Moneda Moves (158): Reflections From An Evening With Latino Builders at The White House
It’s not every day Moneda Moves has presence at The White House, mi gente, and especially in a room full of other Latino builders and entrepreneurs across the country. But last week, we spent our Thursday evening at the South Lawn networking with so many familiar and new faces building across our political and media ecosystem. In today’s notita, we’re coming in hot with the scoop of our attendance of at La Casa Blanca for the debut of the Eva Longoria-directed film, “Flamin Hot.”
A revealing tidbit we learned: This was the first Latino-focused film to stream at The White House. And while this was certainly a celebratory event, it also merits an optimistic but critical look at the work left ahead of us when it comes to storytelling and owning our power — not just as consumers, but as entrepreneurs.
Let’s talk about representation and the power of storytelling. It’s a big deal for Latino representation in Hollywood (only 5% of lead roles are held by Latinos), produced by a Mexican-American director too, and it shows what the power of story can look like when we begin to represent our culture with a sense of understanding and respect on the big screen.
While the details of the Hot Cheetos invention have in fact been disputed, this movie isn’t about how a guy made spicy snacks, not really. When evaluated as strictly biopic, a journalist’s apprehension is warranted. But given this information, we viewed the film as media depicting being a reality of what it means to be Mexican-American and the power of the Latino community: the pride, faith, entrepreneurialism that exists in this cohort.
Flamin’ Hot is a mainstream launchpad to telling more Latino entrepreneurial stories. While this story illustrates intrapreneurship to the benefit of a corporation, there are elements in this movie that if fleshed out a bit further and explored outside of the company could really help tell the story about the work and power that originates in our communities. I think there is an underlying theme here about how Latino who lead are community built, for example. I’d be keen to see a story about most of the entrepreneurial guests we’ve had on the Moneda Moves pod.
We’re going to need more diverse stories about Latinos. And the expectation is that those will make it to The White House, too. To have any one piece of media speak for the whole Latino cohort is going to be a tall order, given we come from diverse countries, politics, subcultures, and socioeconomic status. We are going to need more stories, from diverse directors amplifying the narratives of people from different walks of life. It would be wonderful to see entrepreneurial journeys from Hondurans, Nicaraguans, Colombians —and depictions of Mexicans and subcultures in Chicago, New York, Kansas, even.
What was so rewarding about being at The White House was finding how many people from our communities showed up and out. Almost sweeter than visiting the President of the United States for a historic moment was to walk the space and see many familiar faces of brown and black folks who have been building, storytelling and leading in our communities. Among them:
✨Marivette Navarette, La Jefa in charge at The Mujerista. We collaborated in the early stages of her media platform which has blossomed into a beautiful platform championing Latinas. Thank you for recommending I join this 24 hour adventure!
✨ Eva Longoria, who has embraced the title of a true multi-hyphenate as an actress, director, activist, podcast host, entrepreneur all the while uplifting Latino stories. Her Mexican-American pride and pushing for representation are both qualities I align with greatly.
✨ Mariana Atencio who has reported all over Latin America and is powerful Latina voice in owning your authenticity. We’ve worked together to bring her work to spaces like Nasdaq.
✨ Polly Irungu —this woman is a FORCE. She’s worked to uplift Black Women photographers all over the country through her collective and we had the pleasure of taking her platform to Times Square. Now she’s a White House photographer!
✨ Leo Gonzalez who is bringing storytelling on the Latino community through comedy, perhaps one of the best medicines. We sat on a panel together just last fall to talk about his trajectory as a creator and how he bet on himself at the L’ATTITUDE conference.
We’ve left last week more invigorated and eager to continue building alongside our peers. We’ll be back with more headlines highlighting Latinos in money in our next newsletter.
And on that note to our listeners: We’ve kicked off recording our next season and have so much more in store in the next few weeks! Hay más por venir. You won’t want to miss it.
Con poder,
Lyanne