Musician and rapper Figgy Baby, who identifies as non-binary, tries to bond with their traditional Mexican father by opening up about their intimate relationships and personal life, even when it makes both of them uncomfortable. And Jerry Tello, a therapist and community educator who works with men and boys of color, speaks with Juleyka about rethinking restrictive notions of what it means to be a man and why labels like toxic masculinity miss the full story.
Figgy Baby is an internationally touring, non-binary Mexican rapper, based in Los Angeles. Their last project, "Blood from a Stone" is a vulnerable and exciting concept album revolving around manhood and masculinity in a Mexican household.
Featured Expert:
Jerry Tello is an internationally recognized authority in family strengthening, therapeutic healing, cross-cultural issues, men and boys of color, racial justice, and community peace and mobilization. Over the last forty years as a noted therapist, author, performer and program developer, Mr. Tello has incorporated his real life experience, together with research-based knowledge, and indigenous, culturally-based teachings, to engage all in a reality-based healing and growth-inspiring experience. He is co-founder of the National Compadres Network and is currently Director of Training and Capacity Building. He has authored numerous articles, videos, and curricula addressing fatherhood, youth “rites of passage,” culturally-based family strengthening, and healing the healer. He is the author of Recovering Your Sacredness, A Father’s Love, a series of children’s books, co-editor of Family Violence and Men of Color, has served as a principal consultant for Scholastic Books on International Bilingual Literacy curriculum, and has published a series of motivational health and healing CDs (find his published work here). Jerry Tello has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Latina and Lowrider magazines. He is the recipient of numerous awards, which include the 2016 Maria Shriver’s Annual Advocate for Change award, the 2015 White House Champions of Change award, two California Governor’s Awards, the Ambassador of Peace Award presented by Rotary International, and the 2012 Presidential Crime Victims Service award, presented by President Bill Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno.He is a father, grandfather, son, brother and relative of many. He is from a family of Mexican, Texan and Coahuiltecan roots, and was raised in the South Central/Compton areas of Los Angeles. Learn more about his work, including the National Compadres Network's podcast Healing Generations, on his website.
If you loved this episode, listen to She's Fighting Inherited Gender Roles and the follow-up OG Check:-in: She Still Needs Papí, but Has to Guide Him to Help.
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Juleyka Lantigua:
Hi, everybody. Today we have Figgy Baby with us. Figgy is a music maker, rapper, and performer based in Los Angeles. Their art explores ideas of self-expression, toxic masculinity, and the male social script, but for Figgy, it's important to also talk about these issues off the stage, including one-on-one with their Mexican father. Let's get into it.
Figgy Baby: My name is Figgy Baby. I am an internationally touring rapper, music maker and dancer based in Los Angeles, originally from Orange County. And growing up, I called my father, Papa, Dad, and I was feeling really lazy, which he did not like, I'd just be like, Pa. I call my mother, Mama, Mom, Schwarma, Lil’ mama, Ma, sometimes.
There's a certain aspect of distance that my father had emotionally with us. Just there was a lack of intimacy or vulnerability in our relationship because of how a man is supposed to be and how he was raised, right? Supposed to be strong, stoic, I don't need to say any more than I have to say, and then you just be on your way. Machismo, toxic masculinity, very present. To his credit, I think that he tried to show up the ways that made sense to him. All my soccer games, he wanted to be there.
I became aware of toxic masculinity when I got into college. I had never heard that term before, male privilege, the inequality. And I was like “Oh….well, dang.” As a creative, I have to get tapped into my own feelings. Right. Very quickly, I was taking all of what I was learning in those more academic, intellectual classes and putting it into my art. I was feeling so much from all of this. I started telling my story and it was about my relationship with my Latino identity, mixed identity, and a lot of that was exploring the relationship with men in my life, my father, my brother. But to some extent [expletive] all that language, that's not helpful. The patriarchy, what the [expletive] is that?
So what I'm just more doing right now that I feel is of value is me just continuing to be like, I'm going to engage with my father. I'm taking risks and sharing about my life. I wrote a song called Hey Dad, and I talked about growing up feeling like he wasn't as emotionally present as in retrospect, I would've liked. I wouldn't come to him talking about friendships or relationships because I felt like there was a lot of silence back or one word answers.
I got in a lot of trouble when I was younger. I was just excited about life, and I think that that means that I'm doing a lot without thinking about it. Eighth grade, I'd already been on probation and kicked out of a school district, and my father didn't speak to me for a week after, and even after that it was probably sparse. I was writing about those situations and I came home and I showed him the song and felt like, this is me being vulnerable, this is me saying all the things I wanted to say, and it made a crack in the glass. My father was visually emotional, and it took time after that for there to be any true response.
But I remember my father calling me past college, I'd released a song called Mr. Baron, which is about getting expelled, and that's the name of the principal who kicked me out of the school. And he called me to apologize to say that, because there's a line that says, "you treated me like a criminal. I was a kid." That line wasn't specifically to my father in the song, but was to the system. What my father said, he's like, "You're right. We were so hard on you, and you were just a kid." He apologized and was starting to get emotional. And I was like, oh shit. Wow. This is radical right now. This is huge. And he called me out of the blue. It wasn't like, let's have a conversation. But I guess that's what happens, right?
This interaction I had with my father and these many interactions I had, it's about planting seeds, and a lot of it happens in like, I'm just talking about what I have, the intimacy that I have with my friends, my homeboys, even physically, we hold each other. I'll just be on them or just tell them that I love them. This is what matters. These images, these actions, not always the theory or not that there's not a place for the vocab, because there is, but with my father, that's not the way that I'm entering these conversations. I'm really just engaging in vulnerability and I really give him the opportunity. I'm like, dad, you ain't got to put up a front. If you feel sad today, you can be sad. And I'm showing up, like me, talking about this and talking about why I wear nail polish or put on skirts sometimes. And I'm just like, I'm so fluid. And I think he's just a little flustered off of the information and details that I'm sharing with my life.
Sometimes he'll engage more, he'll be like, "Oh, well, I remember one of the first girls I dated that I really loved," and whatever. I'm like, oh, okay. And I'm like, don't say anything, Fig. I'm just like, yeah, yeah, more, more, more. But I'm also, I don't want to say anything because then he might remember that he's talking out loud. Man, these conversations are hard as [expletive].
Lantigua: Figgy's commitment to being vulnerable with their father while also acknowledging it might be uncomfortable really moved me. Because as a mom raising two boys, I'm constantly thinking about the men they will become. And Figgy's story made me reflect on the gender norms my sons will contend with throughout their lives. With all the restrictive ideas our society has about what it means to be a "man", what can men, especially first gen men, do to deal with the sometimes conflicting ideas? How can they break free from these constraints? And as Figgy points out, are terms like toxic masculinity, even useful in these situations? To help us figure it out, I called in an expert.
Jerry Tello: My name is Jerry Tello, and I am recording right now from Los Angeles, and I am the Director of the National Compadres Network, also a father, a grandfather. My dad is Jorge Perez Tello. He’s Tampilan Coahuiltecan from San Antonio, Texas. So we have native roots in us and our mom, Maria Suso Lago Ramos from Chihuahua, but I was raised in Compton, Watts, California, and been doing work in communities for close to 50 years. Just trying to bring healing, bring sense of connection and peace and good relationships to people in the best way that I can.
Lantigua: It sounds a lot like you're doing the work of a tribal elder. That's what it sounds like to me from that beautiful description. When you listened to Figgy's story, what did you hear?
Tello: A lot of love. And I heard the really wish of wanting to be connected, wanting to be acknowledged, but wanting to have a relationship was, which I believe is at the root of what all of us do. But the other thing that hit me was some of the vocabulary that was used in a toxic masculinity, the sense of patriarchy and machismo and all of that. And it's interesting because society puts these labels, these descriptions that make us put people in boxes and makes us believe that we understand somebody and can really categorize. And for me, what I've found in the many, many years of this work is those labels begin to separate us.
So what I heard Figgy say and talk about was sense of them being able to show up completely. At the same time, I'm not sure if they were able to see their father showing up completely because their father also has the journey, certain ways that he has learned to be based on his own history. And what I learned from my father is my father, he carried himself a certain way. He was a very loud talking man, hey, mh’hijo, venga pa’ aca, get over here. And didn't understand. I thought my father's angry. No, he wasn't angry, that's the way my father needed to carry himself in order to be able to survive, and especially for men of color, many times we have to build this shield because as soon as we leave our house, we are looked at it in a certain way, and if we don't shield ourselves up, we'll get destroyed.
And there was a lot of talk about not being able to share feelings. And for many of our fathers who didn't grow up in a time in which we had the luxury of being able to share and sit with each other and go to therapy or process things, you get into a mode of survival. And that mode of survival is, if you dare to go to your feelings, the biggest fear is I'm not going to be able to stop crying. It's going to open me up where I'm not going to be able to do what I need to do, which may be work and take care of my family.
Lantigua: So I hear you saying a couple of things. I hear you saying be weary of labels because they are basically incomplete, and they can sometimes lead you incorrectly to believe that someone, because you or someone else has labeled them X, Y, and Z.
Tello: Right.
Lantigua: Okay. The other thing that I hear you saying, though, is take time to see.
Tello: Yeah.
Lantigua: Let's dig a little bit here. A lot of our immigrant parents are survivalists.
Tello: Yes.
Lantigua: A lot of them are just in survival mode, and we literally often don't see them as much. We also see them in very limited roles as caretaker, provider, mom, dad. How can someone like Figgy take the time to really be able to see their parents in a fuller capacity?
Tello: Well, I think one is the consciousness and the acknowledgement of one's journey.
Lantigua: Okay.
Tello: Many of us don't know our parents, we don't know their journey, and a lot of them don't want to share it because it's so painful. But if we have a consciousness, we know historically what many immigrant parents have gone through, what many people of color's parents gone through, and what they go through every day.
At the same time, we, a society, as a young kid, for instance, I learned that good dads read to you and play with you and take you to the park and do all these fun things with you. And I remember my father, when I woke up in the morning, he was at work, he would come in the middle of the day, change, get his lunch, go back to another job. So by the time I went to sleep, my dad, a lot of times, wasn't home. So in my eyes, the teacher was saying, good dads play with you, they take you to the park, and I'm thinking, my dad's not a good dad.
So then you begin to put these stereotypical labels, and that begins to then filter into your perception of do you have a good father? Do you have somebody that wants a relationship with you? And sometimes it just takes the time just to be with somebody, just to begin to open up and see them according to their lens. And that begins, then, an exchange of being able to be with each other, to see each other. And that's the first step.
Lantigua: So one of the things that I really enjoyed about Fig's story was that they talked about telling themselves to be quiet when their dad was sharing a story, and I love that because that's that acknowledgement of, okay, something really cool and amazing is happening right now.
Tello: Yeah.
Lantigua: I just have to be still so that I can be present for it.
Tello: Yeah, and I think we hear a lot, but sometimes we don't listen. And many times we find ourselves only taking in what is comfortable for us. I want to come back to that concept of machismo, because we often think somebody being bold or loud or bien brusco whatever that is, we tend to put that into a label, and sometimes that's survival mechanism. But the true sense of machismo is that of being honorable, of being respectful, taking care of those that you're responsible for, honoring women, honoring. There's really, from our indigenous sense, there's some really powerful principles.
Lantigua: So there's another very popular word that I want to talk about, which is vulnerability. Figgy very clearly says, "I have to practice vulnerability." This is not just an academic term, this is actually a verb to be practiced. And it seems incompatible for many men that this definition of being a man also now requires you to be vulnerable. What's the conflict there or how do we bridge that?
Tello: We have to really understand that in the essence of who we are, in my indigenous native part of me, in my native Mexicano part of me, the true sense of being a complete hombre noble, if you will, the noble man includes being able to live in your masculine, being able to live in your feminine, being able to live in your child's space, being able to live in your elder space, as well. The true sense of balance is being able to shift when you need to.
As a dad, earthquake happens, and my kids are dad, I'm shaking inside but I'm saying everything's okay, nothing's because it's all right. But there has to be times, also, that you are sensitive, are compassionate. The problem is that in the developmental process, little boys are cute, black and brown boys are cute until they get a certain age, until they get a voice. And all of a sudden, now, at eight, I'm having to watch my back when I walk in the store people are, it's already-
Lantigua: They're following you. Yep.
Tello: Yeah, they're already following me. And it's like, dude, how do I survive this? If we don't have healthy men as examples, as teachers, rights of passage, we do what we see. And if all we see is men that are surviving, men that are wounded, then that's the way we're going to be.
Lantigua: Let's talk a little bit about how our natural family orientedness can help in this healing. What is the role for wives, daughters, sons, and other people when someone is themselves going through a healing journey?
Tello: Well, I think that the sense of acknowledgement and support, we get used to people being a certain way. Going back to my father, when he would get emotional, he missed his mom or somebody had passed, my mom would get very uncomfortable with that. And suck it up, let's go, come on, we got stuff to do. And see, that's the interesting thing, because my mom wasn't very affectionate. She wasn't very expressive, emotionally, but we don't see that as toxic. We see it, well, my mom's going through some stuff.
Lantigua: Right.
Tello: But when men go through that, it's got being macho. You know what I mean? And we begin to blame. And so part of this is us, first of all, understanding the sense of growth and development is within all of us, and we need to support each other. The younger, we can show the example for our young children that it's okay to express the different elements of who you are. And if you're emotional, that's okay, and if not, you're okay, too. And then show the example of that, too. I think that's important.
Lantigua: Yeah. I'm raising two boys, and I am always intentional when they ask me, "Mama, are you okay?" To be honest, as appropriate, so I will say, "Actually, I'm a little bit stressed. Something's going on at work today. Can I have a hug?" Or, "I've got a problem that I haven't figured out how to solve," and then I try to say something positive like, "but I'm sure I'm going to work through it. I'm sure I'm going to figure it out," because I don't want them to worry. Because that's the other thing. I think in many of these relationships, especially the parent to child relationship, we take on roles like you did to protect your kids, but what's the line between protecting and sheltering to the point where they really can't see you for who you are?
Tello: And I think the other part is that, because I've worked with families in which there's little boys, they're bien chillones, they're crying all the time, and it's like the mother's raising boys and don't want the boy to be, if you will, harsh and all of that. So they really baby this, and he becomes spoiled and thinks that he deserves everything and should be-
Lantigua: Right. Entitled.
Tello: There's a sense of entitlement. And so what we really need to really focus on is balance, being able to be in your emotional side, but being able to be in your logical side sometimes, your reasoning side, being able to go where you need to go when it's necessary. And that's the thing that our society doesn't teach us. And so we need to teach each other that and to see each other, examples that Tios, the fathers, the grandfathers. And I think what Figgy expresses in their music is important, too, because we need to see it in music, we need to see it in art, in movies and all that. We need to see those examples so that it becomes, also, a narrative that we're comfortable with.
Lantigua: I love that. That's actually a perfect place to end because it is about being able to support one another in being all of the ways in which it is appropriate for us to be.
Jerry, thank you so much for coming on the show. Please come back.
Tello: Yo, thank you for all that you do and having these conversations.
Lantigua: All right. Here's what Jerry taught us today.
Avoid labels. Labels are deceiving. They make it easier to assume things we don't know. They reinforce stereotypes and they hinder our ability to see people, including our loved ones, for who they really are.
Aim for balance. Everyone is capable of being emotional and being logical. It's not about policing which behaviors or emotions are allowed. It's about understanding when and how to tap into each part of ourselves.
And remember, acknowledge their journey. People are who they are, in part, because of their lived experiences. Learning about what your relatives have gone through will help you know them more fully and on a deeper level.
Thank you for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí and Papí] about Anything is an original production of LWC Studios. Virginia Lora is the show's producer. Trey Lightburn mixed this episode. I'm the Creator, Juleyka Lanitgua. On Twitter and Instagram, we're @TalktoMamiPapi. Bye, everybody. Talk to you soon.
CITATION:
Lantigua, Juleyka, host.“Redefining Manhood with Papí” How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] about Anything, LWC Studios., June 19, 2023. TalkToMamiPapi.com.