Hope Dealer with José Rico
"Hope Dealer" is story-telling that focus on building connections and fostering a sense of belonging within our communities. Through personal narratives, historical reflections, and calls to action, Rico and his guests offer listeners a profound understanding of the power of love, community, and spiritual practice in overcoming systemic oppression and cultural erasure. Each episode is a testament to the enduring love and resilience that drive communities to resist, persevere, and thrive despite the challenges they face. You can join this community at https://joserico.org/
Hope Dealer with José Rico
Land, Identity, and Belonging in Rancho Cuatro Vientos
Ever wondered how the pursuit of dreams can transform a life? Raquel Mendia Nunez, a third-generation Chicana, shares her powerful journey from the suburbs of San Diego to owning Rancho Cuatro Vientos, an emblem of hope and resilience. She opens up about realizing her dreams amidst the pandemic, finding healing in harmony with the land, and the profound strength rooted in cultural pride. Raquel’s story serves as a beautiful reminder of how personal aspirations and community-building can lead to a life filled with purpose and joy.
Southern California's vibrant and diverse landscape holds stories of reclaiming identity and belonging, especially for the Raza community. We delve into the complex tapestry of navigating cultural richness against the backdrop of political tensions and apprehensions. Esteemed educator and activist Carlos offers his insights on living with purpose on unceded Kumeyaay territory and highlights the journey of finding visibility in a charged environment. This segment paints a vivid picture of how community engagement and cultural pride can overcome initial fears and foster a sense of belonging.
Ethnic studies emerge as a beacon of hope and empowerment, intertwining personal histories with educational activism. We hear from passionate individuals dedicated to justice work, exploring their transformative educational experiences. From childhood influences and academic disengagement to discovering a newfound passion through ethnic studies, these stories underscore the enduring impact of reclaiming identity and fostering community. As connections are forged across borders, personal journeys intertwine with global awareness, offering listeners a glimpse of how hope and purpose can be found even amid overwhelming challenges.
F.L.Y. L.I.B.R.E. a guide for healing and liberation can be purchased here: amzn.to/4iCzAAM
Get Dr. McBride's book "Becoming Changemakers" to explore more stories of resilience and community transformation. Connect with the Become Center at becomecenter.org or email dmcbride@becomecenter.org.
Buenas familia, soy Jose, rico or Rico, if you know me from the hood. Thank you so much for your attention today. It means everything to me, and I want to welcome you to Hope Dealer, which is a podcast about our journey towards hope, resilience and joy through the stories that we carry about our return home, and my intention for our time together is to remind us that we carry powerful medicine within us that is our guide to our transformation. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so grateful to be able to introduce you to incredible people, incredible spirits that will share their journeys with us. I'm here to introduce the incredible folks that are making this happen, both in today's podcast, but also you know and I'm going to tell this story after you all introduce each other how we got here in this moment in time. Magic In magic, right, but first let's introduce our guests. I'm going to have them introduce themselves and I'm going to ask Raquel first to introduce herself, but also tell us the story of Rancho Patro Viertos.
Speaker 2:Hello, my name is Raquel Mendia Nunez. I'm the daughter of Rafael and Rebecca, both born here in California, two Mexican parents, so I'm third generation. So Chicana raised Chicana, luckily I was. Even though my parents were schooled here and English dominant in their schooling, I was still raised with a lot of cultural pride. I just want to shout them out for that. So yeah, so I grew up here in San Diego and a town called Spring Valley, which at that time was kind of rural, suburban and now becoming more and more urban. We had a lot of empty space growing up where we could go, walk through creeks and catch crawdads and there were dairy farms everywhere. But that's gone now.
Speaker 1:Wait, what's a crawdad? Oh, for real. Do you know what a crawdad?
Speaker 2:is. I think it's kind of like a crawfish, like kind of like some shrimp shallow water fresh water.
Speaker 1:I guess this is for the city.
Speaker 2:I think people eat them yeah yeah, we never ate them, but probably at some time my people did. Um, but my, my mother's mother, uh, they're from sonora and uh lived in arizona, so I had so. And then my dad's family is from imperial valley, which is east of san diego. So most of my childhood I spent driving through the desert and my dad's mother, who lived in calipatria, had a little ranch, and then some, then some of my family members in Phoenix had little ranches. So I always dreamed of living in a little town, in a little ranch somewhere. Like you know, I would always tell my dad we should move back to Brawley and get a little ranch, but of course nobody listened to me. So I would always say that was one of my, that was one of my dreams.
Speaker 2:And so fast forward to the pandemic. Um, I was farming my front yard in the city and realized that it's a lot of work, like just for this little front yard. It was taking a lot of work and I started thinking, like man, I can't wait until I retire to get a ranch, because I'm not going to be strong enough anymore. Like, I need to get started now, while I have energy, so then hopefully, when I retire, I can enjoy the fruits of my labor.
Speaker 2:So, um, I bought a house, my first house, uh, in the early two thousands 2001,. And they were still giving like teacher incentives or whatever, which is how I got into that house. So when I first talked to a realtor to buy, I reached out to my friend to tell her that I wanted to buy a ranch and I thought we were going to get like a three year plan going or something like you're going to have to save up this much money, like you know. But then when she saw the equity I had in the house, she was like no, we could do this now, like you could. You could totally buy a house now. Um, and also like a side story, is that my mom has been living, had been living with me. So I'd been living with my mom for like six years I think, and it wasn't so bad before the pandemic, because I travel a lot for work. But during the pandemic, like I was over it, like I just I couldn't live with her anymore.
Speaker 1:So, um, we'll edit that part out I mean I could be real.
Speaker 2:My mom knows like, luckily, we have a really honest and open relationship, which has been part of our healing journey. Um, uh, obviously we all have mother wounds to heal. Um, yeah, but, um, so, yeah, so it was, everything happened really fast, I mean, and sometimes I feel like maybe I did it on a whim, like maybe I should have thought about what I was doing more, because things just happened so quickly. And so once I got here because it's really the right place, like did I really think about it? And I had a friend who said, well, maybe the fact that it was so easy and happened so fast is because it was meant to be wow, yeah, um, but part of like. So so that's kind of like how it all started.
Speaker 2:But also, through my healing journey, trying to figure out one like you know, when you have more than what you need, how do you give back? Like, what does that look like so that you're not hoarding resources? Um, what does land back look like in practice? Um, and how do we learn to live in ceremony with the land? And then how do we build community?
Speaker 2:So I had all these questions and so Rancho Cuatro Vientos kind of came out of that, like you know, the dream of you and your friends talking about buying lands, but, like, none of my friends were ready, you know. So it was like, well, do I keep waiting? Like, like, do I keep putting my dreams off to wait for everyone else, or do I just do it? So this was, this was a pretty big leap of faith to do something for myself that was purely for myself, like not thinking about anybody else. Like it's a two-bedroom house and at the time I had my daughter, yeah, but she didn't want to live here. Um, it was never the plan that she was going to live here, so this was supposed to be like my place by myself, that I was going to come and be out here all alone, like living my best bachelorette life, you know, having my friends over, you know all this stuff. And, uh, while I was in escrow, I met somebody online.
Speaker 1:You have to watch out for those online.
Speaker 2:Yes, I ended up never being here by myself, wow. So we're exploring. What does it look like to have land but to open it up to people? So we've hosted ceremonies here, and when I say we godless and I definitely, but also my best friend, iriani, who's much younger than me, but she's a ceremony sister, daughter, niece, like it's kind of weird because I'm almost her mom's age, but we've definitely had moments where we feel like friends and then, but I also nurture her a lot too. So it's just weird. We get to be a lot of things to each other.
Speaker 2:But, um, I, I applied for a composting grant and I got it, and so she became my site operator.
Speaker 2:So she's also been kind of my partner and planning out like, how are we to use the land? So when I'm traveling for work, if we're going to host a ceremony, like, she comes and holds it down and like, make sure that people know where things are, where things can go, what the rules are, um, so, um. So we've been doing the composting for this is our second year, um, and then she and her partner recently moved here on a trailer. So that's something I can't pay them at this point, but they don't have to pay rent, which in san diego is really big. There, for a little one bedroom place they were paying over two thousand dollars a month, making like 20 bucks an hour, yeah, um, so now we have big. So now her boyfriend is also part of the team, along with Carlos, but Aiden is our lead ecologist is what we call him and he has this whole plan of how are we going to get the land to be a hundred percent native within.
Speaker 2:The next five years in terms of planting. Wow, that's pretty aggressive.
Speaker 2:Yeah so we, every season we're planting a new wave of stuff. Yeah, so every season we're planting a new wave of stuff. And yeah so we're just kind of thinking like, who do we want to invite here? What kind of not just ceremony spaces, but have a safe place where our queer friends, people of color, who don't always feel safe out in nature spaces here in San Diego County, they could come here and like just lay on the earth and not have to worry about people bothering them. We have the telescope, you know, hoping to have some stargazing nights.
Speaker 1:I'm still waiting, bonfire.
Speaker 2:So that's just kind of a hope to have a place that people can come and enjoy and just trying to figure out what does it mean to own land and also thinking about land back, like obviously part of land back is giving land back to Native peoples, but I've also heard it's also giving it back to the indigenous plants, indigenous species, like reconnecting with land, honoring the cycles that are here.
Speaker 2:So we're in that phase of land back, because obviously we still need a place to live at this point. But you know, that's something that we all feel a call to not just reconnecting with our roots, but really reconnecting with that indigeneity and like living in harmony with the land.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, this is a beautiful, um, I mean your, your cultivation and your spirit. You know, I've gone out in the morning, uh, during the mornings, and just to be able to touch the land and to be able to smell the flowers, um and uh, it's just a beautiful.
Speaker 2:You could, you, could, you could tell that is blessed by many grandmothers and, yes, this piece of the land, yeah, and actually when I moved here, obviously like if you drive, if you ever, if the listeners ever get to come out here, it is a little bit scary because, obviously, rural America, what are you going to find? There are Trump flags and this area is pretty well known. It's pretty militarized with Border Patrol. One of the neighboring towns is Santee, but they call it Clantee. You know you'll see that kind of stuff. And so before I moved here, I actually had a dream. I had a dream that I saw some indigenous children walking across the land going to school, and the message I got was like you belong here more than they do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's, true, and I knew that I was protected. That's right. So it's also. There's also some of that too, like reclaiming space. And since I've been here, like when we first come, you kind of think like, oh man, like you really do feel like a minority, because you get that fear, like you want to recoil and kind of hide. But as I've been here longer, like I've noticed like there's a lot of rasa here. So how do we become not invisible? Right, because right now we're invisible in the story like of this community, but we're really like and I don't think everybody here are workers like that you see people who look like ranchers too, like you know people just enjoying life, like they're not just here working for people.
Speaker 1:I think they're living here.
Speaker 2:So it's also like coming out of my own shell, like to be brave and to be like hey, what's up? Like what's your name, where do you live? You know to ask those questions and not be such a city person. I, you know to ask those questions and not be such a city person, scared of interacting. But connecting.
Speaker 1:Well, we're ready to repopulate the land.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna start sending you listings.
Speaker 1:I like this land in California.
Speaker 2:They just passed a law where you can build an ADU on your unit and sell it as a condo build a who, an ADU. Accessory dwelling unit, so like if I built like a little house for you An additional house, got it. I can build it and sell it to you and you can own it just like a condo. Wow, yeah, it's beautiful land.
Speaker 1:Beautiful land.
Speaker 2:Beautiful land.
Speaker 1:So we're Raquel. I mean, we wouldn't have Raquel and without Carlos the online boyfriend, oh, the online boyfriend.
Speaker 4:Online date person.
Speaker 3:Slash lead volunteer Tinder. Nah, it wasn't Tinder's.
Speaker 1:Facebook. That's, yeah, that's your Tinder's, her Tinder's, your Facebook. Go ahead, carlos, introduce yourself brother.
Speaker 2:Who you are, what you do. You're more than that brother.
Speaker 1:You're an incredible educator at ethnic studies. You know activist, so introduce yourself and you know what you want to share with folks. Yeah, yeah, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my name is Carlos, you know what you want to share with, with, with folks. Yeah, yeah, thank you. Thank you, I loved um. Yeah, my name is uh carlos um carlos ernesto guatemoc hagedorn, uh grandchild of concepcion, alicia arthur mercedes, and son of anna maria gonzalez, and joaquin.
Speaker 3:Bacani-Hagedorn, soy, chicano, filipino. So I'm Chicapino, chicapino and raised deeply to be grounded and proud of my mixed cultures and where my family's come from and, uh, um, raised, rooted in justice and and, uh, you know, fighting for the betterment of, of our, of our humanity. So I was, I was born in woodland california, tomato, tomato lands um, first generation on my chicano side and second generation Chicano side. And I just want to say I loved hearing Raquel talk about her intention and purpose of being here. It's just really neat to hear her share her story about that, because it's just really neat to, um, hear her share her story about that, um, because it's very purposeful and that's something that's really important to me doing things with purpose and intention, um, so I just wanted to just add that too. Um, yeah, so, uh, yeah, raised, yeah, so yeah, raised up in the north, and now somehow I live here in San Diego County. Oh, you know what we didn't do? We didn't acknowledge the lands here.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, unceded Kumeyaay territory.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. So yeah, as Jose was sharing'm an educator, um in ethnic studies. So a teacher activist is, is my, is my lifetime, uh, one of my lifetime callings teacher activists in in ethnic studies. Um, and I remember a dear friend years ago, I don't know 15 years ago, a dear friend of ours, allison.
Speaker 3:We were at a conference and she, one of her questions was how did it was? It was our ethnic studies origin story. You know it was like when did ethnic studies find you? Or when did you find ethnic studies? You know, or when did you fall in love with ethnic studies? Or when did ethnic studies fall in love with you?
Speaker 3:And I always, I mean I have a moment where I walked into an ethnic studies fall in love with you, and I always, I mean I have a moment where I walked into an ethnic studies classroom. But really, when I think about it, I think about my mother and and the womb of being, like being in my mother's womb, and uh, learning about my mom and dad while I was, you know, becoming I, was being made you know um, and just all the beautiful work they did, um, and so I think you know I, you know that's really where I feel like my important story begins as far as, um, my my teacher activist journey, um, and growing up in a household, uh, where it was constantly, uh, you know, there were constant cultures Mexican, filipino. So a lot of my Filipino family would be coming in every summer and we would convert living rooms into rooms and then, on my Mexican side, my Mexican side was more rooted in community as far as my Filipino side was, as far as my family was coming in and out, and so my Mexican side, growing up, felt more my identity with community was rooted in Chicano politics and Chicano culture in many ways. But it all made sense, it all, like you know, hearing Tagalog, hearing Spanish, English, it all flowed pretty well in my family. And so I went to an elementary school in Woodland. It was bilingual and it was all Rasa, teachers, principal, all of that was just like super normal for me. I mean. So walking from home to school and from school to home was just a normal humanizing experience, you know. You know, and it wasn't.
Speaker 3:Until my parents divorced, I moved to Stockton, california, with my father and I went to a monolingual school, english only, of course, and fourth grade in the school was called colonial Heights, and so you know, unconsciously, but I began to be aware of colonial education really fast there and I and I disconnected from, from academics, um, pretty much after that, all the way through high school into my first couple of years at community college, I wasn't academically engaged. Um, I did really well socially, you know. But you know, that's, that's uh, think that I don't think I know that shows up in my teaching and learning practice. How I grew up at home. You know how, those first years of school, what it felt like to be seen to be, just what it felt like to be a normal little kid running around, you know teachers yelling at me in Spanish or English, yeah, and you fool humanity, yeah. And then I, you know, went through the experience that a lot of our youth go through, from kindergarten on, just oppressive education. So, yeah, it became yeah.
Speaker 3:So I stepped into an ethnic studies class at Santa Barbara Community College. So I was actually struggling. I was struggling and my mom had called me up pre-cell phone days, said Mijo, you got to come home. You know your grades, you're failing. I was failing all my classes. I wasn't even going to my classes. You know I was getting a college degree in social life at the beach, just enjoying life, not going to lie, it was fun and I didn't want to come home. I was like Mom, give me one more semester chance.
Speaker 2:Because she was paying for him. Yeah, to live away from home in community college.
Speaker 3:That's a gift.
Speaker 2:It is, is and your mom made that sacrifice for you yep, yep, yeah. Well, that's why he spent it well at the beach that's a good way to spend it yeah, she was like I need to see the grave yeah so you went back.
Speaker 3:No, so I opened up a class catalog the book Back in the day we had a book.
Speaker 2:I love those.
Speaker 3:And I was like, oh man, what you know, like, come on, I got this, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. By the way, let me just say I wasn't good at school, but I want to just honor my parents for making me go to college. They didn't give me a choice and I know there's a debate on, ah, give your kids a choice. I'm so thankful my parents made me go. So, even though I didn't do well in high school, in the back of my head I knew I had to go to this thing called college, like it was mandatory college, like it was mandatory, um, and I just really feel um lucky to you know that my parents, they were first generation college graduates, um, and so they set the path for me and made me, you know, and so, um, so, yeah, I'm looking at this book and I'm like I know in the back of my head, all right, I'm going to get my shit together. You know, I got I gotta get it together because I don't want to leave this place either. And so I'm like I know in the back of my head, all right, I'm gonna get my shit together. You know, I got I gotta get it together because I don't want to leave this place either. And so I'm.
Speaker 3:I'm just scrolling through, um, the, the catalog and um, I come up on a word I hadn't seen in decades, and it was Chicano. And the class was a Mexican-American Chicano art. And I could not believe that that word, that my identity, part of who I was, was in a college catalog. You know, I was like what, like what? Like hold up. You know, like hold up, is this for real? So I immediately signed up for it and it was wednesday night, which was like the worst thing ever once a week. Why was that? When surf's up, you know, it was like I'm who's gonna show up on a wednesday night class.
Speaker 3:I'm like seven to ten, seven to 9, 50, you know, not me, that was like yo, there's something. And it was also an art class. You know turned out to be a history of art and I wasn't too interested in art, but the word chicano is is all I needed to see, you know. So I signed up immediately and I and I still remember till this day I walked into that classroom it was a huge theater, like classroom, and and I opened the door and it brought me right back to Beamer Elementary, the bilingual school that I, that I went to, because I saw all, all the students my age. They all looked like me, I looked like them, I was like those are my little homies, you know.
Speaker 3:First, second from first, second, third grade, you know, and I looked down, it was a theater-like, so it was a big stage. There was a big stage at the bottom. I looked down and the professor looked identical to my Tio Jimmy. You know, dark indigenous. You know who's actually? He's. No, tio Jimmy didn't make it here, but he made it there, and so, and that was Proe, it is profe manuel unsuelta, because he's still alive, um, and he's a legendary chicano artist and that profe uh changed was a huge piece of changing my life forever, um, and he just taught, he just talked to us like we were at home.
Speaker 3:You know about who we are through art, you know, and it was the most beautiful experience, you know, and I remember living in an area in santa barbara, it's called isla vista and it's, you know, budo party, you know just all party. And I remember coming home with, like, my art book you know, and I say I still have these books.
Speaker 3:You know, and I remember just walking to my room, you know, like walking past all my homies who were drinking and smoking, and I was doing that too prior to this, and I was just, I just walked to my room and I just wanted to read more and it just, you know, it opened up the, the, the, you know the love for myself, the love for education, for academics, and I, um, I, I took the, I took all the rest of the classes there at Santa Barbara Community College and Chicano Studies, and I transferred to SF State, um, and, and got an undergrad, and I spent less years at a university than a community college, because it took me four years to get through community college.
Speaker 3:But by the time I got to SF State, I was so hungry. I wanted to learn how to research, write, learn how to ask questions, learn how to like, you know, join, you know um, you know just be, be an activist on campus and off campus, and all of that the College of Ethnic Studies provided us in a deep, in a deep way, um and uh. And you know, part of that journey was also denationalizing my politics, and SF State and the College of Ethnic Studies really opened up an internationalist ideology and practice which made natural sense for me, given, you know my, you know my, my roots are, um, from different parts of the world. You know um, yeah, and so I'm a, I'm an ethnic studies teacher, um, and student. Still, I always believe that that we got to stay humble and be a student in this, in this work um, and an organizer, and so and I live here in Cuatro Vientos now you know. So I'm back in Southern California.
Speaker 2:But we also do spend time in Atlanta. We do yeah we do yeah.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, that's a little bit about me. Yeah, that's a little bit about my intro. Cool and lead volunteer. And I'm the lead volunteer at Cuatro Vientos.
Speaker 1:That's right. We're trying to situate it. Yes, cool organizer. Yeah, Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. And the fourth person to this group is a Another divine, spiritual being, fierce warrior, someone that you know, a kindred spirit a leader.
Speaker 1:You know if you would have seen Cecily at the event she organized last week, the amount of joy and love that she brought to so many folks. I'm just glad that I get to partner with my compañera and many things, including this podcast, because she is actually the first interviewer of the podcast and she's going to do that as my compañera, partner, partner Muñeca, cecily.
Speaker 2:You can't hear it, but she's blushing.
Speaker 4:Hi, I'm Cecily Relucio. I am the daughter of the late Perlita Imperial and Edmundo Relucio from the Philippines, from Nueva Ecija and Tondo, manila, and I'm Jose's partner. We live in Albany Park, chicago, with our five children, a blended family Tizoc, vanessa, amaya, diego and Mia.
Speaker 1:That's an age. That's the order of age.
Speaker 2:From age 28 to age 16.
Speaker 4:So we have a full home house, full of love and chaos and discovery. I am a survivor of life in a rural, sundown town in Illinois, so that's where I grew up. I was born in Chicago and then, when I was two years old, my family moved to Coal City, illinois, and it was a really difficult place to grow up as a little brown girl and very. As a little brown girl and very, yeah, I felt I grew up becoming very alienated from who I was, as a Pinay, as a Filipina, not really understanding what my place was in the world as like my full human self. All of my teachers were white, from K all the way up until 12, and I have one memory of one teacher, my first grade teacher, miss Quinzio, who's still alive, who affirmed me culturally, and so I was fortunate to have that experience early on, but then it was not really ever repeated and I think I did okay in school. I think I had a positive identity of myself as a student and school was in a lot of ways just a place to escape to, to escape home. So I came to justice work, I think in a different way than folks. Justice work for me has been about breaking family cycles of violence, starting with myself and my younger sister, and so a lot of the work of justice for me started with understanding familial patterns of dysfunction and toxicity and violence and doing the work that I needed to do to not pass that on to my own children.
Speaker 4:I'm an educator and identify as an ethnic studies practitioner, and that also came, I think, about halfway through my career as an educator.
Speaker 4:I was directing a teacher education program at a predominantly white university that was really like a white savior missionary program and was teaching the class on this you know the quote-unquote social justice class and we watched the film Precious Knowledge and I remember where I was Like.
Speaker 4:I remember the room that we were in when we watched it. I remember how I felt and I felt like this sense of like oh, this is what I have been looking for in terms of the type of practice you know that I wanted to aspire to, and I also felt a tremendous sense of grief, of like what would my life have been like if I had been educated in this way, if I could have known how to educate the young people that I had taught in this way, and that led me on a really incredible path back to myself, back to my home frequency, and so my path from 2012, I think on has kind of been my own ethnic studies like self-education of learning about who I am. On has kind of been my own ethnic studies like self-education of learning about who I am, learning about who my people are and then learning how to teach and to lead from ethnic studies practice and it's been, you know, just an incredible journey. That's been just an incredible journey. That's been like transformed my whole life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm the founder of Umuli Ethnic Studies.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and our mission is to strengthen, protect and sustain ethnic studies in Chicago and to be a home place for ethnic studies for educators and young people in Chicago. Yeah, I think that's it for now.
Speaker 1:I'm the lead volunteer, you know if you need, you know papers copied or?
Speaker 2:t-shirts made. Just bring in the money made okay, just bring in the money, bring in the money.
Speaker 3:Oh, that's real can I just say like uh, I think it's right to say ethnic studies brought us together yes, all four of us yeah yeah, right, like, I feel, like, is that, is that our connection?
Speaker 4:I think so.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean.
Speaker 2:He's going to tell the magic story. Okay, okay, Well.
Speaker 1:I mean yes and I was going to ask you to. I think. See Sig for us. Yeah, yeah, no for sure for sure.
Speaker 4:See, sig, keeps us together, keeps us together.
Speaker 1:So I want to you know, because we talk about this story or I share a story, but I actually want to hear your side of the story Of how we came together when we approached you in the parking lot Before that, before you do that.
Speaker 4:I was in the parking lot. We saw him in the parking lot.
Speaker 1:We saw you in the parking lot. So for me, I was you know, I shared this with you yesterday when I was like, like it's a trip that I'm back in San Diego. I wouldn't have been back here in San Diego unless we would have met you, and we wouldn't have met you unless she would have brought me to the Philippines. And I wouldn't have met with her if I didn't ask her mom to interview me always back to her mother, always back to her mother met with her if I didn't ask her mom to interview me Always back to her mother, always back to her mother, killing the mother wound.
Speaker 1:So that's my story of how we met Mother healing Mother. Healing, yes, how do you interpret how we met?
Speaker 3:Well, I mean, I remember getting a message from Jason ethnic studies and saying, hey, are you in the Philippines? I was like, yeah, hey, man, my good homie Jose. I mean, more or less, I think they saw you at a restaurant, you know it'd be great if y'all can connect. I'm like, oh great, yeah, you know, give me his info, whatever. And I think he may have sent us a message, maybe on Facebook. Yeah, I think so. And that's kind of how, yeah, we chat each other up and let's, yeah, let's meet up. You know. But I chat each other up and let's, yeah, let's meet up. You know, but but I don't know how.
Speaker 4:So I didn't see you two um in the parking lot. So so I don't know that side of the story. Well, that's how we knew that. So we saw you. I recognized you from ethnic studies. I think it was cleese or something yeah um, you know, because I'm an ethnic, so it is group B.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there's the common denominator.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that is the common denominator and I was like, oh, I think I know who that, or I think that person is from the States. Yeah, Like I've seen them before.
Speaker 3:And we're not even I mean not that. Manila place to find each other, but we were in?
Speaker 1:yeah, where were we in the philippines, bro? We were on the same island, on the same time, at the same restaurant yeah.
Speaker 4:And so what I think is the amazing part of the story was like oh, I think I know that person and if it were me I would have just like left it at that. Yeah, you know, it would have been like oh yeah, so I you know. And then he was like, well, who you know? And I you know?
Speaker 4:and I was like, well, I think his name is carlos hagedorn, I think he's in ethnic studies, um, and so he just starts like going on his phone and of course he knows a lot of people and he's like, oh yeah, he knows jason and like, without even telling me, he's like already put the wheels in motion To get an introduction. And what I really you know, I'm more reserved, you know kind of introverted person was that he reached out and was like, yeah, why wouldn't we get an introduction. And then that you all were like, yeah, that's not weird. Okay, sure, let's meet up with them. You know, like I, yeah, there were a lot of different points at which I think any of us could have been like, you know, kind of brushed it off, and so.
Speaker 4:I think, it's really cool that, like you know, our spirits, our hearts like led us to be open to this experience of like getting to know. You know meeting up meeting for the first time, and then you all like having reasons to come to chicago. You know your sister being in chicago and just like to keep like building right and getting to know each other, and so it feels very like meant to be yeah, oh yeah, and then we were, and then we lived in the class together.
Speaker 2:That's right, yeah but the day we went to go meet you all I don't know if you remember this, but um, on our what like that morning, I woke up feeling really sick and really sad.
Speaker 2:So, like on the way to meet you guys, I started crying in the car like I just started feeling overwhelmed with like all the politics we were learning about in the philippines and we had just come from vietnam and just like, fuck man, like we're fucked, not feeling any hope, you know, and just like feeling overcome with like just this immense sadness of like man, like we're just exploiting people everywhere and there's no, you know, and we're on our way to get you all. And I'm like trying not to cry too much Cause I didn't want you guys to see that I had been crying, so I'm like trying to pull it together. And he's like, should we turn around? I'm like, no, I'll be okay, you know. And then like boom, like we see you guys.
Speaker 2:And, um, it was, it was really really nice to have the hope like reignited again. I mean, I still, I mean I think this podcast is going to be really important because, you know, the more you learn, like it does feel like what is the hope, you know, because, like the forces that we're fighting against are so big, um, and then, obviously, when you pull back little, like into your little bubbles, like it's easier to feel the hope and feel like things are going good or whatever. But then when you take that big look again, especially when you travel, it's just like like this is a really big design, like yeah, it's a system yeah like and and this, and the systems are all connected.
Speaker 2:You know like, it's not just like this one, it's like a whole system of death stars all connecting with each other and but yeah, that day was like it was really.
Speaker 2:It was a really interesting day that we actually came together too, and I'm not a kind of like. I feel like part of my healing journey has been to be okay to cry again, you know, because for so long I just like just stay busy, just keep working, just keep it moving and like so that was like the first day where I felt like I couldn't hold it anymore that was the day we met you.
Speaker 4:Thank you for sharing that story yeah, I remember, we.
Speaker 1:I remembered one that was a good meal, um, but you were you two were feeling you were recovering from being sick yeah, oh, that's right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you had some soup or something, right?
Speaker 2:yeah, and then I had soup because I was like I don't know if I could eat either.
Speaker 3:I was hitting the chicken. I gave me some more of that. I was trying to respect yeah yeah, we have a picture, by the way, that first time yeah, that was. Yeah, that's how I saw it the other day.
Speaker 1:I saw it the other day, yeah, yeah, well, I mean, that was a great time, I think, for reconnecting, right? Because, um, cecily, um, you know, asked me and I was so glad to be able to do a reconnecting ceremony with her and her sisters and her mom, which is beautiful when we got there Beautiful, and so they have wild love lemongrass growing all over her home. Is it where your mom lived or was she?
Speaker 4:Where my grandparents lived. It was her grandparents, wow, and so I want to bring lemongrass.
Speaker 1:To me is it you wasn't where your mom lived, or was she? Or my grandparents? It was a grandparent, wow, and so I want to bring lemongrass like to me. Lemongrass now it's it's like connected to that, to that home place for her.
Speaker 4:But I think that home place is that reconnection yeah yeah well that's funny because I'm sorry no, no, no, go ahead ahead, isn't that when you launched Umui? I launched it that summer, yeah, and taking the trip was like a really big part.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I remember you sharing on your social media something around that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, returning home.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and so I was reading you know, I think I had requested you as a friend, whatever and I was reading that and I like, oh my god, like this language that she's articulating is exactly how I'm feeling, because I'm home in the philippines for the first time in my life yeah to visit my father and so that that language really was very healing for me to be like wow, this is sometimes I have a hard time explaining myself or articulating and I was like like that's exactly how I feel, so it's super appreciative to read that and to be for that to be named that way. I was like wow, that's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was beautiful. Yeah, so that's what the podcast is about, so you'll be able to listen to. We just started, though right.
Speaker 3:What'd you say? We just started right. What'd you say? There's more questions? Right, that was the intro. This is the intro.
Speaker 1:We have to cut it at some point. But if you want to hear more stuff like this, Part two.
Speaker 2:Part two and part three and part four.
Speaker 1:Thank you all for listening and we'll definitely have you all as guests at some point. Thank you all so much thank you, thank you.