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Are you looking for a new podcast that will make you laugh, learn, and say get Yeah.
Then tune in to Look At Though Our Radio Season ten Today, Okay.
Look at Our Radio is a radiophonic novella, which is just an extra way of saying a podcast.
Season ten of Look At Thought Our Radio is totally nostalgic. We're diving in with a four part series about the Latinos who shaped pop culture in the early two thousands.
But that's not all.
Season ten is also launching in the wake of LA wildfires and a new Trump presidency. As always, we're leaning into community by conducting critical interviews with people leading the efforts to rebuild LA and fight back against oppression.
Tune in to Look at Our Radio Season ten. Now that's what I call a podcast.
Love with every listen right at your fingertips.
Loka La Olaola, Loka Motes. Welcome to season ten of Loka Tora Radio. I'm Theosa and I'm Mala. Loka Tora Radio is a podcast dedicated to archiving are present and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning in to Capitulo dos Ciento's Veinti Sace two twenty six.
Last time on Loca to Our Radio, we interviewed Latin Negra about her book about her work and sex education, and about how important sex education is for LATINX communities. Go ahead and give that episode a listen, leave us a review, share with a friend.
We're so excited to be in conversation today with each other. We recently put out a survey to our listeners, and overwhelmingly, the feedback is that y'all want more episodes of just Mala and I chatting. You said that you appreciate the interviews, you love the interviews, but you also want a little more of just us. So today we're doing just that.
I'm flattered.
Yeah, thanks for not being sick of us just yet. They love us, They love us, Thank God, they love what we have. Yes, we do have a special something we do.
We have a chemistry we do.
Yes.
Yes.
And to get us started, let's talk about our climax and cry of the week. Mala, how did you climax this past week?
Oh my god, Well, there's just so much going on to be happy about. My pets are thriving. I'll just say that generally pop us in my new pet who I can't say much about it this time.
Mala loves to give a teaser. She loves to like give the people a little something, but then won't actually like say what it is.
Oh, of course, you know, like keep them coming back.
Listen to any episode of the podcast and you'll see that's a recurring theme.
I'd love to tell you, but I just can't tell you, So you can just guess. You can fill in the blanks, use your imagination. Pets are thriving, families thriving. My spring break was spectacular. Also, can't really talk too much about where we went because we're trying to protect its integrity. And they also you understand because you went to the same place.
Yeah, Mala doesn't want to gentrify this part of Mahinkling just yet.
No no, no, no, no, not just yet, So we're being tight lipped about this absolute paradise we spent a few days in. So I would say that was my climax, was my spring break. School's going well, midterms that's a climax of sorts, you know, yeah, yeah, and then cry. I'm exhausted because of all of the above things that also make me so happy. I'm producing a documentary and
we're coming to the end of our production. We like as of this recording, have our final pickup weekend coming up to film our final scenes and then we're deep into post production. But I got brought on to another project to produce a virtual thesis. So we had our first meeting this morning, like our first with me as a producer. I'm joining the team, so my first production meeting with them. So and then of course we're in season ten and so there's just a lot going on
and I'm very sleepy, but it's great. So if I'm crying about anything, it's just that it's an embarrassment of riches at the moment.
Oh that's lovelys, a lovely way to look at it.
But I'm trying to be super positive, silver linings all the way around.
That's that's a really positive way to look at life.
And how about you, Yosa, how are you feeling?
Let's see how did I climax this week? I'm going to borrow from you And this is now a couple weeks old for me, but I'm still kind of relishing it in it is that Atahen, my baby, my Pomeranian, he turned ten years old. Amazing, he turned ten on March sixth, and I had originally planned a birthday, little birthday party for him. I invited my friends to come over and bring all my friends with dogs and just kind of just hang out. Let's dog's play, we can
have some mimosas. And things did not go as planned and I had to cancel and it was a whole thing, and I tried rescheduling, and it just I've shared now kind of on social media, but one of our family dogs, Oliver, passed away, and so it just felt like I didn't want to see all the dogs in the backyard without him. And so but I still really want to celebrate that Heen's birthday.
This is so.
Millennial of me, so latin a dog mom of me. But I still want to have a little something for him because ta Heen. If you follow me on social media, you know that that Heen loves to pose. If you try to take a photo of him, he will open his little mouth and give his little dog smile, and it's just one of my favorite things in the world. It's one of my favorite things about him. And so I still have this idea to take him just let's just have a little day. He and I so I'm
planning that this week he's going to get groomed. I'm going to take him to a little dog bakery, have his little photo taken. E Yah, just to commemorate the tenth birthday, because it feels like such a milestone, because it is these little dogs are so special and so sweet, and he has been like my milestone baby. Like he was with me when I was a senior in college at UCSB, and I have my photo with him when I graduated in my cap and gown. He was at
my wedding. I wanted to make sure that he was in the photos, and so he was there for just before the reception, before the wedding, actually he was just there for photos, and then in my cap and gown for when I got my masters, and so he's been, you know, in all my photos for all of my milestones these past ten years. So for that alone, it
just feels so special. So that's definitely I have so much gratitude for just that little little dog, the little baby in my life, especially because we've gone through so much loss with our pets. In the last three years. We lost our family cat he was fifteen. Tragically lost Gusco,
who was only three and then recently Oliver. So it just with that silver lining, like there's so much loss, but there's also so much life and wanting to just celebrate his little milestone, you know, is how I'm feeling.
Yeah, I mean it's really a celebration also of yourself. Yeah, in a way, and all the things that he's walked alongside you, absolutely wherever you've gone, yes, which is a beautiful thing.
Yeah, it's beautiful. I definitely like think of him as my little compagno when I think of him more than a dog, but a little companion of the last ten years. So yeah, that's my climax of the week. And then my cry. I've shed lots of tears, especially today in our before we got to the studio. Without getting too much into the weeds, it's really hard being a caregiver, and it's this very weird thing where I feel like I'm living the life sometimes of like a middle aged lady.
But I'm only thirty and thirty. I'm thirty one. But you know, I've shared this before, I think, but my parents are older. My mom had me later in life and my dad is in his eighties, and so there's a lot that comes with having older parents, and there's a lot of care that goes involved that's very invisible, I think, because my parents are still very independent. They can drive. My dad is even still working part time.
My mom is retired. But there's just a lot of invisible labor that goes into being a caregiver because they're still independent, but there's some coordinating that has to happen. My mom had a knee replacement last October and that's just been a very long and intense recovery and so she had another procedure yesterday and it went well, but just was her recovery is a little harder than we expected.
And so with that, like I have the blessing of being self employed, but there's some days like today, I have to be in the studio. I have to be in the student one day of the week. That's a little less flexible, and so it's just sometimes challenging. And today was one of those days where it was really challenging, and I felt like the labor and the managing of
everything was just too much. And I was just crying all the way over here because I thought that I got something right and I got something wrong, and so it just feels like just emotional sometimes.
Yeah, you also get so many things right, Yes, I try like a ninety nine point nine accuracy rate. I'm like a ninety accurate and so if one thing you know, of course, it can feel like the straw.
Yes, yes. And I was kind of reflecting on that that I have used meltdowns, breakdowns, burnout as kind of like my like the boiling point, right, and I'm when I was driving over here sobbing, I was thinking like, oh, I cannot let things get here, like I have to let either set a boundary, make changes, do something differently before I get to the meltdown point, because you cannot be making changes when you're in the meltdown. You know,
at that point it's too late. And so like everyone talks about like self care before burnout, and it's I feel very much in that same realm, like you can't be making these changes when you're in the thick of it. You have to like make them before you get to the meltdown. So that's what I'm dealing with this week. And it's going to be okay, it's going to be fine, but I'm just a little bit in my feelings today.
That's very valid friend. You do a lot. Thank you, You're amazing. Thank you, You're my hero. Thanks girl, and I love you.
I love you too.
And you I think you deserve a nap.
I do. I do deserve an app later. I will take a nap.
Later after we've finished recording this episode. And that's been our climax and cry of the week.
Don't go anywhere, lookamotives.
We'll be right back, and we're back with more of our episode.
Moving into our next segment of oh Ye lookas we have a question from one of our favorite longtime listeners, Jackie. She asked us this question, which I'm obsessed with. Are we teenage thirty year olds or are we teenage senoras.
You are now listening to Oh yes, oh Lord, Well, just technically and realistically we are in our thirties, yes, and I think we still sometimes do feel like teenage girls. But then, of course, as we've established, we have our Senora proclivities, we do hard hardcore. And the thing is, by the time I'm in actual Senora, I don't think I'm I don't think. I don't know if I'm going to still want to feel like a teenage girl.
You know who knows who.
I don't know what I'm going to I don't know what's going to happen when I'm an old lady, But like, I have to assume that at some point this feeling will wear off.
Maybe who's to say, Who's to say? There's this video, this TikTok that went viral of this Senora. No Sissia is Mahicana Argentina or No, I don't remember where the video was from. I don't know where I'm getting Aartentina from. But there was this senora who was opening up a blind box, which are very popular right now, and it was a blind box of a la booboo, which is this like little creature monster that's adorable, and went super viral. I have two of them.
You taught me about these. I had never did. I was a low what what?
Yeah? A la booboo?
You have to send me a photo. I'm like, is it on your purse? Yes? Yes it is, Yes it is.
And the senora was so excited to open up this blind box. It seems like the context is that her granddaughter or someone in her family gave her this and she was so happy and excited and was like, get gur she loved it, and that makes me think that that little that teenage self is always there.
Yeah, it's the whimsy.
The whimsy, it's whimsical. It may not be as like external as it is now in our thirties when we're Senora's, but I feel like internally there's still that piece that seed will always be there.
Yeah, that's very sweet, that's very sweet. I do think of like, I love the archetypal care free Senora who like gardens and is barefoot all the time. Yeah, and just kind of like does what she wants and dresses up funky, you know, like that sense of magic. Yes, that's what I hope to be.
I was gonna say that sounds like that will be you in the future. You already have that kind of whimsy. You've had your hippie era.
Yes, yes, And I have to be honest with myself that it's not really an era it like is, It's just you are.
It's just part of who it's a part of your identity, it's.
Part of my personality. So yeah, I think I think that's in the future. So going back to this question, maybe we are just teenage Senora as.
Then, Yeah, that's true. I wore little heels for the first time in a couple of months. Because I've been training for the marathon, I was like very much prioritizing my feet health and care and like making sure that they were always comfortable. And I've been wearing mainly boots because of winter with a little heel. But yesterday I wore heels and my feet were hurting and I felt uncomfortable.
And these were shoes that I wore to our iHeart launched dinner, so was not that long ago, and I remember loving them and feeling like they were super comfortable. And that's when I thought, like, Wow, your thirties come at you fast, because these shoes were not uncomfortable at one point, but they're kind of uncomfortable now and that makes me sad, And so that makes me think, yeah, maybe I am a teenage Senora and not a teenage thirty year old, right right.
Right, No, that's so real. Also, like, can I say, not only did you wear those shoes, but the dress was so tight? Yes, we could barely walk in the barely walk. Yeah, we were like little Barbie dolls with little tiny gates.
Yes, that's exactly what we were.
On top of it, all.
It was fantastic.
It was gorgeous. I mean you can the photos are on our Instagram.
Yeah. I don't know if I could do that now right, But at the time I was still twenty eight.
Those years make a difference. Yes, you also weren't running that much back then.
I wasn't running marathons.
No, no, no, you're using your feet for other things now I am.
I am, And my mom is someone who wears her heels. When after she had her hip replacement and she was in the clear, one of the first things she asked for doctor is when can I wear heels again?
What a battie?
And he said, I've never been asked that question before.
Oh my god. He doesn't treat batties.
No, clear, first time treating a batty, clearly. And yeah, she still wears her heels. And sometimes they don't get augnad because I'm my lady. Please, we're gonna be doing a lot of walking. Please some flats on, But you can't keep a batty down.
No, no, no, it's like no, it's like that episode of Modern Family where Gloria wears her heels to Disney.
Like exactly, that's exactly it.
It's that Oh, I love it. I love it so much. Have you talked more explicitly about the marathon yet?
No, I hadn't run it when we were last recording. I did hit a PR. I ran the marathon in four hours, in forty seven minutes, so I took nine minutes off of last year.
Oh my god, that's wild.
I started pretty conservatively, per my coach, so I started at like an eleven minute pace and just maintained the whole way. And when I reached a mile eighteen, my coach was there and she was like, Okay, we can stay here and you're still going to hit a PR four fifty four And She's like, that's still a PR. That's three minutes. And she was like, or we can like up it, like how are you feeling? And I was like I can do it. And so I like just increased my my pace mile by my and I
was able to hit like sub sub eleven. So my average pace overall was ten fifty eight and I got to four forty seven, and so that's exciting. I don't know if I can beat that now, and I'm gonna I'm okay with that because I've just realized, like or now having two marathons under my belt. You know, it's just so much on the body, and there's just your body has its limits and I can challenge it and I can train for it, but just how how exhausting it is on your body. Like I'm okay maintaining this,
and let's just let's stay here. Maybe we chase a thirty second shaving, like thirty seconds off, you know, but like I don't know about shaving like another like nine ten minutes off.
Who knows a lot of time.
Lot, it's a lot. We'll see. I mean, with more training, more time, like you know, you get stronger. So we'll see how I feel about it next year. But yeah, that was my that wasrace.
Amazing, sense amazing. I mean that's fast. You ran fast, girl, Thanks girl, good, thank you.
Don't go anywhere, lookomotives, we'll be right back.
And we're back with more of our episode. Today.
We're bringing back an older segment that we haven't really done during this network era, and we haven't done in a while because I don't know, we just have it.
We just haven't and I don't know. It's a little incendiary.
It is a little bit so if you're a longtime listener. You might remember this segment called Weird Things White Women Did, and it was very much inspired by the fact that Mala was working predominantly with white women at this period for a period of time, for a period of time, and so it inspired the segment so that she could kind of talk about her experiences in general terms.
Right, very general observations.
Yes, yes, and so that was one of the reasons. I feel like we kind of let the segment go in a way because the exposure was not there in the same way. But we're bringing it back because we heard from you are listeners that you really liked that segment and you really wanted it to come back. So here we are giving the people what they want.
Exactly what they want. I mean, I feel like it really depends on our environment whether or not we have regular contact with white women and white womanhood, and it's honestly like hard for us to find unless we're in those spaces.
And we're not really in those spaces.
No, So what we're going to do today is for our listeners who are online and keep up with what's going on, you will already have heard about this. So for those who have not, this will be news to you.
This is news to me because when you told me, I had no idea what you were talking about.
So I wish I didn't know about this stuff, but like you know, it is what it is. We get news how we get news. So for our weird things white women did this week, we're talking about something that has been going back and forth on TikTok. But Bad Baby also known as the catch me Outside girl of Doctor Phil Fame, real name Danielle Briugoli. Some of you might know her as, like, you know, the person who made like millions of dollars on OnlyFans in a very short period of time, one of many, by the way,
they're like raking it in on OnlyFans. Well, Bad Baby the aforementioned and Alabama Barker, daughter of Travis Barker, now stepdaughter to Courtney Kardashian. So this is Kardashian beef also right in that specific way through marriage, right, So, Bad Baby and Alabama Barker have been beefing and writing dis tracks about each other, and the consensus right now is that Bad Baby's winning. She's like written multiple diss tracks.
And I bring up the Kardashians because Bad Baby brings up the Kardashians as a way of dissing Alabama Barker. And in one of the music videos, Bad Baby had like an actor on the drums, tatted Beanie.
Oh okay, yes, like families are involved.
Families are very much involved. So she has like a fake Travis Barker and her distract music video. So the white girls are beefing.
That scares me because that means we're in a recession. Like literally, if the white girls are beefing, they're fighting. Yeah, we are in a recession. Oh yeah, it's a telltale signs. And people have been making observations because I don't think formally we're in a recession, like it hasn't been declared a recession, but people have been making their observations about the things that mean we're in a recession, like lipstick
sales going up. That's one sign that we're in a recession because women start to spend like things like small luxuries, affordable luxuries, and during a recessions, lipstick sales increase.
Oh I didn't know that.
Yes, fascinating girls are beefing. We're in a recession.
The economy's about to tank.
Crap, that's that's bad that's what that means.
That's really bad news. So basically we're yeah, we're just reading the signs here, you guys.
Yes, there's a science to it.
Clearly, there's clearly a science to it. I mean, eggs are through the roof.
Yeah, sure, you know what. You know what I did this week? Tell me it felt very dystopian in some ways. It felt very eerie of the pandemic, of the early days of the pandemic. But I was at the gym. So I go to the gym twice a week at six am, and so I'm up early those days. And my session went a little longer than usual, and it went so long that I was like, well, I can just kill time for thirty minutes and wait for the Trader Joe's to open and go buy ag and clear amount.
And well it's only one limit you one dozen per person.
This is this is dystopian in and of itself.
Yes, And so I go to the Trader Joe's. I'm parked by seven fifty. I'm just waiting. I start to see people. So people are waiting for the trader doors to open. They had the same idea I did. And I've never I've never at the grocery store that early, and so this is new to me. Maybe people always do that. And so I'm okay, get my little bags, I get my little carrito, I'm waiting. I go inside. Everyone immediately goes to the eggs and like there's order.
People aren't like rushing. There's there's plenty of eggs for like everyone that's there at that time, but everyone is clearly like going straight to the eggs to fill up their car or get just one for their cart. Everyone's checking them. And then we get our eggs and we go on with our grocery shopping. And that was it. And so yes, another example.
No, this is all bad. That is very bad. Yes, that's super dystopian. But I am glad you got your.
Egg I got my eggs. Yes, yeah, can you believe I can't believe it.
I mean this is like, okay, so not too long ago. Well it was a couple months ago now. But my boyfriend was like, is anything, like, does anything worry you? And I said the first thing that came to mind, honestly, was yes, I'm worried that if we experience some type of environmental or natural disaster that all of us in southern California will run out of water very quickly, and that there will be chaos in the streets and it will be utter mayhem and we are not going to
be able to get out of here. And he was like what, But I'm like, no, this is what I worry about. And then I kid you not. The next day the fires.
Behan oh okay, yes.
You know, and then everything that comes with that that we've seen unfold. Of course, inevitably things like that to a small degree happen, you know, and there are issues with where do people live, people's stuff, the grocery stores, you know, the eggs, all of it. So not to be like a conspiracy theorist doomsday prepper, but it's like, these are the signs right of collapse.
Yes, late stage capitalism, that's what we're in, end of empire.
This is like not, yeah, this has happened before. And something you said, Mala a couple of years ago, I actually think about when I start to get a little anxious stressed about the state of the world, and Mala on an episode I couldn't tell you which one, but she said something like, I'm sure people forty years ago, fifty years ago, one hundred years ago felt like it was the end of times, and they persevered and they had to keep going, and they made their art and
they had to live their lives. As we descend into fascism, that is something that I'm thinking about, that we got to be ready, we got to stay ready, but the
art continues. Oh yes, So I'm kind of looking back at historical times and looking back at the writing I've actually believe it or not, because you know, I am a recovering Catholic, but I have been very interested in revisiting the work of Bishop Archbishop Oscar Rometo because he was a liberation theologist, and I feel like that in a way, I am like, am I going to become a Catholic again out of spite? That's kind of how
I've been feeling lately. Not that I'm going to go rejoin the church or anything, but more so like leaning on liberation theology and thinking about how like Christian nationalism is running our country right now, and then how do we combat it? And I feel like there is something there in revisiting the work of Archbishop.
Oscar Rometos, who is also a saint, who is also a saint, who is a Saint In.
I think that's really fascinating. You know, throughout history, I think that there have been a lot of religious people from different denominations who have contributed greatly to like, yeah, liberal politics. I mean Martin Luther King of course is
an example. We can even think of someone like Mother Teresa, and of course there are other examples, And so I think that there's something to be said about, like, yeah, like revisiting those works from these minds, yes, because other you know, I think obviously, like like a leftist politic is more likely to maybe want to study the works of like folks who are maybe more gorilla.
Yeah, oh absolutely, you know, yeah.
But why limit your sources?
Yeah, because I think my my my initial, my gut is always like revisit Audrey Lord, sure of course, right, revisiting the works of like W. Du Bois, Paulo Frey's Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Like, there's all those works that like my gut, and my instinct is like revisit those and learn, let's learn from it in a different way this time, right, Because anytime you revisit something, you're learning it in a new way or you're seeing it with
new eyes. But there's also like, okay, wait, let me actually go back to liberation theology and let me let me see what I can learn from there at this point in time, because I feel like there's there's just something calling me to it, and I'm like, God, I'm going to become a Catholic?
Got a spite? Is Jesus sure? Literally like literally Jesus Lord. Why?
Yeah?
It makes me think of our listeners as well, to go back and listen to our episodes with Prisca who literally studied theology yes, and is very much liberation minded in her work and has has herself found a way to fuse those things through study and writing. So there's I think, and I say that to say there's some blueprint for this.
Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, yes, And I think it's like.
Very cool.
Yeah, tbd, I'll let you know, Yeah, my journey.
I love that Marcella Argueo has an Oscar Romero tattoo she does on her own. She does that could be someone interested on like facilitating your your study group around this.
Someone interesting to be in conversation with. Yes, yes, there's there's a lot. There's a lot, and I think, you know, the powers that be want us to be isolated. They want us to be afraid, they want us to put our heads down, they want us to feel overwhelmed. And so this is a very good time to invest in your community and build new community as well.
You know.
In this episode is very much inspired by some of the feedback that we got from our listeners recently, and one listener in particular asked us to kind of just nerd out on some of the things that we've studied on scholarly things, on school things. And so I've been out of school now for almost two years.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe it either, And so we kind of just wanted to spend some time nerding out on the degrees that we have and also are currently in pursuit of.
For those maybe just picking up here, I started an MFA program, which stands for Masters of Fine Arts at USC at the School of Cinematic Arts, and the degree is in Film and Television Production. So I'm in my third semester, so I'm, you know, second year of a three year program and it's a production degree. So we make movies. We're not reading books, right, We're not in
a lab. We are on set. We do have classroom instructional hours during the week and then on the weekends we're on set and we're filming, and it's been so fun and I've learned so much. And this year I've really gotten in my producer bag and I've just been like recommended to different crews to produce films student films, which is really exciting because I think in a production degree, that's what you want to do, is you want to
work on as many movies as possible. So so my nerd out right now is all in the weeds of like producing and creative producing. And right now I'm producing a documentary called All of Us Girls, which is about a sexual assault amongst a group of Chinese women and the survivors in the documentary telling their stories and talking about the cultural aspects of processing their trauma as East Asian women. And that's been a really cool production to
be on. I'm the only non Mandarin speaker and I am learning a lot is all the way around every aspect of this production. So it's been a beautiful experience. And this summer I'll also be producing I sort of describe this at the top of this episode, but a virtual thesis, so it's a mix of live action and VR and animation, and we're probably going to use like unreal engine and the LED wall and all kinds of things.
So that's going to be a very new field and area for me because I've never done anything like that, and I'm just excited to learn. And as you know, look at that our productions, we are a multimedia production house. So I think part of the reason I wanted to go to film school was so that we can start like branching out into these other types of media and make all kinds of work absolutely, whether it's TV shows or movies or documentaries or maybe something animated or a game,
what have you. So yeah, I'm just like soaking it all in and saying yes to everything.
Yeah, And we have been, you know, thinking, you and I about lots of different film and television projects, you know, like aspirational ones, and we've brainstormed a lot along the way along in many years, even before you were you
got this degree. So it makes so much sense. So given now that you're more trained, you're formalized, you're learning, how would you say things differ from like when we were making things too for Indy Rasquatch It like back in the day very gorilla style filmmaking, where we were like just randomly shooting places. And now you've learned the formal process of applying for permits and like the way to do things. So how would you compare those experiences and maybe what you've learned.
Oh, there's so much. I want to start by saying that I'm actually so impressed by what we were able to make without having any training whatsoever.
And what did what have we made?
Oh, we've made a few things. So first of all, good our YouTube channel. We have a look at thought our productions YouTube channel subscribe. We have a little over a thousand subscribers, but we'd always love more. We don't constantly feed the YouTube, but we have some like evergreen work on the YouTube, one of which is our first short film. It's about an eight minute film called Lokiita's Anonymous. And this film actually has a very high production value.
It looks beautiful, beautifully styled. I'm like receiving this training at school. But then I look back at something like Loki Is Anonymous, and what it tells me is that we were able to assemble such a talented team just from our small like group of creative friends, because it was all like friends who worked on it. Oh yeah, you know. Chava was our director essentially and also helped with like DP work, but our other friend Ernie was actually on camera, and then Michelle Morrow was doing our
sound work. Javi Mendoza helped us take the idea and put a script together, and then Robert was doing our hair and makeup. We produced it and got like wardrobe taken care of and donations as far as like jewelry, Belladonna donated like hair clips GLA crew. Yeah. The location came through your nail contact.
Yes, Valerie from now formally wit your Beauty Collective but now Beauty Collective Lab still in Wittier.
Yeah, and then Shava and Michelle edited the film. We used music from an artist that I've known for a few years. It's sell Choko, and it just like came together and is like honestly so cute and so well done. What it tells me is that we always had the ability and the vision so check that out on YouTube,
and the talent within our community. But now it's learning how to do it professionally, right, so we can a get paid to do this work, like someone could hire us and we can do it or B we can raise the funds and really know how to appropriately allocate them to make the best possible version of our vision, right and we know who to call, you know, but we can like do everything you know industry standard.
Absolutely yeah.
And it's also I think for me about like meeting new people and even though it's USC and it's local, Like my cohort, I'm one of two Latinos and in the program it's very very few Latinos and almost like no one who's local. There's like a couple sprinkled throughout the semesters, but like local folks and my cohort it's
me and one other student from Lakenata, you know. Everybody else is from out of state or international, which is actually really cool because it really forces me to network way outside of my community and to work with people way outside of my community and our immediate creative circle, which is good because it's like there's new ideas, new themes, new topics, new point of view, and learning to work with different types of people and their different styles, you know,
and like being part of a team to like talk about a subject matter that is so outside of me in a lot of ways. But like just contributing to the greater project. Yeah, you know, so those have all been very valuable as well well. Is like the hard skills, like learning how to use the editing software, learning how to use the equipment, learning how to set up a c stand and operate a camera and do like diit and work with hard drives and you know, the SD cards.
Like it's all been great. So I hope to direct some stuff in the future. Like Yosa mentioned, we have ideas, and I came into school with some ideas of things that I would love to pitch and get made while I'm there, Yeah, and while I can crew up and like have university support and just this like this really dense collection of students in one place who are all there just to make stuff. Like that's what they're there for. And that's exciting.
That's exciting. It is a really, I think wonderful place to be when you're a student and that's and you get to create and you get to like learn and do it together. I love being a student. I love being like and not just a student of life obviously, you but like act like being enrolled in something that my brain just like needs that kind of like structure, and so I love that. I love that you're doing that.
I love that you're learning and you're definitely applying it here. Yeah, look at our productions.
And there's more to come. There's always more to come, always more to come. But yeah, check out some of our older work on our YouTube channel, because every season we've done like a video short, and we worked with a lot of the same people over and over again. And you'll see that even though it was Indian not quote professional, that it is very professional.
Yeah, it was professional because we were making it in a professional way and if we had professional energy behind it.
Yeah. Yeah, So check us out. Look at that our productions on YouTube, and then of course you know, follow us, look at Underscore Radio on all the other social media platforms. Yeah.
I love that.
And how about you, dude, let's talk about nerding out. So I nerded out on my film and TV stuff, on my school stuff. Let's nerd out on specialized journalism.
Yeah. So, I god, it feels like in so many ways so long ago and in other ways not that long ago, because logistically it wasn't that long ago. But I applied for two programs back in twenty twenty one.
I was.
Just to take it back. Let's see, I was working in residential care coming out of the pandemic, and I knew I wanted. I really appreciated the stability of that job. At that point, I had been there for almost five years, and it helped me grow Lokatra because it was a strict nine to five. I had a very stable paycheck, I had very good healthcare, and it was close to home. And I learned so much from my boss at that time.
Shout out to Alicia. She was an incredible business boss lady, and I learned so much from her without even realizing I was learning about running a business. But I would like help her run payroll for like her side business. I would help her do a lot of like the entrepreneurial stuff that she was doing as a very small business owner, but also was working she was working for like a bigger corporation. So I got to see both.
And I didn't realize at the time that I was learning how to run a business and how to run books and how to have a good accountant and all those things that now I see, Oh yeah, Like I picked a lot of that up from her, and so I'm very appreciative and grateful for who she was in my life and we're still in contact now, but at that time I felt like things with the podcast were still indie and things were challenging, and I was feeling like, Okay,
my job is not fulfilling anymore. I'm ready to grow, and so I just started up one applying to jobs and two applying to grad school. So I at the time was in between like a public health program or a journalism program. And it was actually an event that we did with HBO Max where we got to interview Idro Rodriguez and we got to watch her documentary before
it came out on HBO Max. And there's something in the documentary where she says that her grandmother gave her this advice where she or her grandmother tells her that, you know, to kind of go all in for stand up for comedy, because her grandmother says something along the lines and I'm this is just you know, one up to my memory. She says something like, you know, if you're kind of if you're planning for if you have a Plan B, you're planning to fail. You're planning for
your planning to not work out. And I very much was feeling like at the time, the public health degree was like very practical. It's like, yes, I'm very passionate about public health, and yes we need more latinas in public health. But if I'm applying for a master's in that I'm spending all this money on it, then I'm doing that with the intention of like, look, I thought, I'm not branching out into what it can be. And so hearing that advice made me go all in and
I thought, Okay, we're gonna do straight journalism. I'm going to apply to Columbia. I'm going to apply to US. And when I applied to Columbia, I sat Mala down and I was like, Okay, I'm going to apply to grad school, and I need you to know that I'm still very invested in what we're doing and this is just going to make it better and if I go to New York, We're gonna make it work. And I would like just let her know, like I'm still invested
in this. And so I applied to both programs. I got into both programs, did a lot of soul searching, went through it. I really wanted to go to New York. I really wanted to go to Columbia when I got and I was like, you have to go, yeah, and Mala was like, I will move with you. You have to go to multiple people offered to move with me. Let me just tell you.
The support.
The support was there, but you know, just everything going on in my life at the time. I also got more money from USC, and I just didn't really have the budget to like move cross country. Like it was gonna take a lot of like you know, additional money to like move across the country. Tree established myself in New York and it was an eleven month program at Columbia and also at USC, and I just felt like
I had to keep my job. This was pre network and so I was like, I can't be working East coast hours with a West coast company and it was just going to be too much for me. And so after weighing everything out, I decided to stay local. Annenberg is still an incredible program. USC has gone through a lot over the last couple of years, and I think has really like fumbled a lot of things publicly internally, but Annenberg for me, has always been like a really
bright spot in this very private white institution. And so I think that that was one of the reasons that I decided, like I'm going to do Annenberg and I did, and it was eleven months and it was super intense. I wish that I could have done a two year program, but it One of the reasons this program is eleven months is that it's hard to ask a working journalist to be a full time student for two years. And so while even though I was working, ideally, you're not
supposed to be working. Everybody tells you, all the instructors tell you do not work. And that's crazy, Like it's wild to tell, like a first gen student, you can't you can't work, you can't have a job, because that's a lot of privilege. It's a lot to ask someone like not to have a second income.
Yeah, and that's what they also said that to us before last semester. Specifically, they were like, if you have a job or a hobby, quit, Like that is unhinged to tell anybody. But if it wasn't for the podcasting, I don't know how a full time job, yeah, would like allow for school at all, Like their flexibility is not there.
Yeah, And I did. I did work, like for a job, Like I had a job, I had a job, an amazing job, and I still love the people that work there. And so I held that job for my summer session and fall semester, so six seven months, and they were very flexible with me. I was working on campus constantly and it was a remote job, so it had that flexibility. And I was, you know, running the podcast. We had just signed with the network, So all of those pieces
made it feel like the blink of an eye. Not only was the program really fast, but I was working a job running the podcast, so it.
Just felt it was a lot.
So I didn't really get to soak up in a soak up a lot of the things that I think my peers got to do. But that's part of it. That's part of being like an adult in a grad program. Like it's not undergrad, it's really not. And I think there's that Maybe maybe I went in kind of hoping that I would be able to do everything, but you can't. Everyone has limitations. But for what I got to do, I feel like I really got to make some really
incredible work. I mean, through my thesis, I got to work on a personal narrative podcast that I've been pitching around and hopefully have found a home for so through a radio podcasting class, I was able to partner with the La County's Commission of Human Relations, and this was a department, if I recall correctly, that was founded during civil unrest. During the summer of twenty twenty. We made this podcast called La Together Podcast and I got to
produce one episode and associate produce a second episode. And the one that I got to produce and I got matched was actually about the Dodgers. I interviewed two of the descendants of Laloma Bishop baalo Verde, which was the community that existed in what we now know as Chavis Ravine and the Dodger Stadium. And these two descendants, they are the grandchildren and of the folks that were displaced when the Dodgers and the city of La displaced an
entire community. And so I got to work on that, and then I also got to work on another episode where a mother was interviewing her trans daughter and her daughter was nine years old roughly, she's probably older, she's definitely older.
Now.
That was I think really exciting because I got to like be a producer for a podcast that wasn't ours, and I got to learn from an incredible incredible podcast radio person which is Willa Seidenberg, and she was one of my mentors when I was at Annenberg and she's now retired. But yeah, I just had like an incredible faculty.
I had an incredible cohort. It was very much a very special time, very quick, remember it fondly and it helped me then, you know create I feel like with you and with Michael Dura, Senora sext and you can tell.
Like that making that podcast was the most streamlined on our end. I think because of the systems that you put in place, like directly after receiving your degree.
Yeah, yes, yes, learn your craft, learn your craft and keep your job for as long as possible. Absolutely, and always hire an attorney.
Always, always ask a friend who has an attorney for recommendation for a good attorney. And I think, well, I feel like we've had like a lovely chat.
Chat it for a long time.
We've covered a lot.
I don't want to talk to the rest of the weegain.
I think we've did if we've used a follow our words.
Well, thank you for listening to another episode of Look at Our Radio. Let us know what you think of This episode is structured but it's still chatty.
It's Mola and I.
We're in conversation with each other, so let us know. We'll catch you next time.
Bessie thoughts.
Lokata Radio is executive produced by viosa Fan and Mala Mounique.
Stephanie Franco is our producer.
Story editing by Me viosa creative direction by Me Mala. Look At Radio is a part of iHeartRadio's Michael Dura podcast Network.
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