- [Interviewer] If you were alone in a room
with conjoined twins, what would you ask?
(gentle music)
- Hi ladies.
- Hello. - Hello.
- I'm very excited to be here guys.
If I can say, I've never met a set of conjoint twins.
- Most people haven't.
(laughs)
- What are your names?
- I'm Carmen. I'm Lupita.
- Lovely. Can I ask how old you guys are?
- We are 21.
And Carmen's a student
and I'm a college dropout. (laugh)
- Like, how are you guys conjoined?
'cause I can't...
(laughing)
- We're basically connected at the torso
and we share a pelvis, stuff like that.
We have two separate hearts.
We don't share a brain, obviously.
Reproductive system basically the same,
digestive system, we have two separate stomachs
but it connects
into basically one digestive system, excuse me.
We have one leg each
so it took a long time to learn how to coordinate walking.
- Yeah.
- 17 years actually.
- Yeah.
- Wow. - Exactly.
- Do you girls feel the same physical sensations and stuff?
- Our own sides are our own sides.
- And like that's like,
if you get stung by a bee,
Carmen won't feel that crap?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- Exactly.
- Fashion wise, do you guys get custom clothing much
or is it fairly regular shopping?
- Shirts, we buy two of tops
and then we have a seamstress that sows them together.
- Oh, really? Wow. - Yeah.
- Do you guys have some type of telepathy between you guys?
- So how do I put this?
We can't read each other's minds.
- Are you able to read each other's
emotional states really well?
- Yes. - Yes actually.
We both kinda have anxiety.
Lupita has it a little bit worse than I do.
It's more of like a gut feeling if that makes any sense.
I am a very big introvert,
but because she doesn't like to speak a lot to new people,
I kind of am forced to become more of an extrovert
and she is the comedic relief (laughs)
kind of thing.
- I'm really good at one liners. (laughs)
- How was it growing up for you guys?
- Kids would sometimes bully us.
But because my mom raised us
to not take (beep) from people.
- Amen to that.
- Like, I can't.
I'm too Mexican to really teach-
- You guys are Mexican?
- Yeah. - Yeah.
- No way.
What's your last name? - Andrade.
- Andrade? - Solis.
- Perez over here.
- Yeah, I was curious
just kinda what school was like for you guys?
Would you guys cheat off each other
or is it safe to assume? (laughs)
- I mean, yeah.
When we were little, we would cheat off each other
to a point in about third grade,
they put a curtain between us.
- Oh, wow.
- So it lasted about two months, three months.
- Wow.
- Then they caved.
- Yeah.
- We went to an agricultural high school.
So we would get to interact with animals
and stuff like that.
- That's really cool.
Do you guys drive?
- Yeah, I control the steering wheel, the gas.
Lupita kinda just does the turn signals
and is like the DJ.
- Is she a good driver, Lupita?
- Yes, but road rage.
- Ah.
(Lupita and Carmen laugh)
- I was genuinely curious,
whether you're still trick or treating or not,
how have you divvied up candy?
- Our mom was super Catholic
so we didn't go trick or treating.
- Oh my God, no!
- So once we went with friends,
we did didn't even dress up.
We just walked around with them
and the elderly mostly were like,
"Oh my God, I love your costume."
And we're like,
"Oh, okay. Thanks."
- Of course. (laughs)
- Yeah.
- What are the most common
annoying questions that people ask you?
- If one goes to jail,
does the other one have to sit in jail too
or what happens.
I don't know.
Never been to jail.
- Like being in public I can imagine that
You get a lot of stares and how does that make you feel?
- We'd prefer the stares a bit more
than the unsolicited taking pictures of us in public
type of thing. - Oh yeah. No.
- So yeah.
- Ugh, do people really do that?
- Yeah.
- Oh God. I'm sorry.
- I guess the biggest thing is a lot of people
like to reduce us down to just body parts.
When they refer to us it's more of a,
"So if one head does one thing
what happens to the other head?"
Kinda thing instead of like-
- Using our names. - Using our names.
It's just more of
dehumanizing, if that makes any sense?
- Was there an option of separation?
- So our parents tried
to find doctors that can.
But we finally got a finally got our answer of no
when we were like four years old.
- And if they tried to separate us,
either one of us would pass away,
both of us could pass away
or we wouldn't never leave the hospital type of thing
from needing so many
either transplants or other medical procedures
and things like that to stay alive.
- From a very early on age
we have accepted who we are.
I mean we can wish all we want, it won't happen.
- Yeah.
- And we are proud of who we are
and what our condition is.
And we won't, and can't change, anything about it.
- It's all about just embracing who you are, right?
- What was it like going through puberty together?
- It was an interesting time.
- Yeah.
- Like for everybody.
It was a time where we thought,
we kind of wished where we were
a little bit more separate.
I think it was the whole
boy crazy kind of thing.
- Oh, okay.
- Crush. - Yeah. Right.
- Did you end up having a lot of the same
or similar crushes?
Do you have the same type?
- No.
- No?
- I really didn't have any crushes.
Well I'm asexual and aromantic.
- So just no on that front, right?
- No.
- I've been dating my current boyfriend
for about a year now.
- Right on.
What's his name?
- Daniel.
- Daniel. How'd you meet Daniel?
- We met off of Hinge.
(laughs)
- You can dial me up if you want.
(all laugh)
I'm curious to know how was that?
Like in the Hinge profile, did you-
- Not gonna lie, it was really awkward.
- Did you show,
in the profile,
did you show everything or was it kind of like-
- I mean, yeah.
I was obviously gonna be transparent about everything.
It was a learning process for everybody.
We obviously had to have a discussion
on what boundaries are okay and what aren't
and we're not intimate in that way
and he's okay with that, and yeah.
- It's like just having
a good partner basically, right?
- Yeah. Exactly.
Is Lupita a good wing woman?
- No. She likes to make fun of everyone.
(laughs)
I make fun of both of them, it's fine.
- So is marriage anything that you all consider one day?
- It's not really in the front of my mind
nor back of my mind at the moment because we are 21.
Whoever, who I'm currently dating
or in the future might be dating,
I'd prefer to be life partners than actual marriage.
- So you guys mentioned
going to an agricultural high school.
Were you planning to pursue anything agricultural?
- We are currently actually,
Lupita is gonna go for vet assistant
and I'm going for vet tech.
- You're working on similar degrees
so you can work together
with your- - Exactly.
- Oh, that's really cool.
- We volunteer at vet clinic
twice a week and then we also work at a goat farm.
What is it about, I guess animals,
that you love so much.
- They don't judge and they don't speak
so they can't say rude things or they headbutt you
but they can't physically tell you,
"You look like this," kinda thing.
- I'm Olivia.
- I'm Isabella.
We are identical twins.
How tall are you guys?
- We're very short.
I'm 4'8, Lupita's 4'6.5.
- Yeah, we're 4'11. - Yeah, we're 4'11.
- Short twin club.
- Yes. - Yes.
- We should make
our own club. - I feel like
so many twins are short.
Like Mary-Kate and Ashley are short too.
- Yeah. - It adds to the whole like,
"Oh, you guys are so cute."
And it's like, sometimes it can be a little condescending.
- Sometimes it's a little fetishizing.
- That's what I was just gonna say.
- Since the age of nine, we've been kind of fetishized
for number one, being conjoined
and then another thing of like, oh yeah,
a lot of people's idea of just
having sex with two people at once kind of thing.
- Yeah.
- Yeah. What's annoying is I'm like that's incest.
I don't wanna have
sex with my sister. - They ask us
do you wanna have a three-way.
It's stuff like that.
It's so inappropriate to ask anybody.
- Exactly.
- Do you consider
being conjoined a disability?
- No. - No.
- No.
- I mean, it's a disability if you make it a disability.
If we just let our minds go
where a lot of people think our minds go
of just wishing we were separated
or just not accepting who we are, that kind of thing,
all we'd be is in bed and depressed and stuff like that.
- Yes, I have depression but...
- That's not the point.
We just have to keep going
because we gotta spite everyone that thinks that we can't.
- There you go.
Prove all them haters wrong, right?
- Exactly.
- I guess what's your favorite part about being a twin?
- We
have this level of understanding that nobody else will.
- Yes. - Yes.
- But not in the sense of like, oh we're besties for life,
that kind of thing.
More about like even if I have a partner,
they'll never really understand
how I'm truly feeling from the get go
other than Lupita.
- What are some things
that you would want people to know about you guys?
- We are two separate people.
- And we are capable of whatever we want.
- Damn right.
- That's pretty much it. - Short and simple, right?
It's how it should be.
- You guys are very sweet and inspiring.
I like that a lot.
- You guys are awesome.
- [Carmen] Thank you.
- Just had to say that.
- [Interviewer] Would you guys
like to just say hi to each other?
- Yes.
- Hi. Nice to meet you.
- It's very lovely talking to you guys.
- Likewise. Thank you.
- What's your TikTok?
Are you involved in TikTok?
- It's literally our names.
Carmen and Lupita.
- Damn, you guys got a man following huh?
- Yeah, literally... (laughing)
We're like in the four foot club.
(laughing)