
So being that close andadjacent to black culture
actually is what got mevictimized, not the people who

(07:03):
are next to me that look verydifferent from me.
So I have nothing but love forthe black community, because
they showed me mad love when Iwas growing up.

Raul Lopez (07:11):
Yeah, no, I was saying the same thing.
I mean it's and I think it'salways funny too when I take
like a trip or a vacation orsomething like that and you're,
you're on like something andthere's all these random people
everywhere and it's like some.
I remember we went to PuertoVallarta for our honeymoon and
run a boost cruise, drivingaround going to an island for
this event and like a bunch ofwhite people I think I was like

(07:35):
one of the only Latinos on theboat and it was like one black
couple.
Of course.
That's who we went to rightaway.
You know, we talked to them, wespent the whole night hanging
out and talking or whatever,because there was a quick and
common bond there that occurred.
So you know, I think it helpsyou out and influences us in a
way.
But you know, speaking ofinfluences, you talk about the

(07:55):
influence your grandmother gaveyou.
Can you tell me a little bitabout your grandma and how she
influenced?

your life.
Oh man, my grandmother, gloriade Rio.
She came here when my mom wasborn, so my mom was a newborn.
She came here to, like manyPuerto Ricans at the time, to
find a better life.
She came to New York when mymom and her arms with little to

(08:20):
no money in her pocket.
She didn't have much more thana high school education.
She came here to expand herhorizon, fast forward.
She ended up going to BoricuaCollege, ended up getting a
master's in social work fromHunter at CUNY, and she
eventually became a champion forthe elderly in North Brooklyn,

(08:44):
which encompasses Brownsville,eastern New York and Bushwick.
So she was a championpolitically for the rights of
elderly.
She was the founding directorof Meals on Wheels, which is a
program that provides hot meals,hot, nutritious meals for the

(09:05):
elderly homebound.
And she was, you know, she wasjust a political firecracker,
like in the whole community.
She was involved in thedifferent tenant rights
associations living in NYCHA.
Nycha is New York City HousingAuthority.
We were one of the first PuertoRican families in the projects
we grew up in.
So my grandmother was, you know,she was somebody of the people

(09:27):
you know, and I spent a lot oftime with my mom with my
grandmother, because my momwasn't able to take care of me
for some time, so I spent a lotof time with her in the kitchen.
I was always fascinated withher cooking.
They always smell so good.
My grandmother doesn't makemuch of a secret of this.
When she was alive she used tosay I was her favorite.

(09:49):
I was her first grandson, so Ihad the label of being her
favorite.
So I was pretty much the onlyone that was allowed to sit with
her in the kitchen.
You know how the grandma wouldbe like psyched out with Sina,
you know.
So I'm very rare occasion, notalways, but I would be allowed
to sit with her, help her andeven have conversations with her
, and I would ask her, I wouldinterview her.
Like almost every single time Ihad a chance to sit with her,

(10:11):
either on the rocking chair orin the kitchen, and I would just
ask her questions.
She would put me on to so manydifferent things.
She would talk to me about thecivil rights movement.
She would talk to me aboutPuerto Rico.
She would talk to me about someof the political uprisings in
La Isla.
She would talk to me aboutpeople like Pedro Abisucampos

(10:32):
and Eugenio Mariano-Ostos.
She would just give me such awide range of things that I was
super disappointed that I wasn'tlearning in school.
You know, I don't even thinkPuerto Rico was mentioned at all
, unless it was in the guys oflike Sugar Cane, and it was
mentioned as a country thatprovides sugar to the country.

(10:52):
But I don't think that PuertoRico ever came up in class, you
know, until I was in college.
So she, she, she it was, it wasclassroom, it was a classroom,
like her kitchen was a classroom.
And then her cooking was awhole other thing, because she
was a very kind person.
She would always make more foodthan we needed at home so that
we could bring some to neighbors, so that we could have food

(11:14):
available if people came tovisit.
So I had, then we had differentdinner guests almost every
single night, which is is crazy.
And the her pot, her oil, yetthat she used to use for her her
big, big stock pot, right,whenever she made soup or
whatever it was like it wasalmost like a miracle, right, it
never ran out of soup, like, nomatter how much she cooked and

(11:38):
no matter how many people werein the house, it always seemed
like there was enough.
I don't remember ever anybodysaying there's no more food left
.
So it was just a very magicaltime for me and this is my
recollection.
This is, you know, meromanticizing it in some way,
but but that's what I remember.
I remember like just havingenough for everybody, and just
you know that compassion, thatcompassion above everything.

(11:58):
She definitely wanted to feedthe world.
And it's what I work.
Yeah.

Raul Lopez (12:04):
Is that?
That's kind of what influencedyou to be, to do the work you do
now.

It did, but in a different way, right.
First I was fascinated with hercooking, so I my first career
was I was a chef.
You know.
I worked in a kitchen and aseafood restaurant in Queens and
then I eventually moved over toMarriott where I became an
executive sous chef for Marylandheadquarters.
So at first it was cooking.

(12:29):
I was really into cooking.
I liked making people happy, Iliked feeding people.
But down the line I ended upgetting divorced.
I was I was married reallyyoung.
I was a young father at 16.
I ended up getting divorced andI decided to go back to college
.
And when I went back to collegethat opened up a whole new

(12:49):
world for me.
Like that, that just blew mywhole world open because I saw
that people were activelyengaging in social justice
conversations.
I started seeing people talkabout some of the people that I
knew from the community thatwere doing big things, and they
were shocked that I knew whothey were and I was able to
bring them to campus and engagewith them in public discourse.

(13:15):
So college really shifted myenergy.
I decided I didn't want to beworking in a kitchen on weekends
and holidays.
I felt that my life as a chefactually contributed to my
divorce because I wasn't homeenough and I just decided to go
a whole different route.
So going back to school washuge for me because I had
dropped out of high school tobecome a young dad, went back to

(13:37):
high school, got my diploma andthen obviously went to college
a little bit late in life.
I went at the age of 25,already a dad of two.
So it was an interestingjourney, but definitely a
necessary one.

Raul Lopez (13:54):
But you mentioned you dropped out of high school
and then went back to collegeand started college at 25 with
two kids, which is obviouslythat's a lot on your plate.
So tell me a little bit aboutthat journey and what made you
want to go back to school.

So, first of all, when I was in high school,
before I dropped out, I had nodirection.
I was a good student, I gotgood grades.
I had behavior problems, butthey were mostly due to the fact
that I was really bored inschool.
I would ace everything exceptmath, like I would get great
grades in everything every class.
I was a good writer but I wasreally, really, like I said,

(14:35):
very engulfed in hip hop cultureat the time and I found my
sweet spot in the graffiti arts.
So I spent a lot of timedrawing and painting and I would
do it in class and get introuble for it, that kind of
stuff.
So I dropped out at 16, 17,.
Didn't have much more to go,but I ended up having to go to

(14:56):
work to support my daughter.
And what ended up, what ends uphappening at that point, is I
become really, really engaged inthe streets in a lot of
different ways.
Right, and I don't think weneed to go into detail, but I
get very involved with thestreets, even more so than I was

(15:17):
in high school.
And then there came a pointsomewhere around 20, I think I
had my son at that point.
Once I had my son, I saw that Ineeded to make some changes.
My relationship was failing.
I felt like my family was indanger at certain points because

(15:38):
of some of the stuff I wasinvolved in, and I made a choice
.
I made a choice to coursecorrect.
Unfortunately, my relationshipdidn't get saved.
When I got divorced, I ended upbeing in a situation where, okay
, now I gotta figure out life,and the divorce actually
launched me right into college.
I went to go visit a young ladyI was dating and she invited me

(16:02):
to one of those fraternity,like one of those cultural
nights for Alianza Latina atSumio, westbury, and the people
that were talking about werepeople who were mentors to me
and I'm sure we'll talk aboutthat at some point.
But I had a cultural awakeningwhen I was attacked in 1986 as
Puerto Rican and with myDominican friend.

(16:24):
The people who helped me withthat case, the people who helped
me through that legalproceeding, were civil rights
leaders like Richie Perez Yoruba, pablo Guzman, people from the
New York Puerto Rican CivilRights Movement, and that was

(16:48):
that's who they were talkingabout.
They were talking about theBrooklyn College protest.
They were talking about thePuerto Rican flag being hung
from the Statue of Liberty, andI'm just like.
I know who did that Like, I knewthese people and they were
personal friends and personalmentors because of what had
happened to me and Howard Beach.
So I had the opportunity toreach out to them and reconnect

(17:09):
with them, to bring them to thecollege and that made me a
superstar, but not so much,maybe a superstar on campus, but
I wasn't even going there.
So I had people believing forlike six months.
I actually went to college thisday and I ended up saying I
don't go here.
And then the girl that I wasdating was like but you can't.
She's like you're educatingpeople now you don't have a

(17:30):
degree, you're from the streetsand you're coming here and
you're schooling people ondifferent things about civil
rights and whatnot.
You should be here.
That means that you're goodenough to be here.
And she really pushed me andshout out to her and Marina
Noble.
She really pushed me and helpedme with the paperwork and she
explained financial aid to meand she spent countless hours

(17:51):
helping me through the processand I enrolled.
I moved out of my apartment, Imoved in to a friend's one of
her friend's house.
Her best friend offered me aspot on the couch so that I
could manage the gap between mylease expiring and going to
college.
And the rest is history, man, Icompletely threw myself into

(18:13):
college life, even with my kids.
My kids used to get babysat bysorority girls.
On the days that I had to havethem, I had them on campus.
I snuck them in my room.
I mean I used to go to the calfand load up and Tupperware to
bring food to the room for thekids because we didn't have a
kitchen.
I mean it was a veryinteresting and very hard

(18:36):
journey in that sense, but thepeople who helped me became my
frat brothers.
It became my best friends.
Some of them have collaboratedwith me over the last
20-something years.
So it was a beautiful journeyand I have a lot of great
memories and a lot of goodfriends from that process.

Raul Lopez (18:54):
That's awesome, man.
I'm glad to hear it.
I'm glad to hear that.
But there was a positive changeand I think it's interesting
the way you put it where she waslike you're schooling people
and you're educating people,you're good enough to be here.
Did you ever feel like youweren't going to college because
you weren't good enough to go?

Dude, I never had a conversation with my
counselor about college.
I didn't even know what collegewas.
My high school counselor, MrSmith, once told me that I would
not live to see the age of 21,that I would either be dead or
locked up.
I want to put that in realperspective and I have a
beautiful story about how Ishowed him different.

(19:41):
But yeah, so he told me that Iwould not see the age of 21.
I'm 52 today.
You get what I'm saying.
So I'm proud of that.
I'm proud of my journey, I'mproud of what I've lived, what
I've endured, but, mostimportantly, I'm proud that I
did not become the statisticthat he thought I was.
I'm the antithesis ofeverything that he thought I

(20:05):
would be.

Raul Lopez (20:08):
That's crazy, man, I mean.
I think counselors sometimeswill try to do like hard tooth
to get people to changesometimes and then, but we also,
a lot of us just fall throughthe crowd.
I don't think we, especially inthe schools we go to, they're
poor, underfunded, noteverybody's going to get the
focus.
They might focus on the fivekids on the top and ignore the

(20:31):
rest of the kids and I think fora lot of us we don't get the
support and any advice orcounseling to kind of get you on
.
I think it fails us at the endbecause we just keep continuing
a downward spiral on that.
So what was the?
What was that?
How did you prove to yourcounselor?

(20:52):
He said you, you went back andyou did prove to him.
So yeah.

So this was when I was working in the restaurant
business.
I was working at a seafoodrestaurant called London Lenny's
in Queens and I'm walking intowork one day, I'm running a
little, I hold out right Alittle bit in the rush and I'm
getting ready to open up thedoors.
I opened the door for this oldman that's walking in and he
looks up at me.
He says Mr Torres, oregon,voice like I just hated his

(21:21):
voice.
And I look at him.
I say, oh, mr Smith, how youdoing?
And he's like what are youdoing here?
Now, mind you, this restaurantis a very expensive seafood
restaurant.
This restaurant's aninstitution in Queens and I'm
like I work here.
And then he's like oh, look atthat, you know.
He's like kind of nodding hishead and whatever.
So he's like well, let me notkeep you.
Those pots are probablystacking up in the back.

(21:41):
Gee, I was so tight.
I was so tight, I can't eventell you what I wanted to do.
But I just let it rot and Iwent into the back.
While I'm in the back, I cry, Icry for like good 10 minutes.
His order came in.
I did his order and whatever,and I just had something in me.

(22:02):
I was like I gotta do this theright way.
I can't solve these problemsthe way I used to solve these
problems.
So I tell my assistant managerat the time, the guy that
manages the kitchen.
I told him.
I said, do me a favor.
I want you to get a veryexpensive bottle of wine and I
want you to send it out to thetable.
Compliments of the chef.
So I send this bottle out tohim, right?
So he's happy.

(22:23):
He gets the bottle and I heardthat I'm watching him through
the window and he's like smilingor whatever.
He's like oh, tell the chef tocome out, I would love to talk
to him, whatever.
So I come out in my uniform,like I'm sharp man, I'm like
I'll make sure I was clean andboom apron everything.
And I come outside and he looksat me and he just takes the
bottle like this and puts it onthe table.
He's like I'll pay for it, butyou can keep it.

(22:43):
That's how arrogant this dudeworks, geez.
So I almost lost my job thatday because he was a regular
customer that came in every weekand obviously he complained to
my manager that I would die inso much of him.
But I just wanted him to knowlike I was not the power washer.
He died like, ooh, the food thatyou come here to eat every

(23:03):
single week.
I'm the one that actuallyprepares it.
And that to me, for me, it wassuch a big step.
It was like a catalyst for me,because it was like I'm not
solving problems the way I usedto solve it.
I actually did something and Iwas very intelligent and
measured about how I did it, butI still gave him the message.

(23:24):
I let him know who I was andwho I became.

Raul Lopez (23:29):
And to think that guy consoles kids.
It's like with that level of.

I mean he's no longer with us.
But yeah, definitely, it's oneof those things where you kind
of like I hate that he did thatto me and I hate that he did
that to many people, but I'mglad that I was able to prove
him wrong and that he knows thathe was wrong.
Yeah, amen to that.
But yeah, we have to definitelykeep a lookout for people like

(23:57):
that that are in our kids' livesand the people that we love's
lives, because that could bevery damaging and some people
make that a self-fulfillingprophecy, unfortunately.

Raul Lopez (24:08):
So you mentioned earlier that you had a cultural
awakening.
Did I want to add the word yeah, cultural awakening.

Can you tell me?
a little bit about that, so in1986, me and a Dominican friend
of mine were attacked in apredominantly white area of
Queens, south Ozone Park, andwere almost killed.
And there's so many details.
But I'll be honest with you.
I struggle with telling thestory because it's very

(24:38):
emotional to me.
But the cultural awakening kindof stems from the fact that the
same night the same exact thinghappened to an African-American
family not far away and it wasknown as the Howard Beach
incident.
It was one of those big caseslike Trayvon Martin type of.
It was a big uproar, it was allover the news and whatnot.

(25:02):
Michael Griffith, rest in peacewas killed when he was trying to
kill me.
He came to Queens to buy a carand he walked into a pizzeria to
get help or to find out wherehe can get help because his car
wouldn't start, and he gotchased by a bunch of
Italian-Americans with baseballbats and he was chased into the

(25:27):
Cross Bay Boulevard and was hitby a car.
We also got attacked in asimilar fashion.
My friend had a gash in theback of his head from a pipe.
One of the worst things thathappened to us is that at the
very end of the chase we endedup jumping into a coffee shop
and the coffee shop was owned bypeople from that community and

(25:48):
they kicked us out of the coffeeshop.
And as they kicked us out ofthe coffee shop, the cops rolled
up and, instead of grabbing theguys that actually attacked us,
they actually threw me and myfriend up against the wall, even
though he was bleeding in theback of the head, even though
you know, and we were asked, whywere we in that neighborhood?
And I don't know, man, it'sheavy, it's a heavy thing to

(26:14):
talk about.
But what I realized was that acouple of different things.
One, I had a deeperunderstanding of what I heard in
the black community when peopletalked about police brutality.
I understood a little bit moreabout that Because, even though

(26:37):
we weren't profiled specificallyfor the color of our skin, we
were definitely profiled.
I would say we were culturallyprofiled because we definitely
didn't belong in theneighborhood based on the way we
were dressed.
But I understood a deepermeaning of what it means to be
profiled Right.
I also had a deeperunderstanding of understanding

(27:00):
of like I thought the policewere there to help and I felt
safe when I saw them to thenhave that trust betrayed.
So that was another piece of it.
And then, last but not least, Idon't think that I've ever
encountered hate in that waybefore Because, like I said, I

(27:20):
had my share of fights when Iwas in school.
You know, you're that mediatethere, so I, you know, I had
experience with conflict, but Inever had conflict that was just
based on the fact that I wasdifferent, and that, to me, was
very eye-opening.
And I remember going back to mygrandmother after this was, you

(27:41):
know, a couple of days afterthis happened and just asking
her like why did they hate us?
Like why?
Like why did they hate us?
And yeah, and that to me wasvery introspective and she
talked to me.
I think she focused with me onPuerto Rican history.

(28:02):
She focused on the fact thatall the different things related
to the reasons why we were evenin New York in the first place.
She talked to me about thedifferent social justice issues
that we had in the United StatesNew York, specifically with
housing, with work,discrimination, with everything.

(28:25):
She just gave me a wholecross-section of Puerto Rican
history, but she talked aboutthe really bad stuff and that,
to me, was like that made mewanna learn more about my
culture.
That made me wanna learn moreabout who I was.
It made me wanna learn moreabout my great grandparents.
It made me wanna learn moreabout the freedom fighters.
It made me wanna learn moreabout the young lords.

(28:46):
It made me wanna especiallybecause the young lords were the
ones that were actuallyhandling my case.
I'm literally I'm talking to mygrandmother about stuff and
then I'm actually walking in aroom to go to court with lawyers
that are the people she'stalking about, and that, to me,
was such a like there's peopleout here trying to make a

(29:08):
difference and to make sure thatpeople don't get away with
making our lives disposable andthat really appealed to me.
I'm somebody who, when I wasyoung, I watched Scarface and
the Godfather and idolized thebig hustlers on the block.
I went through that phase andnow I'm seeing positive images

(29:33):
of Latino men that are actuallydoing things to make a
difference.
And that really drew me in.
Richie took me under his.
Richie Perez, one of thefounding young lords, took me
under his wing and he, just likehe, schooled me and he's the
one that actually named me UrbanHewattle.
He's the one that said dude,you're the best of both.

(29:53):
He's like you, literally,you're like a street savvy kid
that just has all the cultureand the heritage just instilled
in your DNA.
And when he passed away someyears later, I actually adopted
Urban Hewattle as my nickname,right so to pay him tribute.

(30:14):
But yeah, that was my culturalawakening.
My cultural awakening was justrealizing that people hate us
for no reason at all and I justfelt the need to be able to tell
stories to counter that.
That's as simple as I can putit, but it's a very like I said,
I'm all over the place with thestory and forgive me, but it's

(30:35):
a very emotional thing for me totalk about because it still
impacts me to this day.
We didn't get justice.
They got away with it Got awaywith it in my case and they got
away with it for the most partwith Michael Griffith as well
because the jail sentences theygot didn't weren't aligned with
what they did.
They took somebody's life.

(30:56):
Yeah.
Yeah, they're living a wholelife.
They probably have families,they probably had businesses,
they probably you know it was abrief interruption of their life
, but they interrupted MichaelGriffith's life forever.
And shout out to MichaelGriffith's family and Cedric
Sandiford and all the folks thatwe met that night at the

(31:17):
hospital but it was a tough time, you know.
But I do think that that was acatalyst for me personally to
that led me into creating theplatform that led me into the
work that I do and just tryingto be the solution, to be the
change for certain things thatplagued our community at the

(31:40):
time.
Yeah.

Raul Lopez (31:42):
And I mean to start off, thank you for sharing.
You know, I know that's a hardthing to share and thankfully
you're open and willing to sharethat.
It's definitely something, Ithink, that obviously changed
your life and thankfully,changed it for the better.
You know you're right aboutthat catalyst.

(32:03):
It drove you and you know, Ithink, like you mentioned before
, it was one of the things thathelped convince you that you had
what it took to go to collegeand to make it from there.

And so obviously, if we change it up a little bit
, you know college, you're incollege and you said you focused
and you ended up graduating aswell, oh, the funny thing is
that my career took a lot ofcrazy twists and turns so I
ended up dropping out of highschool, getting my GED to get
into college, to go to collegeand go all the way almost to the

(32:38):
last year almost the same way Idid with high school and ended
up dropping out of college, butnot because I needed, not
because of money or lack of oranything.
It was actually the opposite.
It was lack of time because Ihad been hustling at my job and
really trying to get promotedand whatever.
And I ended up getting a greatpromotion and I just couldn't

(32:59):
afford to go to college anymore.
From the perspective of not offinancially paying to go to
college, I couldn't afford thetime but I had at this point I
had two kids and they were mypriority and the benefits in the
whole nine yards.
So I ended up dropping out ofschool because I was making more
money than what the job in mydegree would have provided me

(33:22):
Just didn't make sense and Ijust never went back.
Like it's been an upwardtrajectory.
Thankfully, it's been ablessing to be in a position
where I never had to look backand to feel like I needed to go
back to school to make it workand but you know, but college
they wouldn't need to do for me.
It built me.
It built me into a better man,it made me a better friend, it

(33:44):
made me a better communityleader.
It helped me experience amicrocosm of society and helped
me make change in that space sothat I could go ahead and take
it outside, and everything aboutthe platform that I created is
really like me taking the typeof instruction and lessons that

(34:05):
you learn in college.
I was trying to bring that tothe community that didn't have
the opportunity to go to college.
Yeah, in college we doprogramming and we say, oh,
we're gonna do this withfinancial literacy, we're gonna
do this, we're gonna talk aboutmental health, we're gonna talk
about all these different things, and these are programs that
are meant to enhance the studentperspective.

(34:27):
I said to myself, like whydon't we have this?
This is a conversation I havewith one of my business partners
, papo.
When we started our business,way back when I was like why
don't we have theseconversations in the community,
where it's really new?
Like the people coming here,they have a certain amount of
privilege, they were able tocome to college.
They have some kind of moneycoming from somewhere, whether
it's a loan or a scholarship.

(34:47):
What about the people that areout there that are really like
it's life or death right, thepeople who are making choices
that could change their lifeforever based on their
circumstance?
So Sofrito for your soul was alittle bit of that as well.
It was the culture, it was thelessons and the stories, but it
was also community action.
It was partnership, it wasbuilding things that didn't

(35:09):
exist so that we could have abetter experience in the
community.

Raul Lopez (35:14):
So tell me a little bit about Sofrito, for your soul
.

Sofrito for your soul was a website that I
created in my web design classat SUNY College at Old Westbury.
It was a project, so I was onlysupposed to really design the
look of it.
It was supposed to be a like ifyou were gonna create your own
web platform, what would it looklike?
I was in class and I createdthis interface with palm trees

(35:38):
and Puerto Rico, like these warmorange and whatever colors, and
I was like Sofrito for yoursoul.
And Sofrito for your soul, atthe end of the day, is really a
homage to my grandmother,because she always talked about
how different we were dependingon where we were from in the
island and even when you were inthe United States, how
different we are from Mexicansand Colombians and Peruvians and
Salvadorans, but we're stillthe same, like we have common

(36:00):
threads.
So it made me think of Sofritoright.
You got all these differentingredients that make one dish.
That's just phenomenal, likeright, it's literally the
cornerstone of your dish.
So I kind of made that analogyand I decided that Sofrito for
your soul would be the perfectname for a platform that would
actually feed you knowledge andculture and just show you things

(36:25):
that actually would make youfeel good.

Raul Lopez (36:28):
And when you developed that, is that what you
that what the job you leftcollege for, or was that?
Did you send another job to goto that one?

No, no.
So in college I worked atKinkos, which is FedEx office
today.
I worked at Kinkos, which mademe a great resource for the
students at school.
It was a great place to connectwith people.
It was a great place to learnto take my graffiti art and
digitize it and create marketingmaterials for the frat and for

(37:01):
the organizations I belong to.
So this was a breeding ground.
This was like training.
I was training to like createevents, to network with people,
to have access to resources, andcomputers weren't.
People didn't have computers intheir homes at the time.
Like this was a time wherepeople were just starting to get
computers in it.
You would only have a computerin your house if you had dope.

(37:21):
So people came to Kinkos to usecomputers to web browse.
They use it as an internet cafeto be able to check their
emails.
So this was like a destinationand I leveraged that destination
and got clients and started myown little hustle like designing
stuff for people.
I designed stuff for like majorbrands at the time.

(37:43):
They just wanted work and I wascheap labor for them.
They were just like come overhere, just help me with this
graphic real quick and I would.
Just you know I would.
You'd be doing the work forKinkos, but I would come to the
side and just it goes real quickoh, 20 bucks, yeah.
Cool 50 bucks, yeah.
So it was an interestingtraining ground, but it gave me
access to computers, whichhelped me launch the website.

(38:04):
Right Besides school, it waslike school in Kinkos, so I
would work on the website like24 seven.
Kinkos was a 24 hour operationat the time.
So I work a lot of overnightjust so I can get my work done,
just so I can get my writingdone, just so I could put out
stuff in the world that actuallywould help people.
So it was a dope mix ofresources that actually helped

(38:27):
it happen.
But this is something thatmajor companies were getting
millions of dollars to developwebsites, and here I am
developing it with no money atall, just off of like side gigs
and my own cash.
So it was an interesting time.
97 to 2001 was a veryinteresting period.

Raul Lopez (38:46):
I remember Kinkos we used to go.
I mean, you could tell just Imake myself sound old, but yeah,
we used to have to go to Kinkosto print stuff out at night or
make copies or things.
The computers were there andopen 24 hours.
When you needed to print thatlast minute paper at one in the
morning, that was gonna whereyou went, and so how did you

(39:12):
convert your career from that tokind of what you're doing now?

So the website was interesting because the
website had me flourish as a.
I want you to know this, though.
This is crazy being the firstLatino blogger is crazy because
it took me like 10 years to evenadmit that I was a writer Like
in terms of like, when youactually talk about your skill
set or whatever.
I never considered myself awriter until like 10 years ago.
But I'm blogging, I'm coveringevents, I'm inviting people to

(39:42):
events.
My events are going viral atthe time without social media.
There's no social media backthen and it's like my events are
going all over the place, allover Long Island.
People knew about the website,people going to it.
I had people from the militaryin Germany, in Iraq, like you
know, writing into the website.
Oh my God, this is wonderful.
I needed a recipe for Coquito,like you know.

(40:03):
All those kind of years it'scrazy, but it helped me connect
with a lot of people and it's sointeresting that today, to this
day, I'm connected with peoplethat I met in 1990 and met in
1997, when I first started thewebsite, when it was brand new,
when it was just one single pagewith a bunch of links, like it,
literally, you know.

Raul Lopez (40:24):
I remember those old school websites.
Yeah.

So then something changes.
What makes it go into careermode is Mi Gente.
Mi Gentecom is the play.
So Mi Gentecom for those of youwho do not know, mi Gentecom
was a platform for Latinos builtinto a bigger company called
Community Connect.
Community Connect on threewebsites.
They owned Black Planet, asianAvenue and Mi Gentecom.

(40:54):
The company was founded by threeAsian guys, so this wasn't even
a Latino website or Black itwas.
You know, it was an Asiancompany that came up with the
concept.
But it was everything that AOLused to be and it was everything
before MySpace.
Yeah, it was literally four orfive years before MySpace.
So it was really the firstsocial media network where

(41:15):
you're messaging people, sendingpictures, creating memes,
creating graphics, like it wasliterally all those things, but
like three or four years beforethe media would call it the
social media explosion.
So we were over indexing asLatinos on Mi Gentecom.
In 2001, 2002, there was overanywhere between five to 10

(41:38):
million Latinos on the internetIn a time where nobody had
handheld devices, in a time thatlaptops were almost unheard of
and you only had a desktop athome or you went to internet
cafes.
So you put that perspective wewere over indexing on the
internet back then.

Raul Lopez (41:55):
Ok, I remember college.
You ran home to check your MiGente to see if someone hit you
up before you because youcouldn't go on your phone.
There was nothing on your phoneto look at, there was no app,
so yeah.

Mi Gente gave me a platform like no other,
because I was already doing thiswork.
Right Now, this platform is uphere, showing me that you have
an audience Like besides thepeople that found you.
There were no real searchengines back then.
The search engines were trash,but they were literally showing
me that there was an audienceout there for what I was doing.

(42:31):
And then all these differentcompanies started popping up
that were doing events.
And you had Latino Step, whichwas a Greek-affiliated
organization, and you hadlatinflavorcom, and then you had
boricuascom, and then you hadPR, again PRNYcom.
All these different websitesstart coming up and they're all
doing events.
So I got deep into the eventspace.

(42:53):
I had already done a littleside gigs as a promoter, doing
clubs in the college circuit orwhatever.
I got NeedDeep, I got withRaffi Mercado and RIMM Music and
I started like yo, just let meinvite backstage, let me just
interview somebody I want tomeet, so-and-so, I want to be
backstage, I'll take pictures,I'll put it on the website.

(43:14):
And they didn't understand whatit was.
I was like, yeah, go ahead, dowhat you got to do.
And I just started networkingand networking and networking
and I'm going to tell you rightnow I work with some of the
biggest names in entertainment.
Five years into the website, sixyears into the website, I'm
doing branding for them.
I'm designing album covers, I'mdesigning flyers for parties,

(43:40):
I'm doing banner ads.
I'm doing all this stuff and Ijust decided to monetize it.
Just monetize that, monetizethe advertising.
We were the first website inthe Latino space to have their
own email.
Like I literally partnered witha company and you can get
SofricaForYourSoulcom email.
I partnered with a companycalled Bahia 305 that had this

(44:01):
technology that nobody everheard of, that they could play
videos on the website.
I was playing all the Hegevonvideos, all the Playaero videos,
on my site On a little TVscreen.
I can show you a screenshot ofit.
It was a little TV screen andyou could change the channels on
it.
It was a script and thatcompany ended up selling for

(44:24):
millions of dollars forBrightCode.
Brightcode is one of theleading video software engineers
in the internet's history, butthat little company was letting
us use it just to promoteHegevon and Latino hip hop
videos and freestyle videos andthat company ended up becoming
huge but at it branded.

(44:44):
We were just like can we testout your software?
Can we try to do this and whatI was saying.
So we did so many firsts.
We actually helped curate theNASA County Museum of Arts first
ever Latino art exhibit withFrida Kahlo and Diego Rivera
Like we were involved in thingsthat I would never dream of and

(45:05):
it just kept happening over andover again and eventually I just
said you know what Eventproduction is the way to go.
I need to really kind of funnelwhat's happening with the
interest of what's happeninghere and bring people together
off screen, right Off theplatform.
So I started doing events andeventually I ended up partnering
with my business partner fromCapicul, papo Santiago, papo

(45:28):
Suigiri, as he's known, onAmigente, and we created
something called Capicul Culture, which is basically it was in
person, you know a live culturalshowcase where we've featured
poetry, live art.
You know, we did this 16 yearsago and the innovation just kept

(45:50):
going.
Because I kept saying to myselflike I want to do radio, but
nobody's going to give me a jobin radio because I didn't get a
degree in broadcasting.
So Block Talk Radio came outand said I'm a creator of Latino
talk show and I was telling you, before we got on here, I did a
talk show, we did over 70episodes and then we even sold
the show to Urban Latino Radioand we did a show with them.

(46:12):
You know like we were able togrow this media property by just
creating it and not asking forpermission.
So I just kept building andbuilding and building.
I kept doing this with thatcompany, that with that company,
and let me, let me figure outhow to do this live and let me
figure out how to get this videoand get the editing done, even
though I don't have the.
I don't have the equipment.

(46:34):
Who can I?
Whose equipment can I borrow?
Can I go into this TV station?
My boy works there as aproducer.
Can I go in there for threehours and just cut it up on
Adobe Premiere, like I was justhustling the relationships just
to get access?
Now it's crazy, we have all theaccess right here.
The thing that I was hustling tofind, everything I had to

(46:54):
negotiate, everything I had tolike con people into giving me
access to, is all on my phonenow.
I could do everything on thephone, but it wasn't like that
back then, no, so, so so I takepride in that that that
pioneering element of we dideverything the hard way, which,
when the easy way came, we werejust able to grow even more, and

(47:18):
that's that's the kind ofthat's the one thing I would say
that take the most pride in isthat we did it the hard way and
then, when the easy way came, welearned how to do it that way
too, but the work ethic stayedthe same, and the work ethic
just basically got strongerbecause now I have more time,
because I'm able to do it easier, I have technology that makes
me do it, that allows me to doit quicker and faster, so now I

(47:41):
can go ahead and use that timeto build something else and I
just keep.
I've been doing the same thingfor 27 years.
It's step and repeat, step andrepeat, step and repeat.
So that's kind of where wherethat comes from.
So it was a.
It was an interesting time.
The internet in the 90s into2000s was very, very interesting
time.

Raul Lopez (48:01):
Well, I think you know, looking back on that, none
of us thought of where we'd betoday with the way technology
was compared to like how we weredoing things back then and how
much I mean I did.
I started doing graphic designin high school because I was in
a program called Uppered Boundthat let us stay on campus at a

(48:23):
local college, at Rhode IslandCollege.
We were in a computer room andone of the kids there and a
shout out to Josh Zapata.
He was kind of like oh, I'mjust doing stuff on Photoshop.
I'm like what's Photoshop?
And I'm like oh, it's thisprogram and he and we had access
to it in the lab.

(48:43):
So I was like, all right, letme learn how to do Photoshop.
And then I taught myself how topirate Photoshop up to my
computer.
And then I started and the samething.
College, I was doing graphicdesign for all the frats and all
our frat parties and all ourevents.

So it's you know you have to set a hustle to get
there.

Raul Lopez (49:00):
And now it's like my daughter is doing graphic
design and video editing andshe's 10, her iPad.

And she's doing it at the level that you
couldn't do it with the tools inthe industry.

Raul Lopez (49:14):
Yeah, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, she's like I'm gonnastart my YouTube channel, I'm
gonna do this.
I'm like go ahead, baby, youknow whatever else you need,
she's you know so yeah, it'sjust crazy to think of, like,
how many hurdles you had to jumpwas just to get the basics down
back in the day, and now it'sjust like, oh my God.
And so like, speaking of that,you know, I mean, obviously
things are completely differentnow.

(49:34):
You know what are still some ofthose challenges.
So, especially for like Latinoswho are trying to build, you
know what you call, you knowsocial storytelling and getting
into digital media.

So now the biggest challenge is the
perception of the people whomake decisions in the media
space.
We're fighting forrepresentation.
We're way behind other groupsthat have managed to solidify
their own leaders in the space.
You know, the black communityhas done great in making their
own films and producing andfinancing their own films and

(50:07):
other content other mediacontent.
I think that we're a littlebehind in that and I think that
part of the reason why we're alittle behind in the content
space is because I think thatwe're doing a lot more in
fighting than we need to.
There's a lot of gatekeeping.
There's a lot of people who arenot willing to collaborate with
others because they're afraidthat they're gonna surpass them.

(50:27):
And that's the one thing aboutme.
Anybody who ever worked with me, anybody who knows me, I'll
give you the keys, bro.
I'll give you the keys to thehouse, like, if I learn how to
do something, I'm gonna show youall the tools, I'm gonna show
you all the ways that you can doit, because I understand that
what Raul's gonna do is notgonna be what I'm gonna do.

(50:48):
So you could excel in your ownspace, you could actually be
your leader in your own spaceand I could be a leader in my
space and we could probablyoverlap and collaborate.
But I don't need to bethreatened by you.
I don't need that.
You know, and that's not what Isee in the space.
And actually, interestinglyenough, there was a time that it
opened up and people werereally starting to collaborate

(51:10):
and things were happening.
And then, with things like thepandemic or whatever, I think
things have stepped backwards.
So I think we're back in thatspace where everybody's
gatekeeping, everybody's notputting people on, they're not
sharing, they're not sayingtheir names in the rooms that
they're not in, like you know,things like that.
It's just it's really holdingus back and I feel like there's
a small army of people out theredoing the right thing and I

(51:32):
wanna shout them out People likeNikki Saunders, people like
Nancy Ruffin, you know peoplewho I connect with on a regular
basis.
They're definitely doing thatthing, but there's a lot of
people who are not, and that'skind of holding us back.
So the challenges are reallyourselves first, and then,
obviously, the people who makedecisions in these media
companies that are not seeingour work.

(51:54):
Even though the market space hasgrown, even though we have
trillions and trillions ofdollars in buying power, even
though the audience isoverwhelmingly Latino we're
gonna be 25% of the country injust a couple of short years
Like all these things like given, we're still not in a rightful
place in the media in terms ofperception, in terms of

(52:17):
overcoming stereotypes, and youknow it's just not fair.
It's just not.
You know it's not fair, butonly we could change that.
We need Latinos to invest intheir own projects.
We need them to find their ownway, just like I found my way
through developing a website,creating a marketing agency,
creating a podcast.
In 2004, 2005, I had a podcastthat was weekly and eventually

(52:41):
made it to an internet stationwith the actual validity, with
the actual audience.
So we need the creators fromtoday to use all these tools to
make their projects as good aspossible so that we can make it
easy for the decision makers,but then, once we get put on, we
need to be the decision makers.
Yeah.

Raul Lopez (53:02):
Yeah, it's a well, what's it called?
Well, there we say, even as abig guy, there's always somebody
else above them.
Right now check.
You know, we got to be that guy, right now check.

You know, and they got to be there, so you
know.
So people that are in thatspace right now America Ferreira
, jennifer Lopez, luis Guzmanyou know this distance of
Rosario Dawson those are peoplethat are in the media that have
done amazing work as creators,as artists, as protagonists.
You know they've done theirthing.

(53:35):
But now what can they do to puton the next generation?
What can they invest in to puton the next generation, to make
sure that we have more of thosestories told?
So this is all storytelling.
From everything I ever did isall storytelling.
At the end of the day, nothing'schanged.
I'm just telling the stories indifferent ways, using different
technologies, but it's stillthe same thing.

(53:56):
Our stories are not out thereto the level they need to, but
shout out to people.
Again, like you know, angieAbreu, who has
DominicanWriterscom she's outthere making sure that the
Dominican voices are heard,right.
So we need those people to likereally get out there and create
these projects so that we canmultiply it and actually, you
know, get to the place where weneed to be.

(54:17):
If there's no books, therecan't be no films about our
stories.
We need the books to get to thefilm, right.
We need the podcast to createthe programs.
We're creating the dialogue tothe podcast, but the podcast
creates the dialogue thateventually becomes programs and
things that people need.
So it's a step, but it allstarts with story.
All starts with story.

Raul Lopez (54:39):
And it's you know, when you said something like
about.
You know we got to get to thoselevel where we're making those
decisions, you know, and I'mthinking of like that's.
You know, it's like what TylerPerry is doing.
You know what I mean.
He's trying to create his ownstudio, his own production
company.

Actually very interesting Tyler Perry.
Tyler Perry's an interestingguy because you know he bought
that whole lot and he createdhis studio.
He did something that a lot ofpeople don't give him credit for
.
He had a business partner namedAzi Aureo and he went to Ozzy
and he says you see, that lotright next door, that's yours.

(55:13):
I want you to create what I'mcreating for black people, I
want you to create for Latinos,thanks, and that's something and
you know and we're still seeingsome of those projects trickle
in or whatever but that was himsaying you know what you could
do, the same thing I'm doing.
That's the kind of support weneed in our community.
It's looking at us and saying Ibelieve in you, I invest in you

(55:33):
, and he sponsored that.
He said yo, I want you to dowhat I'm doing for my people.
I want you to do for yourpeople.
I can't do it, but I'm investedin this side of it, but I can
help you, I can invest in you.
I could go ahead and you know.
So that to me, is dope.
That's the kind of person Iwould want to be in that
position.
That's why we'd be.

Raul Lopez (55:52):
Yeah, now, I'm a big believer of if we elevate each
other, we all elevate together.
You know what I?
Mean Like there's no point of Idon't need to go and feel like
you can't get higher than me andyou can't be bigger than me.
You know, like I used to be acounselor for upper bound and I
had kids over high school.

(56:12):
One of the things that kind ofdrove me and ultimately to get
it.
I was, like you know, I alwayswant to do something for high
school kids, and all my highschool kids are college
graduated kids Gettingsuccessful life.
Some of them are moresuccessful than I am, you know,
and it's just like I love to seethat happen.

So you know, I think I think Tupac said it best
there was, there was aninterview he did like before he
passed, and nobody was killed.
Let me not take away from thefact that he was killed.
But he said I may not changethe world, but I'm going to
spark the brain of the personwho does, and that's that's what
everything I'm working on now,like the new, the new generation

(56:48):
of what I'm doing right now, orwas the Ember Academy?
That's exactly what it is forme, it's planting seeds so that
I can create a foundation forother people to do, to take over
the work right, to build on thelegacy, and that's what I feel
like I'm doing right now.
This is my legacy lab, so tospeak.

Raul Lopez (57:07):
So you mentioned the Sembr Academy.
You can tell me what that is?

Yes, the Ember Academy was a project that I was
going to launch in 2024.
It was a long term goal of mineto launch it, and it ended up
happening by accident.
Right, the pandemic happened,the shutdown happened.
And I had a bunch of people thatwere.
I had a bunch of people whowere losing their jobs, didn't

(57:35):
know what they were going to do.
They were stuck at home and allof a sudden, there was a deep
interest in making sure thatpeople got educated on things
that emerging technology.
They had to learn how to useZoom, they had to learn how to
work remotely.
But a lot of them were thinkingabout, like what if my job
never comes back?
Like, what am I going to do?
Some people want it to beauthors, some people want it to

(57:57):
start nonprofits, other peoplewant it to create a podcast.
Like all these different peoplehad these ideas that they said
this is my chance.
I never have time.
And now I'm home and I havenothing but time.
Let me try to make that dreamcome true.
So that group.
So I ended up opening up thedoors to a Facebook group that
ended up with about seven peopleto start with, and I started

(58:19):
having classes.
And then, next thing, you know,people were like yo, my friend
is also doing something likewhat I'm doing.
Can they come in?
Or whatever.
The group groups are 241.
Nice.
So for a period of almost twoyears, I gave them free coaching
.
I made accessible differenttools to them.
I coached them on marketing andbranding and taught them how to

(58:42):
use social media moreeffectively.
I talked to them in privateabout their ideas and their
plans to help them get theresources they need and
connected them with people thatI knew and this whole SEMRA
initiative got started.
So then I started thinking aboutit.
I'm like what's next?
What's really next for me?
And I think years of doingreally flashy influencer kind of

(59:04):
marketing bro type stuff, Isaid to myself the marketing
space is not healthy.
It's not healthy because peopleare not really growing.
There was recently a study thatwas done that they said that
less than 10% of influencersmake over $50,000 a year.
People who consider themselvesfull-time creators don't even

(59:26):
make $50,000 a year and we'revirtually invisible in a space
that's almost $500 billion ingrowth.
So think about that.
Nobody's making money, but theagencies right and the big
brands.
They're making the money andwe're not.
So entrepreneurship is goingthrough this really weird space

(59:47):
where people are more concernedabout who's behind them, who's
following them, as opposed toturning around and speaking to
them.
That, to me, is a problem.
That's not healthy.
So I retooled and revisited whatmy original mission statement
was for SIEMRA is to createhealthy, sustainable businesses
for creators, for people who arecreative, that have impact

(01:00:09):
projects, and I decided toimplement a couple of new things
.
Right, A mental health aspect,and also I wanted to make sure
that what we were doing wasdismantling hustle culture,
because hustle culture is nothealthy.
Hustle culture makes peoplemake bad decisions.
They do things that areunethical.
They are not disclosing theirFTC disposters, right, they're

(01:00:31):
not telling people that they'reselling them something because
they're making some money fromit, and that diminishes the
trust in the creators and theinfluencers that are working in
the space, and if that happens,then I can't make money, Then
the agencies can't make moneybecause people don't trust us.
So my goal is to takeentrepreneurs that want to

(01:00:52):
create impact in the space, theywant to do good things, they
want to make money, they want tomake a living, they want to
advance their career and developnew shit, and my thought
process is let me teach them howto dismantle this hustle
culture, or reformat it right,or reframe it, if you will, to
something that's more healthy,to something that actually takes
into account that they're humanbeings, they have families,

(01:01:14):
they have ambitions, they havepersonal relationships that they
need to nurture.
They can't be buried into thisdigital space 24-7.
So that's kind of where I'm atright now.
I applied for funding recently.
I have another podcastinterview coming up on a
National Exindicator show in acouple of weeks that's going to

(01:01:34):
address this in a more formalway, like talk deeply about what
the hustle culture is and howwe need to overcome it, and I'm
kind of like shifting theconversation On the passionate
side.
Besides the hustle cultureconversation in terms of
business and entrepreneurship,I'm also deeply rooted and

(01:01:58):
deeply invested in aconversation about mens' mental
health in general.
Regardless of what you do for aliving, whether you're a cop, a
fireman, if you're a janitor,it doesn't matter I want to have
conversations with men abouttheir feelings.
I want to have conversations.
I want to create spaces wherethey can feel free.
So I have conversations thatare going to lead to either

(01:02:20):
therapy or to support in someway shape or form so that we can
unlearn a lot of the behaviorsthat we need to unlearn and
become healthier men.
So that's kind of where I'm atwith that right now.
I've been playing around withChatGPT and ChatGPT gave
developer access to people whohad the plus account.
So I just created an AI botcalled Green Hoodie Project,

(01:02:41):
which is the project that I'mnaming it.
Then we created the GreenHoodie Project as a place or as
a platform to have conversationsabout mental health.
So the app specifically findsresources for men, for Black and
Latino men, to be specific, formen of color.
So we're training the AI app tolook for certain cues, for

(01:03:05):
social cues.
We're training it to beempathetic, we're training it to
have conversations aboutpersonal harm, suicide and
things of that nature.
So we're programed it frommultiple languages, which is
English, spanish and Creole sofar.
So I'm developing the app sothat once there exists a tool

(01:03:27):
that will take ChatGPT apps andmake them available on cell
phones and things of that nature, then we can make that
transition and make the appavailable to people.
I want to make sure that theapp is free.
I want to make sure that theapp is ad-free, like it's not
going to be sold as a commodity,it's not going to be sold for
advertising.
It's going to be used for whatit's used for and that's to
change lives and hopefully savelives.

Raul Lopez (01:03:47):
Nice.
Yeah, I had a conversation witha buddy this weekend.
Mental health came up and hegave me a pretty good quote.
He's like you don't get youroil change on your car to fix
your car.
You take an oil change car tokeep it running.
And he's like I don't go to atherapist to fix myself.
I go to a therapist to keep merunning, to maintain myself.

(01:04:10):
It's like you know, change thatmindset that we always had,
where you only go to a therapistbecause something is bad.
It needs to be fixed for a lotof us.

George Torres (01:04:19):
That's everything .
That's where regular healthright.
We don't go to the hospitalunless we're dying.
It's that side, but that'swhere it really happens, right?
But with mental health, wecan't afford to do that.
With mental health and I'mgoing to tell you why there's so
many people in our periphery,there's people around us that
are impacted by whatever traumawe're carrying Our children, our

(01:04:42):
siblings, our family members,our parents or everybody the
coworkers they're all impactedin some way, shape or form, by
the behaviors that we do as men.
That shouldn't happen, right?
So we need to get the tools tobe able to deal with whatever
we're dealing with, whateverbaggage we're dealing with, so
that we could actually livehappier lives, and that's the
goal.
The goal of this project is formen to live happier lives.

(01:05:06):
So the Green Hoodie projectcomes from En Canto, the movie
En Canto.
So when the movie came out,there was a lot of conversation
about Bruno, and I'm not goingto say any spoilers, even though
the movie came out a long ago.
But basically, bruno wore thisgreen hood, he wore this poncho,
a hooded poncho, and he had allthese.

(01:05:27):
He had family trauma, right, hehad relationship issues with
his family and he was outcast.
Long story short, we're havingthe same conversation, so I
thought it would be helpful formen to wear green hoodies as a
symbol of it's OK to talk, takethe hood off and talk about how
you feel, and the hoodie,besides being the Bruno

(01:05:49):
connection or whatever thehoodie is very significant in
our culture, right?
If you grew up in any inner city, the hoodie was like uniform.
It was like that's hard andthere's sort of my cheese mold
behind the hoodie that we havegoing all the way back to hip
hop days.
So the hoodie to me is like avery big symbol.

(01:06:10):
The green is symbolizing growth.
No, it's similar, it's justlike similar.
So I think the Green Hoodieproject has some legs.
I feel like I want to reallyexplore it.
I have conversations withamazing mental health
professionals that think it's agood idea, that want to invest
some time and possibly evenmoney into it.
So it's happening.

(01:06:32):
Again, I don't know what I'mdoing.
I'm going to keep it 100.
Besides playing with thetechnology, I know I have an
idea and I know that I'm goingto find 10 people who are
smarter than me.
To take my idea and make it areality Is what I've done
countless times before in themedia business.
So this is not about me.
I'm not a genius.
I'm not going to figure out allthe things.

(01:06:53):
I'm going to find people that Iknow that I could trust, that
are going to help me get it towhere I wanted to get it, and
that's really, at the end of theday, that's what I'm trying to
do Awesome.
Power collaboration.

Yeah, I think for a long time I was up the.
I have great ideas, but I wasafraid to make moves for it.
And now I'm a big believer.
It's like put some fire in thatpan and get to work.
You know what I mean.

I want to be very clear.
I want to be very, very clear.
If anybody's out there that'slistening to this podcast right
now has the means to do what I'mdoing better and faster, please
do it.
I don't care.
This is not a business for me.
This particular project is nota business for me.
It's not a business idea.
I'm not buying equity into it.

(01:07:40):
I'm not trying to get rich offof it.
I'm not trying to sell it.
I'm not trying to use it for anadvertising platform, like I've
done with my other businesses.
This is something for thecommunity.
It belongs to the community.
I want to create it so that itexists, and if you could make it
faster than me, if you canactually create this and make it
better than I can make it, orif you want to come and join me

(01:08:01):
to make it better, I'm open toall things.
This is not about me.
This is not about.
It's about planting the seedsso that we can have something
that's going to benefit and savelives At the end of the day.
That's what it is.

Yeah, that's awesome and so usually around this time
, start wrapping things up.
I usually come around and ask acouple of questions on all the
podcasts and stuff, and I thinkthe first one is usually for me.
It's like your journey's beenamazing and it's long and you've
gone through so much stuff.
If you were able to go back andgive yourself some advice,
what's something you'd tellyourself?

I don't know, because if I actually made a
decision on what to say tomyself, that would actually
change the course of my life.
That means that something willnot happen as a result.
And I don't know if I'm willingto alter what I've done,
because I feel like I made adifference.
I feel like the stuff that Iwent through, even the trauma,

(01:09:02):
the heavy bullshit, it actuallyworked for somebody else.
It worked out.
So I don't think that I would.
You know, there's a couple ofthings that, from a vanity
perspective, that you used tothink you would say but, I don't
think that I would changeanything.
I think that I would let it rockjust the way it was.

Nice man and I think , ultimately, you know the
namesake of this show.
You know how do you say successin Spanglish.

Oh man, this might be controversial though.

Go ahead.
Can I curse?
Yeah, of course, you cursedalready.

Yeah, I did right , alofoke, Alofoke.
Like, just do it man.
Just get it done.
Like that's success to me.
You know, just get it done.
Like done is better thanperfect.
I've heard that so many timesfrom so many really brilliant
people that I've worked with.
It's done is better thanperfect.

(01:09:58):
Don't ask for permission.
What is it?
Don't ask for permission, justapologize.

Yeah, better to ask for forgiveness than ask for
permission.
Absolutely, absolutely.

So Alofoke is how I say success in Spanglish.

Nice, Nice.
Yeah, I mean, when I was doingthis podcast, I was very much
stuck on that perfect, I needperfect.
I was.
You know, it took me.
What's about that?
Yeah, it took me like fourmonths just to get the logo I
wanted and the color scheme andthe idea, and then I just said,
fuck it, I need to startrecording.
I need to start recordingbecause if I don't record and my

(01:10:32):
first few episodes were roughand things have gotten better, a
lot better since then, but it'syou know, I agree.
You know, if I didn't do it,just start doing it as shitty as
I could, I would never havegotten to it and how many people
I know that have amazingpodcast ideas and sitting on
them for years sitting on them.

I have a couple of friends I've met.
I managed to push a little bitto get them going.
But there's so many people withgood ideas and they just hold
on to it.
And then the worst part aboutthat and I know we gotta wrap up
, but the worst part about thatis holding onto an idea so long
that somebody else does it andthey do it half ass or not as

(01:11:17):
good as you could do it, andthey find an incredible success
as a result, even though youcould have done it better, even
though you had a better idea,even though you had the better
connections, even though you hadto fund it, whatever it is.
But they actually did it.
And because they did it, peopleare like oh my God, you did it.
We've been waiting for this.
This is take my money, take mymoney.

(01:11:39):
And meanwhile you've beensitting on that idea for five,
six years.
That hurts bro it hurts.
It's happened to me.
I'm talking from experience.
It's happened to me when youhold onto something so long that
somebody else does it half assand then you have to watch them
get all the glory and meanwhileyou've been sitting on that.
It's mean your notebooks.

(01:11:59):
You've sketched it out, you'veactually done test runs, you've
done all this stuff and itdoesn't mean anything because
they did it.
Mm-hmm.

I agree, man and George.
Thank you so much.
You've had an amazing journey.
I really appreciate you takingthe time out to be here.
Is there anything else you'dlike to plug before we close up?

No, like I said, if you have a way to impact
mental health for men and youwanna take my ideas and run with
them, do la doi, there we go.

I thought, if you could, happen.

do la doi Awesome bro.

Well, thank you so much, and for everyone else
that's thinking as well, Iappreciate the support as always
, and I hope you'll join meagain next time as we continue
to learn how to say success inSpanglish.

A los foques.

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The Urban Jibaro - Embracing Heritage to Forge Impactful Digital Narratives - George Torres

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Urban Jibaro - Embracing Heritage to Forge Impactful Digital Narratives - George Torres