DESMADRE Podcast

Author, activist, educator, poet and performing artist Yosimar Reyes was born in Guerrero, Mexico and was brought to the US when he was three years old. He was raised by his grandparents in East Side San Jose, a place that fuels his storytelling with unique and comical narratives that cut to the core of his immigrant and queer experience. He is currently an Arts Fellow at Define American, an organization founded by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas and is also developing a one-man show a'la Jon Leguizamo. Jesus sits down to talk to Yosimar about growing up ratchet, getting through college with a hood mentality, and finding one's place in the world as an artist but also trying to get paid - aka hustling. 

Samuel Tomsing Martinez, aka JUAN HIERBAS, is Founder & Artistic Director of Desmadre. He's also a filmmaker, actor, comedian, musician, photographer, jaguar trainer, exotic dancer and man of mystery - until now. Join Jesus as he chats to Sammy about his background, artistic influences, developing as a filmmaker and actor and working in the digital Latinx space.  

Marco Castro-Bojorquez (@bojorquez) was born and raised in Sinaloa, Mexico. After being the target of a violent hate crime in Mexico, he fled to the US where he has spent the last twenty years of his life working as a community activist and educator in the LGBTQ and HIV+ immigrant community. Over the last few years, he has also emerged as a documentary filmmaker. His latest film, El Canto del Colibri, exploring the relationships between Latino immigrant fathers and their LGBTQ family members, has played at over fifteen film festivals including Frameline SF and Outfest LA. In this discussion, we dive into Marco's background and also try and tackle some of the misperceptions about the LGBTQ community by the Latinx community.

For more information or to reach out to Marco, find him on Twitter: @bojorquez
For more information on El Canto del Colibri: http://elcantodelcolibri.com

For information on the films Marco mentioned:
A Place in the Middle http://aplaceinthemiddle.org/  
Kumu Hina http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/kumu-hina/

For resources on family acceptance and/or Latino LGBT issues:

• Somos Familia: http://somosfamiliabay.org

• DeColores Queer OC: http://decoloresqueeroc.org

• Lambda Legal: http://lambdalegal.org

• Familia Trans Queer Liberation Movement: http://familiatqlm.org

Eutiquio "Tiq" Chapa (@TiqChapa108) grew up in King City - a small farming town in Central California. His Mexican-American parents owned and ran a convenience store where he learned about the challenges and ups and downs of running a small family owned business. After high school, Tiq went to Stanford where he got a BA in Urban Studies/Affairs and now, at the young age of 28, he's program Manager for the Stanford Graduate School of Business Latino Entrepreneurship Initiative. There, he's helping put together the largest and most thorough database of Latino-owned US businesses and publishing that information with the goal of stimulating more informed policy-making, business partnerships, and knowledge and skill development through its research findings. Tiq also helps run the Stanford Latino Entrepreneur Leaders Program, a nationally available six-week online education course for business leaders interested in building highly scalable companies. Our talk with Tiq ranges from his childhood, his time at Stanford, some big picture discussions regarding starting and growing a business as a Latino in the US, weightlifting, dating and many other things. Tiq is a funny dude with a great attitude and if you're at all interested in startups, small businesses, the Latinx tech movement and community building - he's someone you must get to know!

Nathan Olivarez-Giles (@nateog) is assistant news editor for the Wall Street Journal covering technology. Nate grew up in South Phoenix, a predominantly African-American and Mexican-American low income neighborhood, and here he talks about how growing up in the hood led to his interest in becoming a reporter. We also dive into the importance and need for journalists of varying backgrounds, the current state of media, and how 'tech' is now so prevalent in our lives that everything can be considered 'tech'.