-Let's play imagination.
What if, like, um, we took a cardboard box
and this was an astronaut
and this was, like, a monster and this and this?
I'd look at them and I'd be like,
"But it's a cardboard box."
And instead of, like, playing with the other kids,
I would sit with my legs crossed and listen to the grownups talk.
And I remember specifically one time,
they were saying that, like, a vecino,
a neighbor had cheated on his wife with someone.
Give me a second to decipher this, I got it.
I'd be the kid who went back to school and was like,
"Y'all know what sex is?
Let me tell you what sex is."
My mom was born in Colombia.
And my dad was born in Peru.
He was a doorman.
And my mom is a housekeeper.
To this day she's a housekeeper.
Because my parents are immigrants
and because of a language barrier,
I didn't feel like I was able to be a kid or take part
in what a typical childhood looks like or feels like.
I took on a lot of responsibility.
Some of them were put on me and then others
I just felt like I needed to help.
You know, they're your parents.
Translating lengthy conversations
with police officers or attorneys or teachers.
Explaining things like taxes, there were countless moments
that I remember whether that's folks on the train
making fun of my mother's accent.
Saying derogatory things to my father, you know.
Seeing pain in both of their faces
when they would want to defend themselves, but maybe couldn't.
I just felt really frustrated and tired a lot of the time.
And so I was very envious of other kids
who could be more careless.
In the moment I didn't realize that, like, I was rebelling.
I didn't know. When a kid's rebelling,
it's not like you're like, boop, boop, boop time to rebel.
I really wanted to [bleep] be liberated
and lash out like all these other kids.
I remember this one time I was invited to a house party.
It was this penthouse in Times Square actually.
There was endless alcohol.
Weed.
There were definitely other drugs there.
And the whole freaking penthouse just looked trashed.
The chaos of everything kinda just like sunk in.
And I realized where I was.
And I realized, wow, I've been in places like this
before when I was younger with my mom,
helping her clean apartments like this.
It hit me that, like, someone like my mom
was probably gonna come in the next day
and have to clean that apartment.
I saw the labor of my mom in our carelessness.
And so I felt, like, guilty for partying and trying to be a kid
and, you know, just, just being a kid.