MSSP Che Guerrero 25.09.24

[00:00:00] You good? Alright, here we go.

Speeding.

3, 2, 1. It's time for the Mission Story Slam Podcast brought to you by PWP. I'm Michael Schweitzer, the executive producer at PWP Video Mission Story Slam, and I'm excited to share that I'll be going to my first plex at the end of September. Not only is it my first time at Plex, but it is happening in my hometown of Chicago, which is pretty cool though I will say I've lived in Philly over half of my life, which finally gives me a designation of not being a new guy.

Another place I'm not New is at Mission Story Slam and our 13th edition is officially scheduled for Tuesday evening November 18th at National Mechanics. We are very excited to have been invited to be a part of Generosity's Philanthropy Week. We're adapting their theme for the Slam, so prepare your stories on the theme of Braver today.

You can learn more about other [00:01:00] events@philanthropyweek.org, so that's P-H-L-A-N-T-H-R-O-P-Y week.org. So PHL Anthropy. I do love that. And other exciting partnership news. The Philadelphia citizen is now officially our media sponsor. If you aren't already reading the Citizen, the time is now to head over to the philadelphia citizen.org.

There's one sponsorship gap we're still looking to fill, which is a new lead sponsor. If you are interested in reaching our audience of engaged and inspiring Philadelphians, let us know by dropping an email to info@pwpvideo.com. So that was a lot of news on the mission story Slam Front. So now I want to introduce today's guest.

Shay Guerrero is an independent journalist, writer, artivist content creator and comedian who uses investigative journalism and humor to raise awareness about the undocumented experience and expose systemic and social injustices. As an Artivist Cha uses various artistic mediums to highlight how institutional failures impact [00:02:00] everyday people.

His commitment to justice and the truth together with his ability to infuse humor into serious topics makes him a unique and reliable voice for this generation. And Cha has the following to back up this claim. He has over 330,000 followers on TikTok, over 130,000 on Instagram, and even more on Substack and YouTube.

Now I first met Chay, not through all of that work, but through his role at First Person Arts, which we'll talk about a little bit later. But we've been in touch and found other ways to collaborate together, and that's why we suggested he come to Hill Story at the 12th Slam where the theme was. The time is now.

Chay absolutely rocked it and won the Crowd favorite prize, which was a hundred dollars donation to his charity of choice, Esperanza Immigration Legal Services. So with all of that final ha, welcome to our podcast. Hey, thank you for having me, man. You did it so well. I was like, who is this dude coming on?

He sounds awesome. You know, I've listened to your podcast multiple times, so yeah. How's today's life in Trump's Paradise? Treat you. It's tough. Of course, keeping up with the [00:03:00] news, I, I'm very blessed that I have the ability to go to therapist and talk about it. She's working overtime. It's silly, but you gotta do, you have to try and find the joy in the small moments.

Yeah. To really like sink in and remember like, oh, I'm safe. I'm having fun with my kids Right now. I'm watching a movie with 'em. I'm about to make dinner and I'm actually really as weird as it is, enjoying the. Life's normalcy in moments where I can find it. I agree with you. You have to be very intentional about trying to find or appreciate those moments and man, it is.

It is a messed up time. Yeah. Yeah. Um, maybe I'm still too much of an optimist, but I have hope. I really do hope, like in people, I see so many marches. I try to really report on the movements and the people. And remember when this first started, people asked me, Ooh, what do we do when it all starts? And I'm like, honestly, it's gonna come down to community.

It's gonna come down to state. To city to block to zip codes. [00:04:00] It's gonna be knocking on your neighbor's door and saying, Hey, are you okay today? Anything you need? What's going on? So many of us live in cities that maybe wouldn't even talk to our neighbors, but it's important to know who's around you and who can you count on should you know anything come your way.

So it's really coming out community. I'm seeing a lot of beautiful things coming out of communities still. It is fascinating going to the protests and seeing who's showing up, wondering about who's not showing up sometimes. Mm-hmm. But, um. It's certainly trying times and I'm really appreciative of the work that you're doing.

I wanna talk more about that work in a little bit. I think I want to start in with, I think your mission story slam story actually is a great demonstration of how you came into this work. Mm-hmm. And how it has expressed itself in your life. So let's go ahead and take a listen to your story. Hey, how is everybody?

Good. Cool. Uh, tell you about me. My story. Uh, I'm originally from a Dominican Republic. Yeah. Oh, cool. Yeah. [00:05:00] Cool. Thank you. Yeah. I didn't think y'all be alright. Whatever. Anyways, it's, uh, if you don't know much about it, it's a beautiful, beautiful culture. You know, dancing, music, food, the people. But we also can't deny that there is a lot of racism, colorism in, in the culture.

Something that I grew up with, um, you know, just. Believing that white is right, which means anything associated with black is wrong or frowned upon. And unfortunately, I grew up with those ideas 'cause I was just able to hang out with my immediate family. And it wasn't until I moved outta the house at 18, started walking my own journey, I started, you know what, I'm hanging out with different people.

I wanna change my mindset. I want to change just everything about how I grew up took a while. I really didn't start this journey until my mid twenties when I found myself. In a library. And I was like, you know what? I haven't really ever read a book. Let me, let me read something. Let me try to educate myself and, [00:06:00] and if there's word that I don't know, I'll just google it.

And I was walking around and this book just stood out to me because I recognized the person on the cover. And when I examined it a little closer, it was Nelson Mandela. And it was the book, A Long Walk to Freedom. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna take this home and I'm gonna, I'm gonna get educated by this.

And I opened it up and the first word was apartheid. And I was like, what the hell is apartheid? I was like, yo, there's gonna be a long walk to Freedom. Indeed. It's a 500 page book. I'm stuck on word one. All right. But I got through it and I started devouring books and DeMar started devouring books and people's experience and activism and radicalism and all that.

More started to, you know, shed the tools that no longer serve me and started to become more comfortable in my skin and get rid of all that self hatred and. My inside changes was accompanied by outside changes. You know, I started changing my look and the biggest thing was like my hair, like I always had a buzz cut a number one.

Anybody from the [00:07:00] hood knows just you go to barber, lemme get a number one. He was like $20. But I was like, I let my my hair grow. I was like a fro this huge fro and it felt like my fro was like an extension of all the knowledge I had gathered. Right? And it was cool. And that was a very radical thing for me to do because from the Dominican Republic.

Uh, my family always told me I had hair that was called Grya. Grya is a very derogatory name for like coarse hair, you know, and I was learning all these things about me and I hadn't gotten home really very often. I definitely hadn't gotten home since my newfound wisdom that I decided, you know what? I haven't been home in a few years.

Let me go and see what's up. And I went and it was my mom's house. My sister lives there with my niece and nephew, and as soon as I opened the door. The look of horror from my family's face of how I looked was just undeniable. My sister was like, what you doing with that Grana? You know, my mom, not a lot of outward criticism, but a lot of microaggression [00:08:00] that you like, Ugh.

You know, I was supposed to be there for three days and it was just, I just felt all that tension, that hatred and just, I just, just frustrated the whole time. But the only thing that was very, you know, calm to me was my niece and my nephew. They were six and 10 at the time, and. They were asking me a lot of questions about my hair and what, you know, what I like to read and, and what Philadelphia was like and all this stuff.

And the last day I was there, man, my mom and sister really went in on me, just berating me nonstop to the point where I just like, IS not snapped. And I was like, what is wrong with you? Why do you believe all this nonsense that white supremacy has fed you? Why do you hate yourself, your skin color, your hair?

You are not these people that they tell you you are. You are beautiful and you are worth so much more. Who the fuck you think you are? This is what my sister said to me. I was like, I'm outta here. 10 hours till [00:09:00] my flight had to leave. And I was like, I'm outta here. I left and I felt so bad 'cause I had this outburst in front of my niece and my nephew and I just left.

And I didn't talk to them for years, and I thought that's how it was gonna be. I was like, I'm never gonna talk to my sister, my mother again. That's how it was gonna be. And then there was a death in the family. And that always happens. The death in the family, it makes you really think everything. It's like, ah, man, maybe we should try and talk.

And I had to go back to my mother's house for the funeral. It was my grandmother who had passed. And when I got there, I was going, there were like my guards up. I was like, yo, I'm gonna get it. And I know I'm, I gotta defend myself. And as soon as I opened that door, my mother was like me hall. Hug. My sister was like, my little brother, what's up?

And I was like, what the fuck is this? And it was weird. It was actually very kind. And they, they immediately apologized to me for what happened. They wanted to know more about what I've learned and what I've been through and how I changed. And I was just had to ask like, whoa, where did this come from?

'cause this is very [00:10:00] different from the last time we spoke. And they were like, you know, your niece and your nephew. When you were in that room defending your rights, your morals, people of color, trans people, everything. Your sister and I weren't listening, but your niece and nephew were, and when you left at six to 10, they started calling us out on all of our bs, all of our racism.

Yeah. A six and a 10-year-old. Yeah. And they were relentless, man. And, and, and, and they were like, my sister and my, my mom were like, it was them who made us realize what we were thinking, what we were doing wasn't right. And that's, man, that's the moment I realized that you have to speak up. You have to, every chance you get, you have to speak up for equality and people of color and marginalized people.

And sometimes you think in this world, nobody's listening, man. Nobody's listening. But you never know who's listening. Those kids picked up the [00:11:00] torch man, who knows how many more people they've inspired. I might've given them something, but they gave me a lot more than I expected that day. And all of us should do the same.

All of us need to speak up 'cause the time is now. Thank you. Is it, is it weird that I'm a little teary-eyed watching my own performance, man? Like, is that weird? No. No. Uh, that would be maybe a little bit weird if that didn't impact you. It just sucks, man. I just wish the way I. Yelled at my mom. I said, no yell, but just try to get them to understand like, you're beautiful, you're capable.

Stop believing these lies is I see that so much in my community, just people who hate themselves so much and has allowed, unfortunately, has led, has opened the gate for a lot of the stuff that's happening. I'm not trying to say for responsible for all of it's still the majority voted for Kamala. Mm-hmm.

But it was enough of a shift. Yeah. And I'm almost surprised at how many Latinos give me backlash. Or hate me online for trying to be someone who's telling them, yo, love [00:12:00] yourself. Why do you hate yourself? Why do you believe these things? Why do you let the actions of one person dictate how, you know, we are spoken about.

I've had enough friends who are like the Republicans who feel abandoned. I've known enough people who are consider themselves conservative, but are still thinking people like I've been trying to figure out the bridges to get there so that I'm not just. Only listening to my own people all the time. But yeah, I don't know.

Is that something that's possible for you or is it, is there, is it so layered? That's tough to do. I'm working with organizations who are trying to teach me how not to. Excuse the, and I'll just call it what, it's the fascism that radicalness that extreme right. Not to excuse it, not to say that it's okay, but at least try to figure out a way to know why are they thinking that?

Where are they coming from? What is their upbringing to bring 'em to this place? You're [00:13:00] never gonna change your mind, but it's understanding that as sad as it is this, these people are also like a victim to all the propaganda and all the tools that are being used. Oh yeah, to continue to divide us. I used to be someone with a lot of biases and things like that, and I've done the work to be able to come out of it.

I've met a lot of great people who've helped me, so I am not one to believe that people are not capable of change or redemption. They have to want it, but it's also from when you're a kid, you're a baby fed. This idea that because your skin colors a certain way, either you are inferior or superior. Some people just eat at that and just don't even know that is exactly what is driving there.

A lot of their ideologies. I think your story's a perfect window into it. I am not related to the Dominican Republic, but it is the furthest thing from surprising to me from what I know about the Dominican Republic, that there is, like with stacks of how racism has been used to divide people within your [00:14:00] culture.

Just based on some traits, racism is so classically built, not solely white people hating people of color, but also white people. Inflicting hatred within groups that they're trying to oppress. I remember seeing it so much as black and white and then being like, whoa, it's so much gray. Dad sunk me to another level.

It was like, oh, this is sad. You know what I mean? Did I even realize, I want to ask you about your, that learning journey, but mm-hmm. I need to follow up on a couple things from your story. First, I'm very interested to know like about, about how old are your niece and nephew at this point? Oh man. What's beautiful is my niece is 21.

She's uh, Iowa State, doing so great. Nice. Wants to be an immigration lawyer. Imagine that. That's amazing. Yeah. Because of the TikTok work that I do, she started to realize that they need more representation, especially from a Latino. So, you know, I'm like, dang, that's, that's amazing. And the other one's 17 about to just finish high school there.

Just, it's [00:15:00] amazing. It was almost a decade ago that, and just, it's crazy how it's, how much they've grown. Clearly it had a huge impact on your niece. I'm curious with your nephew, do you know, like has he been kinda keeping that. Work up. It's really tough when you get headlong into those teenage years. Like going from six to 16 is a big journey, I think as a young man.

He's trying more just to figure himself out right now. Yeah. But in the family though, he was very much active in the grandma. You say you have to be nice to everybody, so why are you judging people on, you know, like, so, yeah. Yeah. How do you perpetuate racism when you're getting called out by a cute little 6-year-old?

People do, but I'm just saying people do, it seems like it would be just. SKO harder looking at the ubic little faces. Yeah. And it's just, and that's also what showed me that if you can help change more family internally where you can, when it comes to your inner groups, you're a lot more likely to change your behavior when your calls are coming from inside the house.

So when it became kids that they couldn't kick out, you know what I mean? And then she [00:16:00] was like, oh, come on. I wanna be a better grandma. So I pulled at those heartstrings unknowingly. How is your relationship these days with your mother and your sister? Is it still going in that strong pattern? I hope you know, Michael, this is something that I maybe not a lot of people speak about and I think I might give you a little insight.

The Trump administration has really broken up a lot of connections between families. Uh, we're all in different ways, different walks of life. Different statuses are more afraid to connect with each other in person. So. While last year I saw my mother six times. Okay? This year I've gone zero out of fear for everything.

Well, we were just starting to build, which was becoming beautiful, has now found another strain in the way we communicate. You're not traveling right now because you're concerned. I mean, I think you have every reason to be concerned, but that's keeping you from being able to travel home right now. A lot of people in the Latino community, especially right now, are really weighing every [00:17:00] decision.

It breaks my heart to see so many Latino festivals close or shut down just because of fear of what's going on. I'm just, I'm putting private business out there at this point. We're what, eight, nine days away from like, no, six days away from Hispanic Heritage Month starting. Mm-hmm. And I have gotten zero offers to do any work.

That is never the case. I've always had at least three or four things lined up for a month. Things that were, and it's, I'm not talking about finance, I'm just talking about amazing shows that I would be performing in front of Latinos, or that I would be speaking, doing. You know, I'm a standup comedian. I just be doing jokes with my people.

Yeah. I have none of that coming up. That's crazy. Mm-hmm. That's absolutely terrible. Yeah. The investments in Latinos is now a liability. So if you have out there a show that you wanna book a very funny Latino comedian, please hit me up at business@jakeguero.com. Remember, I bring the smarts and the jokes Nice.

That will definitely be staying in the episode, and we'll [00:18:00] bring that back up later too, man. It's just, I know that there's a lot of people that aren't feeling safe to go to work and aren't feeling safe to go to the store, and that is horrific. But I didn't. I'm not sure that I realized how much of Latino festivals and celebration of heritage was just being squashed.

That's funny. I saw, I'm getting maybe a little heady here, but somebody one time gave me a t-shirt that they got from Louisiana. It was called like the messenger, Baba la It's, it's like a voodoo type, A Haitian deity that can travel between the underworld and back to society and that he is called a messenger.

Okay. And. I've never had a social group. I've never had a clique. I was very fluid in my high school experience amongst cliques. People were like, wow, you're very popular. I was like, no. I just know how to talk to everybody. The second I turned 18, I started doing standup comedy, very much crossing the color line, going from where I grew up to start going to comedy clubs that were comedians from [00:19:00] Harvard and Yale.

I have a high school diploma, but I barely got a high school diploma. Do you know what I mean? And one of those things that, that I realized very quickly is that, yeah, when you say like 81%, like 90% of white people don't have friends that are people of color. I don't know the exact math, but it's pretty high when you start to realize, wow, it's very easy for people to think that.

Everything's fine if you don't genuinely associate with someone from the other side, whoa. It's being blown up out of proportion if you don't see the neighborhoods getting raided 'cause they're happening in neighborhoods that it's weird. Like just a tree line can block you from what's happening on the other side.

I'm originally from Chicago and one of the things about Philadelphia that's very familiar is that whole lake, city of neighborhoods, but the, it's absolutely like even within northwest Philly, like Germantown Mount area where I am like. Uh, one block is a bunch of rows, and another block can be these like huge old mansions.

Mm-hmm. And what happens literally feet from each other can be insanely different. Mm-hmm. Just in one part of town. Yeah. And that is, [00:20:00] it is really easy to miss what's happening. Yeah. With our neighbors. Yeah. When you see it firsthand, that's a very different like, oh, I understand why people don't believe it's happening.

'cause you're not walking over there, nobody in your circle's telling you that. What's happening over there. I wanna ask you about this. 'cause I've been, it's been coming up for me a lot, our First Amendment rights, and I'm so surprised at the lack of screaming about the fact that so many people that I talk to are self-censoring.

They're not posting the same stuff that they would normally post on social media. They're talking about travel, like they're worried about someone looking at their social media if they're coming back into the country like, and. These can be people that look like me or not, but there's just like so much quashing of free speech and self-censorship, and somehow people aren't losing their ever loving minds over it, and I don't fricking get it at all.

Know what I mean? You're out there [00:21:00] screaming, so that's pretty wild. Yeah. But yeah. Is that something that you're seeing with other people, like other comedians or other activists? Artis. The censorship that I've seen was just so sad. It's funny how you're seeing people not posting political stuff. There are more people in my circle not posting personal stuff because that's where the danger lies.

Outing a member of your family where they are, their location, like that kind of a fear. That kind of a fear, you know, also in the world of social media now, you know, if you put a video up saying Loudly, I am a DACA recipient, you don't know if somebody's going to take that video and send it over to the authorities.

I don't know how much you get into politics right now, but word on the street is that the giant raid that happened in Georgia all started because one lady like heard a rumor that there was, you know. Bunch of not white people in that building. Well, not a bunch of white people in that building Exactly.

Working when she caused a international crisis and 450 people got taken in. It just it, we live in a [00:22:00] world where that woman gets to hear a rumor and ruin the lives of 450 people. But if a person of color says, I am undocumented in this country right now, they get swept up. You know what I mean? Like you can't talk about your personal experience without putting yourself in very grave danger.

And that's, that to me, makes me so sad because. It took a lot of bravery for a lot of people to come out with their stories, and that's, I guess that is what the Trump administration hated. It's that they had a world where, yeah, it wasn't perfect, but there were enough people in this country who can openly talk about their immigration status or lack of, and try to fight the system.

Knowing that even though they were speaking up, there was still due process behind them and some judge wasn't just gonna strip their, you know, asylum or anything like that for talking about, Hey, I'm an asylum secret from Palestine who was hurt by the US military intervention. It's so hard to just even talk about your pain without feeling like this could be used against me.

Speaking of talking about your paint, tell me a little bit about vital [00:23:00] questions and what that project's about. Vital Questions is a podcast that I have with my writing partner and basically partner in this business, a co-host for anonymity purposes. We will keep her as a co-host. We do a biweekly show where we take stories in the news, but we also try to dissect 'em like I've said a little further.

'cause a lot of times when I make a two minute video, it's not enough time. To give you all the nuances and all the context and you know, like I said in the beginning, like I never wanna demonize anybody. I always wanna tell people's story to know, Hey, this is where somebody's coming from, this is somebody's ideals.

And I feel like vital questions lends its place to have those kinda longer form conversations, especially since the Trump administration is working on the shock and awe trying to get us to fight each other over everything so we don't have conversations that matter. I feel like this gives a point where like, hey, he's trying to scare, you know, throw so much at you that you don't know the full story.

So we try to get people a little more of the full story. When you think about [00:24:00] the work that you're doing, either with final questions or TikTok, like, do you consider that journalism? Is it podcasting? Is it being an influencer? Is it being a comedian? Like where are those lines for you? Or do they exist or do they blend a bit?

That's so weird. Like I do so many things, so it's very hard to be like, where do we pin you down at when you're doing a TikTok? I. I started more reporting on news stuff because I didn't like the way the news reported on things that affected my community. Mm-hmm. It just felt like they never gave historical context that things were happening.

It was always like there's a hundred thousand people at the border, why? Why? You know I'm saying, I don't know all the answers, but I know one of them is US military interventions globally. So I started reporting on giving more historical context and people just seemed to really enjoy that and gravitate to it.

And then I realized, especially after the election that. There's a lot of misinformation out there. Even on the internet, people get sucked into stories that they want to believe so much, and sometimes it's just fun to believe [00:25:00] that the mayor of Chicago is putting out salt trucks to stop ice, but it's just not true.

And we have to like keep in mind what is true and what isn't true, you know? So I love giving accurate information. Every time I make a video, my main goal is the information accurate, and that is always what I try to do. I've heard that college students in Latino organizations use my videos every morning to know what's happening in the news.

Wow. Like, which is pretty cool. Like I was like, oh my God. That's amazing. Like a lot of responsibility though too, I would think. I find it more of just. An honor at the fact that I am someone that people trust. I don't try to abuse that trust. I try to, like I said, always, yeah, try to give people the best information.

And then of course, as a standup comedian, that's what I really, if anything, got me into the arts with standup comedy. I like to use humor because. As people, we always like to use humor as a way to really deal with stuff. So I like to throw in there in between from time to time, like a sketch or a standup clip, or just like a [00:26:00] funny take on something because we're multifaceted as people, like I've never liked to be pinned down as an artist.

Like people are like, maybe you do news and you do standup comedy, and you write sketches and you do. I'm like, yeah, man. I'm just, I am the business. And what do you want me to say? Like, I really like the way that you wove together humor with the arc of your story and the mission story slam. I've watched it a number of times prepping to talk to you today, but watching it with you and watching your reactions was interesting.

'cause I think there were times I was wanting to smile at some of the jokes, but there were a few times where you were not smiling at some of the jokes and I was like, oh yeah, there's more than one thing happening. They're in that joke that actually. That's the joke that isn't actually funny. Which is funny that it's not funny.

It was very confusing. Yeah, it was interesting watching you respond to yourself. I, you're not gonna believe this, like Michael, I didn't start writing like my joke or my sets or anything till about maybe like three or four months ago what. I grew up like very into hip hop, so I always loved like the [00:27:00] freestyle.

I didn't think rappers ever wrote, 'cause I heard Jay-Z say that he never writes down, and my fiance goes, that's a lie. Jay-Z writes, okay. He writes every day. And I was like, no, you have to learn how to do improv. She's like, improv is different. So rewatching the story was one of the first times in this new life where I actually wrote down, knew where things were gonna go, knew the paths, knew the words that I was using in order to set up breadcrumbs for later, and I'm watching it going, wow, that looks like a very different performer than the one that I knew just four or five months ago.

It worked out really well, and it was very clear to me that you had mapped it out. I like the way that you built that journey and like you dropped in the hint that the niece and nephew were around. Mm-hmm. But it wasn't like a major like piece of the story, but then it came back and really opened things up and gave us the reward at the end.

Were you thinking about that idea that like, people might laugh at that, but maybe they'll also see the contradiction that's inherent [00:28:00] in that like moment that is. Funny 'cause it's so damn awkward. Yeah. Whenever I thought of a joke like that could add to it, that's when I popped it in. But I realized like, okay, this isn't a standup set.

So really like think about which joke you're adding where don't add too many and make this just a standup set. This is an actual story. You want people to like walk outta there going. Dang. If he's capable of change and speaking up, I'm capable of changing and speaking up. So that's just where I wanted that to be the most important thing of a story.

And then I'm very surprised, like as a comic, I just want people to laugh. So I'm very happy hearing it from you that you got more out of it than just like, like a funny moment that you also saw like, oh, it's funny, but it's also very teachable moment in this sense. And I'm just very impressed at like how much you can actually convey through words.

You know? It's beautiful. And I think one or two times we had like a standup comic. Do something at the Story Slam where they clearly took their type five and tried to put an arc on it and was like, yeah, no it's not. No, it's not working. Yeah. [00:29:00] And I like the fact that you had your story and then let humor be one of your tools in telling it.

Yeah, and I gotta say, listen, the world of ai, if you're an artist and you just starting to be a writer, just realize you're already better than a computer. And trust me, you may be like, oh, I don't know the grammar or anything like that, but you can add more heart and more love. And more into a story than AI is, is even capable of right now.

Like when I heard back that story, it just feels like, wow, I really made my mom a real character. I really made my sister someone that they could see my niece and my nephew. I might not have given them too much, but Oh, actually I, yeah, I brought away a lot from your niece and nephew. Just they, they stick with me maybe the most.

Your mom too. But thank you. And it's just, I, I, I encourage anybody to write, even if you think you're not a great writer, I promise you, you're not a machine. You got something in you that's worth writing about. Bear witness this moment, pick up a journal, write what's going on. I think it's very important to, to bear witness everything that's going on.

And I know it's tough, but keep creating out there. We need artists out there, so [00:30:00] keep creating. So it sounds like you're really enjoying this new phase of writing as opposed to just freestyling with the, when it comes to sets and things like that. There's just a place for it I think. I think I learned of how to improvise, how to read a room, how to pivot accordingly, but that could only get you so far, especially if you want to do something like, like write a book.

I'm 37, but I realize like, wow, I really need to write it down and be intentional with the words that I'm using. There are so many out there, and I speak two languages, so I can say a lot. Are you working on a book now? I'm, I want to start creating something that has a little bit more longevity. Standup comedy, I love it, but it's, it's sometimes that night or like an album, you know, making tiktoks, it's like a, like poof.

So a flash in the pan, you make a video today, it'll get a million views and then tomorrow nobody will see it or something like that. I want to write like a one person show that could, can last for a while and maybe other artists can remake it. Those writing bugs really got you, man. Yeah. Yeah. [00:31:00] You're toast.

I'm hooked. Yeah, I'm hooked. I did mention at the top a little bit about how we met through first Person Arts, so speaking about Trump administration, one of the earliest things that I heard about in our Philadelphia community was the. Federal grant or the, it was the NEA grant that got yanked from first person Arts.

Mm-hmm. Which forced them to shut down the in-person story slams. I know it resulted in you losing your position there. You know, organizations like these, you know, we run off, you know, sponsorship foundations, but a lot of it, you know, like donations, but a lot of it is grants from the government. People didn't realize that.

And yeah, we were one of the first people to be affected by these budgetary cuts from this administration. The pain we've been feeling pretty strongly, you know, with the Mission Story Slam Community, because First Person Arts is an organization that we look to for inspiration, partnership. They've done so much for first person storytelling in this community in Philadelphia, and yeah, the fact that they're like on the ropes and so [00:32:00] early, it's just been really upsetting.

It's also, personally, it's very heartbreaking because First Person Arts is the organization that I attribute to, like helping me find my voice. Oh wow. They were the ones that. Showed me like, Hey, you're a standup comedian, but you're actually more of a storyteller and you should really think about that avenue.

Tell your story more. Tell your story. Like your jokes are great when you make fun of this or that, but those few jokes you have about yourself are so deep. Like so. That's why, you know, I work with that many chance. I get promoted this stuff any chance I get, anytime I have friends and it's like, go to a first person art show, you know?

But there are powers, there are people more powerful than us that make these decisions. Yeah, it's been, it's tough. Fortunately knew these kinds of things were going to happen as soon as the election results were coming. Yeah. I just didn't understand like how quickly and how much people would, or me, myself, would be directly affected by it very quickly.

I know I've got a lot of friends that are very active in politics and some of them are maybe a little bit closer to like how [00:33:00] the inside things work, and so I'll ask questions and I think to a person, everybody is like, we knew it was gonna be bad. Yeah, we knew a lot of this stuff was coming, but we didn't know it would be this bad and this fast September, this started in January and it's people are acting like this is it.

This is the new normal. And it is not normal. It is not normal. Yeah. You go back to people saying real freedom speeches under attack, and Michael, I go back to like, people are good. I know people are doing a lot of bad stuff. I know that, but they're the minority. They had to do all this lying and cheating and all this stuff to get to the position of power because.

Most people are good. Most people don't want to play these dirty games and sling mud like that or get down to Trump's level. And that's unfortunately why we got here because most people are good and most people just wanna like, Hey man, I'm just trying not to hurt anybody. I'm trying to do the best I can today.

And then unfortunately, we have some narcissist people out there who take advantage of every day people's goodness. I've been listening to vital Questions. I see some of your shorter videos [00:34:00] going by on YouTube. I'm not a TikTok guy personally. I've never seen a standup comedy show from you. Do you have anything coming up, or is the fact that they've basically canceled Latino heritage?

You know, I mean there's, it's not a lot happening. The problem is that, you know, a lot of my jokes revolve around the experience of immigrants. Mm-hmm. I. Everybody that I meet just go write different jokes. Just write jokes about like picking up an Uber. And I'm like, I cannot pick up an Uber as an immigrant these days.

You know what I mean? Like the kind of humor that I do lends itself to a lot of people using it to weaponize it against me. Hmm. You know, and it's taking away the joy that I had going out there and sharing my experience and making people laugh about a different experience that they never would've thought about right before Trump.

A fish that came into office. I was doing a show and somebody goes from the audience. Actually, twice it happened, I'm gonna call border patrol. And that is not the kind of like crowd work that you can be like, ha ha. Yeah. [00:35:00] There's, you know, so there's ling and there's threats. Yeah. Yes. I always laugh at comedians who go.

Cancel culture's real. It's coming for me and I'm like, dude, you can talk as bad as you want about trans people and you can still get on the Joe Rogan podcast. Okay. I cannot get a comedy club across the country because my jokes are about immigration right now. Damn. Damn. So please tell me where there's cancel culture please.

Okay. I have not worked a comedy club like unless a friend brings me out in probably years, years. Because comedy clubs around the country are mostly owned by Trump supporters. Okay, noted. So I was, I was already low key, canceled holy. And now that he came into office, I am officially, like, I cannot get a spot at a funny bone across the country.

I cannot get a spot at New York Comedy Club. I cannot get a spot at any of these comedy clubs that are owned by white supremacists. Damn. Which are, which a lot of people don't know. [00:36:00] The pipeline to Hollywood. A lot goes through the comedy clubs. They're, they're like McDonald's. We have one of them here. We have Punchline Philly.

Yeah. Well that's a chain. That's where people cut their teeth too, right? Yeah. But now they're owned by Live Nation, so now they're very selective on the kind of people that they live on their stage, unless it's like a showcase for local comedians. And you have, helium was another big chain owned by Trump supporters.

Then you have Funny Bone owned by Trump supporters, and then you have the improvs, mostly owned by Trump supporters. You know, it makes it very difficult for. Anybody who has jokes or anything that's actually like something like I do to genuinely be able to get stage time or be put into that pipeline where they can be seen by SNL people.

I'm not saying I wanna get SNL, but I'm saying I've seen this happen to a lot of people who have genuine humor Yeah. About what's happening. White supremacy talking on it, and unfortunately there is a cancer culture, but it's just, it's for the people who wanna talk about the actual issues. So. Is there a comedy club in Philadelphia that's not owned by white supremacists?

Well, I'll be real with you. The punchline is a very [00:37:00] lovely comedy club. They've had me there a bunch of times. But I'm saying the upper people who run, like who will get weekends, who will get these kinds of things, those are not going to comedians who are genuinely like challenging the system. 'cause at the end of the day, this is a business.

Yeah. So you're trying to give it to the people who are the most business friendly. I never knock a, any comedian who works clean or is not political, that's who they are. And I love them for it. I love comedy. I think everybody should get a stage, but when comedy clubs don't really appreciate everybody's voice equally, it becomes very difficult for trans people of color, immigrants, things like that, to start getting stage time.

Especially now, I think of like, here's a mine, like, uh, Carlin, Lenny Bruce. Yeah. Like these are people that were. Screaming truth to power. Now, they arrested Lenny Bruce a lot, but yeah, those are genuinely like superheroes of mine for the things that they did and the kind of career that I wanted to emulate.

And what's even more heartbreaking is that I was like, you know what? Fine. Maybe the [00:38:00] mainstream doesn't want me. That's totally fine. I don't have to work within the mainstream. I found my audience. And then guess what happened? My audience got run into the house and into the shadows, and now they can't come out.

Yeah. So, not only did you take my career at the club, you also took my fans away from me. I know you're connecting with people on TikTok and through the podcast. Like is that working? Is that doing what you want it to do? I'm very blessed, like I'm saying, a lot of people are being safer at home. They're taking care of their families and being at home.

They're watching TikTok more. They're engaging in that way more. So we live in a time where even though they're trying to put people into the shadows, we're also very capable of still communicating and giving each other information. So. I have a very active community online, which is great. You know, we keep each other informed and very blessed that those kinds of things do.

Allow me to at least main, at least eat. We're going, food is on the table, and that's cool. You know what I mean? No. It's like first priorities, you [00:39:00] know? Yeah. Maslow's hierarchy. Yeah. Maybe it's a millennial in me, but I've worked so many gig economy jobs that I'm just like, all you took away standup comedy.

It's fine. I'm going on TikTok. Oh, you take away TikTok. All right. I'm a substack. You take away Substack, man. I'm at the corner spinning a sign, doing jokes. What you got for me? Tell me when you're showing up in the corner what corner it is. I watched that. I wanna see you with the sign. I bet you had pretty good technique.

Oh man. Yeah. All right. I do think that the mission story Slam audience is if they're not already aware of you, I think they are your people. So what's the best way for our audience to find you? Even though I'm here talking about people who won't work with me, I love the people who do as yourself as Mission Story Slam, so I really appreciate what Mission Story Slam First Person Arts and organizations like that do.

For marginalized artists so they don't feel like their voice doesn't matter. 'cause it's very easy for these clubs to make me feel like I don't matter. So I appreciate when people like you come out and go, no, they were wrong. You do matter. So thank you for what you do. Yeah, and people can find out everything that I do at [00:40:00] Cha Guerrero, ENG.

On YouTube, on TikTok Tac. I'm old on TikTok, on Substack, on Instagram, everything. Che Guerrero, ENG, and uh, yeah, che guerrero.com to check out. Hopefully there'll be dates. I always say once it does settle, I've built enough of a community and my community will come back out and those jokes will be written and freedom of speech will come back and I'll be ready.

I'm still writing. You, you, I told you I love writing now. Yeah. Listen, we, we have a lot of people in nonprofit leadership. If anyone wanted a comedian and a fundraiser. Well, you know where to find with, Hey, do me a favor, just spell Guerrera. Yeah. So that everyone gets it right. C-H-E-G-U-E-R-R-E-R-O-E-N-G.

On everything. Got it. Alright, cool. Glad you came out for the time is now. I appreciate you so much for coming on the podcast with me. This was really great. Thank you for having me. This is amazing. Thank you again Shay, and thank you to our fine listening audience. I am so glad to be in community with the Mission Story Slam Faithful.

We really are trying to [00:41:00] build a community for all of us doing the hard work of doing good, and we need your help to do that. So please direct people to our website, mission story slam.org or have them follow us on LinkedIn or Instagram. The Mission Story Slam podcast is produced by Dave Winston, and it's edited by James Robinson.

The Pot is produced and brought to you by PWP Video. We are Video With a Mission. Find us@pwpvideo.com. Until our next episode, I will remain Michael Schweiger and I look forward to sharing the next story behind the story with you soon.