Poppy Vest’s Story

Kallie: So, what’s your name?

 

Poppy: My full name?

 

Kallie: Yes.

 

Poppy: Gerardo Francisco William Leija Leslie Hernandez Vest

 

Kallie: And where were you born?

 

Poppy: I was born in Juarez Chihuahua, México

 

Kallie: And what’s your family dynamic like? Do you have any brothers or sisters?

 

Poppy:

Here in the country, I have one brother and two sisters, and back home I have two sisters and one brother. In America, they are all younger than me, and in Mexico, they are all older than me.

 

Kallie: Tell me a little bit more about your early childhood.

 

Poppy:

Early childhood. So, I was born in Juarez. My dad met my mom when he came to this country a couple of years prior to me being born, and he got into some trouble, so he ended up being sent back. Well, him and my mom loved each other, so she saved up some money waitressing and came down to Mexico. They stayed together for a couple months, and the next thing you know my mom has got me in her belly. So, as I developed, she got to live with my family down there on my abuelo’s farm. When I was born, everyone just kind of told my dad, “Hey, you’ve really got to go back to America if you want this kid to have a chance, you gotta go.” So, they worked really hard and they sent my mom and me first. I rode on this bus, and because my mom is white, it worked out really well that they could play it off. I have really white skin myself, so as a chunky, round baby, I kind of played it off. It was the 90s, so no one really cared about babies on busses. That all happened around the time I was 9-10 months old, and then my dad, I didn’t get the chance to meet my dad again until I was about 4 or 5 when my uncles had saved up enough money to help him get back here.

 

Kallie:

That’s a pretty big gap, what was that like? Well, I guess you don’t really remember too much of it.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I don’t really remember too much of it. My mom always told me that my first words were papá. And that’s because my dad would always find ways of—He still worked while he was down there. He worked like gosh three jobs, I think. Sanitation was his main thing. His name is like mine—Gerardo. So, his nickname was Gera. That’s what all the American people would call him when he worked here because he could always be ahead of everything. His favorite thing to do was to watch TV because TV—Like growing up, my dad would watch all these movies, and in America they have so much TV, so my dad would watch all these movies and shows that he grew up watching or saw when he was younger. He knew them by heart in Spanish, so would use it to translate English. So, a lot of his catchphrases and things like that are old 80s and 90s things. Like his favorite thing to say is “take it easy” from that one band. I can’t think of the name of the band. What is it? I can’t think of the name of the band.

 

Kallie: I can’t either

 

Poppy:

So, anyways, it was hard at first, but I had tíos here in Virginia, and my mom’s family was very supportive. Not at first just because you know the whole mixed baby thing. That was really big back then. That’s actually one of the reasons my name is like this conjunction of all these names.

 

Kallie: With William being in the middle?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, William comes from my mom’s side—it’s my uncle’s name. Leslie is my mom’s mother’s maiden name. Vest is my mother’s maiden name. Leija is my dad’s mother’s maiden name. Hernandez is my dad’s dad’s name. Francisco is my abuelo papo’s name, that’s my dad’s dad. Gerardo is my dad’s name. So, I have like this cool gumbo pot of, you know, names. So, I just go by Poppy because it’s way easier.

 

Kallie: That works. So, going into schooling, how did that go for you?

 

Poppy:

I was very lucky because I grew up in a home of Americans. I learned English as I developed as a kid. School wasn’t too hard, it’s just that I guess for the area I lived in, it was a little—I was the brown kid. Like I’m the Mexican. So, people see your name, and they cannot pronounce it for shit. They see Gerardo—even the teachers—they say like Gerardo, Gerardo, Gerorgee, stuff like that. Mom was working too and taking care of me, so most of my developing was by myself at my uncle’s and stuff like that. My uncle was a guy in his 20s, so I’m just like eating food and watching Dragon Ball Z every day, so I’m round as well, on top of being the brown kid in a white school. So, you know, bullying happens, but you develop a way of handling it. I got to talk to my papá at least twice a week. He’d buy a calling card, so my mom would find ways of calling him, so I’d talk to him for a while. By the time I got to talk talk to him I was like 5 before I got to meet him again. It was just stuff like” Papá, I love you. I miss you” and stuff like that, and he’d always tell me “I’m gonna see you.” When I got to meet him, I just meet this guy and he’s got this long, flowing mullet.

 

Kallie: A mullet!?

 

Poppy: Yeah, he’s got a mullet. He’s got the same—it’s funny because to this day I’ll ask him every time I see him, “Hey papá, when you gonna cut that hair?” He’s like, “Poppy, this hair got me ladies. It landed your mamá. You don’t understand.” That’s just who he is. That’s the kind of person his is. He’s a very charismatic, crazy-hard worker. The hardest worker I’ve ever met in my life. I worked for him for a couple of years when I was in my early 20s.

 

Kallie: What did you guys do?

 

Poppy:

He followed his sanitation path. He went—My dad’s got this way of, at the same time he’s charming, he also has this way of he can talk to anybody. He can gain anyone’s respect immediately. He’s a very man’s man.

 

Kallie: And a lady’s man?

 

Poppy: And a lady’s man.

 

Kallie: So, he’s an everybody’s man?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, and like I said, he was always trying to learn English as much as he could. That’s how he spit game with my mom. So, when people—It was very heavy back then. People hiring all these Mexicans to do jobs and what not. When you have one that can speak English, everyone is like, I want that guy. He would use that to his advantage. He would get to—He told me he used to ride in vans and travel to North Carolina and South Carolina. He would learn the ways the chemicals work because sanitation, I learned, is a very demanding job. It’s very stressful, tiring, physically demanding, and mentally demanding. If you don’t understand the way the chemicals work, you can really mess yourself up. It’s something he progressed at for years and years while learning how to talk to people. Right now, he’s a manager up there in this plant called Keeras Goel. It’s an all-Jewish village, and he’s a hustler. What he does is, he’s the night shift manager. And the reason he can do that is, I don’t really know the full length of it, but when I lived there, they always told me is that they can’t work after—There’s a rule about throwing the stone on Fridays. So, they can’t work Friday nights, and they don’t work, I believe, it’s Saturdays. One of those days. Anyways, so they don’t have too many people working nights, and there’s certain things that they can’t do because it’s not pure to touch or stuff like that. That’s where this Mexican comes into play, and he can do all these things, and plus, he speaks Spanish, so he can lead these people. He’s leading all these Hispanic people to do all of the cleaning and stuff like that. Anyways, that’s just something he does, and he’s very good at it. He taught me how to do it. He taught me a lot about how to talk to people and how to work. That’s my dad and his show.

 

Kallie:

Growing up, since you didn’t meet him until you were like 4 or 5, and you learned English, what about Spanish? Did you learn that at all? Was that spoken at home?

 

Poppy:

So, my dad would always talk to me on the phone and he’d say stuff like, “Qué pasa güey?” You know, that’s the stuff dad’s say to their kids when their young. I’d always call him papá. He’d tell me “How’s your mamá?”  I’d call my uncles, his brothers, tíos. As far as full lengthy Spanish goes, when I did get to meet him, he had a rule that we don’t speak Spanish at home. The reason he did that is because one of the ways that made it really hard for him to get work is when people meet people from different countries and they speak their language with an accent, they think they’re dumb. My dad got a lot of shit for having an accent, so he never wanted me to have an accent and have life be even harder than it could be. So, I learned Spanish through watching movies with him, and of course whenever I talk to my abuelo papos, tío, tías, or my cousins, we speak Spanish. Mainly, I really learned Spanish probably in middle and high school.  We ended up moving to Redding, Pennsylvania. It’s up north, and that’s why I have this Yankee accent.

 

Kallie: I don’t think you have an accent.

 

Poppy: I live here in Virginia now, and everyone tells me I have this Yankee accent.

 

Kallie: Does that mean I should think you’re stupid now?

 

Poppy:

That’s they logic that they say, yeah. He would teach me things, but the main thing is he just didn’t want it to be a heavy speech thing. Until, he said, 13 or 14 is around the age when you have your voice that you’re going to have for the rest of your life. So, that’s when he would actually talk to me in Spanish. When I worked with him, we only spoke Spanish. It’s a weird kind of job. He was my boss, but he is also my dad.

 

Kallie: That’s gotta be weird.

 

Poppy:

It was horrible because he would talk shit if I couldn’t do my job right. He’d be like “Hey, what the fuck man. Hey, pussy. Hey, hey, hey.” He’d say shit that if I heard another boss say I would hit him. He’d say shit like “If you don’t work harder, I’m going to go fuck your mom” or some shit. What am I supposed to say to that? Because he’s proven he’s done it. I mean I can’t fight this guy.

 

Kallie: Oh lord. That’s an interesting dynamic having your dad as your boss.

 

Poppy: Yeah, but he’s cool.

 

Kallie: What’s your relationship like with the rest of your family?

 

Poppy: You mean like in terms of my father’s side?

 

Kallie: Either. Both.

 

Poppy:

On my mom’s side, all my cousins are—I can’t say my white side because they’re all like me. They’re mixed, some of them are black, some of them are Asian, one of them is Egyptian, he thinks.

 

Kallie: That’s neat.

 

 

Poppy:

Yeah, so we’re all just like a whole mess of mixed-up popcorn. My slur for me since I’m white and brown, I’m a graham cracker. We all grew up very close. We’re just all really close, very good family, we love each other. A lot of the times our parents would be working different shifts, so we’d all spend the night at each other’s or at our grandma’s. When we moved to PA, it was mainly my dad’s family. All of his brother’s kids lived up there. Those are all my cousins. They’re all like me—half Mexican and half white because their mom is also white, but a different family. We’re all very close. We still talk to this day, we hang out, and things like that.

 

Kallie: Do they still live in Pennsylvania?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, they still live in Pennsylvania. They’ve got their own kids and stuff like that now. As far as the family I have in Mexico, back home, I gotta thank God for the future because Facebook, Snapchat, and things like that. My cousin Lydia, people get confused because she’s like heavy TikTok. She does hella TikToks, and it’s weird because people think other countries don’t have TikTok. That’s very dumb. I talk to them all a lot. They’re really cool. I send them videos of my comedy. Like they ask me, “Oh, what’d you’d say?” and I say, “Oh I said this,” and they’re like, “That doesn’t sound funny in Spanish.” We were raised to be a very close family. My dad always taught us heavy, “Love your family, love your siblings above all. The only people you ever–.” His thing was always, “Respect your father, do anything for your mother, always look after your siblings, and no one ever comes above any of those people unless you have children.” That was my dad’s go to.

 

Kallie: That sounds like good mottos.

 

Poppy:

Loving family. We’re all fat so we all make fun of each other growing up. My dad—I’ve always been fat because my mom’s side is fat. But my dad, when he met my mom, as very skinny. A skinny, in-shape Mexican. Then he said the thing that drove him wild was when he discovered Burger King’s dollar menu. He said “it was crazy Poppy because when I first came here,” he would live off of like $2 a week for groceries.

 

Kallie: Two bucks a week?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, because I have other siblings back home in Mexico that he would also support while he was working here. He has always told me; I would live off of like a carton of eggs a week and three jalapeños and tortillas. Then your mom showed me these restaurants and the first thing I learned was I gotta stop paying for this because she’s taking all my money. Then once, “I landed her,” he’ll say, “once I had her, I could afford to not take her to expensive places.” I learned about the dollar menu. He’s got a gut now.

 

Kallie: Oh boy. Hey, that’s always fun. I bet you have great family holidays getting all together.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, of course. All the cousins, our favorite thing to do right now is look back and laugh at all the dumb things we did a lot as kids. We grew up in the intercity, so we’re just a bunch of statistics—these little intercity Hispanic kids breaking stuff and things.

 

Kallie: So, you were a troublemaker?

 

Poppy: Uh, no comment. That one’s a pass.

 

Kallie: That’s fine

 

Poppy:

We try hard to meet up as much as we can. I actually got to see my dad a couple months ago. Like I said, he lives in an all-Jewish village. Well, he works in an all-Jewish village. He also goes to PA. He always has off like two weeks off at a time for the Holidays. They have Pudim and their new year’s. Every time I see him, it’s always a fun time. He’s a really cool guy. He is the reason I can talk to anybody. I remember growing up, we’d be walking down the street and if he saw anybody, he’d just be like “que onda,” “Que pasa guey,” and boom they’re talking to him. Also, his main thing he would do to make more money is he helped people get jobs. He’d be a translator for anybody that needed work. He’d be working with somebody, and someone would say “Hey Gera, my brother, he just got some kids and he needs some work,” and he’d say, “Okay, does he want to work. What can he do?” and then boom, he’d help out. Off the record, he was also transportation before he got his license and stuff. He was always about helping people and getting money.

 

Kallie: That’s good. Holidays, with family being all over the place, how do you guys typically handle that?

 

Poppy: Now or growing up?

 

Kallie: Growing up and now.

 

Poppy:

Growing up, we all lived in PA. My dad got into some trouble, when I was a kid like I said, that got him deported, so when he came back, until he could afford to do all of the stuff he could to get residency, it was dangerous to be driving. We didn’t really drive too much, especially across state lines. All my family lived in Virginia. We mainly spent most of our holidays with cousins. We’d all go to my tio’s house because they had bigger houses. We would be all of these little rambunctious little Hispanic kids running around. Looking back, they were always laughing at us. Looking back, I think they might’ve been drunk. We get drunk now, all of us cousins. Most Hispanics celebrate Christmas the day before, so what we would always do is the day before how Americans celebrate Christmas, we’d all open up a couple of presents, but because my mom wanted to celebrate Christmas on Christmas day we’d have the big presents, like the games and shit, the next day. We’d open a couple of presents and then go to our uncle’s. My uncle Chuy, he’d always make like a giant pot of menudo. I don’t know if you know what that is. Oh my God, it’s delicious. It’s like the best thing in the world. It’s like a stew. It’s got this red broth because you use all these chilis and it’s delicious. The main meat is tripe, which is intestines, but it’s good as shit. It’s really good. You’ve got hominy corn in there, throw in some cilantro and some cebolla. You put a bunch of limon in it and it’s delicious. It’s good. We would all sit—There were very few movies growing up that revolved around Hispanics. Most of them were all about being gangbangers. We’d all watch these gangbanger movies and that’s kind of one of the main things all of us cousins, dads, and uncles would do together. We’d watch these. There was one in particular, Sangre Por Sangre, it’s like our Boy in the Hood. After, we’d all just have these bandanas and talk and whatnot. Then I got older, and I started processing my Spanish, I learned the way that my dad talks to his brothers is ghetto as shit. They’ll answer the phone, “Que onda,” “que pasa guey.” Mexican Spanish, when he’s talking to someone professionally he’ll be proper. He can speak proper Spanish, I can’t. I speak what I learned watching them grow up doing. There’s a whole lot of ways. [imitating sound]. Mexican’s do [sound] a lot. When my dad would get mad he’d be like “[sound]”

 

Kallie: That’s an interesting sound.

 

Poppy: Yeah, it is. It’s scary when he’s mad.

 

Kallie: Did you just get a lot of those?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I find myself doing them now, a lot. Like I’ll be at work and be like, “[sound] Man, fuck this job.” Like I can’t help it. It’s my dad in me.

 

Kallie: What did you do work wise after you stopped working for your dad?

 

Poppy:

I stopped working for my dad when I was 22. The main reason why I worked with him was because I got into this accident when I was younger. I got put in a coma. It was really bad. I had some brain surgery and stuff. For like a year, I couldn’t really do shit. It fucked with my mentality a lot. At the time, my dad started getting a job in New York, so he worked in New York. My mom and everyone was here in Virginia. My dad, after a couple months of hearing— he was relieved to hear that I was alive. I’ve only ever heard of my father crying twice. I’ve never got to see any of it because both times I wasn’t around. One was when his mother passed away. And one was apparently when I was in the hospital. After a couple of months of me still being fucked up, he called me and was like hey you’re strong. I know you can do this. Come work with me. It’s not going to be easy, but I want to get you back. He got me back to where I could be at, and no work is hard. So, with that mindset, nothing is as hard as what I used to do with him. So, I got a little older. I got this girl, and we wanted to move away and stupid stuff like that. She was like, “Where’s a good place to move?” I was like oh my mom’s family is from Harrisonburg, so we should go there. I’ve got family there. I can get a job there. So, I ended up coming here. Working for my dad really helped me out a lot because I used to be intimidated by all of these hands-on jobs and mechanical shit because I’m not very smart. Once you get past the whole— some people complain about work. I don’t know

 

Kallie: I mean, I hate work.

 

Poppy: I hate it too, but like the means, how do you say that, the means and ends?

 

Kallie: The means justify the ends?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, nothing is ever as hard as the work I did with my dad. Nothing will ever be hard enough, that I’m like fuck, this isn’t worth the money. With that mindset, nothing has ever been that hard. I’m always down to work overtime. I just move up. At the job I’m at right now, I’m like three promotions deep.

 

Kallie: Where are you working now?

 

Poppy: I work at Cadence in Verona.

 

Kallie: What is that?

 

Poppy:

They make specialty blades. They make industrial and surgical blades. I came there as a regular dude moving boxes and shit. They were like, do you want to work overtime, and I was like yeah, this is gravy. I get to be in this clean environment. I used to clean chicken shit. Like this is dope. I always had a knack for math. I get that from my dad, he’s really good at math. So, I just got promotions and promotions, and I moved up and learned more. Then I got one promotion and learned then and then I learned this and now I’m sitting at a very comfortable job. It doesn’t pay amazing, but I have insurance and shit, so I feel pretty cool about that. It definitely supports the life. On holidays, coming up soon, I get to go visit some family back in PA. Not a whole lot because of COVID. You also get to help out your family back home in Mexico. It feels really nice to help out people back home and buy them stuff. It just feels really good. Our whole family does this pot thing where we all have this little pot—no, no, no, not that. Fun fact, over there we call that multa.

 

Kallie: Isn’t that the same word as shit?

 

Poppy:

Multa? Mierda, you’re thinking of mierda. No, I enjoy that. Don’t tell my dad. My dad doesn’t say weed. One time he thought he caught me smoking weed, and he’s like “you smoking wed?”

 

Kallie: Wed?

 

Poppy:

Wed. He only ever read the word. So, he called it wed. I had to have a moment, mind you, I’m high when he asked me that, so I’m just laughing hard. I do a lot of—Like I said, I do comedy, so I do a lot of bits about him. There was this one time, because he has this accent, I remember one time he was asking me to go out with him because I was being good, and we were going to get something to eat. He was like okay, go get ready and then we’ll go and my uncle was going to pick us up. I guess my uncle came early, so he was in a rush. He started yelling at me to put my shoes on, mind you, before he even yelled this, he asked me to think of what we’re going to eat today since you’ve been good. So, I’m thinking, where are we going to eat? And he yells at me, “Choose, choose, choose.”  And I was like “Chinese food, I don’t care, Burger King, something like that.”

 

Kallie: But he was meaning shoes.

 

Poppy: Yeah.

 

Kallie: What got you into comedy?

 

Poppy: A lot of factors. I’m a funny guy. I don’t look really really great—

 

Kallie: With the amount of laughing we’ve done during this recording, I agree with that.

 

Poppy:

That’s one of the things that got me through after I got out of the hospital. My dad, he’d work you like a fucking dog, and then we would just bullshit and talk shit. It was really dope because my mom wasn’t around. My siblings weren’t around. I learned he’s really like a bro.

 

Kallie: He’s a bro? Like a Chad?

 

Poppy:

No, more like a Javier. He’s just cool. He loves making jokes. He loves talking shit. That movie I was talking about earlier, Sangre Por Sangre, there’s a scene where this guy gets mad at his stepbrother and he wants to tell him to fuck off, and so the way he does it is he says, “Hey, when you leave there’s a cup of chinga tu madre on the counter. Chinga tu madre is like the worst thing you can say to someone in Mexican Spanish. It means like go fuck your mom. What we do, is whenever we’re mad at each other, and we don’t want to argue, we’ll just go up to the person and give the other person a cup. It’s just how he is. He’s just always been funny. I’m not charming like he is, so I use humor as my gate to talk to people when I have to meet people. When you move up in jobs, or you move up in moving, you have to meet more people. It how you move up in life.

 

Kallie: Yeah, you have to make a network.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, so I can’t flash this mullet like he does, so I gotta make jokes. When people laugh, they’re comforted around you, so that’s kind of where that comes from.

 

Kallie: You said that you had a bit that you did about him. Do you do several bits about–?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I do a lot. I got to do this show about a month ago. It was really dope, I got like an hour. It was really cool. So, I was just pulling jokes out of my ass. One of them I did this bit about when you get hands -on in a sensual way with a lady. I followed it out with a joke about my dad. My dad got his license recently, about a year ago. It’s really dope, like I said. He’s a resident now, and in New York you can get your license. It’s pretty dope.

 

Kallie: I think they did that in Virginia too.

 

 

Poppy:

Yeah, they just passed in Virginia. I’m so excited I’m so happy for it. It’s really awesome. I’ve been teaching my one cousin how to drive.

 

Kallie: That’s exciting.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, it is. So, I was bragging about that. When you do certain jokes, you’ve gotta make sure if want to brag about something or do something enlightening or informational you gotta make sure that you have a punchline. The way that I did it was I talked about that and how dope it was that people can get licenses now. Then I was like, well one thing really stood out when I looked at my dad’s license. This motherfucker is 5’4”, and I never noticed that because that’s my dad.

 

Kallie: They always seem bigger than you.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I mean I’m not tall myself. I’m only 5’8”, but my mom is like 6 foot. So, my dad was hunting. So, the joke I do is that it’s crazy to see that he’s only 5’4” because that’s my dad. He used to whoop my ass if I was bad. I talk about the way he would do it, and I don’t know if this is something that all Mexicans do, but it’s something that my dad and all my uncles do. If you were being bad, he would look at you, raise his hand, and he would spit in it like [rapidly pretends to spit in hand]. He would do it like that like he was loading up a gun. That used to scare the shit out of me, but now it’s funny to look back and laugh at. Yeah, I do a couple jokes on him. I do one joke where I talk about how I have to look at my food as I eat it. That comes from when we were watching wrestling and eating chips. He was eating from my chip bag, so I go to eat from his chip bag and it’s disgusting. Come to find out, he was using it as an ashtray. So, to this day, I have to look at things as I eat them, and I do jokes about that.

 

Kallie:

How do you feel—do you feel like you fit into society pretty well? Like you said growing up there was some bullying, but has that changed or…?

 

Poppy:

So, here’s the funny thing, when I was in elementary school, I’m the brown kid. I go to intercity, and I’m the white kid. You can never really win, but you’re definitely more welcomed in intercity with all of these other people because there’s a whole abundance of different Hispanics especially. Growing up there, I definitely felt more comfortable than I do—I’m not going to lie right now, it’s kind of different living here because—well I was talking to one of my friends at work, Ben, about this earlier. We were talking about Spanish and things like that, and I guess because I was talking about me being Mexican, this lady just had to ask me, “Poppy where are you from?” People just love doing that, but I never ask anyone where they’re from. If I’m at work, there is one other guy at work who is Hispanic. He’s Puerto Rican, so I’ll talk to him in Spanish sometimes. I’d be having a conversation just with him and some people are like “enough of that.” People get intimidated because they think I’m talking shit or something. If you go most places, people will kind of assume different things about you. You get pulled over more frequently.

 

Kallie: You do?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I got pulled over last year a couple days before Thanksgiving. I got pulled over right outside of work. I was bumping some music and leaving. This cop car is driving the other and just looks and me and boom, [imitates siren]. The lights put on, and I get pulled over. He’s like, let me get your information, and I said, here you go, officer. Why am I getting pulled over? He said, I’ll tell you that in a minute. Which, he’s supposed to tell you. He’s looking at my stuff and everything and he’s like “are these yours?” I’m pretty sure people don’t get asked that frequently, but you get asked that. They just want to ask you the dumbest things and always assume you have stuff. It’s really annoying, but the thing that’s really different is that I’ve seen friends of mine who are—by no means am I talking down to anybody—but you’re taught something different when you’re talked to about cops as a kid. I remember a lot of my friends who are full American or white and taught about cops are taught, if a cop pulls you over, be respectful, give your information, be very polite, and make sure you let them know you’re safe. The talk that I got was if you get pulled over, keep your hands on the wheel, don’t do anything stupid, don’t open your mouth unless he asks you something, don’t grab for anything unless he asks you for something. Basically, what I’m getting at is I was taught that if I get pulled over, I could die. That’s kind of the way it is. There have been times as kids we’d get pulled by cops and you’re just walking. You’re just walking and people will ask you what you’re doing and things like that.

 

Kallie: I’ve never experienced that.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, it’s makes you feel bad when you see other people not getting the same thing. The main way I’ve learned to handle it is that they’re just scared. They’re people who are scared, and it’s how most hatred is formed is from fear. It all comes from fear and misunderstanding.

 

Kallie: Ignorance.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, just ignorance. Mainly ignorance. Harrisonburg isn’t too bad because they have a wide variety of Hispanics now which is dope. There’s a lot of good places to eat. All my cousins, they’re all Hispanic as well, and I have a lot of good friends there too. It’s not like if I have a Hispanic friend, I automatically speak to them in Spanish. That’s my favorite thing to do is if someone is clearly Hispanic, and my friend is like, hey go talk to them. I’ll talk to them, but the whole conversation is in English. They would get mad at that.

 

Kallie: Why?

 

Poppy:

So, then they’ll ask why. That happened to me and they were like what was that guy’s name. I was like, Oh, that’s Pablo. They’re like, “Why didn’t you talk to him in Spanish? I was like “I can’t.”  Like why? Oh because he’s from Columbia, and that’s a different kind of Spanish or something like that. Just something to fuck with people, and then they get confused and are like, Spanish is all the same.  If you’re from Boston, you can’t talk to a guy from Illinois.

 

Kallie: Or Texas.

 

Poppy: I mean like Texas or Louisana.

 

Kallie:

They sound different. That makes sense. And have different words for things. Growing up, with the talk– did the talk with the police, did that affect your identity? Like trying to figure out what you were?

 

Poppy:

You get taught what you’re supposed to be cool with. You get taught what you’re supposed to be fine with. The best example I can give with that is with politics. These last couple years

 

Kallie: Oh boy.

 

Poppy:

It’s definitely been—you know, some people get fueled by hate. When you grow up a certain color, race, or anything, people want to influence that into your everyday identity. So, automatically you’re labeled this, and labeled that. You’ve gotta talk about this, talk about that. You’re kind of immediately assumed that you can dance. You’re automatically assumed that you have family members in gangs.

 

Kallie: Or that you can speak Spanish with other Spanish speakers?

 

Poppy:

That you can speak Spanish with another Spanish person. It’s just taught that you don’t—I think the most ignorant question that I hate hearing is when people ask me, “Hey Poppy, what are you?” “Oh, I’m Mexican. I’m Mexican-American.” And they’re like how? Oh, my mom is white and my dad is Mexican. And they’ll ask me, oh how’d they meet. I’m cool answering all those questions. The one answer I don’t like answering is people feel the need to go like, “Oh your dad, is he a citizen?” That’s not your business. You can ask me about me. Luckily, I was a baby when I got here, so it was a lot easier. My mom being white made it a lot easier. I don’t see why people need to know what your status is here. It’s the same logic as people not needing to care what someone’s sexual orientation is or anything like that. It’s not your business.

 

Kallie: Or how people are obsessed with transgender people going to the opposite bathrooms.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, it’s the exact same logic. It’s the same following. People fueled by fear and hate want to talk shit on people. I remember I was working at Walker the night Trump won the election. It was so uncomfortable. I didn’t follow politics. I went to the bathroom, and I came back from the bathroom and all I hear is “Yeah, gonna build a wall. Yeah, gonna build a wall” loud as shit. I’m like alright. They’d be like, “Yeah, you’re going back.” I’m like “Bro, I live here.” Just dumb stuff. People say dumb ignorant stuff all the time. I don’t wanna make it a copout and yeah, you get used to it. You’ve got this dope ass freaking culture that they don’t have that they don’t get to experience. White people get hype on Cinco de Mayo. It’s funny to me. It’s like my favorite thing to laugh at.

 

Kallie: Hey, you know, we gotta have the day of the dead too.

 

Poppy:

Yeah, I mean that’s actually a good day. That’s actually like a dope ass holiday to have. I just like hearing white friends be like “Happy Cinco de Mayo!” I’m like cool. Then they like expect me to give them a “Happy Fourth of July.” I don’t know what that’s about. I don’t know.

 

Kallie: That’s a little– I mean– makes sense. I was going to ask you something else and it’s gone.

 

Poppy: It’s fine.

 

Kallie: Have you been able to participate in political things or have you looked into it since Trump has been elected? Has it affected you in any direct way?

 

Poppy: What do you mean by that?

 

Kallie: Since his motto was build a wall, has that affected your mentality or feelings?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, definitely. At first, you hear that and—what I kind of learned about politics is that a lot of its about  trying to influence people who don’t know what to do. That’s like the main goal of all of that. What I kind of got from that is I learned is a lot of people don’t like Mexicans. I learned that really quickly, and it sucks because I’m Mexican. I learned a lot of people want to send Mexicans back, even if they are legally here. Oh, I’m a Mexican that is from there and here legally now, so it’s not what you want to hear people saying. It definitely did make me want to look into this stuff and see how someone is allowed to get by with that. What I kind of learned is that most of what politicians, Trump in particular, will say things that pander to people because he needs a vote. That’s all it came down to. Homie needed a vote.

 

Kallie: He didn’t get it this time.

 

Poppy: Super hype. We did it. We high fived.

 

Kallie: [laughs and snorts]

 

Poppy:

Snorting ass dude. People—I don’t pay them mind. I laugh at them. I really do, I laugh at them. It’s funny. I feel bad for their kids because you’re not born with hate. You’re born like, “Yo, I can breathe. I’m going to take a shit wherever I want. I get to suck on some titties today.” That’s kind of what you’re born doing, and as you get older you’re like man, work. Man, school.  At some point in time, someone influences you and they’re like “Hey, you don’t like black people. Hey, you don’t like Mexicans. Hey, you don’t like guys who like other guys. Hey, you don’t like people who want to identify themselves.” Things like that. It’s weird to me. Why are you teaching kids to do that?

 

Kallie: You did vote in this last election, I assume by our high five?

 

Poppy: Yes. It was my first time voting too. I was very happy.

 

Kallie: Me too. Was it exciting?

 

Poppy:

Yeah, it was exciting. I felt like a celebrity because I had never done it before. When you go there’s all these people who are like “Hey, vote for this. Do this.” These like last minute people who are trying to—it felt kinda cool because I could like shove them. I felt like a celebrity.

 

Kallie: I know this is more of a rural area that supports Trump, so did you face anything with that? I know when I voted there were Trump signs outside of the place.

 

Poppy: Yeah, people getting mad. People yelling. People were like looking at your hair color and stuff like that saying that you shouldn’t be allowed to vote; only Americans. I’m American. I’ve got everything that says I’m American, so I can do what Americans do. I pay my taxes. I’m not good at it, but I pay them. I obey speed limits, to a degree.

 

Kallie: Most of the time.

 

Poppy: There like suggestions.

 

Kallie: Have you ever considered anything dual citizenship or something like that?

 

Poppy:

 Yeah, that’s one of the main reasons I’m so happy my dad taught me how to work because I want to keep moving. I want to get some schooling done. Like most Hispanics, when I finished high school, I had to go straight to work. College wasn’t really an option because our family. Now that I’m getting to the point that I’m learning skills, I want to get some more schooling done. I’d love to be able to go to Mexico way more frequently: after COVID. I want to brush up on everything. I want to go back home. I’ve only been back home in my whole life probably like five times. The last time I was probably like 19 or 20.

 

Kallie: So, like 8 or 9 years ago?

 

Poppy: Probably like 6 years ago.

 

Kallie: So you’re not as old as I thought you were.

 

Poppy: I’m 26.

 

Kallie: My math is off. That’s all

 

Poppy: It’s okay. Don’t’ worry about it.

 

Kallie: That’s how old I thought you were. I just can’t do math today.

 

 Poppy: I get it, I’m an old man.

 

Kallie: Older than I am.

 

Poppy: Everyone’s older than you bruh. What do you mean? You’re Taylor Swift age, right, 22?

 

Kallie: 21.

 

Poppy: Wow, you’re a baby, bruh. You don’t even know why you hate life yet.

 

Kallie: Oh I do. Well, I just wanted to thank you for your participation in this interview and I’ll also be sending you a transcript to look over.