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Worcester Speaks #7: Giselle Rivera-Flores
Giselle Rivera-Flores is director of communications for State Senator Robyn Kennedy and a writer who focuses on literature and identity. She has managed a co-working space, created STEM enrichment activities for children, and hosted the local “Don’t Touch My Podcast” with Jennifer Gaskin. I would be delighted to have just one-tenth of her energy.
Liz: You have two sister Substacks, Hispanic-ish and Stories That Grow. Can you describe them and how they relate to each other?
Giselle: Yeah, of course. Hispanic-ish became a Substack mostly because I wanted to give the perspective of what it's like to be American Hispanic and where I'm born and raised in New York. My parents come from the island of Puerto Rico. People are like, oh, that's kind of cool, but in the eyes of the American narrative, it's problematic. I face challenges and adversities that are unique to my experience. I've been told, go back to where you're from. And I'm like, well, Puerto Rico is part of the States, so I'm from here: America. Where would you deport me to? It's a Substack about those kinds of complexities and those weird nuanced conversations that have to be had.
And because I read a lot, I've been vowing myself to read more, and Latinx authors, and promote those narratives a lot more. Because I think that they're undervalued and they're not spoken about as often as some of our [other] American great writers. And so I started the sister Substack to focus mostly on writers, what they do, their stories, and to do reviews.
Your first pick for Stories That Grow is the classic The House on Mango Street. Why start there?
I think it's the first time I've read a story that sounded so much like my neighborhood or sounded so much like the language that my peers used when I was growing up. And again, I grew up in Brooklyn. I went to high school in Forest Hills in Queens. So even in New York, I kind of treaded that line, where my neighborhood at home was very Hispanic or half Hispanic, half Italian [and] I went to [school] in Forest Hills, which was predominantly Jewish and higher income. And then there's just so much about it, the gender roles that are played and are visualized through the story, but also this yearning of, this is where I come from, but this doesn't have to be my future. I don't have to become a statistic for someone else. I can still create my own path in this world, and I'm not bound by the pains that my ancestors have experienced or the challenges of oppression. It's a quick read, but it's also in a language that I think resonates with a lot of people.
You say in the intro to Stories That Grow that narratives from Latinx authors are “connecting readers to perspectives that challenge, inspire, and deepen understanding.” And I'm curious what kinds of challenges or inspiration or understanding you hope your audience will find.
It's a mixture of things, of breaking down the barriers or stereotypes here in the States. I think part of that is that people often tell the Black story at the beginning as, oh, they were slaves, but it's so much more than that. Black people were not just slaves, they were so much more than that. There was a history before becoming enslaved that is never really spoken about. And so I think that the Black perspective is often seen as a tragic one. And I think that's the same thing with a lot of Latin people because we come from that mixed background. Puerto Ricans are a mixture of Taínos, which are natives to the island of what we know as Puerto Rico now, but it was considered Borinquen at the time that they occupied it, Spaniards and Africans, because of the slave trade. And so that's what creates people like me, Puerto Ricans. And so those stories tend to be very negative. We come from enslavement, we come from struggle, and they're not often told in a positive way. There's so much joy, there's so much history, so many traditions that we carry that come from our ancestors. And so I want this to be a portrayal of honesty of both, yes, there's pain, but also, yes, there's joy and we still carry those traditions to this day. I'm hoping that readers—and even myself—I hope that I gain some knowledge by reading some literature that I have not picked up yet.
I'm curious if when you're writing for the blog is the audience that you have in mind, a Latinx audience, not a Latinx audience, or anybody?
I think the education piece to me is really important because it's for everyone. I know that within my own communities, there are some biases. We experience colorism at a high rate. There are some discrepancies within our own communities that come from the conditioning of colonialism. We've been preconditioned to understand that if we don't look European, then we're ugly. If our hair’s not a certain texture, then it's bad hair. So we grew up with these narratives that have been force fed to us for so many years. I mean, not even years, right? Centuries. And then you start to realize, wait, this is actually wrong. And I think that the only way we can do that is by hearing these stories. Oftentimes we're secluded from our own stories because they haven't been amplified. And so we become isolated from the truth.
And I often think about anyone's story. How do we learn about the Holocaust? Only by learning from survivors and [their] family members. And so I think this is something that is educational for all of us, including the Latin population, because oftentimes we're secluded from our own stories because they haven't been amplified. And so we become isolated from the truth. And like I said before, precondition to these narratives about who we are. And I think that keeps us in a bubble of misinformation, which I think it's fucking problematic as hell. But it drives me crazy because these are conversations I have with my own family. Half the time, Liz, I'm like, whatcha guys saying? They're like, well, I'm not Black. I'm like, of course you're Black. And so these are Thanksgiving conversations. It’s me getting upset.
And so these are things that, just within our own cultures, I hope break down because we have to understand that we're assimilating to a culture that wasn't intended for us. And because we've been raised in this culture, we often don't see that. You got to get an outside perspective to really understand it.
You hosted a podcast with Jenn Gaskin and I got the sense that you have a really great creative partnership. Could you advise people on how to build and sustain creative partnerships or creative friendships?
Yeah, of course. So I've been friends with Jenn for probably 10-plus years. And the podcast came about because at the end of the day, I would send her voice memos and I would just be bitching, to be honest with you. I would just be venting about the stupid shit I read online. Or I was in a meeting and someone blew my mind because I was like, that's racist as hell. And so we would go back and forth on voice memos at 10, 11 o'clock at night, and my husband was like, you guys need a podcast. I'm tired of hearing you guys every night. Just fucking record it. And so we decided to record it and see how it went. And we did it for four seasons, and we're still in the process, but unfortunately, as you probably know, Jennifer's husband passed last November and so it's been a really, really bad year. We recorded one or two episodes, but I didn't want Jenn to feel pressured.
I think from the creative side, the best thing that we have, and this is weird, but so honest, is that we work off of our strengths. So we come into partnership, but we're not dictating what the other person needs to do or how they should sound. We come in as us, so we stay authentic to who we are and the things that we're talking about. Oftentimes, if you heard the podcast, we laugh, but we're also like, this is traumatic. What the fuck are we laughing about? This is trauma, Jennifer. And she cracks up and I crack up. But that's like, I feel like that's a real conversation we have all the time, probably with no cursing on the podcast, but those are the conversations.
In 2019, you were really candid in a MassLive article about often being the only Latina in the room. And you were saying that most things in Worcester are created by older white men. Five years later, is that still true? Are you still feeling that way?
Yeah, I still walk into many spaces as the only Latina. Even before that article, which I totally forgot about, I would always feel very uncomfortable. I was always working with older white men. And I think that some of that, when I say, oh, that's not bad, is me saying it's not that they're older white men, that's the problem. It's me trying to say it's the narrative that comes along with it. Oftentimes it's set up that way intentionally, and it's taken me years to really fully understand that narrative. Yeah, this is intentional. This is why it was built, this is why boardrooms don't look like people like me or Jennifer or men of color or trans people. And anybody that's not fitting the mold of a white middle aged man is usually not in these positions of power or in leadership. And so I still truly believe that. I feel that that has not changed.
And then with my nine-to-five [as director of communications for State Senator Robyn Kennedy], I see it in the halls of the State House. I see it in leadership positions.
A lot of the DEI talk that I've seen, sometimes it makes it worse because you're just hearing people say “we value diversity.” And it's like, do you, though?
I thought I had more hope in our systems, that these things would actually start to shift. But to your point, we're only shifting in phrases that we use. I argue about this all the time, and it gets me really pissed off because I tell people all the time, this is not diversity. Just because you have one woman on your board doesn't mean you're a diverse board, because at the end of the day, your policies are still hindering a group of people. If you're hindering a group of people based on your policies or on a local nonprofit board and where you're not distributing funds accordingly, the distribution of your funds isn't diverse.
Like I said, I still experience these things. And to go back to the other question, at first, I used to think it was a problem. Now I find it as an opportunity once I'm in these spaces to open the door for other people. At first, I was like, oh, I'm like the token brown girl. I'll be the token brown girl for a little bit. I'll play that game for a little bit because I'm going to bring a few more people in this room, and then I won't be the token brown girl anymore. And now this whole shit's going to change. You can have me on this board, but if you don't listen to my perspective or my feedback or include my voice, then you're not inclusive, which is counterproductive to being diverse.
You're in some pretty influential spaces.
If you're anything like me, you kind of have to bite your tongue sometimes. The best way to do this is by helping create policy that changes this. Cursing someone out right now is not appropriate, and flipping a table's not appropriate, but also not playing into that game is also not appropriate. I don't want to partake in that. I see that you're doing things to hurt my community and other people's community. And so instead of being so loud and shouting about it, it's best to work in a way that I can help dismantle that, if that makes any sense.
That's being strategic, it sounds like.
Well, we'll see.
I noticed in a bunch of places you refer to yourself as an entrepreneur. Entrepreneur is not a term that I see in a lot of progressive spaces, and I'm wondering how you understand that term and its political connotations.
I probably should change that at some point on platforms, but I see it more as I come from a business background. And so I created a lot of businesses, online businesses or in-person businesses. I had a studio downtown, which was a co-working space predominantly for BIPOC people, for photographers and stuff like that. And I ran that for five years. I also had the Learning Hub, which was a STEM afterschool programming event that I used to do for a couple years, and then it went downhill during COVID because the schools were closed, libraries were closed, we couldn't have access to the kids. And so that kind of closed off.
I took [the label entrepreneur] as an opportunity, as someone who takes risks to create or find solutions or build something meaningful. But I understand that it has a negative connotation with capitalism and all of these historically negative components of our society.
Small business owners have always been labeled in that way. But even at that, when we think about it statistically, it's like 70, I think it's like 74% of Latin communities are entrepreneurs or have created a small business of some sort. And so that is not a story that most people hear. And so when you think of an entrepreneur, you think of the gross people that we know today, the Elon Musks of the world, the Jeff Bezos, they're like the entrepreneur, the elites. But if we can take back that word and use it as a tool of empowerment, I think that it gives our people a new perspective and a new label that allows them to say, yeah, I am a creator of this kind of solution.
It's always, again, the elite white man is an entrepreneur, and then they look at you and they're like, oh, how's that hobby going? Well, that hobby is making my family a living. We're living off of this hobby. So it's no longer a hobby.
How did you make the pivot from running your own businesses to taking this communications role with Sen. Kennedy?
So while we were doing the studio and Learning Hub, I worked for myself all those years because all those things were kind of part-time. The studio was my husband’s. I had just kind of helped manage it. The Learning Hub was after school, so I had plenty of time. Since 2011 or 12, I started doing a lot of digital media around the city and trying to pick up clients. And so that's what I did for a living until about three years ago. And when I first heard Robyn, who was just Robyn Kennedy at the time, and she was running on her platform, and she sounded so progressive, so smart, so considerate, which was mind blowing to me because I rarely ever say that politicians are considerate, are compassionate. I can't name [anyone] outside of Bernie Sanders. I can't name more than five people. That's just not a word that I associate with politicians.
We connected and we talked and I said, I'd love to do what I do for clients, but I'd love to bring it to you and I'd love to do your digital media, your photography, your website, all these kinds of things. So we were like, alright. And so we started that partnership and I still worked for myself when I was working on the campaign, and then we won."
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“And then, we won.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️