For Psychological Well being Consciousness Month, we requested Latine comedians and creators we admire how comedy has supported them in overcoming trauma and confronting life’s most vital challenges. Learn the items right here.
Erik Rivera’s life is sweet. Becoming a member of our Zoom session from his Los Angeles dwelling, the author, actor, and comic is all smiles beneath a worn baseball cap. Possibly it is that sunny climate Angelinos are all the time bragging about. Or possibly it is the truth that he is labored exhausting to realize what he has now: a decent profession, a secure marriage, and two fantastic boys. Both means, the distinction between the place he as soon as was and his present standing is not misplaced on him, even whether it is misplaced on his children.
“My children do not know how good they’ve it,” the comedian says with fun.
Rising up because the little one of a Puerto Rican father and Guatemalan mom in New Rochelle, NY, Rivera is aware of the worth of a greenback all too effectively. He spent his youthful years navigating between his dad and mom’ immigrant sensibilities and the pressures of American life. Unsurprisingly, that dichotomy is one thing that Rivera has been capable of mine for comedic gold, incorporating it into his stand-up together with different features of his life, like his interracial marriage and what it is actually like elevating two boys. However, regardless of a lifelong love for stand-up, comedy as a profession wasn’t one thing that Rivera noticed within the playing cards.
“If you come from immigrant dad and mom, you do not know that that is a profession. You are hammered into the standard, like physician, lawyer, and instructed, ‘Do one thing that is constant and brings in constant cash,'” Rivera says. So Rivera deliberate to attend Tempo College to pursue a level in communications. Then 9/11 occurred.
“[After 9/11], they reopened [the school] as a result of they’d been utilizing the campus as a triage middle. And I bear in mind going again, and it was simply this eerie feeling. There was soot all over the place. We’re watching vehicles convey particles out every day. Children have been simply not feeling snug,” Rivera remembers.
In an try to flee the morbid ambiance, Rivera and a buddy went to a comedy membership, which they have been shocked to search out packed.
“Folks needed to neglect,” the comic says plainly. Then, the concept got here to him to prepare a comedy night time on campus and provides his fellow college students the chance to come back collectively and heal by means of laughter.
“Stand-up comedy is such a pure artwork kind . . . it doesn’t matter what you are going by means of in your day, you come out to a present, and for an hour and a half, these issues you’ve gotten, you permit them on the door, and you’ve got a superb time,” Rivera says. “Yeah, they will nonetheless be there [when you leave], however you get to loosen up and launch.”
However whereas serving to others by means of their trauma by organizing comedy exhibits was nice, part of Rivera needed extra. As a child, he’d seen John Leguizamo’s “Mambo Mouth,” which instantly sparked one thing in him. Right here was anyone from his tradition, speaking about issues he might relate to. Now, as an grownup, organizing stand-up nights and rubbing elbows with comedians, he has had the possibility to inform his personal story and use it to assist individuals come to phrases with theirs.
“I bear in mind there was one night time sitting [at a comedy show], and it was the primary time I noticed how the rabbit was pulled out of the hat. Like, I noticed the setup, I noticed the punchline, I noticed how the man was main the viewers a method and taking part in with their feelings of feeling pissed off, of anger, and releasing it with laughter,” he says.”I used to be like, ‘I feel I can do that.'”
A month later, he was onstage at a membership known as Hamburger Harry’s in Occasions Sq.. For many of us, the considered simply leaping into the deep finish like that might be unfathomable. However for Rivera, it is what makes stand-up particular. It is not nearly telling jokes, however about placing your self on the market — exposing your ache and hardships in service of the viewers.
“Look, you’ll be able to rise up there and write jokes; there are wonderful joke writers on the market,” Rivera says. “However [the real connection comes] from the vulnerability. Yeah, we discover it by means of stereotypes, however there’s additionally that vulnerability of ‘hey, that is taking place to me,’ and folks can relate to that.”
For him, comedy is an outlet, a technique to discover sure features of his life that are not all the time neat or fairly, whether or not it is his mother-in-law suggesting having a Mexican mariachi band for Rivera’s rehearsal dinner or making some extent to maintain the fridge stocked with guacamole only for him. Exploring these points on stage permits him not solely to course of them in a wholesome means, but additionally take the viewers on the journey with him.
That is why stand-up comedy has historically been such a route to success for oppressed or marginalized communities. Our hardships could make for a superb chortle that helps lighten the load we feature. However channeling that ache may be difficult. Rivera admits he is made the error of making an attempt to discover sure traumas earlier than the injuries have absolutely healed — particularly, his father’s passing from Parkinson’s illness.
“I am not gonna deceive you, once I first began doing that story on stage, it was dicey. I wasn’t prepared to begin speaking about it,” he says.
However then one thing lovely occurred. The extra Rivera labored on the fabric, the extra he refined the story about his father, and the extra individuals began coming as much as him after his exhibits to thank him and inform him they have been going by means of one thing comparable.
“Anytime you are going by means of one thing, you are feeling like, ‘I am the one one going by means of this.’ We’re all going by means of it; it is simply that no person talks about it,” he says.
Because of this, writing has change into part of Rivera’s therapeutic course of. Even when he hasn’t gotten the gap from what he is going by means of, even when he cannot see the humorous simply but or is not able to convey it to the stage, his thoughts is all the time working it over on the possibility that sometime he’ll be capable to share it. He journals often, seeing it as a form of “map” of how he will get by means of troublesome instances. The comic additionally mentions the necessary function working performs in serving to him course of his ideas.
“All people ought to have some form of quiet time or meditation or one thing to get you out of your individual head and your individual house,” Rivera says.
Whether or not it is working by means of materials on stage or working within the truthful climate of Los Angeles, Rivera has his. All through our dialog, he exudes a form of self-assuredness that comes from engaged on his bits, which is definitely him engaged on himself. Now, he is prepared for what comes subsequent, even when it is not essentially comedy.
“You all the time must evolve, man,” he says.”It’s a must to do every thing, it’s a must to write, it’s a must to direct. The extra instruments you’ve gotten in your toolbox, the more durable it’s for them to say no to you.”
Rivera does all of that. In the course of the pandemic, he wrote an animated present he is seeking to store round sooner or later. And whereas he nonetheless loves comedy and shares that it’s going to all the time be how he heals and helps others heal, he additionally admits that there are extra methods to inform the tales that matter.
“Having children modified my perspective on every thing,” he says. “Watching tv and never seeing the illustration there, the place my children aren’t even seeing themselves . . . now I’ve type of pivoted to, let’s write these subsequent TV tasks so we will see ourselves there.”
Rivera needs to see extra than simply the stereotypical Latine narratives about “border crossing trauma” or “we gotta save the taco store.” He simply needs to see common exhibits about Latines as common individuals with common issues, working by means of these issues the identical means he has and continues to do.
“That is my subsequent aim in life, to make these exhibits that individuals can chortle at and watch collectively and vibe with and simply occur to have Latinos in them,” he concludes.
Miguel Machado is a journalist with experience within the intersection of Latine id and tradition. He does every thing from unique interviews with Latin music artists to opinion items on points which might be related to the neighborhood, private essays tied to his Latinidad, and thought items and options regarding Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican tradition.
