El Puente ep 1

Shelly Peterson and Jose Batista are launching a podcast called "Hablando Claro" where they will discuss local and national issues. They are both elected officials and want to inform and provide a platform for their community. Shelly is Peruvian and passionate about her culture. She represents Ward 14 in Providence and focuses on quality of life issues. She is also a mother and values women's history. Shelly describes herself as an introvert. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and we are live. Buenas tardes. Welcome to the very first episode ever of Alando Claro. This is crazy. Your local podcast on all things local affairs, public issues, anything random, you know, favorite things, fabulous Rhode Island, 2025. What up? Good afternoon, José Batista. Introduce yourself. I do speak Spanish, just so people are aware. My name may be very, very, very Americanized. I guess that's the funny part, right? In a way, it's not that different. You could say, I spend my whole life introducing myself as, my name is José Batista. But the minute I go to Broad Street, which is where I'm from, shout out to Navarra, my name there is José Batista. But it's important, you know what I mean? It doesn't bother me either way. I can't make my name Shelly Peterson. I can't make it really Spanish. It's just Shelly Peterson. So here we are. We're very excited. We're launching on this project, Alando Claro. We are two, let's call ourselves young people, right? We're still young people. I am still young. Amen. The grades don't prove it, but I am still young. Yeah. And we're excited to share a little bit about our perspective on what's going on in the world, right? I mentioned the date, March 22nd, 2025. It's a crazy time in history at a national level, at a local level. We both happen to be elected officials. We both like Peruvian food, which is where we were. Shelly invited me out to lunch the last weekend and we just had a conversation, you know what I mean? There's so many things going on and you're trying to look for a place where you can either express yourself freely and or learn. There's some questions that you're just afraid to ask. And so we're here to talk about everything along the phone. Yeah, that's absolutely right. You hit the nail right on the head. We're both elected officials and we represent different things. We're going to go a little bit more into who we are. So that way people are understanding a little bit more about how, though we're elected officials, our capacities are very different. Yeah, exactly. I mean, we're a little bit all over the place and that's okay. I'm embracing it because, you know, we're not trained communication professionals. We barely know how to operate the equipment we're using right now. Broadcasting live from the CIC in downtown Providence. So we have a rough idea about what we'd like to do, but we're going to figure it all out together. So we welcome you to join the journey. I guess let's begin with the name, Hablando Claro. Shelby, what does Hablando Claro mean for our friends that do not speak Spanish? That's true. Okay. So Hablando Claro, verbatim translation is speaking clearly. You know, as Jose mentioned, this is very much a labor. We started just talking a little bit about how much we wanted to convey a message about and inform our community. We're both Spanish-speaking elected officials and there is a lot. There's a lot going on locally. There's a lot going on statewide, but there's also a lot going on nationally. And I think that we are in a position to be able to inform the community and speak freely about a lot of the things that are happening. There's a lot of, not for lack of trying, but there's a lot of misinformation on things that might be happening and we should be able to have a platform to be able to convey a really informational message, but also then throw in our tidbits of how kind of we perceive things and how we could do better or what questions we should be asking, but always with the intent of informing the community, especially our Latino community who perhaps doesn't necessarily have a lot of outlets to be able to receive information outside of the radio or the news or things of that nature. I'm going to sprinkle a little bit of Dominicanism on top of that because we have Spanish and we have Dominican-Spanish and then we have Puerto Rican-Spanish and all sorts of, and I happen to be half Dominican and half Puerto Rican, but we'll get into that. So when I hear hablando claro, I listen to the Dominican community, literally it means speaking clearly, but I think it means also one step above that, right? Like there's the literal physical act of speaking clearly, but then there's also this like, look at that, don't pull my leg, for example, if the taxes are going up, tell me the damn taxes are going up. We're here to speak clearly. Exactly. So who is Shelly Peterson? Tell me who I am. We have a lot of ideas, a lot of guests, a lot of topics, a lot of great debates. It's all going to be outward facing and it's great. Today for our very first history-making inaugural episode, we're going to be a little bit focused on us. We're going to let the public know who we are, for those people who don't know who we are. The ins and outs, because like I said, we're not going to focus on ourselves here. This program is not to focus on ourselves, but just so you know who these crazy people are speaking on the other side of the radio, the other side of the microphone, is Shelly Peterson. Oh my goodness. Well, being Shelly Peterson, I was born in Lima, Peru. I came to the United States when I was a year old, so I basically lived here my entire life. But I am Peruvian and my culturalism and everything is very much Peruvian. I love my culture. I love Latin culture. It's something that is ingrained in my soul. If you talk to anybody that has had any sort of a conversation with me or even just a meal with me, I will always bring forward what Peruvianism is to me, and we as Peruvians, we convey it with our food. That is our culture. Oh my gosh. There's just so much more. I can't wait to show you guys. But who is Shelly Peterson? Like I said, I grew up here in Rhode Island. We moved to this country, we moved to Pawtucket, and then I spent a lot of my formative years in East Providence. I went to school in Boston, and then I moved back home, and when we chose home, it was Providence. I, so a little bit about who I am as an elected official. I represent on the City Council of the City of Providence the area of Ward 14, which is representative of Elmhurst and Wanskuck neighborhoods. So, para los que no saben más o menos de los áreas por los nombres de esos oficiales, yo represento el área que tiene la universidad, Providence College. So, that's the area that I represent is Providence College, the area where Providence College is. Admiral, portions of Branch, Smith Street, Eaton. The LaSalle Bakeries. The LaSalle Bakeries. Both of them, right? Both of them, that's right. Providence Systems, right? Which one are you referring to? That's right. Are you going to Admiral or are you going to Smith? That is always the question. And we now have Brasa Antifa, which is where we had our first meeting of the mine. It was so good. But it's a little beautiful. I call it a tale of two neighborhoods, but it is very much a small suburbia right within the city. You have a lot of single family homes and now there's a lot of student housing development, which is at some point something that we will talk about just, you know, kind of my platform and what's important to my community, mi comunidad. Las cosas que les interesan a las diferentes comunidades en nuestra ciudad, they're relative to those particular neighborhoods, right? And there's an important topic in my neighborhood that's about student housing and how we kind of formalize what's going to be happening in the future. The gentrification of certain areas and things like that. Those are all things that we're going to talk about here. But Shelly Peterson is Peruvian by way of Italy. My grandfather was born in Italy. And at a young age, he also left Italy and went and migrated with his whole family to Peru. And here we are. How about that? Yeah. No, I am a mother of two. I have two teenagers, I guess, now kind of dealing with all of that. But shout out to all the moms, all the moms that are doing all of the things. They're being moms, they're being a career woman, a professional and trying to also encompass a little piece of making sure that, you know, they do what they love as well. It's always really important. I think as women today, we are trying to be superwoman without being superwoman. But man, it is tiring. So shout out to women's history. That's right. We're in the middle of women's history. Please do it. We very much appreciate it. Flowers every now and then. Some chocolates. I'm always down for chocolates. I'm not going to lie. But no, it's extremely important to me to convey a message. I am not one of the typical city counselors that's always out and outspoken, or speaking out about things. I'm very much put my head down and do the work. Quality of life issues in my neighborhood are very important to them. So I'm dealing with a lot of that. Creating policy is something else that I am very passionate about. So you won't necessarily see me in the news, on the radio, doing a lot of those things. Porque yo, I'm very private. I'm very personal. I will have a one-on-one conversation with you like nobody's business. And we're going to get along just fine. But this is very much probably one of the more challenging things that I've kind of started because... So here we are. It sounds like this podcast gives the people a unique opportunity to really get to know Shelley Beatson, right? Would you describe yourself as an introvert? I would say... So according to my astrological sign, I'm not. But I would say very much so. I am a person that you're not going to see me going out. I'm home. I love being home and cozy with my family, knowing that we're all safe. And if I have to do something, I will. And when I need to fight for a cause, I'm going to be there. But for the most part, yeah, I am what you see is what you get. I'm pretty quiet. I like to observe and see where I can support. And that's really who I am. Interesting. So we could have named this podcast Two Introverts. I think we obviously get along really well. We have a lot of things in common. And maybe it's not a coincidence that we thought about this kind of project, right? Because it's not so much that we don't want to talk and we don't like to talk, but maybe just more in a controlled space as opposed to being out and about. And nothing wrong with that. Shout out to all my extrovert friends in Maine. We need more of you and all those things. Yeah, it's beautiful. I wish that I had that bone in my body, but I don't. I agree with you, Jose. There is a level of autonomy that this brings, right? To be able to have this constant dialogue with somebody that perhaps we may not necessarily agree on all the things, but there's this open opportunity to really convey a message of just information and also bringing people that perhaps might have that difference of opinion to also help us kind of engage with the community that we represent. Sure. Amen. So with that being said, tell me a little bit about yourself, Jose Batista. Who is Jose Batista? Well, I'll try to answer that very briefly. I am born and raised in New Providence. I spent my entire life in South Providence, born at Women and Infants Hospital. And my dad's an immigrant from the Very Great Republic. He got here in March 31st, 1979. So next week is going to be his almost, what, 50th? Almost 50 years in this country. More than half of his life, right? So my parents being immigrants is a big part of the way that I see the world. My mom's from Puerto Rico. She came here when she was eight, so that would be 1972, about. And technically, my mom's not an immigrant because Puerto Rico's part of the US, but I very much consider her an immigrant, right? Because if you think about her life and the challenges that she faced, even though she's very white, her life probably looks a lot more like my dad's life as an immigrant versus mine, born in this country. So we can spend episodes talking about Puerto Rico and its history, the rich culture, food, and complicated history with the United States. But both my folks are immigrants. I'm the oldest of six. My next daughter-in-law just got married last weekend in Guatemala. Congratulations. I got to be there. I love exploring Latin America. I've been to a few countries, Costa Rica, Colombia, DR, Puerto Rico, now Guatemala. I love the... It's just the nuances, right? There's like 21 Spanish-speaking countries, and all of our countries have different... One of my favorite games to play is like, what word do you use for this, right? Even in my own household, the Dominican and Puerto Ricans, they have two different words, right? Uno de chinola, uno de pancha. I got one for you. What's that? What's your word for straw? Depends, you know? In the Dominican Republic, it's calimante. In Puerto Rico, it's sorbeto. I even get yelled at. That's the Puerto Rican word. That's a pedigree. I don't know how you confuse calimante, sorbeto. So we say sorbete. I believe Colombians say pitillo. How do you say hanger? Colcador. Okay. I think, again, I'm going to get this wrong. I think Dominicans call it pancha. And I think Puerto Ricans call it gancho. El gancho. We say el gancho. I'm pretty sure if I said colcador, that was some sort of language at some point down the line. And then we'd be making up words. Yeah. So there's a lot of that. So they're going to be like, your Spanish is so off, but... I love it. I've been to Cuba. Cuba's a great time. I feel like, not to divide Latinos, but I feel like the more Caribbean that they are, between the coastal part of Colombia, Castaneda, et cetera, Venezuela, Cuba, PR, PR. In fact, when I went to Cartagena for the first time, I was like, wow, you guys all sound like you're Puerto Rican. Versus the accent in Medellín, which is completely different. So many just nuances. I want to take this moment just to pause for a quick second and say a disclaimer that maybe we'll need to say it every episode of Not For Like. We're not here to offend anybody. We might make mistakes. We're people. We might say the wrong word here and there. We respect everybody. We love everybody. We want to include everybody. So if we ever make a mistake, I mean, Lord knows I'm going to make mistakes. We're here to inform. We're here to have fun. We're here to share. We're here to learn. And so there might be learning opportunities here, but zero intent to leave anybody out, to ridicule anybody, make fun of anybody. At the end of the day, I'm going to make fun of myself. Same, same. Like my friend Jason Roya said, shout out to everybody. Oh, Jason. Shout out to the Roya brothers. He'd be over here picking fights with everybody. Shout out to everybody, you know what I mean? There's actually, we ran into a Roya brother here today, so yes. Shout out to the Roya brothers. I mean, they had some weird football associations in Pittsburgh. God knows what's going on with them, but in any case. But they do like the Celtics, and I'm a diehard Celtics fan, so diehard. We'll get along with that. We'll get along with that. You know, Celtics just sold- 6.1 billion, right? The richest franchise in all of American sports. As it should be. The guy who bought it bought it 20 years ago for $360 million. I mean, that goes back to $200 million. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, well, there are these stuff. Puerto Rican, Dominican, oldest of six, once a proud of public schools, classical high school, class of 2006, very proud of that. Went to Bryant University to spend a long time talking about my time in college, and I think I was a first-generation college student. Shout out to College Visions, which is one of my favorite nonprofits in Providence. Helped me, I was part of the second class, really helped me get into college, stay in college. And then kind of struggled at the end. I didn't really know what to do, and eventually gathered the courage to go to law school. And I went to law school, I graduated in 2014. So I've been a practicing attorney for 10 years after I failed the law for the first time. Again, I'm really only doing the most things to talk about in the future, right? So I've been practicing attorney for 10 years. I started out as a public defender, dedicated pretty much my entire career to criminal justice, just realizing how just messed up our system is, right? And on the one hand, the one thing I've learned about systems is that there is a time and a place for systems, for rules and for lines, but we also have to be humble enough as a society to think, you know, whether it be every five years or every 10 years or whatever, maybe some of these lines and rules need to change. Because the results, although we're trying to do the right thing, the result could be the bad thing. And my biggest frustration is that we don't, you know, the evidence and the data is right in front of us. Like, hey, you guys are doing the wrong thing, aka the United States is the number one leader of incarcerated people in the world. But we don't want to change it, right? We're too afraid to change. So that's a little bit about my policy lens. I served as a state rep since the year 2020, campaigned during COVID. First of all, survived COVID, right? Second of all, campaigned during COVID. Survived COVID. That's so weird to say it that way, but you're so... Five years, you know, the whole thing. But campaigned during that time, got elected. This is my third term in the state General Assembly of the House of Representatives. Represent District 12. So if you're standing on Broad Street in the South Balkans, and let's say you're standing at the intersection of Adelaide and Broad. To your left is the Grand Plaza, right? To your right is the CVS Little Plaza. So I represent the right-hand side of Broad Street. Is that the Broad Street? If you're looking downtown, right? Beginning at that Cranston line where the cemetery is, all the way down to where Broad and Elmwood meet, that whole side of Broad Street is my district. And you were talking about student housing being a big issue in your community. I'd say in my community, one of the biggest issues is probably the port, right? Down to the water down there. On the one hand, all of the dangers that exist down there. We've had a couple of big fires within the past couple of years, a big danger. But also all of the opportunity, right? Like what's going on out there? I drive by down there like millions of times. And just as a person, right? Nevermind it's an elected official. Like what entities are down there? What space is being used? What space is not being used? What could we use? Because if you look at the other side of the water, even though you've got the hot club, you've got the whiskey republic, or whatever it's called now, and all the boats. And then on our side, it's like, we can use some love, right? So that's a big issue in my community. And that's a little bit about who I am. Is there a college in the area over by the port? So there is a college, Johnson and Wales, like the hardest on campus. I don't know that it's, I don't, regarding where the line is, right? I'm trying to think about where the line is. Kind of like a little bit Providence, a little bit Cranston. I think it's probably more so Cranston. But there is CCRI, right? For Houston campus. And there's a ton of education. In fact, in that little community, we might call it the education corridor. We have Roger Williams Daycare, B.J. Clanton Elementary, Roger Williams Middle School, and then the Jason Building, right? All of that right there. I went to Roger Williams Middle School, very proud of that. My favorite part of, I think the next thing we're going to talk about is a little bit more digging into what it means to you to be a part of the perspective that comes there, right? Where it's sort of similar, but it also gives you some differences, right? Right, right. You're literally an immigrant, like born and raised. I'm not quite getting to that level. I feel like I was born a little bit of a critic on it over there. Yeah, it really took me until getting to high school to realize that. Until I got to high school, which was the age of 14, I literally thought the whole world was like Rochester. Yeah. That was my entire world. And I thought, you know, like 85% Dominican, and then I got to classical high school, and I got to go to school with all these kids that went to all these other schools, right? St. This and St. That, and I was like, I've learned all the schools. Yeah. In my mind, there were three middle schools, Nathaniel Green, Douglas Stewart, and Roger Williams. Right, yeah. And so you go to classical. In my mind, classical was like more than 50% minority. Yeah. And even then it was a culture shock, right? And then you go to college and all that kind of stuff. Really, really interesting development. So that's a little bit about who I am. Obviously, we can spend a lot more time talking about that. But one of the differences I'm curious to dig a little bit more into is, you know, you have the privilege of being an elected official at the city level, right? Yeah. You get to go into city hall. You have a desk in there. You know, you have the city council president. You have the mayor, who's your executive, which is a little bit different experience for me, going into the state house, and the state house of reps, and the speaker, and the governor. So I'm curious, you know, you were talking a little bit about your neighborhood, but could you tell us a little bit, for example, when you got elected and what your experience was like? What is it like to be a city council official? What's your average day look like? What are some of the goodies and benefits that you get that people want to know about? And what are some of the nonsense and nightmares that people, again, people just don't know. They think they know. Yeah, no. Well, thank you. That's a loaded question. So here we go. So city council, I guess I can start with why I chose to run, right? When I decided to run, I had, so I do have to say that my frame of mind in terms of political science and government and things like that, I was a government major in college. I went to Suffolk University up in Boston. But prior to going to school in Boston, I was a student at East Providence High School. I grew up in East Providence. My favorite teacher in the entire world, who is still a mentor today, is, his name is Greg Amore, who is now the Secretary of State. Former representative, right? Former, yeah, former representative. He was, what I loved was his passion for educating about US history. And even though as I've gotten older, I understand that the US history that I was taught is very different from the US history that actually perhaps in many instances took place, especially here in Rhode Island and in other places. One of the things I think that was the conveyed message was to be passionate about what government is and how it can change, right? I think that was just a piece that I took away with me as I became a political science major. My undergrad was in international relations. So I knew that I wanted to be a part of something bigger. And I just didn't really quite know what that was going to look like. I was going to go to law school. I think I was in third grade when I read a story about Thurgood Marshall. And I was like, that's going to be me. That's going to be me. Wow. Okay. Yep. We'll put a flag in Thurgood Marshall. That is going to be me. And I had this mentality from when I was little all the way through that I was going to be a lawyer. What kind of a lawyer? Not a clue. But I knew that I was going to be a lawyer. My job was to fight. I felt like injustice was where I wanted to focus to help the not so fortunate and figure out a way how to help. The not so fortunate. The not so fortunate. Oh, not so fortunate. No, not so fortunate. No, I thought I was going to find a different way to say privileged. Oh, gosh, no. The not so fortunate. No, we could talk. We could have a whole conversation about privilege because I have strong feelings about privilege. Yeah, we will. But that's not for today. The not so fortunate. I wanted to help the underdog, the little man. Not the little man, but you know what I mean. I felt like it was my duty to be able to empower those that couldn't do it for themselves. And then college came. And when it was time for me to take the LSATs, I said, I can't do this. That's not who I am. I don't necessarily know that I want to go down this road. So I didn't pursue a law school degree. I instead went and worked in the nonprofit field. And I went and I did development and fundraising for small nonprofits. I have helped many, many nonprofits both in Boston and here in Rhode Island with fundraising and fundraising goals and developing fundraising plans. Later in life, as my kids got a little bit older, I started my own company. I became a grant manager consultant for small nonprofits in the city, in the state. And that's outside of my full-time job. I did that. When I ran for office, one of the things that I always noticed about my neighborhood, which I absolutely love, is that we talk about it like it's two different, very different neighborhoods. You have Elmhurst, where people understand where to get their resources through the city, how to advocate for their resources when they need them. And then when you go to the Wanskuck side, it's almost, I remember a current elected official, when he was walking through to run, he would knock on doors, he would always say, Wanskuck is this place where people have forgotten that it's there. And it was very much how I felt when I ran. And it broke my heart because it made me realize that I still have not done my job. So I knew that in talking about two very different neighborhoods, I needed to be able to find a way to uplift the one that didn't have all of the opportunity to have the same attention as Elmhurst. And that was my mission. And when I started running, I realized that both neighborhoods had this one very valid and very important connection, and it was the stop, the middle point, which was the college. If you look at the way that the neighborhood is built and kind of set up, Providence College takes up a beautiful, somewhat large portion of Elmhurst, but where the student housing is and continues to grow is in the Wanskuck side. And every time I knocked on a door that was kind of straddling the line of Wanskuck and Elmhurst, the constant conversation was, we've been fighting for years just on the basic quality of life issues that we have here. The school has tried to help in the past but never really gotten anywhere. We've tried to talk to our elected officials and nothing really gets done. We don't really know where to go with what's happening, and we're concerned because now, all of a sudden, there's a whole other spot that's just started to get built, and we weren't expecting this, and we're not sure what this means. And now we're fighting for parking and our trash getting picked up because it's not because somebody's blocked the street and things like that. It's just become too dense and too fast, and we don't know how to mitigate it. The quality of life issues. Yeah. Which is so interesting, really, the basic things of life. Sometimes people think that politics is all big, big, big, big ideas and stuff, but sometimes it's really good, especially at the city level, right? Like really, really simple things like, oh, that's what you're worried about? Oh, that's what I can do to help you? Interesting. Yeah. There was a, I think, if I'm not mistaken, the mayor kind of ran some of that back to basics, like let's really make sure that what we do at a city level is done well. And for me, it was just like, let's make sure that every, both sides of my neighborhoods are able to do just that, get those services that they both require to be able to be supported properly by the city. But then there was this continued underlying issue of, hey, student housing is kind of continuing to grow, and we're not necessarily sure how to handle it. So I ran. I ran on being able to just support in the proper way, just being more communicative, making sure that people knew that they could access me whenever needed. And that's really where it's, that's really where it's been. I pride myself on making sure that I call back, it might take me a couple of days, but I call back every person that has contacted me. I try very much to address the issue at hand in the very best way possible. I do rely heavily, we as counselors rely heavily on our city services and our directors to be able to do the things that our constituents are concerned about. So we advocate for them in perhaps a way that they may not have been successful to do on their own. And that's a lot of, that's about 90% of my job. I have a full time job. I run one particular grant for the state from the federal side. So I review and make sure that municipalities have access to this funding, because it's absolutely necessary. And that's my day job. And then at night, I do the work of a city counselor, which I think is more of like a 24 hour job, because you never know when you're needed. Sometimes the situations require you to be available more than you're able to, and you kind of have to find that balance. But I'm also a mom. So all of those things kind of, that intersectionality of work is very much what I need to, I need to do day to day. So you have a 48 hour worth of stuff into every 24 hour day. Pretty much. Yeah. I have to tell you that we're going into year three, right? So we run on four year terms at city council level. The city council is made up of 15 people representing 15 different areas. The areas that are next to mine are Ward 5, which is Mount Pleasant and Alhurst, and Ward 12, which is Smith Hill. Some of that numbering is weird, right? Like on the east side, you have 1, 2, 3, 4, and then somewhere around Valley Street, you have 15. And 6. Yeah, no. 8, 9, 10, and 11 are pretty close. Yeah. 1, 2, 3 are pretty close. Yeah. When you look at the history of 14, those were later. I think our first, yeah, those were developed later. Our very first city counselor for the area of Ward 14 was Andrew Nalda, who is still well known in the state. He was our very first ever? For Ward 14, yes. Oh, wow. So that was in the year? Now you got me. I can't remember. The 90s, right? Yeah. Probably early 90s. Interesting. Yeah. Another interesting thing, I think, for the future, the fact that our city council is all ward based, right? You have some city councils that are at large seats. Right. I remember being on the charter review commission in 2012, I think. And one of the questions was whether we should move to at-large, and the benefits of that versus the cons of that. It was a super interesting idea. But for another, again, for the people at home, listing all the categories, we're going to talk about it in future at that one. Yeah. We clearly have expectations of being around for a very, very long time. And so because we serve at four-year terms, I think your first term, you really start really understanding how the city works. I'm not somebody who was originally from here. I moved here from East Providence, so it was over the bridge, the beautiful, wonderful bridge that we have to deal with right now. It is very different. The dynamic is very different. And it's a representative body of 15 people with very different views on how to move the city forward. And we are the legislative component of what runs the city. A lot of my time in the past two years has been spent on advocating for student housing policy. We have started, as a matter of fact, just today, I just had a community meeting today, where we started putting the pieces of this large policy, putting it forward for feedback and community engagement. One of the things that I love about this particular city council is that we've been more engaged with the community than I think ever before. I think we all agree that it's extremely important to message out to the community, to understand what's at hand, what's happening, what's coming forward, whether there is a little bit of misinformation that's being provided, but also advocating for the needs that each neighborhood has. You have in your neighborhood a large group of people that come out with regards to the port. And within our same respective communities, people are talking about education, which is a huge hot button item right now in the city of Providence. So there's a lot of working parts to a lot of the things. And we all do our very best to make sure that our community is being represented in the very best way. And we all have our specific, I'll call them niches, of policy that we need to focus in on to make sure that our communities can continue to thrive. I love the Providence City Council. I'm one of these people, no matter how many examples I've been given, I call myself a big believer. I believe in government. I believe in these institutions. I believe that they're supposed to work in a particular way. Sure, I would probably play the long shot, but I believe in it. I love, especially when I was younger, I would sit in the Providence City Council chamber when it was all empty. Yeah. And just sit there and just think, wow. It's beautiful, isn't it? Those neighborhoods are beautiful. Number one, right? First and foremost, it is beautiful. And just, too, I think about all the different people in all the different decades. And what was the debate like in the 40s and the 50s? I mean, that building goes back to, what, like 1870-something, right? It's over 100 years old, yes. More than that. Maybe it's closer to 200, or at least 150, right? Yeah. So imagine all the debate there, right? People would have had their sideburns all the way down from the ocean. And they came in very, very well-dressed. That idea of self-government, and I'll stick to the Providence City Council. I love that. And if you think about the Providence City Council, 15 people, it's a pretty diverse crowd, right? Yeah. You've got, now, especially in 2022, you've got a huge amount of younger, progressive people coming in. But you have working-class folks. You have attorneys. You have women. It's majority women now, right? It's majority women. Shout-outs to the women. It's majority minority, so Latino and Black, African-Americans, just like the city, yeah. Yeah, I know. So I got on with the Providence City Council, and so many details are getting there, like what is, you know, so many things that we take for granted that we know, that people don't know, right? And so I think that's one of the things that we want to talk about, and break things down, and help people understand. For example, leadership, right? Like, there's a structure. You have a president. What's the position below president? Pro-tem, which is one percentile. President pro-tem. Six thousand, yeah. Which is a majority leader. Right. Which is a big deal, right? Which is Pedro Trimal currently. Okay, that's my council. Shout-out to Pedro, you know, both part of the, what's that, the pear-growing thing, thing for men? What are they called? It's like some sort of thing, anyway. Rogaine? It's two, two, two baldies. Pear-grown for men? Pedro is my boy. They're C-Vow. And we both live on the same street. Oh, really? Yeah. No kidding. Yeah, which makes me way too close to people. No, no, and you know, we really appreciate the work at the city level, and I think part of what we hope to do is distinguish with people, right? You know, because citizens are constituents, and it's not their job to break down the way things work, but it is important for people to know. Right. Information is power, right? So, what's a city issue versus what's a state issue? Correct. Versus what's a federal government issue? I'm sure you've got all sorts of things in your inbox that have nothing to do with you whatsoever. Every single thing, yes. Nine, nine, well, no, I won't say nine. We have, you know, like I said, Elmhurst really, the community in Elmhurst really knows how to advocate for themselves, so if there's an issue, and if they can't figure it out on their own, they're going to call you, and they're going to want you to work. And where Wanskuck is more like, how do I even begin this process, right? So, there's a little bit of education that's required on both ends in very different ways, but I'm sure that in the other 14 wards, they're also having some sort of mixed balance of how to figure out things for, you know, new residents that come into the community. We have, in Providence, we've had an influx of new people coming in from all over the country for a long time now, and it kind of influenced our, the cost of living here, the cost of rent here, the cost of, you know, purchasing homes, and all of those things are big components to the policies that we have to create to kind of move the city forward. Sure, I know. I have a question for you. Sure. Tell us a little bit about your component of legislating from the state perspective, because it is, as much as you're involved in city things, yours is more, obviously, a statewide. Yeah. No, it's super interesting, you know. So, I ran in 2020. I had never run for office before. I'd been involved a bunch, you know. My dad was very politically engaged way back in the 90s. I remember knocking on doors with him when I was a kid. Of course, I didn't know what we were doing, but now that I grew up, I'm like, oh, man, you know. So, you know, I give my parents a lot of credit. They were very socially engaged. They understood that, you know, my dad was a business owner, so he was always, like, out and about and meeting people and stuff like that, and we didn't have summer camp when I was growing up. So, my summer camp was, they'd throw us in the back of the car, and we'd go on errands all day, and of course, as kids, you hated that. Yes. But then they invited Burger King, and it was all good. Did you get to go into the, you know, how they had, like, the playground? There was actually one in the one walking park, the McDonald's walking park. They had the little playground up front, and then they got a little bit of some work, but yeah, of course, the ball pit and all that stuff. So, you know, I'd like to think that the, yeah, I think I looked like a normal kid. I didn't ever imagine going to law school or running for office. I'd say, you know, I had that foundation, even though I didn't really appreciate it, but I knew what it was to be civically engaged like my parents were, and I'd say my life changed maybe in 08. I talked for a fraternity, LUL, in Greek letters, Lambda Upsilon Lambda. It's a Latino-based fraternity, so we call the LUL the nickname, if you will, the La Unidad Latina, and that for me was a turning point in my life, because I think I was always really serious, but when I got to college, I kind of was like, okay, you know, third generation, oldest of six, you spend your whole life trying to get into college, and you get there, you kind of have this moment, like, now what? And getting to pledge to this fraternity gave me access to this network of young Latino men asking the same questions, and my fraternity was founded in 1982, so we didn't have a lot of brothers, normally as historic as some of the African-American communities that go back 100 years, and you could say, like, Martin Luther King was a brother, and Marshall was a brother, et cetera, but there were enough young men that, you know, they could give us guidance, and that experience really connected me to the community and my purpose in a different way. It gave me a sense of direction. It made me really appreciate who I was. You know, when you're younger, maybe you don't really want to speak Spanish, right, even though your parents do. Maybe you don't really want to dance to the music that keeps you hanging out, but this thing, this experience, pledging to this fraternity, really made me take ownership of my own life and ownership of my identity as a Latino, right? Like, listen, in order for you to get to college, a lot of people have to sacrifice. People who you will never know. They just went off about their business, they tolerated and survived discrimination, and now you have this chance to be here. Like, this is not just like, oh, yeah, this is like, no, you have an obligation, an affirmative responsibility to move this thing forward, and so. And then the big question is, what are you going to do with it? And then you're like, well, that's a lot to fill. So that was from 2008, and I still remember, as I was pledging, which is an experience that you don't really talk about, right? There's a lot of sensitive details, but it's very serious. I always remember, right around this time, it was March 2008, and this guy was running for president named Barack Obama, and in the middle of my school break was when the Jeremiah Wright explosion came out, and he gave the famous speech on race in America, and I just remember, like, being stopped in my tracks, and there was so much happening, but I watched this guy give this speech, and I was like, oh, my God. The way, it was like watching, like, a freestyle, right? Just bars, right? Bar after bar after bar, like, truth and knowledge. I was just like, man, like, what would it be like to speak like that, to have the ability to break down complicated things like that? Like, he was saying all these things that I was feeling, but just didn't know how to say. And so I called out the perfect storm. I called out the opportunity. I was, you know, at that time, I didn't care about the newspaper. Now I care about the newspaper. I didn't care about the community. Now I care about the community. I didn't care about my Latino identity. Now I care about the Latino community. Sprinkle on top this young, charismatic person running for president, and now I still care about politics. Now I start saying, hey, what's going on over here? What's going on over there? I did it in 2008. So naturally, Obama wins, and, you know, that's, I think, a whole generation of us really felt connected to politics. And then two years later, 2010, I mean, Chavez runs for mayor of Providence. So we go from having the first minority black president in the country to, in Providence, in my own backyard, having the first Dominican mayor. That's from Ward 14, back in the day. And went to Mary Fulbright Elementary School at the age of 12. And a big-time role model. You know, shout out to Andrew, big time. He's such a humble person and such an incredible person. So to be young, 22 years old, black man runs for president when Dominican runs for mayor wins, like, oh my God, right? Just life-changing circumstances. And so I'm just always involved. I ran in 2020, got elected. You know, like I said, I'm a hopeful leader. I like sitting in the chamber. I like, you know, in the House of Reps, there's 75 representatives, and District 1 is here in Providence. District 75 is in Newport. And so it just kind of does this circle, right? I think it's clockwise. You go off in Providence, Districts 1 through 13 are the Providence reps. 14 through maybe 20 is all the Cranston reps. 20 through 23, or like 19 through 23, are the Warwick reps. And then you go into, like, some of the more conservative areas. You get the West Warwick. You get the Foster, the Gloucester. And then you go up into that upper northwestern corner, the Burgos. And then I think they're also 30s and 40s. I don't know those as well. Then when you get to the 54 or 55 at North Providence, from 56 to 60, it's like Pawtucket. Shout out to Nell Felix and Shereen. And Shereen. Old Women Delegation in Pawtucket. Then you get East Providence, right? 63, 64, 65 are on there. My other Peruvian friend, Joni Versado, right? Yeah, I think so. First Peruvian. Yep, and first Peruvian elected in the General Assembly for Rhode Island. Isn't that a big deal? We're living history. Yeah, it's a big deal. We go from talking about our parents who came to this country, whatever else, and we are literally living history. Like right now there's four Dominicans in the General Assembly. There's only ever been two more in history. So there's six in all of history and four right now, like it's crazy. Nell Felix and I are like two of the first ever Latino lawyers in the legislature. Amazing. You have your Indians of Arizona and Puerto Rican lawyers, but they just went straight to the mayor. Yeah. Never stepped foot in the state assembly. Nell is also a wonderful employee of the city of Providence, so shout out to her. One of my favorite people out there. Yeah. And she's also like, you know, she's like maybe, I don't know, five foot one. She packs a punch, she does. Don't make me call Nell. And then, you know, you go down to East Bay, right? So you got to Providence, Rasmussen, Warren, and whatever. And I give you that example just because like that's one of the coolest things about being in a state assembly. You're sitting in this thing. It's a very diverse crowd. The black, Latino, indigenous, Asian, Pacifica, Islander caucus now has maybe 21, 25 members. Because it's beautiful. The two chambers, right? First time ever we've had Asian American members. And so, you know, my first term, fun fact, the first six months of the term, well, we were going to be meeting for the first six months, so the first five months, we didn't meet at the state house. We were meeting at the Veterans Memorial Auditorium because this was COVID. And so in order to do six feet of social distancing, we could not be in the state house. So the Rhode Island Senate met at RIC, in a big auditorium. And the Rhode Island House met at the Veterans Memorial, which is right next door. And so June 1st, 2021, was our first day back in the chamber. And so whenever there's some jeopardy question, like when was the last time the Rhode Island House had a session outside of the Rhode Island House? May 2021, when we went over there. That was a really interesting experience. When we got back to normal, and we sat in our seats, I sat in a row of four. And so to my left was Debra Duriel, who was a rep from Jamestown, who's no longer a rep, but she was a journalist by trade. And to my right was Tom Durek, who was a former police officer out of Coventry. And so two people, you know, very different parts of town. Very different perspectives from the city life. Yes, and so they were next to me. So any day I could walk into the chamber and say, hey, what's going on in Jamestown? When I could never before in my life say to hell, I've never even been to Jamestown that many times, you know what I mean? Like Rhode Island was so small, but it was such a beautiful place. There's so many like nooks and crannies that you don't know anything about. So one of my favorite parts of being in the legislature is just, you have a great excuse to like, hey, I want to go meet, you know, your neighborhood. Yeah. I want to go get, I want to meet you as a rep. I want to get to know who you are. But take me to your neighborhood. Take me to your, that's enough. I've had, you know, a rep from Westmoreland drive me all the way around and show me all these things I've never seen before. I got to go out to Newport and see things I've never seen before. I got to go to Quonset Point. Is it Quonset Point or Quonset? Quonset Point. Yeah. I know. I was thinking about Rocky Point. But Rocky Point. You know what I mean? Throwback. Throwback. That was a great, that was a great place. So many wonderful things in this state. Like I said, I see it from the perspective of somebody who's a believer. There's a lot of things about politics that makes you frustrated. I certainly agree with that. But I choose to be somebody who doesn't let those things outweigh the good. I mean, I believe in the committee hearings. A lot of people say, you know, committee hearings don't really matter. All the decisions get made behind closed doors, blah, blah, blah. And there might be some truth to that. But I choose to participate. I choose to advocate. I choose to tell people, like, listen, you've got to come up and be involved. So that's the big thing. We have our sessions every Tuesday and Thursday. They last about an hour. That's when you vote on the bills. And then the real work, quote, unquote, takes place in the committee hearings. So you know, you go in and you submit these bills. What does it mean to submit a bill? I am a little bit lucky. I have a background as a lawyer. So I have a sense of what the laws are and how to write them and how to use words, whatever else. But let's say you don't. We have an office called Legislative Council. And you can meet with them and say, listen, I have this idea of how do I turn this into a bill? And it could be, you know, at the state level, it could be anything from I want to raise the minimum wage to I think our public colleges and universities should do X, Y, or Z to I think our health care system is terrible and we should do this. Like, big level change, small level change. I think the three biggest committees probably are, number one, finance, right? Always follow the money. Number two, I'm biased on the judiciary, all the legal things, all the court things. And number three is labor, right? Work, regulations, minimum wage, et cetera. And so I didn't give a light on the statehouse you can have. Last week, in judiciary, we had landlord-tenant rules. Yeah. So proposals for landlord-tenant that you have, everybody show up. Next week, we have gun night, right? Bills on assault weapons standards, things like that. You have a lot of people show up. And so it's democracy. It's a beautiful thing. It's not always perfect, but those are some of the big things that I think about in being a state legislator. I'm sure we can get a lot more information about that. I remember I went to speak on a bill my very first year as a counselor, so two years ago. And I was mesmerized by the amount of the different advocacy groups that were there and just their engagement and how much they were... It's not just the passion for the cause, it's the data, the hard work that people have put into really advocating for something that's so unbelievably important for them. Selfishly, I can say this, from a city perspective, we see things in a very, very small, very localized component where we don't necessarily take into consideration how it affects a larger area, whether it's my ward specifically or right into the city and then obviously other cities and towns. And I was just unbelievably... I was in awe of just how much and how passionate people really are about causes that are detailed to who they are, to their core. And that's what I love about government, what I love about politics, what I love about all of what we do is that there's hope. You're a believer, but I'm always very hopeful. The word on all states' lives? Yeah. I think I've always said this, but the moment we lose hope is the moment that we should just... Say it for real, I like that. Yeah, we're done. We should get up and walk away from what we do because I do think that there is an opportunity to always make things better. And the city, the state, even at a national level, things change as quickly, as slow as things are, things change pretty quickly as well. We're seeing it and we're experiencing it right now, right? So we have a beautiful chance to try to get it right. And what right is, that definition of what right is is different for everybody, but we have this beautiful opportunity to just try. And I think that's what democracy is. I think it's why I'm so passionate about trying to maintain this commitment of working at a local level. People have asked me already, do you plan on moving further than this? And I've always said no. You plan on doing what? Doing more than just being at a local level. Do you want to be a state or do you have aspirations or something more? I think we probably have all gotten asked that question in one form or another. And I've always said no. For me, the most intense and the most work that you could ever do is at the local level. Whether it's the quality of life issues or the bigger policy changes, that is as close and connected as you're going to get to the people that can make the decisions. I think that's true. And that is absolutely where I want to be. So I love the work that we're doing. It's been an experience that I've just really treasured. And I admire the ones that do it really well, the ones that are more outspoken than I am, whether or not we agree on what they're saying. But I appreciate that they utilize their platform to create awareness of things that perhaps we're not paying attention to or that we haven't even considered as something that is vital to our communities. But then I value those of us that are much more like, nope, we're going to get to work. Let's just put our heads down and figure out how we're going to make this work out. Let's do it. And yeah, I think we're very lucky. And we're very fortunate to be in the positions that we're in, especially today. I think the answer, I like to think in my mind, whatever, it's a good moment of bad moral and ironically bad moral, I like to say to myself, the ancestors will be proud of us. Yes. You know what I mean? There's a lot of people that I think we never even met that sacrificed for us. Yeah. Right? And when things get hard or frustrating or whatever else, plenty of examples we can give. I like to think, you know, somewhere, somehow, the ancestors are looking down on us and smiling. Yes. So I got a question for you. Oh my goodness. Okay. How many minutes are we in? We are in 55 minutes. Wow. And I got to tell you, we barely scratched the surface. I know. We like barely scratched the surface by no means. Yeah. But it's good. So with that in mind, we're going to pivot. Yeah. We're going to flag a lot of the things that we've talked about. We'll come back to them in future episodes. But let's go on the down, not on the decline and make it back, but on the down, you know, finish up here. Okay. And I have a couple questions in mind to kind of like help the crowd. Understand who we are? Yeah. The crowd doesn't really exist yet because this is episode number one. Right. We're recording it. But when the crowd exists and when they're out there, I want to know, who are these people? Let's give them a little bit of more insight into who we are. But not necessarily a political thing, but just like the personal side. Who we are. I've got a question for you. We can go back and forth and answer questions. Okay. You know, I certainly have some more time here. But let's go over this. So Shirley, if you had to pick, right, if we want people to know who you are, or people who have things in common with you to be able to identify with you, right? There's things that we may not be able to tell just by listening to you. You have to pick five songs. Just five songs. Not necessarily to the song that describes you, but what would be your favorite song that I brought back? Five songs that you just identify with. Somebody who wants to know who Shirley is. Describe yourself using five songs. Yo, son. Okay. Here we go. All right. So I'm not going to share my age. If you really want to look it up, you absolutely can. But I am not young and I am not old. So let's just say we're in the middle there. So I've lived, I have these beautiful experiences of being able to have grown up in the 80s and really growing, fully growing up in the 90s and the early 2000s. So a lot of my, I have a very, I have a very diverse music palette. It's out there. So I think when I was growing up, my family, I come from a family of San Saitos. My parents are divorced now, but my parents, when they, when they would dance together, it would stop a room because people would sit and watch because they just connected and it was beautiful. And I was in awe and then other people were in awe and they were drenched in sweating and growth, but they were, they just lived in the moment, right? Of dancing in a salsa. So I grew up listening to salsa my whole life. One of my very favorite salsa songs of the 80s was Cali Pachanguero. Ooh, you hit me right in the foot. It is, yes, it is. That is one of the songs that I remember that I would get up and dance to because I enjoyed it so much. It took me a minute to think about that one and I was like, oh yeah, that was one of my favorites. That's a great one. Yeah. Shout out to the Colombians. Grupo Nietzsche. They released that a couple years ago. Oh my God, what a show. What a show. Yes, what a show. So then, let's change it up a little bit. I would say I'm a diehard 80s music fan. So I love hair bands. I love freestyle. I love, you name it, about the 80s, I loved it. Like Run-DMC. I love Run-DMC. Shelton Sheltops at theaters. I mean, I think I was, yes. I had the chain. I did the whole thing. I did the ankle hat. Yeah, I can sing you every 80s LL Cool J song there is. Don't tell anybody. But I was also a really big fan of Bon Jovi. Okay. Bon Jovi and Slippery When Wet was the album that they started with. And I had older sisters. I have older sisters. So they would play on the turntable, on the long plate. It was what the Spanish people call it. So they had albums and they would play them. And I remember listening to Bon Jovi all the time because my sisters loved them. And I just, I enjoyed it too. One of the songs that was, this is more in the 90s, but one of the songs that I really enjoyed was this song called I'll Be There For You. It was one of those power ballad songs that you were five years old. You should not have known the words to any of this stuff, but you were singing it with all of the emotions and all of the, like, you were the one that's heart was broken for whatever reason. And you were singing it at the top of your lungs. That was the song for me. Okay. I'm a big Selena fan. Selena, oh my God. Selena. My sister is an even bigger fan of Selena. I'm nervous now. But no me queda mas. Oh my God, Selena. I, I, quick little anecdote. I can't, I'm sorry, but I have to tell you. Yeah. I listened to Selena too. I remember being a kid. I think Selena and Alina, there was so many similarities. Young, beautiful, wholesome, talented, and tragically murdered. Well, not murdered, but Selena was. Yolanda, that's her parole now. Yo, that's going to be a whole episode. Right? Because that's where my criminal justice liberalism and my Latinoism kind of conflict, right? I don't know. Let's make it a justice for everybody. Yolanda. Selena. So the one I just went to in Guatemala. I'm not a crier, right? Especially not. I was very close to this wedding. My brother getting married. Wonderful girl, woman that he married. The song that she chose to walk down the aisle to, Dreaming of You. And that song always makes me so sad. Because the particular scene in Selena in the movie, when they show that she dies, is they show this empty concert hall where she was going to perform her next concert. And they play this song in the background. Here's my brother getting married. This beautiful woman walking down the aisle. And that little song comes out. I'm like, yo, I'm not going to lie. There might have been a tear. Did the tears? The tears come down? A little drop? Oh, my God. It was Selena, man. Some of, yes. We were just dropped. That was, those remind me of me. I have my two younger sisters. We would just be belting it out at the top of our lungs when we were little. Those were the things. I'm a 90s kid. I grew up with Biggie. I grew up with Tupac. I grew up with Daisy. You're going to pick one song to describe that. Which one? I loved One More Chance. Okay. One More Chance by Biggie Smalls. Like with Fade. But I love, you remember how back in those days they would remix everything? You got to drop a line from those songs, though. Me, I can't even remember one right now. And I cannot sing. I am not, no. There's not enough beverages in the world that would allow me to sing out loud right now. I think my favorite Biggie line, maybe one more time. Biggie was just so incredibly talented. Another one we were robbed, right? But Biggie was just like, B-I-G-G-P-O-P-P-A. No soul for the I-T-E-A. Yo, this thing was stomping down. It was incredible. Shout out to Biggie. Shout out to Biggie. I have my whole series about what happened to Biggie, too. Oh, episode. We need to do another episode. Whole episode. Got to pick them all. And then, jeez. And then, so I was also really big, as I got older, I was also big into reggaeton. Reggae in general. Dancehall reggae. Those were my high school years. Oh, my god. 03, 04, 05. I had a yankee, and then everybody had the next sound, the ringtones. So I actually, I didn't choose a reggaeton song because there was just too many. And I was like, you know what? I can't pick one that was out there. Do you remember the song Chi Chi Man by T.O.K.? I think so. Maybe sing it with me. No. Look it up. It's actually a very good song. It's a lot of reggae. It's a lot of body shaking, booty shaking, the whole thing. Like with bass and body bodge? Yes. Bass and body bodge. Yes. Lights low. It's just all that music is playing. We're not going to go into the more explanations in case parents are listening. But yeah, Chi Chi Man by T.O.K. was another one because it reminded me of who I was as I was growing up. So all of those songs, now as an adult, those songs have changed. I can probably come up with older adult versions of who I am now, but that's a conversation for another day. But those are five that I was like, oh, I remember these. So sometimes it's interesting, everyone knows five different ones. All right. So No Me Queda Mas by Selena. Right. Cali Pachanguero Grupo Niche. Right. I'll Be There For You by Bon Jovi. One More Chance by Biggie Smalls. Yes. And Chi Chi Man by T.O.K. Yeah, that's great. That's an eclectic group. It's such a diverse group. I think so. I know at least two of them. I don't know Bon Jovi that well. You should play it. I think I know them. And you know, I'm going to vibe with you. All right. I think there's only maybe one Bon Jovi song that I know. And I don't even know the name. I can know that every time the teacher's score shuts down, they play a song by Bon Jovi. Oh, yeah. No, I don't. This Is Our House, maybe? Something like that? I think it's like, I don't know. I don't know. Anyway, that's it. That's the only kind of singing that you're going to get from me. I'm going to ask you the same question. Okay. It's hard to pick five songs. And disclaimer, we did kind of chat about this. So it's not like I'm literally making it up off the top of my head. But I came up with five. So we only had like five minutes to do it. So in all fairness, this is legit as... Yeah, it is. It's hard. Because, you know, again, there's just so much... You know, we're in the 80s, 90s. We have two years of it, five every decade, I think. But it is also interesting. I think it's a reflection of who we are as people, right? And what we're trying to do and communicate. Like, we're Latinos. We're young. We're at one foot in this world, one foot in that world. And I always joke with people, right? It's hard enough being Latino and American and trying to code switch and blah, blah, blah. But in my own house, right? I'm Dominican and Puerto Rican. And so my mom would yell at me, don't forget you're Puerto Rican. And my dad would be like, yeah, stop it. He's trying to navigate those worlds. And they'd be like, Jose, how do you do this? Like, you should have seen what it was like growing up in a Puerto Rican-Dominican household in the early 90s. But anyway, I will say my five favorite... Five songs that I took to define me or describe me, etc. In no particular order, because it's hard enough to pick the song from the order. I don't know if people know this, but I'm a big Rat Pack fan. I love me some Frank Sinatra. One birthday, I got to go to a cigar bar in New York City with a band, like a 10-piece band. Literally playing Frank Sinatra songs. Like, this guy goes around impersonating Frank Sinatra. I'm like, first of all, that's a lot of fun. In the future, I could totally see myself doing that. I'll be like the Latin version of Frank Sinatra, you know? You know we have a guy like that that comes to places here in Providence, right? I'm going to give you his name so you can follow him. Is he Latin? No, he's not. He needs to be a Lionel. Yeah, no, yeah, of course. I think this guy's Italian. There's actually this... I don't know what it is, a project or whatever online. But some people mixed Biggie and Frank Sinatra. So there's like a version of New York, New York that has Biggie rapping one of his songs. It sounds like they literally recorded it together, which is really dope. But anyway, my favorite all-time Frank Sinatra song is called The Summer Wind. Oh, what a beautiful song. Yeah, just, you know, he has a lot of famous ones. But my favorite Frank Sinatra song, I just love that song. Yeah, that's a great song. The summer wind, it ain't blowing. Anyway, I'm not going to bore you. What a voice. Oh my God, what a voice. I'm actually reading his biography right now. Really? I'm a big reader. Fun fact, big reader. I have more than 100 books in my house. And that's not to brag, but to just emphasize my own point. I think it is to read. And his biography is broken up into two. So there's the first version, which is called The Voice, which goes into 1954. And then the latter version is called The Chairman, which is the one I'm reading now. It goes the second half of his life. And so, fun fact, when Sinatra died in 1998, Buddy Cianci, the mayor at the time, who I've been told I'm Buddy, by the way, actually ordered that the flag be flown at half-staff. Yeah. Just because of a fellow Italian. Like he just, you know, thought that he had to do that. So The Summer Wind by Frank Sinatra is number one. And then I'm going to talk about the guitar. And I can tell you my two next favorite songs. And they'd be my two favorite songs that have a guitar in it. They're two very different songs, but they just show how beautiful the guitar is when you really play it well. And the sorts of emotions and stories it can tell. And just like the duality of my life as somebody who's American, born and raised, but also Latino. And so on the Latino side, bachata means guitar. I mean, I'm sorry, guitar no bachata. I love me some bachata. My favorite childhood. And I just have to pick, I have to pick like a very standard one. I'm not going to pick an obscure one. Like my friend Sinatra's song is a little bit more obscure. It's not like one of his top ten songs. But my favorite bachata, I'm going to pick a very, very well-known one, Medicina de Amor. My favorite art is clapping. And my favorite song is Medicina de Amor. Or, Medicina de Amor is like you don't clap your arms, right? It's an incredible song. Just incredible, Medicina de Amor. Okay, can I tell you a fun fact about me really, really? I really didn't actually start liking bachata until probably like two or three years ago. I was actually anti-bachata. I, you know what? I just couldn't, it wasn't in me. So there's two genres of music that I cannot stand. And one of them is country. Okay. I cannot listen to any country music without getting very angry. We're going to work on this. No, I don't want to. Like I, no. I think there's some good country out there. If you talk to my kids, they're also the same way. I don't understand why I don't like it. It's just something's in me. I think a personal challenge in the back of my mind. I'm not going to make you like a song. You just haven't heard certain songs because there's some good stuff out there. Guacalato. So bachata used to be one of them. And then I have a very wonderful friend who we both know. His name is Orlando Correa. Okay. Who is one of my closest friends. Shout out to Orlando. Well, Michael's a good friend. Yes, actually he is. And he actually was always like, can you just listen a little bit? And I'd be like, all right, fine. And then I kept listening. And I'd be like, all right, fine. And then I got to liking some songs. So now I'm much more. What was the song that did it for you? You're like, you know what? It's not so bad. There was a song. I'm not even going to go in and tell you that I'm not a fan of Romero Santos. But I just did. But there was. I wasn't a fan of Aventura. It was not me. I didn't like it. I know. People have wanted to argue. This is fake space. No, I appreciate that. We did start by saying that. So thank God. Do you remember there's this song called Infiel? Claro. Los Infieles. Yes. And that was the song where I was like, okay, I like this one. Out of all the songs out. I mean, I'm sure that there's more. There was no. There was no connotation in any way. I don't know. They told a lot of stories. And that was so powerful. They told some powerful stories. Some of them controversial topics. But there's songs. On top of being great bachata. There's some really powerful stories that they tell. I'll have to believe you on that. Oh my goodness. Okay. Hold on. This is what I'm having to do. So some of when Frank Sinatra. Because of the guitar. Ironically, right. If I could explain to people why I love bachata so much. Or to my more American friends. And I had to pick one song in quote unquote. What my parents would call American music. Oh my God. John Mayer. You know, John Mayer has said and done some dumb things. So I'm not here to endorse this person. But as a musician. Jesus Christ. So I can't. Even the biggest guitarist ever. John Mayer just incredibly talented. He had this whole concert in L.A. Live in L.A. So he had his songs. But he did this concert in L.A. That was just famous. So if you look at John Mayer live in L.A. You'll see the whole concert. Gravity. Oh my God. Such a good song. The guitar. Her knees just buckled. The anguish. So when people don't know. Ever listen to Bachata. Just imagine John Mayer being Spanish. Gravity is a beautiful song. Incredible song. So those are my two guitar songs. I also grew up, you know, Nas and Biggie. And Tupac. That was my whole thing. And it's hard to pick one song. You mentioned Biggie. I think because he's not one of mine. I'm going to cheat and add one. But my favorite Biggie song is probably I Got a Story to Tell. But the song that I picked. My first song. One of my favorite songs is Can't Rock the Hustle. By Jay-Z. It's song number one on his first album. And I just love the song. It reminds me of the 90s. And growing up. And hip hop. Today Jay-Z is a billionaire. But that was his first song. And he was so young. And all these kids in the hood that just saw these things. And murders. And killing people is bad. Obviously. But growing up in the hood. And listening to these people. It feels effective. Introducing crack cocaine. Very much had a direct effect. Yeah. So Can't Rock the Hustle is mine. Not just do I like the song. But I had a poster that I made when I was in college. And there's a famous quote. Every long journey. Or every journey of a thousand miles began with a single step. And I put Jay-Z's album cover. For Reasonable Doubt. Which is him holding a cigar. On a poster. And I had that quote put on it. Every successful journey started with one step. So no matter where I am in my life. I try to treat it like it's the beginning. Try hard. Forget what you did yesterday. Whether it's good or it's bad. Begin again today. The hook on that song by Mary J. Blige. Which is my favorite singer of all time. So that's a big song for me. So that's four right? Here comes the first one. Salsa. And I could pick so many of them. I love the one you picked. I love Rupaul. She used to be my favorite. But my Salsa that I like. I can't even tell you why I just love it. But it's really cool. And you have a bunch of songs that I like. But if I had to pick one. It would be Hitama. Oh my god. I'm such a big fan of Hitama. I could listen to that all day long. So those are my five. Medellin Amoil, Summer Wind, Gravity. Ken Abdal. So can Hitama. You have an eclectic flavor of music. Just like I do. I was choosing. So between us and this podcast. I was trying to choose which Salsa song I loved more. Do you remember the song La Cita? Of course. That is a song that you should not be singing at 10 years old. Belting it out. But I knew every single word. And I loved it so much. To this day I listen to it. And I'm like, what is he talking about? I'm trying to think of a line. Can you think of a line in that song? Al fin ya estas aqui Imaginate Que yo no soy yo Que yo no soy yo Esperate Un desconocido Yo It was intense. I like this question. I feel like this whole thing should come back. When we have guests and stuff like that. Because we can add this as an honor roll to so many other things. Now because this is the first episode. I'm going to ask you another question. Now the fans at home don't know this. But we answered this question with a very specific caveat. We could not pick a Bad Bunny song. Oh yes. Because we're both immense Bad Bunny fans. Bad Bunny is taking over the world right now. Yes. Shout out to Benito. So the way we were able to pick those five songs is because we would not pick a Bad Bunny song. So I'm going to ask you to tell me your favorite Bad Bunny song. Or your favorite Bad Bunny album. I think we'll go with your favorite Bad Bunny album. Ideal. I have to send a text right now. I'm going to be late because we're having so much fun. I'm going to be late for my 4.30. So let me send a text. And you tell me what your favorite Bad Bunny album is. So I It was I'm trying to remember it. That was when I really fell in love with Summer 2022. I loved all of the things Bad Bunny then. I have to say though if I'm going to tell you my favorite song right now is because it gives me the nostalgia of like I know that he's not talking about the things that I'm thinking of when I'm hearing that song. But that one it hits home. So Okay. You did that pretty quickly. Sorry. I'm like I had this appointment at 4.30 and now I'm looking for the text. I can't find it. I'm a terrible person. You know it's so funny. When we were first introduced to Bad Bunny they were always talking about how he was not very dirty in a lot of his songs. What I love about Bad Bunny is his evolution. There's a lot of perreo songs that you could enjoy and get down to but this particular album I have so much sentimental value with and I'm not Puerto Rican in any way but I did spend a lot of time in Puerto Rico and there was so much to this where I was like oh my god if there was anything that I could do this particular it's the most recent album actually makes me want to go back and visit my family that's over there and just do a whole Puerto Rico Yeah. So my godparents lived in Puerto Rico for a long time My tia Pancita she's my godmother she lived in Villalba I have a cousin that lives there So in English they call them kumquats in Puerto Rico they call it something they're this little this little green fruit quenepas that was the first time I had ever had one and they are the if I could go to Puerto Rico now that is the first thing that I would go and have because I love them so much I feel the same way about that but I mean it's incredible I've only been to Puerto Rico maybe two or three times I have family in Villalba I've been to Alameda many times No kidding! Puerto Rico is so like travelable you could get through the island in a day there's so much to see he's doing the whole residency there this summer that's going to be so incredible My favorite Bad Bunny album has to be It reminds me of COVID not that that's a good memory but just like that era it's just a very special time in my life and I really love that album My favorite song I'm torn but I'm going to tell you one just because of personal memory I actually went to a Bad Bunny concert and fun fact there happened to be a merging and what can I tell you the Bajas love Bad Bunny I know the Puerto Ricans love Bad Bunny but the Bajas love Bad Bunny to be in that environment the people were not singing the songs they were like screaming and the very first song that he sang was Más Cálmio which is off of your album which is right after it was fall 2022 My favorite song on that album was Party but Más Cálmio I'll always remember that concert just went on a lifetime I took my daughter to a concert once and that was our experience she's taking it over everybody was singing at the top of their lungs I went to a Shakira concert but this was different it was wonderful but that's the same kind of feeling that I got So that answers the question how many minutes are we at? We are at the only above it an hour and 21 and if we should cut off this has been so wonderful we're both very excited about this project this is laying the foundation because we're going to get into so many topics just to give the people some insight into who we are and I think we did a decent job of that today almost 90 minutes How are we going to sign off? I know we want people to we want us to be engaging we want people to give us feedback we're going to eventually mount our own YouTube and Instagram and social media but right now I believe we have an email account We have an email and it's hablandoclaropvd dvd https://gmail.com hablandoclaro for our non-Spanish speaking friends hablando is h-a-b l-a-m cl-a-r-o p-v-d at gmail.com we really want to know what you think we want to know what topics you want to hear about we want to know what made sense we want to know whether you agree or disagree we want to be very engaging we want to inform the public with a little bit of our personalities with a little bit of Sassón Sassón hablando claro Shelly, it's been a privilege I'm really excited about working with you on this I believe we have a lot of things in common I can't wait to continue learning from you about your experience and I look forward to the next time Likewise, thank you so much I really, you know in taking introvert out of each other in this capacity is something that I'm very much looking forward to and I can't wait to see kind of where this goes but more importantly getting the information out there to our community and making people get to know not only us, but where we stand and how we see things in helping in our ways, in our versions of helping our community I think it's going to hopefully go a long way so I'm very excited to be able to do that Thank you very much for doing this with me and I can't wait for the next one To the public, thank you for tuning in and as always, stay safe and be good to each other Have a good one