The evolution of Latino masculinity is finally happening guys!
LA PLATICA
Last week, La Platica, the #1 Latino Podcast in the world, according to Google, played a card game called Preguntas, a “bilingual conversation card game” created by Hija de tu Madre.
This card game is no joke. Not only does it get personal with its questions, but it’s also created by a Latina. A culture often stigmatized for mocking emotions. If you know, you know.
Machismo & Toxic Masculinity
If you don’t, there is a whole male population of our culture that has been criticized for being Machismo. The Toxic Masculinity of the Latinx community.
If you’re familiar with my work, you know this is right up my alley. Mexican culture and generational trauma, childhood trauma, and leveling our community the ef up.
The juxtaposition, however, is insane, especially when we can also be known for how dramatic our novelas are.
Here’s what a couple of the questions in the card game look like: “What lesson do you think I need to learn?” and “What would you change about your family?”.
La Platica co-host Sebastian Robles pulled a card asking his fellow co-host and longtime BFF Josh Leyva, “Have you ever been hurt by me?”, and shit was about to go down … but not in a bad way.
What followed was a very healthy conversation between two emotionally mature men, secure in their masculinity and friendship. Mixed in with all the “bro” dropping, they had a vulnerable, emotional, and maybe uncomfortable conversation that lasted about 20 minutes.
0:56:00 to 1:08:00 and 1:12:00 to 1:21:00
The Brown-on-Brown Hate Heard ’round TikTok
Not surprisingly, TikTok was quick to villainize the homie Sebastian, for being a bad friend. Aside from the obvious tainting by social media and its respective comment sections, something really important was happening here and people didn’t know how to process this positive and emotionally charged conversation.
Quite frankly, the Latinx community doesn’t exactly have this type of healthy interaction modeled between Latino friends in mainstream media.
From Survival to Emotional Maturity
Thankfully, so many Latinx influencers, artists, and businesspeople are using their platforms to educate and flip the switch on generational trauma.
More and more of us are breaking the mental health stigma by educating ourselves, going to therapy, and modeling appropriate relationships with our families and friends. Like pioneers of the past though, this has been far from easy. It’s often met with denial, gaslighting, and anger. And honestly, for good reason when men needed machismo behavior for survival for so long.
Many of our families are immigrants. Our parents and ancestors have gone through intense situations where survival has been the main focus.
Survival to get across the border for a better life away from the cartel, crooked law enforcement, and human trafficking.
Survival once we finally get settled in the United States from deportation (despite our citizenship status), for equality in school systems and the job field, and basic human needs of the family in poverty-stricken neighborhoods.
Finally, thanks to our ancestors, more and more of us are evolving past the physiological state of fight or flight towards opportunities to improve our overall well-being as individuals.
Muchos Thank Yous
Thank you, to Josh Leyva and Sebastian Robles for this very intentional and necessary podcast episode.