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Latino Mental Health

Carolina Acosta didn’t grow up speaking Spanish or doing family game nights. Then she made a Spanglish drinking game. And it blew up.

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Host and producer: May Ortega Mixed by: Luis Antonio Perez Editors: Erin Jones, Andrew Villegas Project Manager: Rebekah Romberg Additional editorial support: Jo Erickson, Kibwe Cooper, Emily Williams Theme music by Pedro Lumbrano; additional music courtesy Universal Production Music Cover art: Mia Rincón Executive producers: Brad Turner, Kevin Dale

Thanks also to Hart van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Matt Herz, Kim Nguyen, Brittany Werges and CPR's members and staff.

<a href="http://quienarewe.org/">QuienAreWe.org</a>

Carolina Acosta: We were super into playing cards, having a regular deck of playing cards. We had so many types of games. We played goldfish. We had this game called Piggy. In middle school, I was like a champion at Spit. I was such a Spit master.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

May Ortega (to Carolina): [Laughs] I’m gonna call you that from now on. And what is that game about?

Carolina: So it's kind of Uno, but a little bit more violent. And so I remember we'd always just slap each other's hands during lunch and it would get very aggressive, but it was so fun [laughter].&nbsp;

May: This, coming from a woman whose family didn’t play many games growing up. She wouldn’t even call herself a big game girl. If you had told this teenage Spit Master that she was going to create her own viral card game, she’d laugh in your face. Then challenge you to a game of Spit. And win.

From Colorado Public Radio, this is “Quién Are We?” exploring what it means to be Colombian, Dominican, Morena, or however you identify, and diving into the beautiful things that make us who we are. I'm May Ortega.&nbsp;

Like I said, Carolina Acosta’s family was not big on board games, or any games of any kind. Well, not the Colombian side, anyway.

Carolina: I love that I have two sides of my family, and they are very different from each other. My Colombian side is on the smaller side, and my immediate family here in New York, there's not a lot of us. We all fit at one dinner table during the holidays. And then when I go visit my Dominican side. A lot of them live in Florida, so I used to spend my summers at my grandma's house, and that's where I would just run wild with all my cousins. It was just hundreds of cousins just playing all the time. We had so many variations of hide and seek. It would just get a little out of control.

The best version, you kind of do it backwards. One person hides. And we all start to look for that person. And then if you find that person first, you hide with them …

May (to Carolina): Oh, yeah yeah yeah!

Carolina: … and then the next person hides with them. And so now everybody's hiding in this space that doesn't fit like five to 10 people. Yeah, it's like a core kid memory for me.

May (to Carolina): I love that. That sounds amazing. So with your cousins, people around your age, you’d be outside playing a lot of games. How would each side of your family spend time together, let’s say, like during the holidays?

Carolina: The holidays in New York with my small little family here, I would say food was a really big thing for us. And so my family, we're just, let's eat a lot, let's drink a lot. Let's open presents and let's go to bed. That was it. We would just get stuffed. And then as adults, we still get stuffed, but then we get drunk. That’s all we do, really. And then there's all the family drama. There always has to be that to make it entertaining or else we're a little boring. All we do is gossip [laughter].

May (to Carolina): I love it. I love it. A rich family tradition [laughter].

Carolina: The same time that I was having a blast being a kid, underlying whatever I felt at the time was this sense of inadequacy. I felt it, especially with my mom, growing up with her, she, she taught me Spanish. Spanish was my first language, and I started going to school just as every kid does in the U.S. around four years old. And you have to learn English right away what everyone else is speaking. And I remember very clearly one day just coming back home and saying, I don't want to speak Spanish anymore.

And for a while it was fine and I didn't think anything of it. But growing up then you realize, I guess the struggles or that disconnect with your family. Even during the holidays, I would be very quiet as a kid because all my aunts or my uncles would come to visit, and then they'd be like, this girl doesn't even speak, what's wrong with her? And I'd just be too scared to talk Spanish poorly or talk English and offend them. May (to Carolina): Wow. And I totally feel that. Spanish was my first language as well, and I also started going to school and at school they were like, “You can’t speak Spanish here. This is America. You’re gonna learn how to speak English and forget all your Spanish.” And that’s exactly what happened to me.

Carolina: Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's so many of us that feel that way. And it's crazy because I told my story to a few others, and they will literally tell me the exact same story, like verbatim. And it's crazy how we've all gone through this, and it's a little sad.

May: Carolina felt like a tourist within her own culture. She knew something had to change, but she didn’t know where to start. Then, a new possibility came to her. Ultimately it would help her unearth Carolina, the Latina. But, she didn’t know it at the time.

May (to Carolina): You took a trip that was quite significant for you.&nbsp;

Carolina: Yeah, that was the starting point. That was kind of what changed everything. And it's one of those moments where you feel it in your gut, I have to do this even though it's scary.

My aunt on my Colombian side, my one aunt here, she had told me, she's like, Carolina, when are you going to go to Columbia? You've never been before. We're going to go on this trip. We're gonna do Cartagena and all these other places that you would really enjoy. Why don't you come with us? By then, I had already been to so many different places in Europe. I traveled in the U.S. But I was always kind of a little intimidated by South America because people had said that it was dangerous or I also felt like I wouldn't fit in there. So I had always avoided it, just a little bit out of fear, and she convinced me. And so we went, and that was so eye-opening.

I loved how they woke up every day and there was no stress. They all had to work, but they would just take their time getting ready. They would all just make time to talk as a family in the morning. It was one week, but it felt like two, because time stops in Latin America. I don't know what it is. I guess coming from New York, everything is so fast paced here.&nbsp;

This trip really was the one that made me feel like, okay, I think I belong in Columbia. My ancestors are calling me back for a reason. So I came back from that one week just completely enamored. I was kind of depressed to go back home, to be honest. And I thought I could totally live in Columbia, and I want to go back there, but I don't know when.

And so I started kind of manifesting it myself and just telling everybody how much I loved it and how much I belong there. And I kept saying, I want to go back to Columbia. I want to go back. And I think the algorithm was listening to me because then I got an Instagram ad for this work remote travel program called Remote Year. And I was like, oh, this is cool. Maybe sounds too good to be true. But the ad literally said, “live in Columbia.”<s> </s><s> </s>So I obviously clicked the ad. I was like, what is this? And I immediately got on this consultation call with one of their, I guess, sales reps. The Columbia itinerary is actually four months.

May: It was very tempting, leaving home to live in Colombia. But, she had to consider her job. She couldn’t just forgo a salary for four months. Thing is, that sales rep she spoke to was pretty convincing.

Carolina: He made a really good point. It’s like, do it now when you have the opportunity because you don't know when you'll have it again. And so I fought with my job a little bit. They didn't want me to go, but I convinced them. And then, yeah, I think in a month I was already packing up to leave and live in Latin America for four months.

That was the trip that really – it was eye opening in a different way than the first one. Very much like proving that I did belong in Columbia, because out of the four months, I got to live in Medellin and Bogotá, which are two cities in Columbia.

The things that I got out of it, I could go on forever, but I’ll condense. Latinos are so similar everywhere. Wow, we are all one beautiful community, even though sometimes we may not see it that way. And then it was my own self discovery, just feeling at home, feeling at ease with myself, having locals tell me that my Spanish was excellent for an American.

And sometimes they would be like, where are you from? They couldn't pick up that I was American. And that was the best. That was the best compliment.

May (to Carolina): Yeah that is a very high compliment, especially if it’s about something you’ve been self-conscious about for so long.

Carolina: Yeah, exactly. And so I think just feeling so comfortable in my skin for the first time away from family to judge, away from any stigma that you might find in America, just kind of shed away all these fears and doubts that I had of myself. During that trip, I wasn't traveling by myself. I was actually traveling with about 25 other people that wanted to do the program as well. And one of them was actually a Korean American who was very much a digital nomad. And he actually was the one to convince me, hey, I do marketing, you do design. I have a bunch of clients if you don't want to stay in the job that you're at. When he said that, I was like, okay, I'm out of here. And so I actually quit while I was abroad. He came up with the concept of a cultural drinking game. I'll always give him that credit, but I absolutely tore it up. I love the idea so much.&nbsp;

May: But what exactly would such a game look like? Also, how do you actually create a game? There were a lot of questions ahead. Carolina held her breath, and took the leap. That’s after the break. After taking a trip to Colombia and returning to the States, Carolina Acosta started to really find herself – and find inspiration to create a game – a drinking game, rooted in Latinidad.&nbsp;

Carolina: I feel so inspired by the culture I just experienced. It's not in my day-to-day anymore. I need something to kind of tie me back. And so the concept just spoke to my heart and I went full force. I wanted to create a game that all of my friends could play. And in Queens where I grew up, all my friends are very diverse within the Latino space. So I tapped into all of their cultures.

May: And you may wonder of all the possibilities, why a drinking game? Well, it’s easy to just slip it into something you were already going to do anyway – get drunk.

Carolina: I wasn't a big gamer. I wasn't a Dungeons and Dragons kind of girl, or even I didn't even love Monopoly to a certain extent. So those more complex game mechanics were like, eh. But a drinking game is like, okay, the easier, the better.&nbsp;

I think when I started it, my biggest concern was how do I get into the Latino market? Because there was a big hesitation there. Okay. I feel very gringa, even though I have this type of newfound identity through my traveling and through my own, but at the end of the day, I'm still very much American. I still have a little bit of an accent when I speak. I'm not that fluent. I always think, God, I'm the worst person for this.

Carolina: But I think once we put it up online, you saw the power that it had in our community because, one: it was something that did not exist. And two: it resonated so well because it was an American and Latino thing. And I think that's what is missing across representation in all industries. Something that speaks to the kids who knew Spanish at first and had to learn English and lost their culture along the way. There's not enough that speaks to us.

The game is called Tragos. It's the party game, para Latinos. So Tragos means drinks or shots or cocktails in Spanish [laughter], and you basically pick up a card on your turn. You play with as many people as possible, and the card will tell you what to do. So it'll have a prompt that'll tell you, if this applies to you in your Latino culture, then take this many sips. So I will pull out a couple of these. All right, so this was a very popular one. We still talk about it to this day. “If you've ever been asked if you speak Mexican, take three sips.”

May (to Carolina): And I've heard that. I would be drinking for that one [laughter]. And have you been asked that in your life?

Carolina: Oh, so many times. Yeah. I mean, some people don't even know that there are other countries besides Mexico, in Latin America. Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, time spent in the south, no offense, the south [laughter, crosstalk]. And that one kind of speaks for itself. I think when we first started, we did want a little gasp moments for certain cards, and that was a gasp card. Like, all right, we're calling people out, and we're talking about it kind of seriously, but we're also making fun of it.

Some are more reminiscent of just your childhood. So this one is “If your house or your parents' house smells like Fabuloso, take two sips.” [Laughter, crosstalk] Yes. Only the purple one. Yeah, I just bought it yesterday too. I was like, it just smells so good. Damn. Yeah, it does. And it's just kind of a feel good. Like aw, my parents, like … [laughter].

May (to Carolina): Yeah, that’s great. And it brings back memories, like very specific memories.

Carolina: The current pack is about 200, over 200 cards. And then overall, I think we've created maybe over 500 cards with all the different expansion packs we've come out with. And we also have digital packs that we created during COVID.&nbsp;

May (to Carolina): Yeah, I got one of those when it came out [laughter].

Carolina: And so yeah, I mean, it's my favorite part of my job. And so I would say I am maybe 70% of the cards that are created. So yeah, there's definitely several cards that my team has created, or friends just overlooking the document will be like, oh, what about this one? Or, oh, what if we change it to this to make it funnier? It has been pretty collaborative on every pack we’ve worked on.&nbsp;

May (to Carolina): That is so great. You light up so much talking about this game. You just love it.

May (to Carolina): It’s such a great process. Is there a card in the deck, or when you were creating the game, that you really enjoy?

Carolina: So many. I mean, I feel like they're all my babies. Actually, yes, there was one card that, it's not like the best card, but I did throw it in there as kind of an homage to myself: “If you're a jefa, take a shot, or take a sip, boss.” And it was just, that was kind of a cheers to all the Latina founders and bad asses [laughter].

May: Tragos went viral almost immediately. I bought it after seeing it pop up on Instagram. And I’ll tell you, playing with my Latino friends is so fun because we can all relate to so many of those cards. There’s one card that says, “If your family uses Tupperware, take three sips.” My mom sells Tupperware, so that one really gets me. And Carolina has found that relatability is true for most of her customers.

May (to Carolina): Is there any one review that has really stuck with you, about this game?

Carolina: I'd like to point out one good one and one bad one. I think what the bad one said is actually important. So the good one, I don't remember it verbatim, but it was to the effect that “I've never felt so seen in a game or anywhere, that really gets me and my family.”

And so I think the never felt so seen was in all caps, and I was like, yes, that's the purpose. We are so many that feel the same way, but because we're so dispersed and trying to constantly assimilate and work towards other things like career, we don't talk about that enough. I think just in the recent years is when we're seeing this comeback of cultural appreciation within our community. And so I think I'm really grateful to be a part of that conversation.

And then the bad one is actually someone wrote me an email and they had this whole spiel about a certain card that we had, if your family ever told you to date or have kids with a lighter skin person “para mejorar la raza,” and it was in all quotes, which translates to improve the race, then take two sips or something like that.

May (to Carolina): Something that, I mean I’ve heard that from my parents growing up. Yeah.

Carolina: I think we all have. And so it is a racist comment. I always thought that was messed up, and I wanted to call it out. And there's a couple of cards like that that really call out the stereotypes or the older traditions that we grew up with, but it's part of that conversation. And so the review basically said, you're cheersing to it, if you're drinking to it, you're kind of celebrating certain aspects of our culture that should not be celebrated. And so it was a reflection moment for me, but we actually ended up keeping the card and just adjusting it to make it clear that we do not condone those certain types of behaviors or sayings that our past generations have said. But it was a good learning moment.

May (to Carolina): I’m also very curious to see what your family, both sides, what they each think about your career path and your involvement with games, since you’re not from very gamey families.

Carolina: I think they think that I would be the last person to do anything Latino. Recently I played with a lot of cousins and they gave me a microphone. We were in the living room and someone was playing a DJ. They were playing music, but there was DJ equipment with a microphone. And they're like, oh, God, here, take the microphone. You're going to be the MC and you're going to read the cards out loud and we're all going to play together. And I was like, that's what I am, so not me. Do not give me a microphone [laughter]. And so I was kind of basically moderating this game night and the moments that came out of it, because everybody was just so excited to do the challenges that I told them to do. I'd be like, “okay, DJ, play this music. These two are going to do a dance off now.” And they would do it. And it was so interactive and everybody was just so happy. And it was a moment where I was like, oh my God,&nbsp; they love me and this game so much that they're just actually having real fun, even though they've played a million times with me before. I was like, it still felt just so fresh and endearing.

May: Meanwhile, on her Colombian side …

Carolina: They're still not big on it. They're like, why do we need a drinking game though? We're already drinking. They just don't get it.

May: People all over the country, even the world, were buying Tragos. One of them was a man who absolutely loved the game. So he told his girlfriend. And she happened to work for Target’s corporate office.&nbsp;

Carolina: So they actually reached out to me, and it's been a whole journey. I wouldn't say, oh, yeah, Target said they wanted us, and then we were in. No. And yeah, I'd say it took every single thing from the moment we started to the moment that they put in the order to convince them like, hey, this is a legit product.&nbsp;

By the time that we spoke with Target, I think I had found that confidence that I was missing in the first year, really telling everyone who would listen, like, oh, yeah, this is my business. This is my product, this is why I did it.

May: Tragos landed on Target shelves across the country in the fall of 2023.&nbsp;

Carolina: It feels really nice to feel like I made a classic. I hope this becomes eventually that game that everybody thinks of lotería, like, oh, you played Tragos? Oh, yeah, yeah, we played Tragos every Christmas.

May: Carolina’s passion for creating games, and even playing them, has grown so much that she’s already released a second game, with a slightly different audience in mind.

Carolina: Get Loud is a bilingual guessing game. You play it usually in teams, and the goal is to have your team guess as many words as possible by you either describing it or acting it out. So you play it similar to Heads Up or Taboo, but the twist is that all the words come in English and Spanish, and there's a lot of U.S. Latino and Latin American references. So you have words like frozen and apple, but then you also have novellas like “Betty La Fea” and things related to the culture. So you could play with kids. So something I wish that I had as a kid, actually.

Having it be bilingual is something so important because all around me, my friends, my family have kids, and I see them struggling in that bilingual household with English-speaking parents trying to teach their kids Spanish so that they can communicate with their grandparents. And sometimes it's just hard because the kids resist and it's not that fun. And so having a game to ease into it is actually a great way for kids to be more engaged with the language.

May: Carolina is carving out space for the kids who may find themselves in her shoes: a place of uncertainty, and otherness. And it might not have been possible if she hadn’t started making space for her true self.

Carolina: I think only recently, just this year, I've practiced like, oh my God, I did that. I really hope to be in a textbook one day or something where people can really see the legacy that I'm trying to leave behind, and that it grows much bigger than me one day. And really changes the landscape of not just games in general, to have more cultural diversity representation, but industries across the board.

May: This whole process of living in Colombia, quitting her job and creating something new, it’s all been a sort of wake up call for Carolina – a call to recognize the chingona that she is.

Carolina: Hey, I made it. This Colombian Dominican person here, but also American. She made it. And I started to realize this story is important to tell because that's how people connect, and that's how they know that it's authentic.&nbsp;

Carolina: I think every year I'm a different person through self-growth and learning so much, and in my career personally. I just know that in the past few years with my identity as Latina, I think I'm much more comfortable saying, yeah, I'm Latina.

May: Carolina Acosta is the creator of Tragos, the party game para Latinos. She’s half Colombian, half Dominican, and a hundred percent jefa. Thank you, Carolina, for sharing your moments of fear, your years of self-doubt, your bright spots, and the warmth of your sweet success. Cheers.

And by the way, this is the last episode of Season two. It is also my last time hosting this wonderful show. I’m truly, endlessly grateful that you’ve listened to a project that has meant so much to me and to so many people at Colorado Public Radio. And I hope it’s meant something to you too. Thank you so much for listening. I hope the stories our guests have shared have made you feel seen, learn something new, and feel some joy. It has been an amazing couple of seasons, and we are very proud to have made this idea a reality. I’m leaving Colorado to go back to my roots in south Texas. If you are not familiar with my native Rio Grande valley, go hear about it in “My Memoir” episode in season one. The prevailing thread throughout all of “¿Quién Are We?” is family. This was not our plan. It just happened naturally because family is so influential to everyone we’ve spoken to. That being said, I’m moving to be closer to my own family. It’s a big move. And I know in my heart that it’s the right move for me. Oh but I will miss making this show. We created “¿Quién Are We?” for you, so you could see yourself [crying] in these real, simple, fascinating stories. If there’s an episode that really resonated with you, go ahead and share it with someone who you think would appreciate it.

I’m May Ortega. This episode was produced by me, with mixing by Luis Antonio Perez. This episode was edited by Erin Jones and Andrew Villegas. Pedro Lumbrano wrote our theme music. We also want to extend full season thankyous to Emily Williams, Rebekah Romberg, Jo Erickson, Mia Rincón, Hart Van Denburg, Jodi Gersh, Clara Shelton, Kayla Montoya-Manzo, María Juliana Pinzón, Matt Herz, Kim Nguyen, Brittany Werges, and CPR’s members and staff. Our executive producers are Brad Turner and Kevin Dale. To support this show, please visit quienarewe.org. “¿Quién Are We?” is a production of Colorado Public Radio.

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¿Quién Are We? is a podcast from Colorado Public Radio exploring what it means to be Latino, Hispanic or Chicana ... or however you identify. Host and journalist May Ortega shares stories about our wide-ranging identities and the beautiful things that make us who we are.

¿Quién Are We?

Carolina Acosta didn’t grow up speaking Spanish or doing family game nights. Then she made a Spanglish drinking game.

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