- My first job in Minnesota was a $10-per-hour in a warehouse.
I called my mom crying, like, "I'm making so much money."
(everyone laughs) (upbeat music) (upbeat rock music) - [Producer] We asked each of you to come up with a food from your childhood and give your authentic reaction to it.
- I'm gonna grab the pink one.
- [Olu] That's good.
- You like it?
- [Olu] Yeah.
- Okay.
I don't know why.
(everyone laughs) - We're very invested.
(chuckles) - [Dani] Where is it from?
- It's actually from Puerto Rico.
- [Dani] Oh, really?
- Right.
(everyone laughs) - I thought it was yours now.
- No, we in Puerto Rico it's called florecitas, like little flowers.
- They're sweet and crunchy and good.
- [Xavier] Right?
- Very similar to what I had growing up, too.
I'm like, "Ah, they look so familiar."
(laughs) - I always say I moved to Minnesota because of med school, but I think there was a much higher purpose.
As a queer Latino, it wasn't until I came here that I felt like I could be really open about it.
The reason why I look like this, because this is how I feel.
I love earrings, I love tattoos, I love just being who you are.
I will say for the Latine community, like they look at me and I look different anyway.
(laughs) I struggle a lot with the difference between crackers and cookies here because we'll always say cookies in Spanish for everything.
We always say (speaking Spanish).
- [Dani] That's true.
- All the time.
- We use (speaking Spanish).
We make make everything diminutive.
So it's (speaking Spanish).
(Remona laughs) - Puerto Ricans moving to the US is very common because like we have the US citizenship, we have that privilege.
The economy in Puerto Rico is not the best right now.
There's research that shows that there are more Puerto Ricans in the US than in the actual island.
- Cracker is salty though.
- Yeah.
- Right, yeah, yeah.
- Is it?
- And cookie is sweet.
- [Remona] Oh, that's how you differentiate it?
Oh.
- We call them biscuits.
Everything is a biscuit.
- [Dani] Oh.
- [Xavier] Oh, really?
- Korean people, it's like (speaking Korean).
(speaking Korean) We call it (speaking Korean), but then it's just a general name for like snacks.
- Whatever you bring in, (speaking Korean).
(laughs) - I'd say Yoruba, this would be like (speaking Yoruba).
- Can you say it again?
(speaking Yoruba) - It lowkey has a connotation of being unhealthy, but it's not.
(laughs) - Well, snacks.
Yeah.
- Yeah, it's snacks.
But you probably shouldn't eat too much of it, yeah.
- Yeah.
(laughs) - I'm queer, so it was important for me to be part of a community that was also very supportive and I have kids that are growing up, so I also wanted to kind of like set the base for my family in a place where I felt that it was also going to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community and supportive to my kids.
Yeah, I found here the perfect balance.
- You're good at spinning.
- Just say we grew up around the beaches.
(laughs) - Oh, a little rusty.
- Oh, those.
(laughs) (upbeat music) - [Producer] When you get the ball, you're gonna read the question that's closest to your left thumb.
- What is a fun fact that most people may not know about you?
I'd say I have a twin sister.
We look nothing alike.
We're so different.
- Really?
- Yeah, we're like completely opposite people.
- That's cool.
- But we're very close.
- Nice.
What is your favorite childhood memory?
So I have a, I grew up in kind of like a traditional Latine family, right?
And a Catholic family.
But I always felt that I was very different.
I don't think it was seen in a positive way.
I think my family saw it as a, he's a rebel.
He just wants to be different.
I even remember when I had my first earrings, my mom asked our (speaking Spanish), she's like, "What should we do here?"
(laughs) So it was a lot of back and forth conversation between my parents and my grandma who was also a Catholic.
And so I don't think it was with a bad intention, it's just that it wasn't part of their beliefs.
I learned it's, yeah, like I don't need to show them who I am because of this.
I need to show them who I am with my actions.
I was always true to myself.
Is that part of like your childhood when you remember things some way?
I go to my grandma's house and I'm like, "Oh my God.
I thought it was a lot bigger."
- Yeah.
- Right?
- Everything seems bigger in memory.
It's amazing, yeah.
- Especially when you were like little, so everything seem to be a lot bigger.
- More vibrant too.
- Right.
(laughs) - The colors look better for some reason.
- That is so true.
Try it and see.
(laughs) - [Olu] That's close.
- [Xavier] What's a trick to go faster?
- Oh, oh.
Ah.
- That's all I can do.
- [Dani] Show off.
- Oh.
(laughs) Who was your go-to confidante growing up?
I feel it was my dad and we would always talk about... During my school years I played baseball.
It became part of who I am and he was there for every game, for every practice.
And yet those are the memories that I hold the closest to my heart.
It's like the time that he spent with me, that has been kind of like the hardest part of being here.
Just being away from him.
Like he's still in Puerto Rico.
I think I've never communicated to him why, why I really want him here.
Because sometimes I feel that I had a lot of weight.
I feel just having him here will kind of like make it lighter in some way and it's because I want my biggest confidante here.
- [Producer] Do you wanna try to give him a call?
(phone rings) - Hello?
- Hello, (speaking Spanish).
(Father speaking Spanish) (Xavier speaking Spanish) (Father speaking Spanish) (laughs) (Xavier speaking Spanish) (laughs) (Father speaking Spanish) I've always felt he sees me.
I've never felt that he doesn't love me for who I am.
He was always there for me.
I just wish that I could just go to his house and tell him and hug him.
(Father speaking Spanish) Bye.
My relationship with my dad has changed a lot since I became a dad.
It's going back in time and being like, "Wow, this is how you felt with me growing up.
This is how you saw me.
This is how you loved me."
And I really tried to replicate that as a father.
(upbeat music) - [Producer] Each of these cards has a statement on it.
Everybody else has to write on their paddle, yes, that's true, or no, that's not true.
- The community in Minnesota is mostly people of similar backgrounds.
(laughs) - It's definitely a no and yes.
- Oh, okay.
(laughs) - My first job at the warehouse, my biggest concerns was my language.
I couldn't communicate as much as I would like to.
It was so scary for me to speak over the phone and in my position, I had to do a lot of calls.
Trying to prove like everybody around me that vocabulary is not directly proportional to knowledge.
- I know sometimes like, you know, I'm like, I have all these things to say, but like I cannot articulate how to say this in like a smart way, so I'm just gonna say it.
- I know this, it's just, I don't know how to say in English, but I do know this.
(upbeat music) My interactions in Spanish were completely different from the interactions that I was having in English with people.
I remember joking with my coworkers and I'm like, "If you really get to know me in Spanish, I'm a lot funnier in Spanish."
(laughs) So it feels very unreal sometimes to me the fact that I was speaking at a conference in Texas and it was in English and I was like, "What?
Six years after?"
(laughs) - Immigrating to Minnesota has made my family closer.
Okay.
- I can't answer.
I don't know.
(laughs) It's a tricky question 'cause like, like if you bring your family, like they can make your family closer because you're all here and you feel like you really bond because you're missing your home country.
But if you come here by yourself, then it's a completely different deal 'cause you definitely don't feel closer to your family.
- I moved here to Minnesota alone.
Funny thing is that like, you know, especially like my culture, we are supposed to be like family oriented, but I don't have any like connections to like any of the family members I had back in Myanmar or Thailand.
So I only have like my immediate family.
When I moved to Minnesota, I feel like we got closer, even though we still only talk on the phone maybe once a week.
That's better than once a month.
(laughs) - [Dani] Yeah, that's true.
- I mean, based on our experience, I feel like that separation kind of like, it breaks something.
So for example, my dad is still in Puerto Rico, right?
Let's say he has 40 years left, right?
And you go every two years, you're gonna be- - Oh, you can't do that.
- You're gonna see your dad like 20 times more in your life.
- You can do that.
- I use it more as the time that I spend with him, like I make sure it's very intentional.
- Question is, what advice would you give as a younger self before coming to the US?
- I think mine will be, "Don't change a thing."
There were a lot of things during my life that I was like, "Oh, I wish I would've done this differently or whatever."
But the past couple of years have made me think, like I really am what I wanna be.
- So for me I'd say, "Be out there, be more assertive," to my younger self.
I think it has to do with like a lot of how I grew up and like I came from like a very oppressed, like generation of like traumas.
So then like, you know, I'll tell myself, "Put yourself out there, speak out.
Be more assertive, try different things.
You know, take the opportunity to learn.
Take the opportunity to grow."
- So I'll say one specific thing is Nigeria, our culture is very, I think it's called filial piety, where it's like you don't talk to like people older than you.
So when I came here, like going to college, my classmates would talk to their professors.
They'd be like, "Hey Mr. Smith, what are you doing on the weekend?"
- And you don't do that?
- Yeah, I never did that.
And it kind of holds you back a little bit in America.
It's now something I had to like, I'm still working towards it, even like- - Can I ask you, how do you relate to your grandparents?
- It's super respectful, especially like for male like patriarchy kind of figures.
- Interesting.
- It's interesting, because it's a distance that is intentional, but it's not because like you don't want to connect with this person, it's because like it's a sign of respect.
- Yeah, it's a sign of respect.
- Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
- It's a cultural thing, you know?
- It's a cultural thing.
- Yeah.
- What I hope for my future is that, that we celebrate our differences and that we just like help each other grow.
(laughs) Oh, I have a cruiser.
- Oh, you got a cruiser?
- Oh you do?
- [Remona] Oh, nice.
- Weird question, do motorcycles have radios?
How does that work?
- [Dani] They do.
- [Xavier] Some of them do.
- [Dani] They're loud.
- Some of them do.
Mine doesn't, I just like to enjoy the ride.
(laughs) - I don't know how to ride a motorcycle either.
- Me neither.
- I've never done it.
- So I can show you how to ride it.
It's automatic.
- [Remona] Oh.
- Oh, that's easy.
- [Xavier] Yes.
- Okay.