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Welcome back to La Bota Alejo.
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What's going on? Well,
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today, we have someone that people are literally saying might be
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our first Gen Z Latino president.
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That is, that is cool.
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Also, he is huge on Tik Tok like over 10 million
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followers and, and he gave a speech at the DNC last
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week, but it blew up like my family in Colombia sent
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it to me and we're like,
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who is he? If two decades ago when my parents immigrated
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to College Station, Texas,
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you told them that one day their son would reach 14 million
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followers on social media,
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graduate law school and speak at the Democratic National Convention.
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They might not believe you.
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We're gonna talk to him.
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You're inspired. So we want him to rub that energy off
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on you guys. Exactly.
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Let's welcome, Carlos Eduardo Esquina activists and social media sensation.
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Welcome. Carlos. Hi.
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Hi. Thank you for having me.
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Thank you so much for joining.
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We're so excited to be speaking with you today.
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Me too. I know you're all about Texas.
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You're from Texas. You live in Texas,
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I always ask Texas people in and out or what a burger
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Well, honestly I don't really like either,
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to be honest. I mean,
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water burger. So I really liked it,
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but I ate it so much,
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like when I was young and in high school,
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you know, so I just stopped going too much and then
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it's all right. So I lived in Las Vegas for three
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years. I went to law school there.
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And the first time I went to in and out,
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I was like, you know,
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because of this whole thing was like,
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oh, this is gonna be amazing and I mean,
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it was good, but it also wasn't like,
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oh, this is like life changing.
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So if I had to choose probably water burger,
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I don't go there too much either anymore.
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You got burnt out on that water burger.
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But so you mentioned you went to law school in Las
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Vegas when, so tell me a little bit about that because
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you also decided to start creating.
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When did that happen?
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So I grew up when I grew up in college station,
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Texas ever since I was five years old.
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After graduating high school,
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I moved to New York to go to school at Vassar College
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I was there for three years.
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I graduated early in May of 2020.
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And basically like during that time,
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a little bit before my graduation,
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I already had like a job lined up for a nonprofit in
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Texas. But then that fell through because of the pandemic.
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And while I was figuring out what to do,
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you know, an organization,
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a nonprofit, another one reached out to me about doing citizenship
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classes online. So I started doing them on Facebook and
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I should do them on tiktok too.
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So my first content on Tik Tok was about the citizenship
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classes. Those started blowing up pretty fast and,
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you know, started doing social media as a hobby.
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But back then I was like,
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you know, I really like doing social media,
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at that point, I didn't think I could make a career
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or anything like serious out of him.
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So while I was figuring out what to do like long term
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oh, let's go to law school.
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So I applied to law school.
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I got a scholarship to go to the University of Nevada in
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Las Vegas. And while in law school,
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that's when I started really like blowing up a lot more on
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social media. And I was like,
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well, I'm already in law school.
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I can't drop out now,
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you know, that would look really bad.
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I have to take advantage of this opportunity.
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So I found a way to balance both.
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And yeah, I graduated this May and I'm still making content
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So I think it worked out.
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again, homeboys hustling.
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I'm taking notes right now.
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I'm like, if he can do it,
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Oh, yeah, I have a question about your tiktok specifically
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because you do a lot of Spanish videos,
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right? Like, why do you create mainly content in
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Spanish? I don't even know.
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I just kind of like I just felt natural.
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when I started social media,
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it was kind of like,
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you know, I'm just going to share what I'm already doing
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There's already a a lot of people putting stuff out there
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in English. Like I wanna do something different and you know
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like do it in Spanish,
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but specifically for Latinos here in the United States,
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it was funny because when I gave my speech at the DNC
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there was a lot of people like,
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oh I didn't know this guy spoke English,
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you know, so like there's this misconception that if you speak
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Spanish, you don't speak English or if you speak English,
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you don't like, I mean,
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a lot of us exist within both worlds and I think I
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don't only speak to those people who don't know English.
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I speak to a lot of people who know English,
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but they just, you know,
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like to consume stuff in Spanish for people like my parents,
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you know, like they know English,
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but they just feel more at home more comfortable with Spanish.
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being able to bridge that gap,
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I think is really important.
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I know I, I relate to that.
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I, I feel like I naturally speak in Spanish so I
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I enjoy your content very much and we actually read somewhere
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that 20 million people watched the DNC but content creators specifically brought
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in 55 million views.
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Do you think social media is a future for this election?
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And just in general for politics down the road?
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that's what I was actually looking at today.
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So it's funny because Telemundo they uploaded my speech before I
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did because obviously I was speaking and then doing everything after so
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like on their social media on just tiktok alone,
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it has a 7.5 million views or something like that.
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It's been shared. I don't know how many times and then
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also they shared it on Instagram and I was like,
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that's awesome. So I res shared it too.
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I was stressed about like having the subtitle and everything myself.
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oh Telemundo already did it for me.
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So like, I was so much and then to your question
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of how this relates to the election,
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I think more and more people are getting their information from
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social media, which is a good or bad thing depending how
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But it's the reality that we can avoid.
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And I think the Democratic Party realized that and that's why they
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invited so many of us,
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you know, quote unquote content creators and you know,
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influencers, whatever you want cause us to be there.
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And I think that was a really a smart move on
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their part honestly. And during your speech,
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you said to be pro immigrant is to be pro America Reagan
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knew that welcoming immigrants is not a Democratic or a Republican value
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It is an American value to be pro immigrant is to
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be pro America. What do you think is the biggest problem
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facing immigrants this election year?
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I feel like the narrative has just been allowed to shift so
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far to one extreme to the point where even like,
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you know, progressives and Democrats are like adopting a lot of
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these talking points. I think there are serious conversations to be
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had about like what's going on at the border or you know
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like border security,
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all these kinds of stuff.
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But when you completely let that overshadow the reality of the millions
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of people who are already here,
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like for over the past two years now,
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everything about immigration is the border,
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the border, the border and obviously the border is important and
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I'm I'm not saying it's not,
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but we also can't forget the millions of people who are already
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here who have been here for many years.
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And you know, I think the biggest challenge is how do
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we shift the narrative back not only push back against,
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you know, this hateful anti immigrant rhetoric but propose a counter
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narrative that paints immigrants for what they truly are good.
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People who pay taxes,
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who contribute, who in their vast majority don't have a criminal
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record, don't have anything,
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it's just positives all around for the country.
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So how do we move back to that?
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And I pulled out that Ronald Reagan quote,
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which was actually quite interesting cause I was like,
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you know, Ronald Reagan is not someone who I really agree
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with on a lot of stuff.
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But even then you look at Republicans previous in the past,
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their stances on immigration were night and day compared to what we're
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seeing right now. So like it's crazy to think that like
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Ronald Reagan was more pro immigrant than some Democrats nowadays.
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You know, like one thing we have to accept and especially
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when we say, you know,
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the United States is the greatest country on earth.
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As long as you are the quote unquote,
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greatest country on earth.
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People are gonna wanna come here then that's not a bad thing
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You know, why do people want to come to the
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United States instead of going to China or Russia?
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Because the United States is what it is.
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So we have to accept one that people are always gonna wanna
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come here. That said,
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how can we create these legal pathways for them to be able
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to come without having to risk their lives.
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I mean, just think about it.
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If someone is paying a coyote 10 $15,000 to be able to
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smuggle them across the border,
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you don't think they would pay the US government the same amount
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to be able to come here legally work here.
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Like, so why don't we look at those solutions that will
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actually reduce the number of people at the border.
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So I agree with all parties that what's going on on the
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border right now is a real problem and we can't ignore it
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I just think the solutions I propose,
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which I find to be the most logical are very different than
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anything else that's being proposed.
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you know, taking this anti you know,
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immigrant super hard line deport everyone approach like,
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OK, how can we open up,
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legal channels that are accessible that are good for the United States
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that are good for immigrants that are good for everyone involved.
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And that's what I want to shift the narrative back towards the
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issues, not the problems instead of the solutions that you know
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each side is proposing that I know that the surface.
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But I appreciate that.
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I really appreciate that.
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I'm like, I want to hear more like this is fascinating
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to me, these sound like break it down for me because
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I'm not that, you know,
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in it. But if you explain it like that.
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I think that more people would actually,
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oh, that is a valid point.
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what are your aspirations for the future?
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I mean, anything in the realm of politics?
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I know, I know people,
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people like. So it's funny because every time that happens,
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people have this whole argument of whether I can run for president
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or not. It's actually funny.
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So obviously I want to be involved in politics.
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Like, I think it's cool being able to be a speak
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at the DNC and meet with politicians.
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you can have a seat in the room from like a community
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perspective and like, you know,
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when you have that power behind you,
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then instead of like,
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you know, the other thing is too,
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like, once you actually go into,
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you know, a position or you run for something and you
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like, affiliate with like a party,
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hard line and everything,
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you know, you maybe aren't able to speak as much as
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you want to or you have to like,
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you know, a lot of the work that I care about
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is not necessarily what's always being talked about,
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you know, in congress,
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So it is difficult and obviously that takes away time from what
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you really care about,
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which is doing that community help.
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because you never know,
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what can happen. I think the pandemic,
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you know, if five years ago you asked me,
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do you ever think you're gonna be a,
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a content creator? I'd be like,
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no, that's really stupid.
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But now I'm a content creator,
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you never know. But at the same time,
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what I really enjoy is like working with people,
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you know, and spending that time in the community.
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I mean, we appreciate the time and we can keep
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but we appreciate the breakdowns you gave us throughout this this
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call and obviously you wanna send people your way and show you
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check out what you're doing.
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Do you mind plugging your socials,
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follow you up, Twitter and then all the other platforms.
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Carlos Despina vote November 8th.
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Thank you so, so much Carlos for joining us.
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We really appreciate it.
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Oh, yeah, I think it's November 5th,
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right? Is that the election last November 8th was last time
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vote November 5th. Shout out Carlos for not checking me and
Series