there are guatemalans here there are
nicaraguans here there are
uh there's el salvadorians here they're
there there's so many different kinds we
aren't just a monolithic group we're so
many people there's not just one way
to be latinx
[Music]
one of the beautiful things about
philadelphia next list is that you have
10 writers who
all come from different experiences
what drives you what's that push to me
my culture represents a north star that
i can kind of follow
like i'm trying to be the artist both my
parents
weren't allowed to be
they know how complicated it is being
latinx in this country
we've been here we're indigenous this is
our home
i feel like now people are willing to
pay attention
hello my name is marcelino tribira and
my pilot macho libre is
on the inaugural latinx tv list
and i'm here today with j elijah cho
who's going to ask me a few questions
how do you feel
being latinx informs your writing
my relationship with my
latinidad is complex
my father's mexican my mother's white i
don't look particularly mexican
my name is very odd so when
i was presented people didn't know what
to do with me a very common experience
that
makes people have is the where are you
from game like
yes the reason why i look like this the
reason why i sound like the way i sound
the reason why my name is weird is
because i'm mexican that's what you
wanted to know
so that was odd for me and i don't speak
spanish my father didn't speak to
any of us in spanish while we were
growing up when i got to
college i studied the performance of
ethnicity and how people
perform what they are do you feel like
you're performing
more for like you mentioned the other
white students
oh no the sign
should we i'm gonna cut
sticks except they're my hands
take two can you discover that moment of
being proud
of latinx yeah i i've always been proud
of being mexican and i grew up going to
eagle pass
visiting with my abuelita i'm named
after her
donald marcelina i've always been very
proud of being mexican
even when i was in the all white schools
like i would
make sure people said i was never marcy
i was marcelina
or you know marcelina but even though i
was proud and even though
i loved my the mexican side of my family
i did
still feel that disconnect well it took
me until i was about
30 to actually feel it
i understand from
an academic perspective from a
psychological perspective
like i understand it it wasn't until
i got into the latinx comedy vijanga
that i was like i'm being seen
as mexican now i just
am i can just exist and people
understand it and they they
know my story because they lived it too
they know how complicated it is being
latinx
in this country like because we were
here we've been here we're indigenous
this is
our home it was being seen i was finally
seen
um yeah and i didn't have to explain
myself i'm sorry um
good you're good when i write the
context of the
situation has to be explained but the
characters
are self-explanatory and like the the
story
is self-explanatory so when i write
yes the dressings will have
latinx elements
but every story is a human story what
would you say are the
underlying themes of macho libre
in latinx culture toxic masculinity
is such a phenomenon that we coined a
word for it machismo the subtext or the
super text of my pilot macho libre
is that max being this new kind of
latinx man
who whose fathers have taught him
to be in touch with his feelings and
taught him that it's okay
to just be yourself and still be a man
is going to come head to head with
the embodiment of machismo a very strong
aggressive luchador i
grew up watching my male family members
trying to live up to what it means to be
a man and watching them
try to live up to that is heartbreaking
i don't speak to my father
very often because of issues
surrounding machismo but he wasn't an
immigrant to this country but he had
a hard time growing up as a mexican in
this country and i do respect him a lot
i
i respect him a lot and i respect my
brother a lot
um and they they did have a good
influence on me
they did it's just i don't
like seeing them in so much pain
so i don't talk to them very often maybe
maybe there's room for healing
now but now that i've explained myself
in non-academic terms maybe
my point of view will be a little easier
to get across
but yeah i'd say that
my father is also a very positive
influence on so um
gosh
wait where you where are you how are you
doing what do you think
uh how do you feel about how
the latinx community is uh represented
on
in the media uh we we aren't
very much just being able to see
people who look like us and have names
like ours on tv
is empowering just as it's important to
have
women characters in positions of power
we
are politicians we're scientists we're
engineers we're architects
we we're actors we're writers we need
to not only get more latinx stories out
there
we need to show the scope and the
breadth of what our
diaspora actually looks like we don't
just we don't have a monolithic
appearance we don't have a monolithic
point of view we
are very diverse and and talking with
people in the industry
i'm hopeful everybody
seems to be on the same page since the
death of george floyd and the black
lives matters movement has gained
ground in in mainstream it has
emboldened me
to speak up about these issues in these
meetings that i'm taking and i'm finding
that the executives that i'm talking to
are listening
more carefully now i feel like i'm being
heard
well those are all the questions i have
before we finish up thank you so much
for
taking the time to chat with me today
thank you so much for being quarantined
with me
so that you could talk to me this is
lovely
happy latinx heritage month cut
no wait i don't need sticks to cut
thank you for celebrating latin heritage
month with us
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all accents welcome asentos bienvenidos