Episode Notes
In this episode, we welcome Frankie Miranda, the first openly gay president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation. During Frankie’s tenure at the Hispanic Federation, he has expanded operations to several states and Puerto Rico, launched disaster relief projects after Hurricanes Maria and Irma, and established the ACT Initiative to support Latinx LGBTQ+ communities. Previously, he held senior roles at New York Univision TV stations and worked on several political campaigns.
Join us as Frankie shares his personal and professional journey. Raised in a small town in Puerto Rico and educated at NYU, Frankie reflects on his upbringing, his family's sacrifices, and his experiences with his queer identity and how these have shaped his work at the Hispanic Federation. Frankie also discusses the importance of culturally competent voter outreach and the vital role grassroots organizations play in supporting Latinx communities.
Episode Transcript
Darren Isom:
Welcome to Dreaming in Color, where we sit down with social change leaders of color to learn how their unique life experiences have prepared them to lead and drive the impact we all seek. I'm your host, Darren Isom, and this season I'm lucky to have a few of my Bridgespan colleagues dropping in to join me as guest hosts. Together we'll be celebrating the genius of leaders who live into the work every day. This is Dreaming in Color. I'm thrilled to welcome Frankie Miranda, president and CEO of the Hispanic Federation, the nation's leading Latinx nonprofit organization, to today's show. Since joining the Hispanic Federation in 1998, Frankie has been instrumental in expanding its operations and establishing vital programs across the country. Frankie stepped into the CEO role in December 2019, serving as the organization's first openly gay leader. And with that transition, boldly and thoughtfully navigated the organization through the COVID-19 pandemic and spearheaded disaster relief projects in Puerto Rico by enhancing renewable energy activity and efforts to revitalize the local economy.
Frankie also launched Advance Change Together Initiative, supporting Latinx LGBTQ+ communities, and has overseen Hispanic Federation's Annual Gala, raising over $3 million each year. Before his impressive tenure at Hispanic Federation, Frankie held senior roles in communications, including director of communications for New York TV stations and working on prominent political campaigns. He currently serves on several boards, including the New York State MTA Board, and the Comcast Corporate DEI Advisory Council. With a BA in political science from the University of Puerto Rico and an MA in performance studies from NYU, Frankie lives in Queens with his husband, Ricardo, and their cat, Valentina. It's a joy to welcome the incredible Frankie Miranda to today's episode of Dreaming and Color.
Frankie, it's so wonderful to chat with you today. Great to have you here.
Frankie Miranda:
Thank you for having me.
Darren Isom:
Oh, my pleasure. I've been looking forward to this conversation. And so, as you know, the conversation starts with you giving us an invocation, so I'll pass it to you to tee that up.
Frankie Miranda:
Well, I made two selections, but I would like to start with the first one in Spanish because that's the way that I first heard it and it still to this day, it moves me. So I'm going to start with this quote from playwright Bertolt Brecht: “Hay hombres que luchan un día y son buenos. Hay otros que luchan un año y son mejores. Hay quienes luchan muchos años y son muy buenos. Pero hay los que luchan toda la vida: esos son los imprescindibles.” And now in English: "There are men that fight one day and they're good. Others fight one year, and they are better. There are those who fight many years, and they are very good, but there are those who fight their whole lives—those are the indispensable ones."
Darren Isom:
Wow.
Frankie Miranda:
This is a quote that has been inspiring me since I was very young, when I was doing theater and learning more about these amazing playwrights. And the second quote, it's a little bit more of a modern quote or something that I heard recently, and it's from the movie adaptation of the science fiction novel Dune. And the quote says, "A great man doesn't seek to lead. He is called to it, and he answers."
Darren Isom:
Both great quotes and a great way to start the conversation. Thank you for both of those, and I want to come back as well to both the quotes, but also it was really powerful sharing in Spanish as well because our native languages can hold a different place for us and we can communicate in those languages differently, and I want to come back to that at some point in the conversation. So, with that, I want to jump straight in and get a little bit of your origin story. I know that you were born and raised in Puerto Rico, not leaving until after college. You went to the University of Puerto Rico and then going on to your master's at NYU. But I would love to just get your thoughts on how your upbringing, your family context, your community context shaped who you are and gave you a goal in many ways to dedicate your life and your career to advocacy for Latinx communities.
Frankie Miranda:
I grew up in a small town in the mountains of Puerto Rico called Toa Alta. It was one of those towns where there was just one elementary school, one middle school, one high school. Everybody had to come to the center of the town to go to school, and my parents came from a very poor background. They didn't have the opportunity to go to college. They were hard workers. My father came to New York when he was 16 to learn English, went back, and started working in the tourist industry in Puerto Rico as a dishwasher and then continued to work all the ranks up in many aspects of the tourism industry in Puerto Rico. My mother worked at a factory, and it was me, my older sister, and later, my younger brother, but we were unable to do all the things that we wanted to do. It was a very strict household in the sense of always reminding us that we needed to have the best grades, that anything that we were having was not coming easily.
So that idea that my parents were sacrificing so much for us to have an education… although I went to public school and I went to State University of Puerto Rico, but it was the most difficult one to get in. So it was always that idea that you will not have the opportunity to not do what you're supposed to do. That is go to college, have a degree, and the rest is a little bit of history, coming to New York and pursuing my education and then getting into the field of nonprofits. But it was a very interesting upbringing because while I was targeted as a queer boy and suffered through a difficult childhood trying to understand my sexuality and my identity, I still was able to come home and be safe from that environment. I don't envy younger generations that are so connected that cannot sometimes escape some of that treatment. And the idea of also leaving that small town and coming to New York was also important to me because it was a way also to find myself and find my identity.
Darren Isom:
Yes. Really interesting, and I joke all the time about growing up in New Orleans, which is a more progressive city when it comes to other issues, obviously, but for me as a young, obviously queer kid I'm sure to my family, I was also a smart kid, and as long as I focused on my studies, it would excuse all other things. "Why isn't Darren playing football?" "Oh, he's reading, of course." And so, we take for granted how very often that attention to studies and academia and actually really doing well academically becomes a way of your family giving you a path out of that space. With that as well come all types of obligations, I'm sure. Your parents were sacrificing in huge ways for you to be able to do great things. You shared that your life mission is to be an advocate and activist. I would love to hear a little bit more about the personal experiences that help you came to this realization growing up.
Frankie Miranda:
I think that growing up and being on the receiving end of people not understanding, being more welcoming to all types of people… It's interesting because, Darren, I feel that I am a better person because I am different, because I am queer, because I was bullied and I can empathize with all sorts of people when it comes to the struggle. As you said, I needed to excel academically in order to be protected from some of these bullies. And becoming the teacher's assistant in every single classroom also facilitated for me to be protected because for me, even though I wanted to do sports, I was always afraid of moving my hands or my arms. It was always very restrictive of my body. I always thought that I was uncoordinated, and then when I was an adult and I explored dancing and I explored sports and everything, it's like, “I'm pretty good at this.” It's just like, when I was a child, I was afraid of showing my body moving naturally.
So it's that idea that I, at some point, said, there is a bigger world than my hometown. There's a bigger world than what these people said to me all the time. Sometimes that script is still in the back of my head, of people saying that because you're queer, you'll never succeed. You will never be able to be successful and do anything productive with your life. It was a way of, for me, to just see, go to a very progressive college and then coming to New York, then I was able to just take all of this experience, piece it together and be able to say, "I'm going to make something out of it. I'm going to make a meaningful life out of all of this."
And while I'm 53 and sometimes when I am doing these types of interviews and my English as a second language kicks in and my brain is telling me, "Oh my God, Frankie, you are not speaking your native language." And I start making mistakes with the tenses because my consciousness is telling me, it's just, "You are not worth this time, you're not worth this space. You are queer." And those bullies voices, I need to just drown it in the back of my mind. I need to just still rewrite the script. And that is what is also my drive to continue doing what I am doing, is just to, in a way, prove that little boy that he was all right all along.
Darren Isom:
He was more than all right, he was perfect all along.
Frankie Miranda:
Thank you.
Darren Isom:
I want to jump in from a conversation perspective and come to your arrival in New York but also just want to stop and give a moment of thanks and gratitude for those teachers that gave us safe spaces. I joke all the time, there was a whole series of teachers that allowed you to be a teacher's pet, that allowed you to sit in the front row, that allowed you to come in during lunch, and they really created safe spaces for so many of us queer kids and different kids and weird kids growing up. And so just giving them a quick thank you, I'm sure you'll agree with that one. I want to jump in and move to your time, your arrival in New York. And I would love for you just to share about how that gave you such an opening. You're finding your space in your people and how that transformed how you think about the world as well?
Frankie Miranda:
Coming from University of Puerto Rico, it was a space that was so welcoming. I was in the social science school but at the same time doing theater. I was able to pay for my undergrad as a working actor at the theater company of the University of Puerto Rico. So it was a full-time job. It was, you will get no pay... You would not pay tuition but the moment that you will not fulfill that contract, those rehearsals, those performances, you need to pay for tuition. So it was an amazing world of people between political science, social science, and theater arts. And then suddenly I said, "What am I going to do with this? Where am I going to find something that will bring these two worlds together?" And luckily it was 1995 and Tisch School of the Arts was offering this program called Performance Studies. And it was such an amazing opportunity of using the arts as a social science tool. It was postmodern theory, it was a multidisciplinary people from all around the world. Everybody had an accent. Everybody was like me, coming to New York and trying to just absorb everything.
Darren Isom:
And Frankie, it's just worth noting, you're talking like you just fell into it. It's a pretty selective program that's really respected. So I just want to call that out.
Frankie Miranda:
Thank you. No, it was amazing to be able to just be in that program. And then of course, NYU offers these in-the-city experiences—it's not a campus. You are in between Alphabet City and the Lower East Side, and all of these different scenes happening at the same time back in 1995. Picking up The Village Boys and finding where's going to be the next happening around the city. It was really fantastic to be able to be around so many different types of people. But at the same time, people kept questioning me. They heard my accent, and they were like, "You are at NYU, you are at this program." And people were trying to constantly dissect my personality and people were all the time saying to me it's like, "Oh my God, but you don't look Puerto Rican." And for me, it was just, "I am a 100 percent Puerto Rican. What is it? That I am in college? That I am doing a master's at NYU?"
Darren Isom:
You weren't fitting into the box that they had for you.
Frankie Miranda:
Exactly. And it was just, I call it the West Side Story syndrome—that if you are not seeing me dancing and going like this with a knife in my hand, you will not recognize me. You didn't fit the mold. And for me, it was starting also to… part of this journey of what is the Latinx experience, what is the Latinx identity? Who we are? Are we truly understood? We have been part of the United States... Puerto Rico has been a territory of the United States for more than a hundred years, and still people said, "Puerto Rico, is that a town in Mexico?" It was all of these incredible challenging questions that were more, not only about my identity or my sexuality, but it was also now about being technically an immigrant in the United States because although I am an American citizen by birth, by being born in Puerto Rico… but still I was being treated as the other. You don't belong here. Where are you coming from? So it was an exciting time to have all of these questions at the perfect time, coming to New York.
I didn't come that young, but I didn't come also that old. So I was in the mix of just being able to go to so many different amazing places and… Right now, sometimes I feel it's, "Oh my God, I was taking so many different risks." People used to get shocked of the places that we used to hang out, but that was the scene. That was what we were doing back then.
Darren Isom:
I mean East Village and Village in New York in the late nineties, I mean that was a different world as well.
Frankie Miranda:
Completely different, but that's also part of New York constantly reinventing itself.
Darren Isom:
Well, there's also the wonderful quote, the Colson Whitehead quote in his homage on the city of New York, the class of New York where he says, "Everyone can be a New Yorker. You become a New Yorker when you remember what was there before what was there was there."
Frankie Miranda:
Yes.
Darren Isom:
And so you see two iterations in New York and you're officially a New Yorker. There is something very interesting about your transition as well because I think your gayness and your queerness is probably more easily accepted and understood, but now you have to come out as a Puerto Rican, if that makes sense at all. This identity that you've never questioned. And I want to come back to this idea. You've been open about your experience at the Hispanic Federation as their first openly gay president and CEO. I would love to hear you talk about how these different experiences and identities are assets to some degree, to your work and your thinking. How has this aspect of your identity informed your work at the organization?
Frankie Miranda:
Well, I have to say that I am extremely lucky because I finished my master's at NYU and it was an amazing experience and they offered for me to continue on the PhD track, but I ran out of money, and I said, "I'm going to stay in New York for a couple of years and maybe go back to Puerto Rico." I was doing interviewing for many jobs and people will say, "Oh, you have a degree from NYU on performance study. How many words per minute can you type?" Because it was like, "What do I do with this?" In 1998, I was offered my first position here at the Hispanic Federation as a program coordinator. And from the very beginning, I landed in an organization that was heavily involved with social issues and communities. And we had, back in the day, a robust program dealing with HIV/AIDS prevention and education.
So people coming from all walks of life and also having queer people around and having gatherings of queer people was normal. It was something that was not seen, it was seen as a priority for the organization to work in these service provision area that was heavily affecting people from our community, LGBTQ+ Latinx people. So from the very beginning, I was out at work, which was not possible for some of my friends that probably were in other sectors that were probably in finance or other sectors where they have to keep their sexual identity in the closet. So for me, I have always been extremely lucky that I have been from the very beginning, that I had a formal introduction to the sector and to what became my career has been an incredible organization like the Hispanic Federation, but the big transition happened when my life partner was deported in 2003.
I met my life partner in the year 2000. He's from Brazil and we hit it off September 1 of the year 2000. And through the experience of living together and building a life together, then came the moment in which he was deported back to Brazil after 9/11, when our all realities changed. Our many countries of origin became the target. Although they were not generating terrorism, but they were like, "Okay, we're going to shut down. We're going to do all of these changes." And he got a 10-year penalty. So at that moment, after three years with my life partner, it was the decision of, are we going to continue together or is this going to be the end because you're going to be back in Brazil, I'm going to be in the United States? And our promise to each other was, we're going to take one day at a time.
At the same time, the leadership of the organization said to me, "This is something that we need to talk about because when people think about the Latinx community, they think that the Latinx community are anti-gay. The community is anti-gay, when the reality is that when you talk to our community about these issues from discrimination, family separation, they immediately click, and they said no, this is not right." So the organization allowed me to use my story to start advocating and have more conversations about people that this is not about what politicians think should be right or wrong, this is a human rights issue. This is about two people that are fighting for their lives. So we continued to be a binational couple until the Supreme Court took a case that was not necessarily about marriage equality, it was about taxation. It was the Windsor case and it was about her getting married to her life partner in Canada and in New York.
And then when her wife passed, the federal government hit her with a big tax for what married couples should have never been taxed for. So she fought, went to the Supreme Court, and that opened the door for me to advance a petition to bring my life partner back, but I was in front of the Supreme Court, the organization gave me all the tools and said, "Frankie, you need to go, talk advocate, be a Spanish language, bilingual person, spokesperson for this issue." And today, we have been married 10 years. My life partner came back in 2014, and we were married on April 4, 2014. So the organization from the very beginning, allowed me to just tell my story, be who I am, advocate for what is right, and in fact, gave me all those tools to continue, so I know how privileged I am when it comes to this amazing organization. And the board recognized in late 2019 that my voice was needed at the national level and gave me the huge privilege of becoming the president of the Hispanic Federation, the first openly queer president.
Darren Isom:
Yes, beautiful story, and congratulations on 10 years. My husband and I will get to 10 years in October this year and I like to say for the record as well that I think the COVID years count twice, so we should double those years as well. I do want to note David Thomas, the president at Morehouse talks all the time about for people of color and people from marginalized groups, what success looks like professionally speaking. And the first step is, of course, understanding what makes you different and being proud of it. Secondly is finding yourself at an organization that sees your difference as critical to their success. Not just a nice to have, but critical to the success of the organization. And the third is surrounding yourself with people that encourage you to hold onto that difference in service of success. And with that, given your just long tenure at Hispanic Federation, 20 years as coordinator, now president and CEO, how has mentorship played a role in your journey?
Frankie Miranda:
Incredible. At the very beginning, again, this was an opportunity given to me because I was in theater groups and working with nonprofits that were doing the arts, and then suddenly this opportunity comes along, and I wasn't sure about what I wanted to do. If I wanted to stay in New York, wanted to maybe go back to Puerto Rico. My parents as well, they were very confused because you don't go to school unless you're going to become a teacher or a lawyer or a doctor. Because for them, those were the opportunities. So suddenly it was just like, "What? Nonprofit? What is that? Do you make a living?" So even today, I can tell you that sometimes when I had the opportunity to host the president of the United States after Hurricane Fiona in Puerto Rico and my parents saw that picture, they said like, "Oh, now I understand what you do, but before, it has been for many years has being just ‘nonprofit.’"
Darren Isom:
In all fairness, nonprofit is not a good sell. Already, the name itself is not…
Frankie Miranda:
I know, exactly.
Darren Isom:
Your parents.
Frankie Miranda:
Exactly. Poor... Both of my parents but the leadership at the organization from the founding president to the other presidents of the Hispanic Federation, I'm the fifth president, I had been mentored by each one of them. They had been side by side, this is always an organization that, we like to say that we don't hire to fire. We always take people and we make them understand the importance of taking that day to do civic engagement and be out there at 6:00 AM in the morning doing “get out the vote” for our community or doing all programs and working with people and working in teams and previous presidents and leadership of the organization that were a little bit of pushing you into the pool and hoping that you're going to come out on the other side and you're not going to drown. But it has always been a series of leaders that keep mentoring others and inspiring others.
And I'm so proud that this is an organization that is going to turn, on June 1, 34 years old, and all previous presidents of the Hispanic Federation continue to be connected to the work, continue to be connected to the mission, and they are my inspiration. They were the ones who saw, "Hey, this kid can do more." And they took a chance on me, and the rest is history. I never thought in my wildest dreams in 1998 that I would be sitting in this chair. And by the way, even the moment that the board came to me and said, "Frankie..." Late December of 2019, said, "Frankie, you are going to be the next president of the Hispanic Federation." I said, "No." Even at that moment, I didn't believe that I could do this job. And they said, "Of course, 2020 is going to be... You're going to be in automatic pilot. This is going to be easy. This is all the things that you know. Civic engagement is going to be about this other program." And then on my first meeting with the team after the holidays was the earthquake in Puerto Rico.
And after working so intensely after Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, we needed to reactivate this network of care on this new emergency. And a few weeks later, it’s the lockdown in New York for COVID. So at that point I said, "Oh my God, what I have done? Where is the receipt? This is not what I purchased. I want to know the return policy on this." But it was the moment that I'd been preparing for so long and in fact, the organization has grown. And then in a blink of an eye, it’s almost four years and a half that I had been sitting on this chair when I thought that in those first few weeks of the pandemic said, "This is it. This is the end of everything that we know and this is going to be under my leadership that the organization is going to fail," but we have actually grown. So it's interesting, thinking about how those people that have influenced my life have prepared me for probably one of the most challenging times.
Darren Isom:
Yes. And I say all the time, that none of us signed up for this world that we're in now, none of us. Nobody signed up for this but here we are. And my dad would always say, "This is why you went to school." We were all prepared for this moment, although we don't necessarily like to appreciate it and realize it and you're clearly doing great work there at the organization. So definitely appreciate it. I would like to just jump a little bit more into, given the uncertainty of our democracy and society as a whole, everyone in this present moment has the very unique opportunity to get involved in the fight to create a version of America that we can all be proud of. And as you know very well, there are no small players in this work or in this thinking. And I would love to get your thoughts on the role of Latinx grassroots organizations and why is this work so integral in this fight to create a better America for all?
Frankie Miranda:
For us at the Hispanic Federation, ensuring that Latinx-led, Latinx-serving organizations are viable, that they are organizations are able to continue doing the culturally competent, linguistically competent work that they do. They are, what I like to say, that for the African-American community is the black churches. For us, those community organizations in remote areas that start as a concerned group of people around a living room at a farm or in Washington Heights in New York continue to explore the betterment of their community, they're essential for anything that we want to accomplish. They were talking during the pandemic about who are those trusted messengers in community. For us, it's those Latinx serving organizations. The one that are in community, that are going to be inviting people to come in. And for us, right now that we're living right now in a moment in which our democracy is in jeopardy, everybody keeps questioning.
It's, "Well, we don't understand the Latinx community. It's not a monolith. It's so diverse. But at the same time, we are disappointed about what happened in one state, and we don't want to do..." For us, it's about meeting our community at the same level that these organizations are working with them. It is that, sure, I think that our diversity is our real superpower. And at the same time, in order to crack that code, you need to understand the community. You need to understand that if you are from the Caribbean, you're going to use the more personal way of talking. If you are from certain Central American, South American countries, you need to use a formal Spanish to communicate with them. That one flyer is not going to cut it. That one political ad a week before an election is not going to cut it.
Darren Isom:
That ain't it.
Frankie Miranda:
We need to make sure that we're engaging communities, and it's not going to be the same way that you do for Puerto Ricans in the Northeast or Cubans in Florida or Mexicans in Texas. We need to ensure that we are engaging those cultural translators, those cultural ambassadors, and those are the Latinx organizations, nonprofit organizations. So until we understand that, we are going to continue seeing the Latinx community with a question mark, and we are only going to focus on, "Oh, but we thought that the trend was going this way but then it went this other way." But of course, some people are doing better engagement than others, and we need to recognize that at the end of the day, if I'm being spoken to and I’m being talked in a way that I can really understand and that people are trying to just, even with misinformation, trying to meet some of my questions and answering some of my questions, I'm going to be responding to that.
So we are a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization doing civic engagement very intensely around the country. We want to make sure that every Latinx person that can register to vote, that is a citizen that can register to vote, registers and those that are registered go out and vote. But there is also another element in which the candidates, the parties, and many other aspects of our society need to be talking also to these communities that are so hungry for information and to be part of the conversation.
Darren Isom:
And I want to jump in there, Frankie, because you've noted that although Latinos make up some 15 percent of the US electorate and are the fastest-growing racial and ethnic voting bloc, political campaigns are underinvesting in culturally competent voter outreach to engage Latinx voters. And I would love for you, you've already started sharing this, just to talk a little bit more about what does culturally competent outreach look like, and also what does it look like to engage voters strategically? Meaning, not just for the next election cycle but from a longer conversation perspective and supportive perspective?
Frankie Miranda:
Well, we're working on the first aspect of this which is making sure that when Latinx communities in the United States, even if they have been here for their third, fourth generation or newly arrived, understanding the importance of participating in the election process. Making them understand that whatever are your experiences in your country of origin, that now in the United States, the elections are critical for the quality of life of yourself, your family, your loved ones, your communities. That here in the United States, you probably won't have the noise and the celebratory sense that in other countries you have during elections. That the only thing that you need to do for that day is to go and vote. Here it looks very different. Sometimes you have two or three jobs. You need to... So many responsibilities, you're struggling. You are trying to make ends meet, and then I still have to find time to go out and vote but I... There was a congressional election this month and there was a primary election and there is another election.
So it takes an effort from many of our groups to do that type of education. But at the same time, when we are seeing many candidates or parties or people involved in the process that say, "Well, Latinx people are not voting at the rate that they should vote." There is a complete lack of real outreach to these communities. And when I say culturally competent, it's really understanding that these communities can be very diverse and that they are overarching themes but there are themes that are going to be very different. If you talk to Venezuelans that newly arrived to the United States and you talk to them about the threat of communism, even if it is misled, you are going to see people coming back and say, "Well, I just came escaping that. I don't want that. And you are talking to me is culturally competent and relevant but not necessarily is the right information, it’s misinformation."
So certain people are taking certain advantage of this cultural relevancy, but it has to be culturally relevant and accurate information and being able to weigh this and helping people understand the new realities of their life in the United States because they're working really hard and they're contributing to the economy and contributing to the society as a whole. But a lot of people would love for them to just stay in the shadows when it comes to a participatory process. And that's what we're trying as much as possible to educate people, educate funders. Some of the C3 nonpartisan efforts are being defunded. And for us, we see that for communities of color and for our community, the first base has to be nonprofit, nonpartisan education efforts. And after that, we can talk about other types of engagement, but it has to start with this education aspect of it.
And we know what many people are doing and companies and social media companies are doing to curb misinformation in English, but we're still not sure what they're doing when it comes to misinformation in Spanish. So we are also having a very tough moment trying to ensure that our community is receiving the right information and the culturally competent information.
Darren Isom:
And those are perfect marching orders for philanthropy, so thanks for throwing that out there. So they're listening, let's see if they respond. You powerfully stated in the past that you want society to reach the point in which we don't need to explain the importance of the Latinx community to the fabric and economy of this nation. I would love for you to give us a take on how we are in that fight. Are we close to that being a reality for you? And how do we get better at that?
Frankie Miranda:
I don't think so. I think that there's still so much to do and even the relevant questions that we are discussing here in this podcast continue to be a question mark for a lot of people when it comes to our community. The airwaves are filled with such hateful messages for everybody that sounds like me, that looks like me, that people are right now so confused about who should be part of this country and who is contributing to this country. Recently, the Washington Post published an article saying that one of the reasons why the economy in the United States has been so strong in comparison with other world economies has been because of the influx of migrants. But this is creating right now such a polarized conversation about our community because the asylum seekers and the migrant situation in this country has a Latinx face although it's people coming from all around the world, and they are coming in all shapes and colors, but it's our face, the one that is being posted on everything that has a hateful message.
So we are still not understanding that this country thrives with these migrant workers, that these countries were made by immigrants, that while we continue to create these confusing messages and hateful messages... Even in our community, people are starting to get scared about being able to participate out in the open. I don't want my kids to be subject to this type of bias. So we are seeing a lot of work that needs to continue to be done around understanding the true Latinx experience in America. How we continue to contribute, how small businesses at a higher rate are being opened by Latinx members of our community. It is still a big question mark, and while we continue to fight against all of this misinformation and hateful messages, we're still a lot of work to do and we cannot do it alone.
We need to bring all allies to come and talk about that discrimination is discrimination and it doesn't matter which color, which community. We just need to come together and be able to talk about cultural misunderstandings and being able to move forward as a nation, not about the others or only a few of us can actually move up the ladder.
Darren Isom:
Yes. And as a reminder, we all get free together, so we have to figure out how do we work together to get free. As we start to close up the conversation, I do want to give you space to share what is the America that you hope to build through your work with your organization?
Frankie Miranda:
I hope that one day, we don't need to explain to people why we're here, who we are. I hope that one day we can care about equality. Not that certain people will get in first versus others, that we have this sense that when we're talking about dismantling racism and prejudice, that we are coming in together and that we are all participating together. And it's not about us versus them, that we are all in this conversation together. It's not about you are from one community, I'm from another community, I should be in some Olympics of suffering. Nobody suffering should be quantified, qualified better than another, we should be all in an allyship. That is what I hope that we can do through our work. Yes, I work to ensure that Latinx organizations are viable, that they have the capacity building, the technical assistance, the resources to be able to continue doing better, but it's not as an exclusive club. This is about expecting that we're going to be helping all of us, all of our communities together.
The only difference is that we will be able to do that for certain members of our community, culturally competent and linguistically competent, but the effort is that we are not in this struggle alone and that one day we don't have to explain that to anybody. That we are really focused on dismantling all of these inequities together.
Darren Isom:
Beautiful. And just a few closing questions for us to check through. First, a very easy one, I'm sure, sarcastically, what does freedom look like to you?
Frankie Miranda:
Freedom looks to me like walking down any neighborhood in the United States, holding hands with my husband and not being worried that someone's going to say something or that we’ll be worried about our personal safety.
Darren Isom:
Mm.
Frankie Miranda:
I think that that is freedom. Freedom is that you can be whoever you are and have the trust that your personal security or that your mental health is not threatened by anyone. That's what freedom looks like for me.
Darren Isom:
It's a beautiful view of freedom for sure. And we'd love for you to call out a mentor or a mentee, and we all define mentorship differently, who has been really impactful in your life and career. Who do you want to give a shout-out to?
Frankie Miranda:
I have to say all previous presidents of the Hispanic Federation from our founding president, Luis Miranda, Lorraine Cortez Vasquez, Lillian Rodriguez Lopez, and my personal friend and previous president of the Hispanic Federation, the one that says, "You have to do this as well," Jose Calderon. I think that they have been people that I would not be where I am right now if they haven't said, "This kid is smart and he has a bright future." Even when I didn't see it.
Darren Isom:
As you said earlier, it's always more sincere in your native language. So you can feel free to give a shout out in Spanish if you like as well. We'll love to make space for that.
Frankie Miranda:
Luis, Lorraine, Lilian, and Jose, muchas gracias.
Darren Isom:
Perfect. And then finally, if you had to choose any song to walk out on stage using, what would that song be?
Frankie Miranda:
It's a song in Spanish called “Boricua en la luna,” which means that I will be Puerto Rican even if I was born on the moon. It's a beautiful poem that was adapted into a song by Roy Brown. It's my favorite song, and every single time I hear it, I think about Puerto Rico and who I am and where I came from and my immigrant story back into the United States.
Darren Isom:
Yes, and what a beautiful story to tell. Thank you so much for your time here. This has been a fun conversation. It's been heartwarming for me. I hope you've enjoyed yourself.
Frankie Miranda:
I did. Thank you so much for this opportunity, and thank you for also your insightful questions. I feel better now after this conversation, and I have a better understanding of myself having the opportunity just to think about these questions, so thank you, it's a gift.
Darren Isom:
Of course. And a huge gratitude for all the work that you do and the huge genius that you bring to that work. And look forward to talking with you again soon.
Frankie Miranda:
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Darren Isom:
Of course, later Frankie.
I lost my grandma Lois 20 years ago, which remains the fanciest person I've ever known. A fifth-generation Orleanian whose family had known hard times since long before they landed in the then colony of New Orleans as free people of color from San Domain, the future Haiti, in the 1790s. Her sartorial and cultural refinement were unmatched. The epitome of exquisite taste and generations of fine living, and she modeled for me the best of old Black New Orleans. She always left the house in hat and gloves. Both demanded and offered the utmost respect in every interaction. From the pastor to the paper boy. And kept a home that was full of fine things and bursting with love and warmth. She taught me that there is no greater act of militancy than to assert your social superiority in the face of a racist system that exists to maintain your oppression, a system that would rather see you dead than equal.
I'm grateful for her lessons in fanciness, not as an act of snobbery or pretension, but as a bold declaration of self-worth, the ultimate act of empowerment. I think so often of the words she offered me before sending me off to college. "Now remember," she said. "God's greatest gift to man is that of free will. If he wanted us all to be the same, he would've made us all the same. Our gift, in return, is living our lives as beautifully as possible. We owe our good maker that much." And with that, she implored me to live beautifully for sure but most importantly, to live fully. To do things, go places, learn a new language or two. Explore this great big wonderful world. Read books that humanize communities others demonize. Learn to not just make but master your favorite dish. Stay curious, stay compassionate, charm them. They're going to talk about you anyway.
Give them something good to talk about. Call your mama with good news. Defend that cousin and everyone talks trash about. Tell your daddy you love him. Be a mentor. Take up space. But above all, to live. Generations have sacrificed not for you to live by the rules, but for you to make new ones, for you to be free. The Quakers teach us that there's a little bit of God in each of us. My conversation with Frankie reminded me of the beautiful world that awaits us when we honor that God within each of us, when we live freely and free others in doing so.
This season, we're putting some music with the magic and have collected the theme songs from all of our guests and collaborators to create a Spotify playlist for our listeners to enjoy. Find it on Spotify under “Dreaming in Color: The Playlist.”
Thanks for listening to Dreaming In Color, a special shout out to all the folks who make this magic happen. From Studio Pod Media, our wonderful producer, Denise Savas, audio engineer Theresa Buchanan and graphic designer Diana Jimenez. And from Reelworks, our video production team, Jenny Loo and Steven Czaja. A huge shout out to our ever-brilliant Bridgespan production team, Cora Daniels, Christian Celeste Tate, Christina Pistorius, Ryan Wenzel. And this season's guest hosts, Jasmine Reliford, Nithin Iyengar, and Angela Maldonado. And of course, our fabulous creative director, Ami Diané. What a squad, you all. Be sure to rate, subscribe, and review wherever you listen to podcasts. Catch you next time.
