CLASSY
queen for a day
Why are we so attracted to stories of people suffering on television? And what happens after the cameras turn off? In our final episode, Jonathan explores the origins of reality TV and uncovers his family’s shocking connection to a very early reality TV game show.
Angelina is an educator and poet. You can find her books of poetry at https://angelinasaenz.com/
EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
JONATHAN MENJIVAR: I used to think that Oprah could save us. Or really, that she could save my mom. My mom was a forklift operator at a paint and wallpaper factory and things between her and my stepdad had been rocky for years. I wanted to change her life. I wanted to clap my hands and give my mom stability. I wanted Oprah to give my mom a house, like I’d seen on her show.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, The Oprah Winfrey Show]
GUEST: It’s not what I think it is.
OPRAH: Yes it is, it’s what you think it is. You’re going to need to pack up your bags and everything else you own because we’re going to make that life long dream come true. We bought you a new house!
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I thought about the letter I would send in: the sob story pitch I’d make about everything my mom had sacrificed for me and my brother. I was only a teenager, but I understood the formula. The way that you have to sell all your hardships and struggles in this perfect little package … I never did send the letter, but we all know this move right? The reality TV we all love to devour–the game shows, the talk shows, the “I guess I’m going to marry you if I win this show shows”--a lot of that kind of TV has this trope where like, the way to win the game is to use anything awful that’s happened to you. Money troubles, violence, health problems… you take that stuff and you spin it as the thing you’re there to overcome. It’s on home shows like Extreme Makeover. It’s on The Bachelor, Queer Eye, America’s Got Talent and the Voice. Competition shows like Survivor.
[ARCHIVAL MONTAGE: SURVIVOR, AMERICAN IDOL, THE BACHELOR]
SURVIVOR: I grew up in Los Angeles, CA. My family didn’t have college degrees, they had like addictions, right? Nobody went to college, they went to prison.
AMERICAN IDOL: I realized I knew how to sing after Katrina. Did you guys lose everything? Everything.
THE BACHELOR: This week actually, my mom was released from federal prison.
[tape fades under]
JONATHAN: These shows often turn into a kind of poverty Olympics where sometimes it seems like the point of the show is to see who has it the worst. Why are we drawn to these kinds of stories? In the world we live in, where some people have, and some people do not, there is something to a story about someone who is suffering. And the fantasy that somebody could swoop in and dramatically change everything in an instant. Maybe that’s appealing because you feel guilty about your advantages… or maybe you’re imagining that it might be you who gets saved one day … From Pineapple Street Studios, this is Classy, a show about the chasms between us that are really hard to talk about, but too big to ignore. I’m Jonathan Menjivar. And, it’s here: this is the final episode of this series. As a fan of reality TV, as someone who understands that my emotions are being manipulated and very much enjoying that my emotions are being manipulated, I’ve always wondered, watching these kinds of shows, particularly when people are wringing out their traumas for the cameras like this: What happens when those cameras turn off? And what parts of that person’s story didn’t fit into the frame?
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Chasing those questions took me back about 70 years--to the show that is possibly the source of this whole reality tv trope--of people parading their suffering for the chance to be saved. And the more I learned about it, the more I discovered that that show, it's also the source of a lot of my shit, too.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: Now watch yourselves in the monitor as I say, would you like to be Queen For A Day?! [CROWD CHEERS]
[tape fades under]
JONATHAN: Queen For A Day was a television show that ran on NBC in the 50s and then ABC in the early 60s. Before that it’d been a radio show. It’s been called the worst program on television. It was also immensely popular, millions of people were watching it every day. Ad revenue and corporate sponsorship was rolling in … It was hosted by the guy you just heard there, his name was Jack Bailey. And the premise of the show was this: Each episode, four to five women were picked from the studio audience, and pitted against each other to see who had it the worst. These were poor and working-class women, dealing with horrific, but also kind of everyday problems. They’d come on and explain some hardship they were going through and ask for something that would help.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
QUEEN FOR A DAY CONTESTANT: I would like to have more than anything in the world a record player for my boy who just had open heart surgery in February.
JACK BAILEY: How old is this little boy?
CONTESTANT: 15. He was 15 Saturday.
JACK BAILEY: He wants, he likes music?
CONTESTANT: Yes, he loves it.
JACK BAILEY: What kind of music?
CONTESTANT: Any kind.
JACK BAILEY: Bee-bop and all that?
CONTESTANT: Mostly, uh huh.
JACK BAILEY: They have that new Twist junk, I don’t understand that.
JONATHAN: One thing you really notice watching this show is that the women, they don’t know how to sell their stories. They’re nervous, oftentimes clearly upset. They’re not schooled in the reality show vocabulary we all know now. The writer Meghan O’Gieblyn first pointed this out in a piece for The New Yorker. They’re looking down at the ground, they’re breathing heavy. Some of them are on the brink of tears.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: Did you get a good, deep breath? Well you look so cute and shaky, don’t worry about a thing. Is that a new dress? It looks wonderful.
DOROTHY: No.
JONATHAN: This woman Dorothy, she wants materials to build two sets of bunk beds for her kids. They live in a trailer and they’re all sharing beds. In another episode I saw, a woman needs her car fixed so she can get to her job as a nanny … And then there’s this woman, Ruth. When it’s her turn to talk to Jack Bailey … she’s clutching and twisting this handkerchief in her hands. Which Jack Bailey points out and makes fun of.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: And you’ve got shattered nerves, you’re wrinkling your nice little handkerchief here. Did you tap that yourself?
RUTH: No.
JACK BAILEY: Yes, no. er, something, You want a glass of water? We got some old stale water, I wish you’d drink it, it’s turning green, maybe it’d help you.
JONATHAN: Jack Bailey, he’s trying to be funny I guess, but he’s just tearing these women down. It’s like your high school bully got his own TV show. It gets worse when the women, like this woman Ruth, reveal what they’ve been dealing with.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
RUTH: Yes um, I lost my husband in November to a hunting accident. He was out hunting and his buddy accidentally shot him.
JACK BAILEY: Leaving you and the two kids?
RUTH: Mhhmm.
[MUSIC]
JACK BAILEY: Ruth, what do you want if you're Queen for a Day? What can we do to help you?
RUTH: Well, I’d like to go to school to learn a trade. Either be a beautician or anything…it’s so hard to find a job now, I can’t get a job, and…
[tape fade slowly into music]
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: And then at the end of the show, it turns darker. All of the women sit on stage behind a table and then one by one, the audience decides, basically, which of them has it the worst.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: Now we’re going to have the voting by the people in the audience and we’re going to have it right now. Your applause for candidate #1! [audience claps]
[tape fades under]
JONATHAN: While they’re clapping, an applause-o-meter appears on the screen and the woman with the loudest claps, she gets to be Queen For A Day and have her wish granted.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: #2! [audience claps]
[tape fades under]
JONATHAN: While this is going on, the women look pained. One woman on the panel, she’s so nervous and upset that her chest is heaving. It’s really hard to watch. These women have just told all of America how much they’re suffering and now the audience is determining if they’ve suffered enough. Finally, Jack Bailey crowns the winner. #3, Ruth, the woman whose husband was shot in a hunting accident.
[ARCHIVAL CLIP, Queen For A Day]
JACK BAILEY: I now crown you Queen Ruth! Queen For A Day!
JONATHAN: They put a crown on Ruth and wrap her in a big royal robe, give her a dozen long stem roses. They grant her wish to go to beauty school, and they also give her a bunch of stuff she hasn’t asked for: a big ironing machine, a hot water heater, and for her daughters several Betsy Wetsy dolls, and a new puppy. We don’t see any of the other contestants again.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I heard about this show several times when I was growing up. Because the thing I haven’t told you yet is that sometime during the run of the show my grandmother was on it. Her name’s Maria, she’s my mother’s mom. She’s a Mexican woman who married an American and moved to the US. My mom was two years old when they moved from one border town, Agua Prieta in Mexico, to the town just across the border, Douglas, Arizona … Growing up, I never understood what the show was. It was always talked about in the context of my grandmother’s beauty. Like oh, she was so beautiful that they let her on this TV show Queen For A Day. At least, that’s what my child brain thought. I knew that the show rewarded and celebrated ordinary women, but I never knew the part about them having to sell their hardships like this. It was only when I started looking into it for this podcast that I understood how it all worked–how twisted it really was. And I really wanted to know, WHY was she on it? What misery was she parading in front of the cameras?... I saw my mom at a wedding when I started working on this story and talked to her about the TV show. And she told me something really shocking.
[Phone rings]
JONATHAN: Stupidly, I didn’t pull out my phone to record what she was saying, so I called her afterwards to tell me again.
JONATHAN: Can you tell me again real quick what you told me? So, I said to you, I asked you “Do you know what the show is? Like what it’s about?”
MOM: Right… and I said it was about reconnecting family members. Because my mom went on there to find my sister.
JONATHAN: Growing up, I knew this much about my aunt Julietta, we always called her Tía Julie. She had grown up in Mexico, but at some point she came to live with my mom and her family in America. I’d never known it was connected to my grandmother’s appearance on Queen For A Day.
JONATHAN: I had no idea that’s why she was on there.
MOM: Mhm. Yeah, she won second place. And I remember, she looked beautiful on there. You know cause, she was younger, much of course. Um, and I remember they talked to her first and then they talk – she was the runner up. So they gave her a whole bouquet of flowers, roses. And handed it to her. And then they told her that they were going to send her to Mexico to be reunited with her daughter.
JONATHAN: And did you know about Julie before then?
MOM: No.
JONATHAN: Wow.
MOM: All I knew was that my dad said “Your mom’s going to be on TV” And I said oh, and then he put it on. And that’s when he told me, “You have a sister that she’s bringing back to the states.” And my sister was 10 years old.
JONATHAN: Wait, that's how you found out?
MOM: Yeah.
JONATHAN: That’s crazy mom!
MOM: Yeah, I didn’t even know I had a sister.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Do you think she knew about you?
MOM: No. I think, she didn’t even know she was going to be picked up.
JONATHAN: I can’t believe it all unfolded like that, that is...
MOM: Yeah.
JONATHAN: That’s really crazy. Wow. Um. Alright.
MOM: Let me know if you want any more questions answered.
JONATHAN: Okay. Alright.
MOM: Okay.
JONATHAN: Thank you… bye.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I tried finding the episode my grandmother was on. I went on YouTube, I bought a DVD of old episodes. Called and emailed universities and all the places that keep television archives. Very kind archivists dug around and told me, I’m sorry. We don’t have the episode with your grandmother. It seemed like only about 8-12 episodes of Queen For A Day survived. One expert said the copies of the show had been thrown in the ocean. Another one told me the story he heard was that it was the Hudson River. The more likely story is that the networks reused tape back then. They’d record over old shows. They didn’t think episodes were worth saving. Whatever happened, it was clear: My grandmother’s appearance on Queen For A Day was gone.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Have you ever heard of Queen For A Day?
ANGELINA SÁENZ: No.
JONATHAN: You’ve never heard of Queen For A Day.
ANGELINA: No.
JONATHAN: OK. So uh…
[tape fades under]
JONATHAN: My cousin Angelina is five years older than me. Her mom was my Tía Julie. The one who supposedly came over as a result of Queen For A Day. I wanted to talk to her, because however this went down, the fact that my mother was brought to the U.S. and her mother was left behind in Mexico for years, all of that had a profound effect on the trajectory of my life and Angelina’s life … Growing up, there was a notable class difference between the two of us. I was living with a working-class mom and step-dad who were renting a nice house in the suburbs. Angelina was growing up in L.A with a single mom. For a period they were homeless. My Tía Julie was struggling with alcoholism and she passed away in 1992. This was the part of our story that didn’t fit in the camera frame. When I called Angelina she was driving. I explained the basic premise of Queen For A Day to her. And she had the appropriate reaction.
ANGELINA: That is fucking surreal, ok.
JONATHAN: Okay. So the other part of this is that while I was growing up I’d always heard that our grandmother was on the show.
ANGELINA: Oh that Maria was on the show?
JONATHAN: Yeah.
ANGELINA: (Laughs). Don’t tell me you fucking found that shit!
JONATHAN: So I didn’t find it. I have tried to find it.
ANGELINA: That is all we need in our goddamn narrative. O-M-G, ok.
JONATHAN: Then I told her everything my mom had told me. That her dad sat her down one day and said, your mom’s not here right now, but she’s going to be on this TV show.
JONATHAN: And also you have a long lost sister.
ANGELINA: Mmmk.
JONATHAN: And that that is what our grandmother went on the TV show to ask for.
ANGELINA: Oh for my mom?
JONATHAN: Was to bring your mom to the United States.
ANGELINA: Fascinating. Okay. Okay. Once again the US came through in ruining somebody’s fucking life. (Both laugh). Oh my god. Unbelievable. Okay. That’s fascinating.
JONATHAN: This is not... You’ve never heard this story?
ANGELINA: Oh never. The plot thickens.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: What’s the story that you heard about how your mom got here?
ANGELINA: The only story my mom said was that she was in, she was in Tepic and Maria literally appeared out of nowhere.
JONATHAN: Tepic is a city in Central Mexico where our family’s from. They lived in a rural area on the outskirts. It was basically the jungle. Angelina says that from what she knows, our grandmother wanted to bring my Tía Julie to Whittier, CA where they were now living. Where I grew up. But the family in Mexico said no.
ANGELINA: And then Maria was like I’m just going to take her into town to buy clothes. But she took her into town and abducted her basically. So like literally from the moment that my mother met her, within 72 hours, or within like 4 days, my mom was in Whittier. With a total fucking stranger.
JONATHAN: Holy shit.
JONATHAN: Angelina said my Tía lived with my mom and her family for a few years, but she fought being there the whole time. Eventually it got bad enough that she left and ended up in the foster care system.
ANGELINA: So then my mom was in foster care for four years.
JONATHAN: Woah.
ANGELINA: It’s pretty gnarly.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I was still deeply interested in answers that it was clear Angelina couldn’t give me. I wanted to know what actually happened that day on Queen For A Day. And the thing is, I could talk to my grandmother. She’s still alive, living in Georgia. But I hadn’t talked to her for decades. I knew as a reporter, that that’s the thing I should do. Just pick up the phone and ask her about it. But what my mom said she shared on the show, the story of bringing her sister, my Tía Julie to the United States… that was only the beginning of decades of some pretty dark family history. In my mom’s house growing up there was abuse and violence of all kinds. For my Tía Julie it ended tragically. When she was in her early 40s, she died of cirrhosis of the liver … And now that I think about it, it was around that time that we stopped talking to my grandmother. We’d fallen out with her before, and I can’t even tell you exactly why, but it was all tied up in that family history. And the fact that my grandmother Maria was a Jehovah’s Witness, and we were not … The last time I talked to my grandmother, I think I was about 15.
JONATHAN: I wish I could just call her and ask her about this… But…
ANGELINA: But I feel like you can. Do you have her number?
JONATHAN: My mom has her number. I was scared to call to her, I don’t know I haven’t talked to her in so long.
ANGELINA: I don't. I mean. I feel like for your mom and my mom they have such a like, like she triggers the shit out of them. I don’t think she’d trigger me, even if she talked shit about my mom. Or, and I also feel like I could glean things, right?
JONATHAN: You’re convincing me that I should call!
ANGELINA: You should!
[MUSIC]
ANGELINA: Alright, to be continued. Love you cousin.
JONATHAN: Love you too. Have a safe drive home.
ANGELINA: Thank you.
JONATHAN: OK. Bye bye.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: When we come back, I get the courage to do what I should’ve done all along. I talk to my grandmother for the first time in thirty years.
[AD BREAK]
JONATHAN: Jonathan here, your very classy host. And when we left off, my cousin Angelina had just convinced me that I should call our grandmother Maria to find out more about her appearance on Queen For A Day, and exactly what went down back then … It’d been at least thirty years since we’d last talked and that wasn’t a coincidence. My mom cut her out of our lives. And we’d never really been all that close to begin with. I remember hanging out in her trailer home. I remember her chicken mole. I remember her giving me copies of The Watchtower whenever I got bored. But what I mostly remember is the absence. That having her in our lives had proved incredibly difficult, so she wasn’t there. And now I was gonna brush aside all that history to ask about a TV show? I was scared. I felt a weight in my chest. I held off making the call for about a month. Making excuses, pretending other work was way more important. And then finally, I ran out of time. I had to do it. I crawled into the closet where I record this show… and pressed record.
JONATHAN: [deep breath] OK. So um, my god. I’m about to call my grandma. Um. Alright, let's see what happens.
[RINGS]
MARIA: Hello?
JONATHAN: Hello, is this Maria? Hello, can you hear me?
MARIA: Yes.
JONATHAN: Hi, Maria, this is Jonathan, your grandson.
MARIA: What?
JONATHAN: Yes. Do -
MARIA: Okay honey. Where are you calling from?
JONATHAN: I, I live in New Jersey.
MARIA: Okay.
JONATHAN: Hi.
MARIA: Hi.
JONATHAN: How are you. I know we haven’t talked for a really long time.
MARIA: Yes.
JONATHAN: My grandmother is 87 now. She was obviously surprised to hear from me, but very willing to talk. She told me she remembered going to an amusement park with me when I was kid.
MARIA: Oh yeah, we went to Knott’s Berry Farm. I have the pictures in my room. I see you every day.
JONATHAN: I told her that I’m a reporter now. And I had some questions.
JONATHAN: I am doing a story about a TV show called Queen For A Day.
MARIA: Okay.
JONATHAN: Do you, my mom says that you were on the show?
MARIA: Yes. Yes.
JONATHAN: Yeah. Can you tell me about it?
MARIA: One of my sisters, because you know I’m Jehovah’s Witness, in the Truth.
JONATHAN: She’s saying you know I’m a Jehovah’s Witness in the Truth. She explained that one of her sisters in the church was going to a taping of the show with her mom and they asked if my grandmother wanted to come along. So they go to Hollywood, they sit down in the audience. And my grandmother gets picked. She goes and talks to Jack Bailey. She said she wasn’t nervous at all, just happy. And then she told me what she asked for. According to her it was NOT to get my Tía Julie.
MARIA: I was asking to go and see my sister in Mexico City. Pola was having an operation and it was in Mexico City.
JONATHAN: Tía Pola?
MARIA: Yeah, and they sent me over there to see her.
JONATHAN: Okay.
JONATHAN: She told me that even though she didn’t win, even though she got in second, Queen For A Day still granted her wish and decided to help her out.
MARIA: And they get a ticket in the plane, and then send me to Mexico City. And they pay for everything.
JONATHAN: They paid for everything?
MARIA: Yeah.
JONATHAN: Clearly, this was a different story than what my mom had told me. Had my mom been confused? Was my grandmother not remembering it right?
JONATHAN: So I talked to my mom about this and she remembers a different version of why you went on. She said that you went on to get my Tía Julie.
MARIA: Julie. Julie didn’t came with me then.
JONATHAN: No?
MARIA: No. Julie was with me already in Whittier, CA.
JONATHAN: She was already with you in Whittier?
MARIA: Yeah.
JONATHAN: I felt bad about continuing to push this old woman for details … And then, before I could even think about my next question, my grandmother started telling me even more wild stuff. And I just want to give you a head’s up that some of this is upsetting. She told me that while she was in Mexico on this Queen For A Day funded trip, her mother threatened to kill her. In fact she told me multiple stories about her mother threatening to kill her. We hadn’t spoken for decades and within half an hour, she was telling me deeply upsetting stories about the violence in our family … So maybe she’d come to visit her sick sister AND taken my Tía back to the states on the same trip? Or maybe she had the timeline wrong.
JONATHAN: When did you bring Julie?
MARIA: I don’t remember.
JONATHAN: Okay.
MARIA: Pero, I brought Julia before I went for Queen for a Day.
JONATHAN: I see.
MARIA: That’s why my mother was so angry with me and said I’m going to kill you.
JONATHAN: So according to my grandmother, she had brought Julie to the US before Queen For A Day. And that is why her mother wanted to kill her. If the story had gone down like Angelina had been told and my grandmother basically took Julie from our family in Mexico who she was living with, that story sort of made sense. Although, my god, none of this makes any sense at all.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: When I got off the phone, I was shaking. What was I supposed to make of all of this? My grandmother couldn’t remember the exact date or even the year when she went on the show. So I wouldn’t be able to compare that to any immigration records or anything about when my Tía Julie came here. It was also clear that I wasn’t going to be able to track down the episode. I called my mom again to make sure she hadn’t remembered this wrong. And she insisted no, my grandmother brought Julie AFTER she was on Queen For A Day … But at some point it occurred to me, the particular details–they didn't really matter. Whatever my grandmother had asked for on Queen For A Day, whether she got my Tía Julie before or after being on the show, what difference did it make? What did matter to me now was all of those details, they were all part of a larger family history that I have generally avoided. Whenever people started talking about it, I just shut down. I went into turtle mode to protect myself because it was all so dark … And it wasn't just the story of what went on in Mexico that I avoided. It was the way that past reached across the border and affected all of our lives here. Not long after that call with my grandmother, I reached out to my cousin Angelina again.
JONATHAN: Hola. ¿Cómo estás?
ANGELINA: Excelente.
JONATHAN: She came into our studio in Hollywood. And I shared with her everything that our grandmother Maria had told me. After our call, my grandmother had even sent me a couple pictures of her on Queen For A Day. One with Jack Bailey and the other contestants on the set of the show. And another picture of her getting off a plane on a runway. She’s walking down the stairs of the plane and she looks like Jackie O. I showed them to Angelina.
JONATHAN: Even though she won second place, they ended up flying her down. And that's the picture of her.
ANGELINA: Oh, my God. She looks like a movie star. I mean, her name is Maria Félix, so.
JONATHAN: Yeah, she does look like a movie star. She's, like, all in white, descending this staircase. She's got, like, a little white hat.
JONATHAN: Angelina didn’t seem fazed by the stories of violence my grandmother had shared, because it was familiar to her. Angelina’s house had been so chaotic and violent growing up and she’s managed to move so far from that. Now that she’s got some space and some distance from it, she’s started asking questions … She doesn’t speak to our grandmother Maria either, but last summer she was in Tepic, visiting our family in Mexico. And she was talking to our grandmother’s brother. And, I want to give you a warning: What you’re about to hear has depictions of violence and abuse.
ANGELINA: You know, I grew up with so much violence. And I asked what's going on? Like, what is happening with all the violence? Because my mom, you know, she was… grandma had her when she was like 12 or 14, and then left her with our great grandmother. And in those ten years, my mom was severely abused with everybody in that house, and he said that his mom hated the women and he said she would try to hang them from the wooden beams of their palapa. And there were just repeated moments where, you know, great grandmother would go into rages and really go after the women.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: Angelina said that once our grandmother had managed to escape that house, she wanted to get other people out too.
ANGELINA: Grandma was kind of on a mission to rescue all the women. So she wanted to go to Mexico City and bring Tía Pola back to the United States to save her, supposedly from our great grandmother's, you know, violence and abuse.
JONATHAN: Angelina said our grandmother Maria, not only wanted to save her sister Pola, but all her sisters who were stuck in that house in Mexico. Maybe she was trying to save my Tía Julie too. We’ll probably never understand exactly how bad it all was. But Angelina and I are here now, trying to make sense of what happened.
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I wonder why you never heard about the show.
ANGELINA: I'm not sure my mom knew about it.
JONATHAN: Hmm.
ANGELINA: And my, my mom came to the U.S. and raised holy hell because she basically came from the jungle to Whittier. What? [BOTH LAUGH]
JONATHAN: Right.
ANGELINA: Literally. I mean, she was barefoot in the jungle of Nayarit and came to Whittier. And she didn't know any of these people. And she didn't speak English.
JONATHAN: What happened to my Tía Julie– it created this divide between me and Angelina growing up where even though we were from the same family and were living just a 30 minute drive away, our lives were almost unrecognizable to each other. As a child, I found her reality scary and difficult to look at.
ANGELINA: You know, our mothers really lived harrowing lives.
JONATHAN: Yeah.
ANGELINA: And then you and I went through the things that we went through, which were not easy at all. I'm in Hollywood. I hate Hollywood. This is where I was homeless. I can't stand it. It's okay. It's okay to be here. But we, we had these experiences. And when I was a teenager, there were elders in the community who took me under their wing and really helped me. And I know that there are people who have helped you too.
JONATHAN: It’s true, I have had help. My mom was constantly pushing, trying to make things better for us. Working at that factory, using a friend’s address so I could go to a better elementary school. Moving to that neighborhood where we lived in Whittier where even though we rented, I could swim in my neighbor’s pool. I could do BMX tricks in the street. I think because my life has been a bit of a struggle, I’ve often neglected to look at all the advantages I’ve had.
JONATHAN: I think there was early on in our relationship a kind of split that that created between you and me, you know, a difference where like, I think you must have seen the life I was living and just thought I was like, so privileged and rich even, you know.
ANGELINA: Well, our situation was so extreme that I think any level beyond where we were, to me was middle class or something like that. Mm hmm. A lot of my experience of you, for example, even reading your description for this show and saying I was a working-class Latinx kid, at this age, I can accept that. I get that. I didn't understand that when I was small. I thought, Were you homeless? Was your brother in jail? You know, I had, like, this whole list of things. No? Then you ain't shit! And you have nothing to say for yourself, right?!
[MUSIC]
JONATHAN: I don’t blame Angelina for feeling this way about me. I was doing it too. I was feeling the exact same way about the kids in my town who had more than me. Harboring so much anger. It’s such an easy trap to fall into, because it is unfair. It is very hard to sit with the reality that some people have it better off than you. Or maybe you have it better off than somebody else. That just feels gross. Especially when that person is your cousin … At some point, this class relationship between me and Angelina, and all this tension… it flipped. She got a scholarship to go to college and she went to Occidental. She was the first person I knew who’d gone to college. I went to see her there at least once. Saw a play her friends were putting on. We smoked cigars in her backyard and listened to music she’d discovered on a trip to Cuba. I was young and lost and Angelina had found a map. I wanted to borrow it.
JONATHAN: I saw what you were doing and it just, it was so appealing and so, like, my world had been so closed off.
ANGELINA: Hmm.
JONATHAN: Um, that I didn't. I just didn't. I didn't have examples of, like, how do I, you know, not work in a factory? I just, I didn't. I didn't see ways out. Um, I didn't understand how to get there, And I. I really do believe that you are one of the first ways that, um. Like an example of that for me.
ANGELINA: Wow. I had no idea. That's amazing. Yeah. I'm so happy that my going to college, you know, kind of stirred something for you. I also didn't know that you felt so limited and trapped.
[MUSIC]
ANGELINA: And in a lot of ways. You, I want to say that you've actually been in survival mode. You've been doing well, but you've been also recovering from experiences that you had growing up. And trying to build your new life as first-gen and the kind of life that you have. And you have had examples. There have been things and people that have helped you, but in so many ways you've done it on your own and that's what you've been doing with your time. Building a life that's like five and ten times further ahead than our parents experiences.
JONATHAN: Yeah, it's, um, I guess I'm grateful for the opportunity to have learned all this stuff. I mean, who would've thought that, like, this fucking TV show, you know, would have, like, unearthed this stuff for me?
JONATHAN: All of that family history, I’ve been taking it in over the last few months, really absorbing it for the first time. And I’ve gone from shaking about all the harrowing details… to really feeling insanely grateful about where I am now. That story I’ve told myself about everything I didn’t have growing up … it’s become a story about what I don’t have to deal with now. I have that family history, but I also have a house full of books and a car that works and a gold chain I like to wear. I have a wife who gets me and we have a kid who’s smart and funny and good at the drums. I have the map … For the longest time, I tried to blend in, to hide all of that stuff about where I came from. The good and the bad of it. But lately I’ve been borrowing this phrase Angelina uses all the time. Y que–and what? My parents are immigrants and my teeth are crooked and violence is only one generation away and I grew up working-class and now I’m something different. Y que?
[MUSIC]
CREDITS
So, thanks so much for listening to Classy and hanging out with us here through all these episodes. It’s not too late to rate and review Classy on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen. You all have left some really thoughtful reviews and it really is the best way for more people to discover the show.
And our Classy hotline is still open. We’ve really loved hearing your stories and questions … the number is 844-992-5277.
If you want to keep up with what I’m doing, I’m on Twitter @jon_menjivar, and Instagram @brokenbulb.
I want you to know that what we have made here, all of the ideas and feelings and jokes, and what this whole thing sounds like, it’s the team effort of a dedicated crew of super smart and classy people who made this idea a reality with me. Okay now, here’s the part where I read their names.
Classy is a production of Pineapple Street Studios. It’s written and produced by me, Jonathan Menjivar. Our Producer is Kristen Torres. Associate Producer, Marina Henke. Sr Managing Producer, Asha Saluja. Our Editor is Haley Howle. Executive Editor, Joel Lovell.
Our Assistant Engineer is Sharon Bardales and Jade Brooks. Engineering support for this episode from Javier Cruces. Senior Engineers are Marina Paiz and Pedro Alvira. Fact checking by Tom Colligan.
This episode was scored by me and mixed by Marina Paiz. Music in this episode from Joseph Shabason courtesy of Western Vinyl, Joseph Shabason + Vibrant Matter and Shabasin + Gunning courtesy of Seance Center. Super big shout out to Joseph. So much of the sound of this show was defined by his music. Additional music from Epidemic Sound.
Our artwork is by Curt Courtney and Lauren Viera at Cadence13. Marketing and promotion by Grace Cohen-Chen, Hillary Schupf, and Liz O’Malley. Legal services for Pineapple Street Studios by Kristel Tupja at Audacy. Special thanks to: Sophie Bridges, Kat Aaron, Jess Hackel, Leila Day, Bob Boden, Jake Bitters, Victoria Thomas, John Ibson, Matt Hart, and Hillary Frank. Jenna Weiss-Berman and Max Linsky are the Executive Producers at Pineapple Street.