Welcome And Meet Hector

SPEAKER_03 1:48

Welcome back to another episode of the Hilltop Glove Podcast. Today we have the pleasure of speaking with documentary photographer, community organizer, and storyteller Hector Vaca Cruz. Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Hector was born in New York and raised in South Carolina. As the son of immigrants of Ecuadorian and Puerto Rican heritage, his experiences growing up in South in the South shaped his understanding of identity, belonging, race, and importance of having a voice. Hector lives by the motto, open your mouth if you want to be heard. And that's why I found you, because I love that motto. That philosophy is at the heart of his work as a documentary photographer. Through photography, he explores issues including immigration, racism, nationalism, colorism, classism, and identity, while using visual storytelling to spark dialogue and amplify communities' voices who are often overlooked. After nearly two decades of community organizing, he founded Abre La Boca Photo, a documentary photography project dedicated to telling the stories of marginalized communities, grassroots organizations, and activists working to create meaningful change. I love that. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_00 3:08

I'm doing great on this beautiful rainy day. So we're in the rain of the hurricane at the moment. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 3:15

Well, thank you for being here. We appreciate you. We like to start off every episode of you telling us a little bit about your upbringing and your childhood and your experiences. So who encouraged you or influenced you as a child?

SPEAKER_00 3:28

So I'm originally from New York, as you already mentioned. Um I'm from Queens. Uh in 1986, we moved to South Carolina, where um uh my parents um bought their first house and uh raising four kids. Um the oldest. Um and um, you know, just it was just weird living in South Carolina as a little kid of Latin heritage, Puerto Rican-Ecuadorian, because we went from a multi-ethnic, multi-racial, multicultural community to a community in the South which was on mostly white and black. So I know I don't know about my sisters, but I never knew where I fit in. If I played with the black kids, the white kids made fun of me. If I played with the white kids, the black kids made fun of me. And you know, I just a lot of that just really influenced with the direction I took with my life, especially because of my father being an immigrant from Ecuador, who was treated really, really badly. He they yell at him to speak English. Um it was never good enough. He got the worst jobs at the Sears that he worked in off of Harvison. And um just um he was treated so badly. So a lot of that really influenced the direction I went um and um figuring out who I was. Uh at one point I wanted to be white. I wanted to change my name to Brian, um uh just because I was tired of um being made fun of. So all that um and more eventually led to um my um skateboarding and then the punk rock community, which opened my eyes to the creatives community, um labor rights and other rights, and somewhere down the line in um in my life I discovered photography while traveling in Eastern Europe. And next thing I know, I've been doing photography for about almost a decade now.

SPEAKER_03 5:08

Wow, wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

Yeah, just a lot more to it than that.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

Yeah, but just to sum it up, that sounds uh pretty cool. You started off and well being picked on, but then embracing yourself, and then that's when the creativity grew.

Growing Up, Grief, And Voice

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Well, a lot of the creativity also comes, you know, the name of the project, Aurel A Boca Photo, because I I truly believe that we need to have a voice. Many of our community just feel like they just are stifled, we lose people, whether through immigration and other ways. Um my father in 2009 was afraid that his um green card might not be um renewed, and he also had HIV. So my dad decided that he no longer wanted to be on this plane of existence and made the decision to leave the leave this world. So that really influenced me because I really feel that if we help people to have a voice, then we don't lose more people we love in our community.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Yeah, we were talking a little bit before the show got started, and uh we found out that we know a lot of the same places and some of the same people, and we've crossed uh crossed the same paths, even if not at the same time. So um, you know, one of the things that we like to to know about is is is how your family and such influences and your upbringing influences your work today. Um I know that a lot of your stuff that you brought with us today is um I mean you said documentary, but it's it's um I don't want to say political, but it is making statements about things that are going on and not even not even um I don't know, I come from photojournalism, so so I I I I I kind of see um the journalistic uh integrity in some some of the art, and then and then you also have the freedom to go and do something creative that's actually you know sending a a specific message. And um I'm really enjoying your work. Yeah, I really am. Um but yeah, if you could just speak to some of the the influences that kind of have have pushed you in this direction.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Well, as I mentioned a little earlier, um I I do a well, I've been doing for more than a decade a program with the State Department where I mentor uh community organizers from Eastern Europe. Okay, um, from Slovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Albania. Um, and um so I got to meet a lot of people from Roma communities, what we in the US um call gypsies. Yeah, and by the way, gypsies is a derogatory term. Yeah. So Roma, Romani, um, and I saw how they lived, and I just felt like somebody needs to tell these stories, and I saw the parallels between that and how we live here in the US. Um, and I just I just felt like those stories needed to be told. And and then if you mix in a little bit of my own heritage, my own growing up in South Carolina where I felt like I didn't have a voice, I didn't know where I fit in, even around, even amongst those who um who felt that they were outside of the norm, even with within those I felt outside. So I just felt somebody needed to tell those stories. And at the same time, um, yes, I I say that my work is documentary because I really do go out in the community and document community stories, but uh some of it is also about me speaking up as well, because this work is not just about helping others to speak up, but it's also about me um recovering my own agency, my own feel of working through my own demons. Yeah because as I mentioned, my father passed in 2009. And so it's about helping others to be able to tell a story. So all that really blended together for me to tell these stories. And then once I discovered photography, I started looking at other photographers around the world that I can look up to. Um, you know, like Graciali Turbide in Mexico. And last year I got the opportunity to meet Maya Golet, who was a second shooter for Graciale Turbide, and just talking to her, just really learning about all the stuff that they've done with indigenous people, just really, really influenced me. And then I actually participated two years ago in a mentorship program at the Life Factory, where I met another famous photographer who's now the director, um, um, Tigus Brooks Hegan, uh, who's done a lot of amazing work. It's in the Smithsonian and other places. And they've helped me to shape my voice. Um, so all those things really came together to help me, but at the same time, I'm a community organizer. That's my day job, I'm a community organizer. So I hear stories every single day from people in our community who who are hiding when immigration officials come, who are being shot in the streets by by the police, whether black or Latina, mostly being shot in the streets. And we need a way to speak up in a way that isn't only protesting. Yeah. We need uh or out or make that activism out on the streets. We need other ways to speak up because different audiences receive messages in so many different ways. There are so much more, but those are the main things that really led me to embrace the way I do this. And I always tell people, I did photography because I can't draw, I can't paint. And it's been a while since I've written. I'm recovering my writing again. Um, so I can start hopefully writing poetry again. Because when I lived in Columbia, I used to go to open mics all the time. Oh, really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:33

Maybe we met. We've probably been to the same open mics.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

Did you go to Red Door? I think I used to go to Cafe Strudel. Cafe Strudel. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I used to go there, and then here in Charlotte, I met my friend Um Hannah Hassan, who started doing open mics here. I met her when she was the political director for the organization I used to work in. I used to be her supervisor. Then all of a sudden, I started writing again, and then just um so all those different things influenced me. And the fact that I majored in Latin American studies at USC, just really learning more about Latin culture and uh so many different influences. But uh, but it all boils down to this. We live in a society where many of us feel stifled. We feel like we don't have a voice, we lose people through um suicide, other types of ways, whether arrests, put in the um school the present pipeline and other ways. And those people need a way to express themselves because when is the last time somebody came to your house and asked you what is your opinion? How do you feel about this? What do you feel the solution is? That never happens in our community. So my community organizing and those skills I learned in that led me to where I am today.

Photographing Protests With Humility

SPEAKER_03 11:44

So when you're behind the lens, how do you balance the need to document a protest with the realization that you're creating a historical piece of art?

SPEAKER_00 11:55

Crazy thing is, is when I'm documenting the protest, I'm not even thinking about the historical aspect. I'm thinking more about the am I elevating these voices? Um I helping to shape the narrative at that moment. And uh it's an afterthought that it might become a historical um document. Um I'm excited that some of it has become, like the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has actually put my um my photo zine that I created during the pandemic in their collection. So I'm really excited about that. Um uh because I was part of a project with um with the library called the Living Archives Project. So I was tasked with going out in the community and photographing storytellers who were telling their stories about their lives during the pandemic. Um and um so I was in charge of going out uh talking to the Latino um storytellers and a few others, but so I never really think about it from the from the perspective of historical context, because if if we are conceited, if we're not humble about the way we're doing it, then we're doing a disservice to the to the stories we're collecting, if we're doing it for our self-glorification. But if we're there really for the people themselves to help them elevate their voices, that right there will make it a historical document because you're being truthful to it, you're being honest with it, and your first um your first duty is what's happening at the moment. So that's what's going through my mind at the time. Um but that's not to say I'm not excited about sharing it on social media and having other people see it because it I love it when people love my work, obviously. But but my main purpose is to actually elevate other people's stories.

Essential Workers And Pandemic Inequality

SPEAKER_03 13:35

Is that the one from the pandemic?

SPEAKER_00 13:38

Yes, this one's called Rosie. It's um during the pandemic, a lot of um uh people were quarantining, and I actually met a landscaper um that was working across the street from my house at a house across the street from mine, and talking to him is what led to this um series called The Essentials. Um he told me, You Americans, you're able to quarantine. You have the privilege to be able to quarantine, while us immigrants, those of us without papers, don't have that privilege because we still have to feed our families. We don't have access to health care, we don't have access to social security, we don't have access to the same benefits as you um people born here. So we have to continue working. So that had me thinking about the essential workers that we never think about during the pandemic. And while around the country, um the community hit the hardest around the country was the black community. In the Carolinas, it was actually the Latina community that got hit the hardest. So I started thinking about that. So I talked to Rosie, and Rosie was telling me how she continued having the work. And it's and in the series I show um one the resulting exhibit that I did out of it, Pandemic Year One, I show um Americans working, uh, or mostly white people working. I mean not um working, walking their dogs, or um roller skating, or riding their bicycles. And I have photos of the black community and the Latino community or BIPOC community in general, walking to the bus stop wearing a mask, walking to work, or working. So that was that was the idea behind this photo and the series that resulted from it. Just showing those that um that were hit hardest by the pandemic and continued working.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

That's a really good point because there was at least two different pandemic pandemic experiences because a lot of people I know didn't fully lock down. And um my job was always been on a computer, so it was very easy for me to do it from the house, but uh it seems like it seems like a lot of people's memories of that time are determined by whether they were locked down or not. And uh mainstream media only talks about that time frame as everyone being locked down and everyone doing you know, they talk about it as though it was this one singular experience. And it really wasn't. It was a whole bunch of overlapping experiences depending on that.

Solidarity After Immigration Raids

SPEAKER_02 16:06

Do you feel like we've do you feel like we've improved since the pandemic? Have we degraded since the pandemic? I feel like we often just find the world in pre-pandemic, post-pandemic, and there's a lot of things that kind of I would say are fall out from the pandemic that we're kind of still living through now.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I see a lot of the issues that we face pre-pandemic just more upfront now than they were before. Um, the racism, especially, the culturism, attacks on immigrants, attacks on the poor. But one thing I did see resulting from the pandemic that has made that has put a smile on my face is that many of us saw that beyond those issues, we're all in it together. Um, for example, last year during Operation Charlotte's Webb, when um the Border Patrol descended on Charlotte um to attack the immigrant community, we saw the black and the white community come together and actually uh uh uh uh support the immigrant community. We had some of the biggest marches we've seen in Charlotte. Uh we had there's video footage of young people chasing immigration officials through the woods, which was kind of interesting. But um, but the point is that you know we saw places like California, I mean I saw the other places that were hit by immigration officials. But uh if you really think about it, Columbia, I mean not Columbia, Charlotte was the location where we actually chased them out. Yeah. And that's because um the community came together. We saw that we're in it together. Well, I I I haven't seen, at least in my lifetime, I haven't seen this many white people come out and actually protest and be the frontliners to make sure that we're keeping the BIPOC community safe during the during our marches. And um so I'm seeing that. I'm seeing the black and Latino community coming together because historically the system has told us to hate each other. Yeah. Has told um actually, you know, black people aren't born in the US to hate immigrants is what the system has done because um we still um because we steal jobs. Yeah. And and the immigrant community was told that black people from the US steal cars. So we're we're we're told to hate each other. Yeah. And one thing I've seen after the pandemic is that we're all seeing it, that we're all in it together. I don't know if you saw the video from like two, three months ago of this apartment complex where immigration officials showed up, and all the young black people in the in the apartment complex told the immigrants to stay in their apartments, and all the young people chased immigration officials off the property with water balloons and squirt guns. They chased them out. And that was something that we're seeing is that we're all coming together and supporting each other. So that's one thing that's made me smile post-pandemic is that we're seeing that we're all in it together. And right now, with what's going on in our country and at least the last year and a half, almost two years, everybody's seeing that what affects one community affects another. Um, like the the bills to to stop immigrants from voting. Immigrants don't vote. They actually don't vote. That's that's a myth. But those bills were actually made to covertly take away other people's rights, like a woman's right to vote. Yeah. Um, older white people from rural communities' right to vote, um, older black people's rights to vote. The initiatives against sanctuary cities, they're um they're really designed to take away money from programs like after-school programs, women's shelters, and others by cov by going after immigrants. So we're seeing that we're in it together.

SPEAKER_03 19:36

Yeah. When you speaking of the front line, can you explain this image right here behind you?

George Floyd Photo And Protest Craft

SPEAKER_00 19:41

Yes. So uh when George Floyd was assassinated by the police, um people over the country started marching, started coming together, and and just deciding that that was wrong and actually speaking up. And the second night, or this is from the first night of the protest that happened in Charlotte. Um, people uh were protesting on Beatty's Ford Road by the police station on Beatty's Ford Road, and the police, you know, was trying to chase them away. And I I came across these young people while I was out photographing, and you see these two young men confronted the police, but not in a violent way. This young man is explaining to them why they need to respect his dignity.

SPEAKER_02 20:24

Hands out, like wow.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yeah, yeah. Why? While the police is standing there, and then you see this young man right here that stare in his face, like like standing there stoically, saying, I'm not gonna move. I'm not gonna move. I I am here and I deserve dignity. While at the same time, you see his leg that is kind of shift a little bit, like he's unsure of himself. But even looking past his um his feelings of insecurity, he's standing strong. Standing his ground, standing his ground. So in the cold face of the police, and I call this one black and blue because it's about blue versus black community, but at the same time, it's about the attacks in our community, how we end up black and blue, we end up bruised from the attacks on us. So that's the reason I made this piece. Um, I shot it from the ground up in order for it to be more powerful. Because usually when you photograph um up on somebody, you make them see more powerful on the photo. Because a direct direct photo would not have had the same impact, it would not have made them bigger than bigger than life. So I chose the angles on that, and this is this building behind them, it's the police station. So interesting thing is the day after this, we went to Uptown Charlotte, and the police started kettling, throwing um um pepper bombs at everybody, just like I almost broke my leg that night because of the police um hiding bombs in the bushes. So if you're walking, they would just randomly explode around you, so there was no way to escape. So um, so all this is to show how how uh when we stand up, they come at us, but we're still here. Yeah, and that's that's what this represents for me.

SPEAKER_03 22:01

I love the background, it's also back black and blue, the sky. And the blue lights. Yeah, the blue lights. Exactly. There's so much going on.

SPEAKER_02 22:10

When you're uh when you're at a scene like this, are you and I'm I'm asking like as a shooter. I mean, um, you know, clearly you chose the angle and and and but are you just shooting a ton and varying it up a bunch, or are you like sitting back watching the scene and constructing like that one shot?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

When I first started as a photographer, um, and those of us that do photography can um can relate to this, I was just shooting everything else. I was like what doing what they call spray and pray in hopes that one of them will work out.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:48

But um football games like that, because you gotta get the you gotta get the ball like right there. Exactly. But now um because I'm a community organizer too. I mean, that's that's before I got into photography, I was a community organizer. I have been a community organizer. So my whole life is protests. My whole life is meeting with members of Congress, elevating community voices. Because of that, I'm able to walk into a scene like this and be able to see something that could be coming up or um be able to see the angles that could work. Um because I've also been in the positions of a lot of these people where I've been I've been arrested in DC five times, um, once at the White House. Um and so I'm able to see it from that perspective. Um in one situation, I decided not to be arrested in order to photograph the scene where um ex congressman um Luis Gutierrez from Chicago um was um was arrested together with activists from or organizers from. From Fair Immigration Reform Movement, which is the biggest national coalition of immigrant justice organizations. So all that is to say that because of that background, I'm able to walk in and see what could be coming and able to take a moment back to breathe because because I've been in those situations, I'm not as flustered or scared because I I've been there before. So that gives me the opportunity to step back and capture those stories. And if I become a part of the scene, then I'm not there to photograph the people that are there. Right. Um, that's not to say that I don't take a break every once in a while when there's a protest and march with them. And but then after I march for like five minutes, I run back out to the front and start photographing them as they come. Okay. So it's it's now it's become more of a my picking the shots that I feel they're gonna work. And also from from a different perspective, um if I shoot a lot of photos, then that's a lot of stuff I have to go through when I'm editing.

SPEAKER_03 24:42

Right. That's what I was thinking. Oh man.

SPEAKER_00 24:44

Pick up the junk and then figure it out. And if I'm just spraying praying, then I don't have the intentional shots that actually have a message behind it. Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

And you might have a magic shot that's lost in there because it's exactly.

SPEAKER_00 24:57

Or because blurry, because I'm trying to shoot it all. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 25:00

You really have to be present in every moment and just continue to be br breathe and be vulnerable. So you were at a protest last night,

Social Media, Websites, And Consent

SPEAKER_03 25:07

right?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Uh yesterday morning, uh union workers, um, UE 150 was standing in front of Charlotte Water because um Charlotte Water um is has been treating their employees badly, uh their workers badly. I met a woman yesterday who um who after she was let go, they cut off her water. Charlotte Water cut off her water. Um she ended up having to pay like $2,000 in utilities. Um they were telling me about a a man um named Robert, I don't know his last name, who um who was in IT. And somehow became a supervisor for uh a department that had nothing to do with IT, and so people have been unhappy. Um so just all these different stories I heard yesterday, just and that's so that's the reason I went there. And also because um the main organizer is a friend of mine and who's also a photographer, so I wanted to go support her. So I got a few photos, but um, and I'm probably gonna post them at some point, but um, I went there to support them.

SPEAKER_03 26:07

Now, referring to posting your photos, do you feel like that's an another gallery of yours? So you're actually capturing images, printing them out, but then posting them on the social media and sharing them with the world. Do you consider that your own gallery? So we all have our own gallery to present to the world.

SPEAKER_00 26:25

I see my website as my gallery. I see uh social media as the these are stories that I've covered recently, these are the things that um I've talked to people about recently. It isn't always my best photography because nowadays, and we have to be honest, Instagram used to be about photography. It used to be now it's about the algorithm, it's about um the sensationalizing, which is why creatives who have the best work are the creatives with less coverage on Instagram and the social media, because they're the ones covering the real stories, stuff that people don't want to hear about. Um, so I see Instagram um and other social media as ways for me to get a message out. Um, last year, um one of the local papers voted my Instagram the bestest, um, the best Instagram of the year because of the fact that I use it as a blog to get community stories out there. Okay. So um that's the way I inform the community about things that are happening, social media. I use it for that reason. But my best work you find on my website. And that's what I use to in order to hopefully get hired by nonprofits to go cover their work.

SPEAKER_03 27:35

Oh, okay. So they reach out to you, like you were saying, your friends that are community organizers.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Okay. Like next one, next week I'll be covering an event um around voting. Uh several organizations are coming together, they're gonna walk to the polls and I'm gonna photograph that. Um, and then just some of my some of the best jobs I've gotten have been because of my website. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

That says a lot. Um what's your message to anyone thinking that this type of work doesn't apply to them capturing moments in time?

SPEAKER_00 28:10

Everything appl um everything applies to everybody. Right now we're all in it together. Um and the thing is, in the history of our country, we've always been together. Um if we look at the true history of our country, there was a time that even poor white farmers were in solidarity with um enslaved black people. Sure was. They were in solidarity because they realized, obviously, they realized they weren't in the same exact position, but they realized that the rich people were also treating them badly, and they were beginning to organize together until um the founding, uh, quote unquote founding fathers convinced them that if they helped fight in the revolution, they'll be given um positions of privilege. And that was the beginning of us starting to feel separated in this country because at that one point we were starting to feel some solidarity or at least recognition of each other's plight. So, somewhere along the line, we've forgotten that we are in it together. We went from a position of barn raising where we were helping each other, to a mentality of um pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Uh uh a mentality of I'm in it for me. Um, it's gotta be about me. Um so what I say to people is that the current conditions, the current position we're in in our country right now shows us that um that we're in it together. What affects one community affects another. As I mentioned, these anti anti-sanctuary city bills, these um these um these voting bills are um a clandestine way to attack the rest of our community uh while going after one population. Um same way that during the civil rights era, um, you know, the keeping the black community from voting was another way of keeping women from voting as well as other people from voting. Um we we the system is you we is putting us against each other. Um so what affects us one affects all in different ways, obviously. We need to we need to have an understanding similar to, and I was talking to people about this. Um often when we look at solidarity and um allyship, we look at it from the perspective of the Rainbow Coalition uh with Jesse Jackson and others, like you're black, I'm brown, we're obviously friends, um, when not recognizing each other's struggles. I like to look at more like um Stokely Carmichael and SNCC, where Stokely Carmichael basically uh has said that um I'll resp uh I want to learn about your oppression. You learn about my oppression. Let's respect each other's different oppressions, but at the same time see what the commonality is so that we can work together. We're not automatic allies. We appreciate and understand each other's um oppression and then find the common ground so that we can fight together. So what affects one affects all, um, which is why we need to come together right now. And when it comes to covering stories, go out and support, go out and cover these stories, but also be respectful of the other person's um situation, conditions, oppression. Um, often in the past, we saw that the white community would come out and tell us what our oppression was and support us by by saying, you need to support black people, you need to support immigrants, without even knowing what that meant. Have a conversation with the people you want to support that you want to work with, understand them and support them based on what they need and what they say they need in order to support each other in a respectful way, in a way where it's reciprocal, versus going in and telling somebody what's wrong in their community. And then from there, just go out and um and cover these stories. In the end, it really comes down to conversations. Get to know each other. If you're gonna go out with a camera, put the camera away. Don't even bring it out. Have a conversation, get to know the person, build a relationship, and then bring it out and have a conversation with them, and then photograph them because by then you know them, you know what kind of shot you want to get because you got to know them, yeah, but also you have their permission because of it. Yeah, and once you have that permission, you get that extra smirk or the extra smile you would not have gotten. And then um, and then you have a fuller story, and we're telling all the stories we need to tell, and we're working together as one.

SPEAKER_03 32:23

Yeah. I like that one. Can you explain? It kind of leads into this one, but I want you to explain it.

The American Dream And Future Hope

SPEAKER_00 32:30

So, this one I as I mentioned earlier, I was in a uh in a mentorship class, and uh a lot of my work is very in my most of my work has been literal. Look, there's a photo of an immigrant, this is what they're facing. Um, advice I got from my mentor during this um when I was making this one is um was stop being literal. Stop being literal. I want to see you be more expressive. I want to see you thinking outside of the box. So I went out and um a lot of people think this has been photoshopped.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

This is not photoshopped.

SPEAKER_03 33:01

So was it hanging?

SPEAKER_00 33:02

I literally used fishing line and hung this in front of the flag. Um and then photographed it. That way I get the depth of feel, but the flag's a little blurry and this is in focus. And basically this piece I call it the American Dream because uh immigrants come here, they work hard, elevate this country, and um are blood dry. So that's where the blood bag comes from. Um the the American flag, when it's in this position with the stars in the lower left-hand corner, it means America in crisis. So America's in crisis right now. The blood, once again, is the blood of the immigrant community as their blood dry for the American dream. Um, if you look at the smaller details, where usually in this section right here, you see this amount of blood from the main pool. In this case, the main pool is the average of the amount of blood in the in the undocumented immigrant community. Wow. Um, usually it says keep refrigerated, this one says keep enslaved. Uh when it says the the collection dates of the blood, you see it says 1492 to present. So it's the um the collection of the of the blood of the never-ending collection of our blood. Yeah. Because we also have to recognize that not all immigrants are brown like me. Many of them are white, many of them are of indigenous blood. My ancestry covers black, white, and indigenous because of the Puerto Rican. So a lot of my Puerto Rican side has a lot of roots in African traditions and a lot of um indigenous traditions, and on my Ecuadorian side, a lot of um Native American traditions as well. Um, but obviously the the Spanish influence. So this is to um support all immigrants in our country um who come here to work but are still treated badly, still treated as though their labor has no value. So we're bleeding them dry in order to reach the American dream. Once they um and they're not able to collect the same benefits as us, they work hard, pay taxes, but they can't collect on Social Security, they can't collect on um on Medicare, Medicaid, or any other benefits. So that's what this piece is about. How the American dream believes the American community and they still cannot achieve the American dream unless they become a U.S. citizen. And now, with the um current regime working to take away that citizenship, that's not a there's not a lot of people that uh let me not say that.

SPEAKER_02 35:34

Most of the people I talk to uh don't feel like things are going particularly great right now, and don't feel like things are heading in a positive direction. Um but you've had a lot of positive things to say, at least not necessarily about trajectories, but people and the way that we interact with each other. Do you feel like we're still heading down the hole, or do you see the the dip coming? Are there positive things in our future?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Often we hear, um, especially from the older generation sayings like in order to go up, you gotta hit rock bottom. Right. And the thing is, uh, I feel that we've come pretty close to rock bottom. Often, often the people on the left, the people that we vote for, aren't really left or really progressive. They're more moderate. Um, so therefore, we don't see many of the things we need or want to see in our community. Um, and uh and we feel that the only way to to beat uh or to win against those that hurt us is to be somewhere down the middle. Where I'm going with this is that right now, because of the current situation in our country right now, we're seeing uh kind of a shift more to a progressive way of looking at things because we've seen that the way things have always worked are not working anymore. Yeah. We're starting to see that it's time to try something different because we've also heard another saying from people. Um the um see, insanity is doing the same thing over and over and over again and expecting different results. Yep. Yes, so we and the thing is also the younger generations are showing us that there is a different way to do things. Yeah. Um, because and often the older generations criticize that, the different ways that young people look, like, oh my god, you're so entitled. Oh my god. The thing is, when I explain to people, they're not entitled. They're doing exactly what we taught them. We went through it, we want it better for our kids, so we taught them another way of looking at the world. So it isn't that they're entitled, it's not that they're these weird young kids. We taught them that because we wanted a better life for them. And because of that, they never lived through the experiences we live through. So they can't conceptualize those. All they know is the atmosphere, the community they live in now, the environment they live in now. So, because of that, I feel that um that we're heading in a better direction. And um, you know, people think this uh this is kind of funny when I say it, but like um now that uh the the older um I don't know if I'm able to say this here, that the older white generation is dying, yeah, um, a lot of those values are dying with them. Yeah. And now we have the younger generations that are seeing a different way of looking at things. So once those older white generations, or let me rephrase um older white heterosexual, cisgender, um male generation dies, we will see. So I do see us moving in a better direction, but I'm also seeing that um that the the white nationalism, all that is coming more to the forefront because they're feeling more emboldened because of who's in power right now. Uh but I feel that sort of works to our benefit because now we know who our enemy is. I mean point them out. No, right. But I feel that we we shouldn't attack those who voted the opposite of what our beliefs are. Um if they're starting to see the light, right? We shouldn't shame them for that because then we're not gonna win them over. But it because we need more people to win. We need more people to see that there is another way of doing things. And we we in in the movement need to set the example of how we want other people to believe uh to act. We can't uh take the example of the French Revolution, where when the poor people took over, they became the new oppressors. Yeah. Or in India, after Gandhi and his um allies won their won their um their campaign, the new government outlawed sit-ins. Outlawed so basically they became the new oppressors. Yeah. This happens a lot. Exactly. We can't employ the st the strategies and tactics that we condemn. Yeah. So because of that, I feel that we can move forward and we are moving in a better direction because we're able to actually see what's wrong with the world and do something about it. Now, I hope that we could do it in time because climate change is real and our our world is burning.

SPEAKER_01 40:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:09

Yeah.

Expensive Lesson For Organizers

SPEAKER_03 40:10

Can you pick a card, any card?

SPEAKER_00 40:12

Okay. Um I'll do this one. The lesson card. What's an expensive lesson you've learned that didn't cost money? Expensive lesson that didn't cost money. Um So when I first became uh an organizer and I've committed this uh mistake a few times since then, I started thinking about how I'm failing as an organizer, how I'm failing to elevate people's voices, and how um yeah, how I'm failing. And the lesson I learned there is that we I started the campaigns I started, we started losing them more and more and more because it became about me. It became about my success and whether I elevated enough voices. Once I realized that it wasn't about me and it's about the people that I'm working with, the people whose voices need to get elevated, once they start elevating their voices, we started going in another direction when I stopped making it about me and my success and making it more about them being able to speak out. So for me, it was expensive in the sense that we started losing. At times I almost lost my job because of it, because we were just failing. And and those people started losing their campaign. And but when it became about them, we started winning. Um, and they they got the changes they wanted to see. They were to beat, they were able to beat out big corporations and win. Um one example I have of that is this family um that um they're undocumented. The the two oldest daughters were U.S. citizens, the two youngest sons, U.S. citizens, the middle daughter undocumented. They came to this country seeking a better life because the the middle daughter was born with hydrosophalia and spinal bifida. Doctors said that the she would have like two months to live. The family braved the border, moved to the U.S. to save her life. Now she's 32 years old. She was two years old at the time. But while here, they were about to lose their house because Bank of America, after the family signed a um fixed rate mortgage, changed the terms on them anyway. It became uh basically it was more like an adjustable, uh, a variable. But where I was going with this is that the family decided to elevate their voices. We told them that the only way we went is if they elevate their own voices. We took advantage of the Democratic Convention being in Charlotte. We used that to elevate the elevate their story to the media. It got to the point that people all over the country started sending the money, started sending money to the family to pay their bills. Uh, Bank of America forgave $20,000 in debt and cut their mortgage payments in half. And so that's what happens when you uh help other people to tell their own stories and make it about them versus you and your organization, you win.

SPEAKER_03 43:09

Yeah.

Find Hector, Hire Him, Apply

SPEAKER_03 43:11

So before we wrap up, can you tell us where people can find you, hire you, admira you?

SPEAKER_00 43:21

So coming up, and if you want to help make that possible, I'm hoping to start a new project in South Carolina, in Saluda. Um a community that would um that was falling apart, the economy was dying, and then next thing you know, when immigrants moved there, the economy started improving, and over 55% of the people in that county, in that city are now immigrants. Um, so I would like to do a documentary project on the history of that and how that works. Um I if you are a nonprofit and you would like to tell your story, your story, just let me know. Uh, um that's my whole business model is nonprofit organizations because uh I've realized that nonprofits don't have the best photography. Um so you can reach me at um on Instagram at Hector Vacacruz or um abre la boca photo, A-B-R-E-L-A-B-O-C-A-P-H-O-T-O on Instagram or my website, abre la boca.com. Um my email is Hector at Abre Labocafoto.com. So hit me up and together we can work together to elevate your stories, the stories of the community you're working with. And you can also help me to be able to tell more stories on personal projects like the one I mentioned in Saluda. And um if you're in Charlotte in October of next year, come to my next solo show, which is gonna be all about trash at um Lata Nature Preserve, because this year during the drought, the water receded and we got to see all the trash that people left behind. Wow. So I'm calling it basura at Lata. Um basura is Spanish for trash. And Lata could also be taking like cans in English. So um, so there's that one, and then this January, curating an old Latino show at the Vision Performing Arts Center here in Charlotte.

SPEAKER_03 45:07

And you're still looking for artists for that, right?

SPEAKER_00 45:09

Still looking for Latino artists for that one. So if you are a person with ties to Latin America or Iberia, Iberia being Spain and Portugal, um, hit me up on my Instagram and you can be part of the exhibit. You have until the 25th of this month to apply um to apply.

SPEAKER_03 45:26

And this month is October.

SPEAKER_00 45:28

This month of October.

SPEAKER_03 45:29

You have until the 25th of October. All right. So thank you so much. We appreciate you being on this episode. I know I learned a lot about documentary photography.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Oh, yeah, this is uh excellent. And uh we we kind of discovered that we actually were tour guides at a show that you were in and and we had seen some of these pieces before. Um so we've kind of put that together in the background. So we've been we've been fans of your work for a while and didn't even know it.

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah. Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me on this show. This was a great honor to talk to you guys, get to know you guys. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

We'll be in contact with you soon and definitely send us your stuff so we can repost it for you.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Okay, thank

Closing Thanks And Stay Present

SPEAKER_00 46:03

you.

SPEAKER_03 46:03

All right, you guys tell someone you love them and appreciate them. It's getting crazy out here. So be in the present moment. Signing out from the Hilltop Club Podcast. I'm Tamaya.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Hack Travaka.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

Did you hear what? Love you guys. We'll talk to you soon. Bye.