In some aspects, social video marketing isn't that different from the cinema industry.
I was 14 when my father first told me I needed to start wearing makeup.
It is difficult to celebrate a heritage that is constantly rejecting you. You never felt Dominican enough. You always felt a need to overcompensate for some of your “undominican” behavior. You took classes to learn how to dance bachata and salsa. Still, your latinadad was constantly in question. You don’t look Dominican. You don’t sound Dominican. Those words were often spoken to you.
We said the following 4 years ago...
For my entire life people have always been surprised to learn that I speak Spanish. This is typically followed with something along the lines of "No way, you don't look Spanish at all." I know, right? The blonde hair, blue eyes, it always throws people off. This never bothered me, in fact, quite the opposite. From a young age speaking Spanish was like my secret superpower. I'd love to surprise people with a simple "gracias!" or casually dropping in to conversations in Spanish. On a few occasions I've actually pulled out my cell phone to have a pretend conversation with "Papá" when unsuspecting victims were saying things they probably would have preferred I didn't understand.
It was never an unusual sight to see my great grandmother handing out homemade papa rellena to everyone in her Queens neighborhood. The community would pitch in money to buy bulk foods like potato, rice, meat just so they can give it to her to cook it. You may have even seen my grandmother running her own concession stand in the busy bustling streets of Puerto Rico where she would put her own touch on pastelillos that would make anyone stop dead in their tracks just to taste. When I started my own food journey through The Bronx Vegan, it may have been a surprise to my family that I was taking on a new approach to food but when you look at the dedication and passion for food that runs through my family history, this work really isn’t so surprising at all.
