American Boy (2026) Movie Script
Marcello Hernandez 2026 American Boy
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome my son Marcello Hernndez!
Miami!
Vamos.
Feels like a family party
in this place right now.
That's how our family parties were,
though. You have to dance.
You have to dance, or you have to find
a new family. That's the rule.
I had to dance.
Ever since I was a kid, I had to dance.
That's how I had to enter my house.
If people came to my house,
my mom would be like, "Marcello!"
And I'm six years old,
and I have to leave my room like this.
And I'm like,
"Mommy, I don't want to dance."
And my mom is like, "Yeah,
and I didn't want to escape Cuba,
so dance."
"Okay, I'm sorry.
I don't know what that's like. I'm sorry."
And I, I would think
that I'm doing a good job.
Then, out of nowhere, my mom would be,
"No, Marcello, not like that."
"Do what I taught you."
And I'm like, "Mommy, please."
"Don't make me get nasty
in front of my family."
And I had to memorize every single dance.
I was always jealous of the American kids
because American kids
don't have to memorize any dance.
American kids on Christmas,
New Years, Thanksgiving,
they get to rest.
They don't have to memorize
anything at all.
American kids live a very free life.
American kids go,
"Oh my God, I love that song."
And then they jump.
And their mom is like
"Look, Tyler's dancing."
I'm like,
"Tyler's not doing anything, dude."
I had to shake my ass specifically.
That's how I grew up. You show up
at your family party and dance.
And then your mom says
the most beautiful words you can hear.
What's the most beautiful part
about being at a family party?
It's hanging out with your cousins, right?
Isn't that the most beautiful part?
Oh my God.
Something about being with your cousins,
it just, it makes you just
You lose your mind.
You you end up in a part of your house
that you have never been to before.
You and your cousins end up
in the AC unit of your house.
And you're in there.
And it's weird in there.
One of your cousins is like,
"I have hair, bro. I swear to God."
"I have hair. I don't know
where it came from. I have hair."
Your other cousin, he's weird.
And he's like, "Bro,
eat the cockroach, bro, please."
I'm like, "What?" He's like, "Eat it now.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"I've done it before.
Just eat the cockroach. Just hurry up."
The parents are getting drunk,
and the kids are kind of lit too
because we have been drinking
Coca-Cola unsupervised.
We're drinking it
out of the bottle tonight, okay?
And your cousin's mouth is brown.
And he's lit up.
And you guys are in there going crazy.
Then, out of nowhere, one of your uncles
comes into the AC unit and goes,
"Hey, Marcello, just a bit of whiskey.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"Come on. A bit of whiskey.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"Eat the cockroach, drink the whiskey.
A little bit of whiskey."
And then, somehow,
it's 2:00 in the morning for some reason.
It's 2:00 a.m.
And at 2:00 a.m.,
that's when the parents realize,
"Damn, I have not seen my kid
in nine hours."
And they want the kid back to the dan
"Back to the dance floor!"
Now it's 2:00 in the morning.
And I'm still six years old,
but now I want to dance, you understand?
Because I've been drinking whiskey,
dawg, okay?
I want to dance.
What are American kids doing
at 2:00 in the morning?
By the way, it's Christmas, okay?
Where is Santa Claus? Nobody cares, dawg.
Santa Claus is gonna come
when the party is over.
2:00 in the morning
What are what are American kids doing
at 2:00 in the morning on Christmas?
Watching Elf, you nerds?
I am grinding with my aunt,
you understand?
And she is throwing it back violently,
dawg. Violent.
And I'm like, "Mommy, why?"
And she's like, "Because your aunt
is going through a divorce right now."
And that is not being inappropriate.
That is supporting your family.
That's what I did.
I did whatever my mom told me.
She tells me to grind on my aunt, I grind.
My mom has been through so much
that whatever she tells me,
that's what I'm gonna do.
For example, I have severe ADD.
Uh, everybody told me I have ADD.
And I told my mom I have ADD.
And she said no, so I don't have ADD.
I don't have it. And I feel bad.
I feel bad that I don't have it
because I wanted it. And everybody
And it's easy to get, by the way.
If you want ADD, you can have it.
You go to a doctor, and you go, "Ah."
Then they give it to you.
It takes two seconds.
Everybody knew that I had ADD.
I had teachers in Miami
that didn't believe in ADD,
and they were like,
"Marcello made me a believer."
I have it like that. I have it for real.
Everybody knew I had it.
And the problem is
I had to tell my mom that I have ADD.
And when I told my mom that I have ADD,
she threatened to give it to me.
I said, "Mommy, I have ADD."
And she goes, "Ah, you want ADD?
I can give you ADD right now!"
And in that moment,
I decided to focus.
And it's sad because I wanted the pills.
I really wanted the pills,
'cause I know that the pills do something.
I know that they do something.
Because I had a friend in high school,
and his mom let him have ADD.
And he would come up to me on Tuesdays,
and he'd be like
"Hey, Marcello,
I didn't take the pill today."
"It's No Pill Tuesday. Ah!"
And I was like, "Wow,
is that how I'm living my life?"
"Every day is No Pill Tuesday for me?"
It was horrible.
And that's what my life was.
When I was younger, my ADD was
a big problem in school, you know?
And now that I'm older, my problem
with ADD is in relationships, you know?
Uh, with women.
Because I have severe ADD,
and I never got the pills.
And women
They they love it
when you listen to them, bro.
It's their favorite thing.
And it's my biggest weakness.
Women are nice.
Women do not need you
to be seven feet and have abs.
All women want is for you to listen to her
and be there for her
and memorize the names of her friends.
That's all they want.
You have to know the names of the friends.
You have to be
ahead of her sometimes, you know?
And women that's a beautiful thing
because that means that women
are not superficial, you know?
It means they're looking
for someone that's a partner.
They're not exactly looking
for a physical thing.
Men are more superficial.
I have friends that are very superficial.
I have friends that I show them
a picture of a girl I like,
and they'll be like, "No, bro."
"Nah, you have to
break up with her, dawg."
And I'm like, "Why?"
And they're like, "Because, dawg,
her forehead is crazy."
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
She's nice, smart. She's a good person."
And my boys are like, "No, we could tell
she was smart, dawg. That's not the"
"That's not the problem, dawg."
This guy is going on and on
about her forehead.
I'm like, "Dude, you're bald."
"Like, how how could you say that
when your forehead doesn't end?"
But that's how men are.
Men are men are like that.
Women are not like that.
Women can bring anything to their friends.
A woman can bring a frog,
a real frog, to her friends
and be like, "Guys, this is my boyfriend."
"And I love him. And he loves me.
And we hang out by the swamp."
"And we get along great,
and We love each other."
And her friends
her friends will be like, "Okay."
"In that case,
ribbit."
They don't care. The women are down.
And I think that's beautiful, you know,
because it is rare
It is more rare to see, like, a man,
like a good-looking man,
with a woman that is not
at his level of attractiveness, you know?
But quite often,
you will see a beautiful woman.
And she's nice. And she's hardworking.
And she loves her family.
And she's perfect.
And then you see her husband.
And you're like, "Hey, congratulations."
And he's like
"Ribbit."
Every time I see this couple,
I go, "Oh my God."
"That guy probably listens
like crazy, dawg."
That guy probably says stuff like,
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Start again."
My boy's like, "No, bro,
I bet you that guy's rich."
I'm like, "No, dawg."
"That guy probably has
follow-up questions."
That's the problem, you know?
I don't I don't listen good,
so I'm scared.
And on top of that,
women are scary to me in general.
In general. Because I grew up
with women in my house.
I grew up with only women in my house.
It was me, my mom, and my sister.
In high school, my mom's best friend
and her daughter moved in.
I have seen too much.
When I was little, I would go to school,
a little boy would be like,
"Hey, you know that girls don't poop?"
And I'd be like
"I know very well how they poop."
"And I think it's worse than ours."
No, man. I saw it all. Women are
Women are very scary. They are.
And they live a violent life
behind the scenes.
I have seen what you hide, okay?
Every woman has a mustache.
Did you know that?
They all have a mustache.
And they get it taken care of
in the most violent way possible.
Everything they do is violent.
They go to a salon,
and they go, "I I have a mustache."
The lady goes, "Ah, how would you like me
to take care of that?"
And the woman goes,
"Oh, I would like it if you could maybe
rip it off my face!"
And they pay a little woman
with big forearms
to go up to her face and go
Everything that they do is violent.
And I'm scared of women for that reason.
I'm scared everything they do is violent.
Everything. They go they do their hair.
The hair is violent.
Theythey get their eyebrows yanked out
one at a time.
Ripped out. And they like it.
They go, "Thank you!" Like that.
Everything they do is violent.
Their their hair.
They go to a salon,
and they light their hair on fire.
And and they put chemicals in their hair.
And and all types of stuff.
They put their hair in aluminum foil
like their hair is food now.
And and then they go,
"Now put your head in the microwave."
And then the woman sits in the microwave
and lets her head get cooked
in the microwave.
It's hot under there.
They go, "Is it too hot for you, Melissa?"
And she goes, "No, I like it!"
Imagine, they get their head cooked.
They're getting their head cooked.
Imagine the radiation
that gets into their head.
You have no idea.
And that's why women are
a little bit different, you know?
They're a little bit different.
When a man wants to know if you love him,
he goes, "Baby, do you love me?"
And that makes sense.
When a woman wants to know
if you love her, she goes,
"If I was a donkey and you
and you were a lizard,
do you think we could still be together?"
And the man is like, "What?"
And she's like
"If I was a donkey and you were a lizard,
did I stutter when I asked the question?"
Like, "Your hair looks fantastic, babe.
I'm so sorry."
Everything they do is violent.
The Brazilian wax.
Let me tell you,
there's nothing Brazilian about that.
They put the word "Brazilian" there
so you think it's a tropical experience.
But it is not a tropical experience.
I have been there.
I've been to every appointment.
I had a single mom, and I didn't behave.
I know what I'm talking about.
I've been in there with my soccer cleats.
You go to the Brazilian wax place,
and they grab your mom
and throw her on a surgical table.
And then a little goblin
comes through some curtains.
"Hello!"
And she I haven't seen what they do,
but it looks like
they do honey and duct tape
on your mom.
Then they look at your mom and go,
"I'm gonna count to three, okay?"
"One"
"Two!"
And then they hold it up
like the head of a soldier she killed.
And then she looks at your mom,
and she goes, "It has been a long time."
I'm sure it hurts when they rip that off.
I'm sure it hurts.
But my mom never screamed and never cried.
Women are too abnormal to scream or cry.
They rip it off, and she talks.
When it hurts, they talk.
They go
And your mom goes,
"My son is in third grade. Did you know?"
Of course, I'm scared.
And I have seen it all.
I have seen it all.
I I have seen a woman
getting ready to leave the house.
A woman getting ready to leave the house
is one of the most violent scenes
I have ever seen in my entire life.
They are able to turn their bathroom
into Dexter's laboratory.
There are potions and serums and creams
and electricity and water.
What a horrible combination.
And everything is all at once.
Everything's on fire in there.
There's a cream that if you touch it
and touch your face,
all the hair falls off your body.
It is violent in there.
And her makeup,
she's not doing her makeup like
No. She has a pencil,
and she's putting it in her eye.
And her eye starts to cry.
And she's a savage.
She goes
And goes deeper with the pencil.
The eye is rejecting the pencil.
If the eye could talk, the eye would say,
"Please, Mama. No more pencil."
"Please, no more with the pencil. Please."
She doesn't care.
She goes deeper with the pencil.
If she makes a mistake, she goes
"I have to start again!" Like that.
Tell me that's not scary.
The clothes that women wear
to leave the house is insane.
Men are shirt, pants, shoes, maybe hat.
Shirt, pants, shoes, maybe hat.
Women, there's stuff that you have no idea
that they have to wear.
And the way
that they have to contort their body
You don't even know.
I was the wardrobe guy at my house.
My mom would be like, "Marcello!"
And I walk in, and she is
She's contort She's a contortion.
I'm like, "What's going on?"
She goes, "I'm gonna put my elbow
in my ass, okay?"
"What?" She goes,
"I'm gonna put my elbow in my a"
"When my elbow reaches my ass,
I need you to zip. You understand?"
I'm like, "That sounds dangerous, Mommy.
I don't know if that sounds safe."
"It's not safe. It's what you have to do."
"Okay, elbow to the ass. Yes."
I go, "Okay. It's not zipping."
"I said wait
until my elbow reaches my ass!"
I had to be in there
for all that stuff, man.
It's spooky. Women are not
the delicate creature you think they are.
They're living a violent life
behind the scenes.
And then they go out,
and they go, "Hi, how are you?"
Hell no, dawg. All of it is violent.
You go to a
You go to a club, and you see a woman.
And she's beautiful. You're like, "Wow,
I like your outfit. That's a nice shirt."
"That's not a shirt, papa."
That thing clips, okay?
You had no idea that thing clips, huh?
You thought that she put
her shirt on like this. No.
She put it on like this, dawg.
She had to make it clip, dawg.
That's a lot of work that she has to do.
And that's tight, dawg.
By the end of the night,
that thing is in her neck.
So be gentle with her. It's scary.
All of it is scary, dawg. And the blood.
I saw the blood firsthand.
People don't think about the blood.
Women don't talk about it.
The blood is very real.
I was a happy little boy.
And and I had a happy little sister.
And and one day,
out of nowhere, for no reason,
blood.
And she's like, "Mommy, blood?"
And my mom is like "Welcome to the club."
And she's like, "Blood only for today?"
And my mom is like, "Blood forever."
And now my happy little sister
is counting the days of the blood
like it's jail.
She starts to say scary stuff to me.
"The blood is coming."
"There's three days until the blood."
I'm like, "What?"
She's like, "The blood wants ice cream."
I'm like, "The blood can talk?"
She's like, "I speak for the blood!"
"The blood speaks through me."
Like, oh my God.
And the blood has Bluetooth.
Did you know that?
Because if three of you get together,
you pair device.
It is scary, dawg.
And then, imagine, then we have to
take them out on a date, you know?
Imagine that.
Imagine, like,
you ask a girl out on a date,
and she hasn't been on a date in a while.
Think about it. Now she has to go
through a week of torture.
She has to pay all these different people
to do horrible things to her body.
Rip it! Rip it out!
And it costs money.
They pay, they pay, they pay.
Put their head in the microwave.
Money, money, money, money.
Everything, they pay.
And then they get to the date,
and they're like, "So, what do you do?"
And the guy's like,
"I'm still figuring that out."
She's like, "Then I'm gonna kill myself."
"It's not worth it."
And and that's why men
have to pay on the date,
because by the time she gets to the date,
she's in debt.
There's no money left.
And you don't know where the blood is,
so just pay and say, "I'm sorry,"
is what you say.
"I'm sorry for what you go through."
And if you wanna take a girl out on a date
but you don't want to pay,
if you don't want to pay,
tell her before the date
that you don't want to pay
so you can both show up with a mustache.
And then you can split it like men.
That's how I grew up. I grew up in Miami
in salons and Brazilian waxes and
And then I went to college in Ohio.
Yes, yes. Uh, I guess you could say
that I studied abroad.
And, uh, I was shocked when I got to Ohio
because I thought that I was white.
And then I got to Ohio,
and they were like
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, chico-rito."
It was a tough time.
I am gonna talk about white people
a little bit tonight.
And I wanna say something
before I get into it.
I wanna say that I know
that right now it's a tough time
to be white.
And I wanna say don't be sad.
You guys had a fantastic run.
It's okay.
You know? And, um
And I know that today,
a lot of people say,
"White people this"
and "White people that."
It's always something negative.
And I'm I'm sure that
that can affect your mental health.
But
I, I, I want you to know when people say,
"White people this, white people that,"
we're not talking about all of you.
No. There's a group.
And I'm sure some of you are here, like
"Marcello, am I in the group?"
"I wanna know if I'm in the group."
"I don't wanna be in the group."
"I have a bunch of Latino friends.
I'm not in the group, right?"
"I mean, really, am I in the group?
Just tell me 'cause I wanna know."
I'm gonna help you find out
if you're in the group, okay?
If you are white,
and when you were little,
your mom hit you,
you're Hispanic.
We accept you. We appreciate you.
AndSweet Caroline
Bam, bam, bam
You see? We're cool, guys.
We're cool.
Now, if you are white
and you find
that a lot of times in your life
someone will say something, and you go
then you are who we are talking about.
So let's try to enjoy this together, huh?
How about that?
I'll tell you this. When I went to Ohio,
my biggest surprise
were the parties, you know?
The way that white guys party
did shock me a bit
because in Miami, when we party,
it's all about the girls.
"How many girls are gonna be there?
There can be no guys."
"There can only be girls."
"The party tonight is gonna be 700 girls
and us four."
That's how we like to party.
And in Ohio,
it's not about the girls at all.
It's about the beers.
"How many beers are gonna be there?"
"If I sell my car,
how many beers do you think?"
And I'm like
"I want to go home."
You know? I didn't feel right.
'Cause in Miami, you dance.
And you have to dance.
In Miami, the music is making you dance.
You don't have a choice in the matter.
In Miami, it doesn't matter
what status you are socially.
The quarterback of the football team
and the guy that likes chess
are both getting disgusting
on the dance floor.
No matter what.
No matter where you are, you have to.
And it's not because you want to.
It's 'cause the music makes you dance.
We cannot stop. The music is too crazy
for you not to dance.
You're sitting there, standing still,
and then you hear
Look at you!
You can't stop. You're like
You have to. You just have to.
That's what it is.
The music's playing, the guys are dancing,
and the women are everywhere.
They don't wanna dance, by the way.
Latina women do not wanna dance.
They are strong feminist women.
They're not interested in dancing
with any man.
"I don't need any man to talk to me
tonight. I'm not interested."
"I don't need you to tell me."
"I don't need a man to come up to me,
'You look pretty.'"
"I know I look pretty, papi.
I don't need you to tell me."
"I don't need you to tell me
what I do, who I am,
what I need to look like, or anything."
Ah, I
"'Oh. Oh, you look beautiful.'
I don't care what you say, papi."
"I work very hard to look beautiful.
I put a pencil in my eye and made a clip."
"So don't even talk to me."
"I went through a lot to be here already."
So no, man. They're dancing.
And and they and they don't wanna dance.
They're very strong feminist women.
They're not interested.
And it's funny because they have
this strong feminist energy,
but the music
the lyrics of the music in Miami
are not feminist at all, are they?
They are not feminist at all.
This strong feminist Latina woman
is at this party.
And then the guy in the song is like
And out of nowhere, he goes,
"I grab you. I take you to my house."
"You don't have a choice."
And the women are like
"I don't have a choice!"
She does all that.
And then the next day,
she goes back to her nonprofit.
That's 2:00 in the morning in Miami.
2:00 in the morning in Cleveland, Ohio,
it's a totally different story.
All you hear is
Jealousy, turning all my
Turning all my
The girls are nowhere to be found.
These guys are destroying the house.
I have never felt like
more of an immigrant in my entire life.
And it's a sad They're singing sad songs.
It's the price I pay
Like, why are you paying a price?
It doesn't make any sense.
And we don't do that. Latinos,
we don't have sad songs like that.
The saddest song we have
has a happy beat, you know?
The beat is always happy.
My wife, she left me
She took the kids
I'm homeless, I don't have money
The beat is so happy,
you don't even know what's happening.
This guy's like, "I'm gonna die
in three months." And you're like
Not even thinking about it.
But that's how it is. We don't do sad.
We don't do depression, you know?
It's hard for us to do depression.
The Latinos, we don't really
have it like that, you know?
Me and my sister,
we tried to get depression.
When we were little, we tried to get it.
We were like, "Mommy, I'm depressed."
And and then she did like a rap.
She did like a performance.
We were like, "Mommy, we're depressed."
She was like
Whoo
"You're depressed."
"Ay, Dios mio."
"Allow me to reintroduce myself."
"I am your mother,
and when I was 12 years old,
I had to leave my country
because the government took my house."
"I had to go to the United States
by myself, work 27 different jobs,
and go to sleep in a washing machine
and wake up in a dryer."
"I didn't have any friends, any money,
any toys, any YouTube,
any Netflix, any Amazon, any Hulu,
any YouTube TV,
any Toys"R"Us, any Best Buy, any Target,
and I didn't have anything."
"And then I had to
I had to learn to speak English
and pay my way through college."
"While I was doing that,
I got pregnant with you."
"And you didn't ruin my life,
but you didn't didn't ruin my life."
"When you were born, you were so stupid,
you didn't know how to walk."
"I had to teach you how to walk
because you didn't even know how to walk."
"Then you got a little older
and wanted to do activities."
"I had to pick you up and drop you off,
and drop you off and pick you up,
pick you up and drop you off,
drop you off and pick you up,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
drop you off and pick you up,
and pick you up and drop you off."
"Sometimes, I had to drop you off,
and then I had to wait."
"And then I pick you up and drop you off,
and pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off."
"So if anybody in this house
is gonna have depression,
it's gonna be me."
And that is when I learned
that depression is something
that you earn.
You have to deserve it.
And listen, I know
that mental health is real, you know?
I'm just telling you my experience,
which is I was not allowed to have it.
Okay? And and I I tried to have it.
I don't know what my life
would've been like if I got to have it.
But I know that not having it
kind of helped me in a lot of ways.
It helped me push through
a lot of dark situations, you know?
It wasn't always this nice for me.
This is a beautiful moment.
I'm very grateful for you guys
and everything you've done to support me.
It means the world.
People people sometimes ask me,
they go, "Marcello, do you like it?"
"Do you like to be
on Saturday Live Night?"
And they always go, "When does it film?"
I'm like
"It's okay."
People ask me, "Do you like it?
Do you like to tour, do these shows?"
"Do you like what you're doing?"
I'm like, "Do I like it?"
"I used to be the guy
at the top of the slide at a water park."
"I love it."
I It is insane what has happened to me.
My my job used to be
to look at a little kid and say, "Wait."
A little kid would be like
"I wanna go right now!"
"You have to wait. I'm so sorry."
That was my job.
I had little kids coming up to me
and screaming at me, you know?
And I learned a lot at that job.
I learned about hard work
and about, you know, and struggle,
and about being in the wrong place
but having to continue.
And I also learned
that I don't like skinny kids. I, I
I don't like them.
I'm sorry. I don't like them.
Have you seen them?
Have you seen a skinny kid?
They're possessed. They're like
And the blood is pumping too fast
in their body, and they're crazy.
Skinny kids used to come to the slide,
look me in my eye, and be like
"Push me!"
And I'll tell you the truth, I wanted to.
I wasn't allowed, but I wanted to.
I don't like them.
And they'll say random stuff.
Skinny kids will just lie to your face.
They'll just say a lie.
A skinny kid will be,
"I can run faster than a car!"
I'm like, "No, you can't.
You can't do that."
"Nobody can do that. That's so stupid.
"Why would you even say that?"
Skinny kids are insane.
Skinny kids will reveal a family secret.
Don't tell a skinny kid anything.
A skinny kid will tell everyone
a family secret.
A skinny kid will be like,
"My mom takes pills to go to sleep."
"My mom hits my dad, and he cries."
I'm like, "Shut up."
And I can talk about skinny kids
because I was one.
I might've been
one of the skinniest kids of all time.
And I did some skinny stuff.
I did. The skinniest thing I ever did
When I was ten years old,
I used to take the bus to school and home
because, uh, my mom worked a lot.
And, um, I wasn't getting
a lot of respect on the bus.
'Cause I was new on the bus.
And the bus is like jail.
Whoever is there the longest,
they have the most respect.
And I was new on the bus,
so I didn't get any respect.
So I decided one day
to convince everyone on the bus
that my mom lets me smoke cigarettes.
And they believed me.
And then, when they were like,
"Oh, that's cool," I was like, "Yeah."
"And my dad lets me drink alcohol."
And they were like, "Whoa, that's cool."
And I'm like, "Yeah."
And they were like,
"Well, we better enjoy Marcello
because he's gonna die very soon."
And I was a legend on the bus. A legend.
They thought that I was getting drunk
and smoking cigarettes at ten years old.
I was a legend.
Every time I'd get on the bus,
the girls would be like, "Marcello!"
And I'd be like,
"Chill, mami. I'm wasted."
I was a badass on the bus.
And then after like two or three weeks
of being a legend on the bus,
I got home one day,
and my home phone rang.
And I picked up the phone.
And I swear, this lady on the phone goes,
"Hi, this is Ana
from Child Protective Services."
And I was like, "What?"
She was like, "I'm calling
due to a report by your driver
that your mom lets you smoke cigarettes
and your dad lets you drink alcohol."
"Um, we just wanted to let you know
that we are in the process
of finding you a foster home."
And I'm like "No!
They don't even let me drink soda!"
She goes, "I understand you're scared, um,
but just, uh, please,
let me talk to your mom."
And I'm like "No!
Find the foster home first!"
Hell no. So the obviously was like,
"This is serious.
Let me talk to your mom."
I'm like, "Okay."
And so I talked to God for a moment.
And then I gave the phone to my mom.
And my mom is like, "Who is it?"
And I'm like, "She's gonna take me!"
She's like, "Who?"
I'm like, "The woman on the phone!"
My mom's like, "What?"
She grabs the phone.
She starts talking to this lady.
She gets emotional. She goes, "Wow, okay."
"All right, I will. Okay, I will."
When she hangs up the phone,
she tells me that now, by law,
her and my father need to report
to Child Protective Services.
My mom needs to check
her nails and her lungs
to see if she's an active smoker.
And my dad has to pee in little cups
to see if he's an active drinker.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's how skinny I was.
Yeah.
Maybe one of the skinniest of all time.
And so, imagine the guilt
that my mom put on me
for those two weeks she had to report
to Child Protective Services.
Imagine, every day,
"Have a great day at school, Marcello."
"I'm gonna go to Child Protective Services
to see if I can still be your mom."
I felt so bad. I felt so guilty.
I was paranoid, super paranoid.
I told everyone at school,
even the teachers,
they cannot say anything
in front of the bus driver
because he is undercover
for Child Protective Services.
I was freaking out. I have never been
so freaked out in my life.
And those two weeks felt like an eternity.
And after those two weeks,
my parents sat me down.
We had a conversation.
And they were like, "Marcello, um,
your father quit drinking a long time ago,
I quit smoking 15 years ago,
so obviously, we've tested negative,
and you get to stay with us."
And I was like,
"Good job, guys."
And it was one of those that was so bad
that they don't have to punish me.
I punish myself, you know?
They look at me like this.
And I'm like, "No, yeah, I know."
"I, I, I, I threw away my TV.
I threw away my Xbox."
I called Disney World and I told them
we're never gonna go back there again.
And we never talked about it again
after I after it happened.
It was something that was so bad
that we never talked about it again.
It was that bad.
It was one of those things
that you just you let it go.
The kid learned the lesson. You let it go.
That's how bad it is.
And we never communicated about it again.
I never apologized.
I never asked her
what it was like. Nothing.
And that was when I was ten.
When I was 21 years old, I was in Ohio.
And I saw a sign
for Child Protective Services
inside of a CVS.
I'll never forget it.
And I saw the sign, and I went, "Wow."
"I have not talked to my mom
about our experience."
"I have never asked her what it was like
to have such a skinny kid."
So I decided to call her and apologize.
So I call my mom, and I go,
"Mommy, do you remember
when Child Protective Services
almost took me
because the bus driver
was a double agent?"
And my mom goes,
"Ay, s, yes, Marcello. I remember."
"And I forgot to tell you that
that was my friend Maria
that called you that day."
And I'm glad it's funny to you guys.
I was so confused.
I was like, "What?"
And she was like, "Your sister told me
what you said on the bus."
I was like, "Wow, I had no idea
she was such an evil little witch."
My mom was like,
"Yeah, your sister told me,
so I was like, 'Oh, he wants to lie?
Let's see who can lie the best.'"
And to this day,
every year on my birthday,
this evil woman posts on my Facebook page,
"Happy birthday from Ana
at Child Protective Services."
People sometimes, they wonder,
you know, they go,
"How Latino is Marcello?
He looks like he plays lacrosse."
And
And I'm gonna tell you
exactly how Latino I am.
My mom used to hit me
in the women's bathroom at the mall.
I'm a real veteran, dawg.
To a lot of people,
that was just a bathroom.
To us, it was the Colosseum.
We lost a lot of great men in there.
And I never did anything crazy
to deserve to go to the Colosseum.
Sometimes you'll be at the mall
and see a kid talking to his mom.
And he's like
"I hate you, and I wanna go home!"
You know. And I'll let you guys decide
the race of that child.
Anytime I see a little kid
talking to his mom like that,
"I hate you, and I wanna go home!"
I'll go to my mom and be like,
"You know I'd never do
that to you, right?"
"That little boy has crossed the line."
"And I pray that he pays the price."
"That is all, your highness."
No. I would never do
something like that to my mom.
The reason I would get in trouble
is because my mom would notice
that I would do, like, a personality trait
that she didn't like, you know?
We'd get in trouble not for saying
something crazy to our mom.
We don't have the balls
to say something crazy.
Our mom is too scary for us
to say something crazy to her.
We say it in our room
behind her back, you know?
In your room,
you talk to her in an imaginary
"Mm, you better not talk to me like that.
I'll kill you." You know?
And then she goes, "What was that?"
And you go, "Nothing!"
"Talking to myself!"
No, we get in trouble for going like this.
She tells you to do something, and you go
And sometimes, you realize in the moment.
Have you ever done that?
Have you ever realized in the moment
what you just did
and what your future holds?
Have you ever done that? Your mom's like,
"Take out the trash!" You're like, "Ugh."
"Aah!"
"No, no, no.
Please, please, Mommy, no, please!"
"I don't even know that guy!
I don't even know who did that!"
"I would never do that to you
after everything you do for me,
all the sacrifices you make,
everything you do to give me a good life."
"I would never do that to you."
I've been there.
What happened to me is,
right before we leave the mall,
we'd be about to leave the mall.
And right before we leave the mall,
we'd be at the door of the mall.
And I can feel the air of the outside.
And I can't wait to leave the mall
because we have been at the mall
for ten hours.
And we have not bought
anything for anybody.
And I am so ready to leave the mall.
Right when I get to the door, my mom goes,
"Ah, Marcello, I forgot
to go to DSW. Let's go!"
And I I go like this. I go
And that's it.
Time to go to the Colosseum.
And now I'm in the women's bathroom
in Miami in the early 2000s
because I breathed incorrectly.
I am in there,
and my mom is twisting my ear
in way that is teaching me about anatomy.
I'm learning about cartilage
and how it cannot be destroyed.
She's twisting my ear. I'm like
And it's a very Latina environment
because the music in the bathroom is
Come on, baby, come on, baby
Do that conga
Come on, baby, come on, baby
Any longer
I'm getting my ass beat to Gloria Estefan.
I look across the bathroom,
and there's another little Latino kid
getting his ass beat.
I'm like, "What'd you do?"
He's like "I didn't do anything."
"She just wanted to hit me."
I'm like, "I don't understand you, papa.
You're gonna have to slow down."
He's like, "Nothing."
"My mom got me some sneakers,
and I didn't like them."
I'm like, "What'd you do
when you didn't like the sneakers?"
He's like, "Nothing."
"She showed me the sneakers,
and I didn't like them."
"And then very quietly to myself,
I just I went like this, like"
That's suicide.
You deserved that, my boy.
My mom never hit me hard.
My mom hit me a lot.
Very different.
She hit me a lot,
and she had talks with me.
She would tell me little speeches
out of nowhere
that would make me grateful
for what's going on, you know?
Out of nowhere, on a random day,
my mom would be like,
"Marcello, what if I told you
that everything
that you think is yours is mine?"
I'm like, "What?"
"What if I told you
you don't have anything
because you don't have a job and money?"
I'm like, "What?" "You don't have a job
and money so you've not bought anything."
"I've bought everything.
You don't have anything."
"Nothing you think is yours is yours.
Everything's mine. That's my TV, my Xbox,
my bed, my sheets,
my underwear, my clothes."
"The door is mine. The air is mine.
Don't touch the air. That's my air."
"Don't touch the refrigerator.
That's mine."
"Nothing's yours. Everything's mine.
Do you understand that?"
I'd be like, "What?"
She'd be like, "You don't have anything!"
"You don't have anything.
I have everything."
"You don't work. I work."
"I have everything.
Everything is mine. Nothing is yours."
I'm like, "Okay, Mama, I understand."
She's like, "Okay."
"Happy birthday."
And when you grow up like that, you know,
when you grow up
with that type of upbringing, you know,
American TV and American movies
start to become very unbelievable.
I never understood any of the TV shows.
I would go home
My mom would twist my ear in the bathroom,
and then I would go home
and watch Full House.
And if you don't know Full House,
Full House is a show about a white guy
that his wife dies,
and then him and his two friends
need to raise three little girls.
And they call it Full House
because that's a lot of people
in one house
for the whites.
Let's be honest.
If that was a Black, Latino,
or Asian show,
it would be called "House."
Every episode of that show
used to blow my mind
because the daughter would do
something crazy.
The daughter, the oldest daughter,
would do something insane.
She'd be like,
"I'm gonna smoke cigarettes."
I'd be at my house like,
"Don't do that, D.J.!"
"That could be very
Come on, D.J. Please, don't do that."
I was like my grandma watching a novella.
"Please, D.J. You're gonna die."
Then, of course,
she wouldn't listen to me.
She'd go smoke cigarettes
with the girl with the long neck.
You remember, Kimmy.
And listen, I love Kimmy,
and she grew into it,
but back then, it was crazy.
So they would go smoke cigarettes.
And then D.J. would come home
smelling like cigarettes.
Uncle Joey would be in the kitchen.
He'd smell the cigarettes. He'd be like
"Oh my God.
I have to go tell Bob Saget about this."
And he would go tell Bob Saget.
That's the dad.
Then Bob Saget would come
into the kitchen and be like, "D.J."
"Why does it smell like cigarettes?"
"And where were you?"
I'm already a little bit pissed off.
I'm like, "Speak up, Bob Saget."
"You know exactly why
it smells like cigarettes."
"That little girl disrespected you
in your house."
"After everything you do for her,
all the sacrifices you make,
all the money you spend
to give her a good life,
she has the balls to go behind your back
and smoke cigarettes, Bob Saget."
"That little girl has crossed the line,
and today is the day she pays the price."
And, of course, Bob Saget,
he's just looking at her,
and she's looking at the camera.
And the camera goes to D.J., and she goes
And I'm like, "Don't be scared now."
"You were a big girl
when you wanted to smoke cigarettes."
"Be a big girl now."
And then it would go to commercial.
And I'd be like, "Oh!"
Bob Saget
When we come back from commercial,
Bob Saget is about to beat the brakes
off of this little bitch.
Or, at the very least,
make her smoke
the whole pack of cigarettes.
At least show me something, Bob Saget.
We come back from commercial,
and D.J.'s like
"Aah!" And then she runs up the stairs,
and I'm like,
"Running makes it worse."
If you know, you know.
She runs up the stairs.
And she gets to her door,
and she goes, "Pow!"
And she slams the door.
And I'm like, "Ohh!"
"Whoo!"
"Strike two, mama."
"Now you're really gonna get it."
And then Bob Saget runs up the stairs.
And I'm screaming at Bob Saget.
I'm like, "Take your belt off
on the way, Bob Saget."
Bob Saget runs up there.
He gets to the door, and she goes
And she locks the door.
Exactly.
I'm not even upset. I'm confused.
I'm like,
"Where did this little girl get a lock?"
"She must be paying rent in this house."
And then Bob Saget gets to the door,
and he blows my mind.
Bob Saget gets to the door, and he goes
That's when I freak out.
I'm like "You don't have to knock
on the door! That's your door!"
"Take the door off the door
and hit her with the door!"
And I know
that's not the right thing to do,
but I was hungry for blood at the time.
He knocks on the door.
The little girl goes Unlocks the door.
What a lovely young lady.
And then Bob Saget walks into that room
and, again, does something
that my brain cannot even comprehend.
I gave him very simple instructions.
"Bob, you don't have to hit her
if you don't want to,
but at least find something
that she loves and destroy it."
That guy walks into this girl's room,
and he goes, "D.J."
"Why would you go smoke cigarettes?"
"Why would you do that, D.J.?"
"You know, not only are you hurting me,
but you're hurting yourself."
And she's like, "I'm sorry, Dad."
He's like, "It's okay, D.J."
"I love you very much."
"But today, I'm really disappointed."
And, uh, I throw up.
And then D.J. goes, "So,
safe to say
I can't go to the party on Friday?"
And I'm like, "This bitch."
And Bob Saget goes,
"Safe to say."
When I saw that, I wanted to record it
and present it to my mom.
I wanted to put a TV on wheels
and go up to my mom
and be like, "Hello, Sharks.
Thank you for having me today."
"I would like to present to you
a different method, Mama."
[audience laughing
Then my mom'd be like
"In my experience,
the only way that you learn
is when I twist your ear
or destroy something that you love."
"And, for that reason, I'm out."
And I'll be honest, when I was watching
those shows when I was younger,
I did want that life.
I did. I wanted that life.
It seemed nice. It seemed safe.
And I I was jealous, you know?
And now I've gotten older,
I have grown, you know, really proud
of the way I grew up.
I'm proud to have immigrant parents
and to be raised by them.
You know?
They made me strong, you know?
They made me strong,
and they made me powerful.
And and, um, I
I feel like one day, I want to have kids.
And I do feel like I kind of wanna have
a kid that grew up like me, you know?
And I think, sometimes,
when people grow up like I did, you know,
with the fake phone calls
and the Colosseum,
they they say stuff like,
"I'm gonna stop the cycle."
"I'm gonna stop the cycle of violence."
And I wanna say to you tonight, Miami,
I am going to continue the cycle.
And, you know, I think that, um,
it's very interesting to grow up
the way we did, with immigrant parents.
It is very interesting.
We are not allowed
to have mental health issues.
And I think that that's why
we steal the jobs.
You know, uh, who would you rather hire?
You know, Antonio,
who has no idea that he has
any kind of mental health issue,
or Jake, who's gonna take a personal day?
I don't know. I I don't know. I just
I've been watching the news now
for the first time in my life
because they're talking about us.
And, uh, it's crazy.
Every time I turn on the news,
there's a white lady like,
"The immigrants are coming here,
and they're doing crime."
And I'm like
'Cause I grew up around immigrants.
Everybody I grew up with was an immigrant.
My parents, my parents' friends,
my teachers, everybody was an immigrant.
My soccer coach. Everyone I ever
grew up with was an immigrant.
And and maybe we are doing crime,
but the biggest crime that we're doing
is working illegally,
which is a pretty solid crime.
There are a lot of Americans
that don't wanna work legally, you know?
So we are filling a void there.
We're helping out, you know?
And and I just don't like the idea
that the immigrants,
especially the Latino immigrants,
are scary.
I really know about Latino immigrants.
That's something I know about.
I don't know about politics, about laws.
I do know about Latino immigrants.
That's who raised me. That's who I know.
And when they get on the news
and go, "The immigrants are scary"
White people like, "Immigrants are scary."
I'm like, "No. And don't say that."
We're not scary,
and white people are not scared of us.
Have you seen a white person at a resort?
Do they look scared of us
when they're like
"Hola"?
"Cmo ests?"
They love us.
They go to a bar, they make a joke
with a Latino bartender, they laugh,
then they go, "That's it, Santiago,
you're coming home with us."
You love us.
We're fun.
I know some people want
the immigrants out of here,
and some people are sad
about the immigrants.
They're sad about what's happening
to the immigrants. Like,
"It's so sad what's happening
to the immigrants."
"They're throwing them over the wall."
And I wanna say something right now.
We'll be back, okay?
We always come back.
We're smart.
We're smart.
What are you gonna do when I get
to the border and I say, "Bonjour"?
We'll be fine.
We're genius. We'll be fine.
It just does bother me a little bit
to hear, you know, white people talking
about the Latinos like we're scary.
We're all scary.
Everybody has scary people.
I wanna say something to the white people
that think Latino immigrants are scary.
I want to say that if you're white
and you think that Latino immigrants
are coming to America
to grab a bunch of little kids
and put them in a basement,
no.
That's your thing.
We don't do that type of crime.
We don't like our own kids.
Why would we grab random kids?
That's not interesting to us.
We don't do that type of crime.
And I know I'm getting really aggressive
with white people right now,
but I can say it, okay?
Because I have a lot of white friends.
And they love me.
They're cool with it. So be cool, okay?
We're all flawed people.
And my big message is
to remember this, white people,
when you are judging
the Latino immigrants, remember this.
Remember that Latinos
do fun, exciting crimes.
What's a Latino crime?
Be racist for a moment.
What's a Latino crime?
"I'm driving the plane,
and it has a little bit of cocaine."
That's a fun crime.
That's a fun, exciting crime.
We're in the air. "Ha-ha-ha-ha."
It's fun.
So let's remember this when we judge
and when we put blanket statements
on the Latino immigrants. Remember that.
Remember that Latino immigrants
do fun, exciting crimes
that belong in movies.
And white people do creepy crimes
from documentaries.
Miami!
Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you!
I'm so happy to be home.
Thank you for coming out tonight.
Thank you for supporting me always.
This is where it started.
Y a los latinos, los quiero, los amo.
Gracias por apoyarme.
Se les quiere mucho.
Buenas noches, seores. Gracias.
Ladies and gentlemen,
please welcome my son Marcello Hernndez!
Miami!
Vamos.
Feels like a family party
in this place right now.
That's how our family parties were,
though. You have to dance.
You have to dance, or you have to find
a new family. That's the rule.
I had to dance.
Ever since I was a kid, I had to dance.
That's how I had to enter my house.
If people came to my house,
my mom would be like, "Marcello!"
And I'm six years old,
and I have to leave my room like this.
And I'm like,
"Mommy, I don't want to dance."
And my mom is like, "Yeah,
and I didn't want to escape Cuba,
so dance."
"Okay, I'm sorry.
I don't know what that's like. I'm sorry."
And I, I would think
that I'm doing a good job.
Then, out of nowhere, my mom would be,
"No, Marcello, not like that."
"Do what I taught you."
And I'm like, "Mommy, please."
"Don't make me get nasty
in front of my family."
And I had to memorize every single dance.
I was always jealous of the American kids
because American kids
don't have to memorize any dance.
American kids on Christmas,
New Years, Thanksgiving,
they get to rest.
They don't have to memorize
anything at all.
American kids live a very free life.
American kids go,
"Oh my God, I love that song."
And then they jump.
And their mom is like
"Look, Tyler's dancing."
I'm like,
"Tyler's not doing anything, dude."
I had to shake my ass specifically.
That's how I grew up. You show up
at your family party and dance.
And then your mom says
the most beautiful words you can hear.
What's the most beautiful part
about being at a family party?
It's hanging out with your cousins, right?
Isn't that the most beautiful part?
Oh my God.
Something about being with your cousins,
it just, it makes you just
You lose your mind.
You you end up in a part of your house
that you have never been to before.
You and your cousins end up
in the AC unit of your house.
And you're in there.
And it's weird in there.
One of your cousins is like,
"I have hair, bro. I swear to God."
"I have hair. I don't know
where it came from. I have hair."
Your other cousin, he's weird.
And he's like, "Bro,
eat the cockroach, bro, please."
I'm like, "What?" He's like, "Eat it now.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"I've done it before.
Just eat the cockroach. Just hurry up."
The parents are getting drunk,
and the kids are kind of lit too
because we have been drinking
Coca-Cola unsupervised.
We're drinking it
out of the bottle tonight, okay?
And your cousin's mouth is brown.
And he's lit up.
And you guys are in there going crazy.
Then, out of nowhere, one of your uncles
comes into the AC unit and goes,
"Hey, Marcello, just a bit of whiskey.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"Come on. A bit of whiskey.
Nothing's gonna happen to you."
"Eat the cockroach, drink the whiskey.
A little bit of whiskey."
And then, somehow,
it's 2:00 in the morning for some reason.
It's 2:00 a.m.
And at 2:00 a.m.,
that's when the parents realize,
"Damn, I have not seen my kid
in nine hours."
And they want the kid back to the dan
"Back to the dance floor!"
Now it's 2:00 in the morning.
And I'm still six years old,
but now I want to dance, you understand?
Because I've been drinking whiskey,
dawg, okay?
I want to dance.
What are American kids doing
at 2:00 in the morning?
By the way, it's Christmas, okay?
Where is Santa Claus? Nobody cares, dawg.
Santa Claus is gonna come
when the party is over.
2:00 in the morning
What are what are American kids doing
at 2:00 in the morning on Christmas?
Watching Elf, you nerds?
I am grinding with my aunt,
you understand?
And she is throwing it back violently,
dawg. Violent.
And I'm like, "Mommy, why?"
And she's like, "Because your aunt
is going through a divorce right now."
And that is not being inappropriate.
That is supporting your family.
That's what I did.
I did whatever my mom told me.
She tells me to grind on my aunt, I grind.
My mom has been through so much
that whatever she tells me,
that's what I'm gonna do.
For example, I have severe ADD.
Uh, everybody told me I have ADD.
And I told my mom I have ADD.
And she said no, so I don't have ADD.
I don't have it. And I feel bad.
I feel bad that I don't have it
because I wanted it. And everybody
And it's easy to get, by the way.
If you want ADD, you can have it.
You go to a doctor, and you go, "Ah."
Then they give it to you.
It takes two seconds.
Everybody knew that I had ADD.
I had teachers in Miami
that didn't believe in ADD,
and they were like,
"Marcello made me a believer."
I have it like that. I have it for real.
Everybody knew I had it.
And the problem is
I had to tell my mom that I have ADD.
And when I told my mom that I have ADD,
she threatened to give it to me.
I said, "Mommy, I have ADD."
And she goes, "Ah, you want ADD?
I can give you ADD right now!"
And in that moment,
I decided to focus.
And it's sad because I wanted the pills.
I really wanted the pills,
'cause I know that the pills do something.
I know that they do something.
Because I had a friend in high school,
and his mom let him have ADD.
And he would come up to me on Tuesdays,
and he'd be like
"Hey, Marcello,
I didn't take the pill today."
"It's No Pill Tuesday. Ah!"
And I was like, "Wow,
is that how I'm living my life?"
"Every day is No Pill Tuesday for me?"
It was horrible.
And that's what my life was.
When I was younger, my ADD was
a big problem in school, you know?
And now that I'm older, my problem
with ADD is in relationships, you know?
Uh, with women.
Because I have severe ADD,
and I never got the pills.
And women
They they love it
when you listen to them, bro.
It's their favorite thing.
And it's my biggest weakness.
Women are nice.
Women do not need you
to be seven feet and have abs.
All women want is for you to listen to her
and be there for her
and memorize the names of her friends.
That's all they want.
You have to know the names of the friends.
You have to be
ahead of her sometimes, you know?
And women that's a beautiful thing
because that means that women
are not superficial, you know?
It means they're looking
for someone that's a partner.
They're not exactly looking
for a physical thing.
Men are more superficial.
I have friends that are very superficial.
I have friends that I show them
a picture of a girl I like,
and they'll be like, "No, bro."
"Nah, you have to
break up with her, dawg."
And I'm like, "Why?"
And they're like, "Because, dawg,
her forehead is crazy."
I'm like, "What are you talking about?"
She's nice, smart. She's a good person."
And my boys are like, "No, we could tell
she was smart, dawg. That's not the"
"That's not the problem, dawg."
This guy is going on and on
about her forehead.
I'm like, "Dude, you're bald."
"Like, how how could you say that
when your forehead doesn't end?"
But that's how men are.
Men are men are like that.
Women are not like that.
Women can bring anything to their friends.
A woman can bring a frog,
a real frog, to her friends
and be like, "Guys, this is my boyfriend."
"And I love him. And he loves me.
And we hang out by the swamp."
"And we get along great,
and We love each other."
And her friends
her friends will be like, "Okay."
"In that case,
ribbit."
They don't care. The women are down.
And I think that's beautiful, you know,
because it is rare
It is more rare to see, like, a man,
like a good-looking man,
with a woman that is not
at his level of attractiveness, you know?
But quite often,
you will see a beautiful woman.
And she's nice. And she's hardworking.
And she loves her family.
And she's perfect.
And then you see her husband.
And you're like, "Hey, congratulations."
And he's like
"Ribbit."
Every time I see this couple,
I go, "Oh my God."
"That guy probably listens
like crazy, dawg."
That guy probably says stuff like,
"Wait, wait, wait, wait. Start again."
My boy's like, "No, bro,
I bet you that guy's rich."
I'm like, "No, dawg."
"That guy probably has
follow-up questions."
That's the problem, you know?
I don't I don't listen good,
so I'm scared.
And on top of that,
women are scary to me in general.
In general. Because I grew up
with women in my house.
I grew up with only women in my house.
It was me, my mom, and my sister.
In high school, my mom's best friend
and her daughter moved in.
I have seen too much.
When I was little, I would go to school,
a little boy would be like,
"Hey, you know that girls don't poop?"
And I'd be like
"I know very well how they poop."
"And I think it's worse than ours."
No, man. I saw it all. Women are
Women are very scary. They are.
And they live a violent life
behind the scenes.
I have seen what you hide, okay?
Every woman has a mustache.
Did you know that?
They all have a mustache.
And they get it taken care of
in the most violent way possible.
Everything they do is violent.
They go to a salon,
and they go, "I I have a mustache."
The lady goes, "Ah, how would you like me
to take care of that?"
And the woman goes,
"Oh, I would like it if you could maybe
rip it off my face!"
And they pay a little woman
with big forearms
to go up to her face and go
Everything that they do is violent.
And I'm scared of women for that reason.
I'm scared everything they do is violent.
Everything. They go they do their hair.
The hair is violent.
Theythey get their eyebrows yanked out
one at a time.
Ripped out. And they like it.
They go, "Thank you!" Like that.
Everything they do is violent.
Their their hair.
They go to a salon,
and they light their hair on fire.
And and they put chemicals in their hair.
And and all types of stuff.
They put their hair in aluminum foil
like their hair is food now.
And and then they go,
"Now put your head in the microwave."
And then the woman sits in the microwave
and lets her head get cooked
in the microwave.
It's hot under there.
They go, "Is it too hot for you, Melissa?"
And she goes, "No, I like it!"
Imagine, they get their head cooked.
They're getting their head cooked.
Imagine the radiation
that gets into their head.
You have no idea.
And that's why women are
a little bit different, you know?
They're a little bit different.
When a man wants to know if you love him,
he goes, "Baby, do you love me?"
And that makes sense.
When a woman wants to know
if you love her, she goes,
"If I was a donkey and you
and you were a lizard,
do you think we could still be together?"
And the man is like, "What?"
And she's like
"If I was a donkey and you were a lizard,
did I stutter when I asked the question?"
Like, "Your hair looks fantastic, babe.
I'm so sorry."
Everything they do is violent.
The Brazilian wax.
Let me tell you,
there's nothing Brazilian about that.
They put the word "Brazilian" there
so you think it's a tropical experience.
But it is not a tropical experience.
I have been there.
I've been to every appointment.
I had a single mom, and I didn't behave.
I know what I'm talking about.
I've been in there with my soccer cleats.
You go to the Brazilian wax place,
and they grab your mom
and throw her on a surgical table.
And then a little goblin
comes through some curtains.
"Hello!"
And she I haven't seen what they do,
but it looks like
they do honey and duct tape
on your mom.
Then they look at your mom and go,
"I'm gonna count to three, okay?"
"One"
"Two!"
And then they hold it up
like the head of a soldier she killed.
And then she looks at your mom,
and she goes, "It has been a long time."
I'm sure it hurts when they rip that off.
I'm sure it hurts.
But my mom never screamed and never cried.
Women are too abnormal to scream or cry.
They rip it off, and she talks.
When it hurts, they talk.
They go
And your mom goes,
"My son is in third grade. Did you know?"
Of course, I'm scared.
And I have seen it all.
I have seen it all.
I I have seen a woman
getting ready to leave the house.
A woman getting ready to leave the house
is one of the most violent scenes
I have ever seen in my entire life.
They are able to turn their bathroom
into Dexter's laboratory.
There are potions and serums and creams
and electricity and water.
What a horrible combination.
And everything is all at once.
Everything's on fire in there.
There's a cream that if you touch it
and touch your face,
all the hair falls off your body.
It is violent in there.
And her makeup,
she's not doing her makeup like
No. She has a pencil,
and she's putting it in her eye.
And her eye starts to cry.
And she's a savage.
She goes
And goes deeper with the pencil.
The eye is rejecting the pencil.
If the eye could talk, the eye would say,
"Please, Mama. No more pencil."
"Please, no more with the pencil. Please."
She doesn't care.
She goes deeper with the pencil.
If she makes a mistake, she goes
"I have to start again!" Like that.
Tell me that's not scary.
The clothes that women wear
to leave the house is insane.
Men are shirt, pants, shoes, maybe hat.
Shirt, pants, shoes, maybe hat.
Women, there's stuff that you have no idea
that they have to wear.
And the way
that they have to contort their body
You don't even know.
I was the wardrobe guy at my house.
My mom would be like, "Marcello!"
And I walk in, and she is
She's contort She's a contortion.
I'm like, "What's going on?"
She goes, "I'm gonna put my elbow
in my ass, okay?"
"What?" She goes,
"I'm gonna put my elbow in my a"
"When my elbow reaches my ass,
I need you to zip. You understand?"
I'm like, "That sounds dangerous, Mommy.
I don't know if that sounds safe."
"It's not safe. It's what you have to do."
"Okay, elbow to the ass. Yes."
I go, "Okay. It's not zipping."
"I said wait
until my elbow reaches my ass!"
I had to be in there
for all that stuff, man.
It's spooky. Women are not
the delicate creature you think they are.
They're living a violent life
behind the scenes.
And then they go out,
and they go, "Hi, how are you?"
Hell no, dawg. All of it is violent.
You go to a
You go to a club, and you see a woman.
And she's beautiful. You're like, "Wow,
I like your outfit. That's a nice shirt."
"That's not a shirt, papa."
That thing clips, okay?
You had no idea that thing clips, huh?
You thought that she put
her shirt on like this. No.
She put it on like this, dawg.
She had to make it clip, dawg.
That's a lot of work that she has to do.
And that's tight, dawg.
By the end of the night,
that thing is in her neck.
So be gentle with her. It's scary.
All of it is scary, dawg. And the blood.
I saw the blood firsthand.
People don't think about the blood.
Women don't talk about it.
The blood is very real.
I was a happy little boy.
And and I had a happy little sister.
And and one day,
out of nowhere, for no reason,
blood.
And she's like, "Mommy, blood?"
And my mom is like "Welcome to the club."
And she's like, "Blood only for today?"
And my mom is like, "Blood forever."
And now my happy little sister
is counting the days of the blood
like it's jail.
She starts to say scary stuff to me.
"The blood is coming."
"There's three days until the blood."
I'm like, "What?"
She's like, "The blood wants ice cream."
I'm like, "The blood can talk?"
She's like, "I speak for the blood!"
"The blood speaks through me."
Like, oh my God.
And the blood has Bluetooth.
Did you know that?
Because if three of you get together,
you pair device.
It is scary, dawg.
And then, imagine, then we have to
take them out on a date, you know?
Imagine that.
Imagine, like,
you ask a girl out on a date,
and she hasn't been on a date in a while.
Think about it. Now she has to go
through a week of torture.
She has to pay all these different people
to do horrible things to her body.
Rip it! Rip it out!
And it costs money.
They pay, they pay, they pay.
Put their head in the microwave.
Money, money, money, money.
Everything, they pay.
And then they get to the date,
and they're like, "So, what do you do?"
And the guy's like,
"I'm still figuring that out."
She's like, "Then I'm gonna kill myself."
"It's not worth it."
And and that's why men
have to pay on the date,
because by the time she gets to the date,
she's in debt.
There's no money left.
And you don't know where the blood is,
so just pay and say, "I'm sorry,"
is what you say.
"I'm sorry for what you go through."
And if you wanna take a girl out on a date
but you don't want to pay,
if you don't want to pay,
tell her before the date
that you don't want to pay
so you can both show up with a mustache.
And then you can split it like men.
That's how I grew up. I grew up in Miami
in salons and Brazilian waxes and
And then I went to college in Ohio.
Yes, yes. Uh, I guess you could say
that I studied abroad.
And, uh, I was shocked when I got to Ohio
because I thought that I was white.
And then I got to Ohio,
and they were like
"Whoa, whoa, whoa there, chico-rito."
It was a tough time.
I am gonna talk about white people
a little bit tonight.
And I wanna say something
before I get into it.
I wanna say that I know
that right now it's a tough time
to be white.
And I wanna say don't be sad.
You guys had a fantastic run.
It's okay.
You know? And, um
And I know that today,
a lot of people say,
"White people this"
and "White people that."
It's always something negative.
And I'm I'm sure that
that can affect your mental health.
But
I, I, I want you to know when people say,
"White people this, white people that,"
we're not talking about all of you.
No. There's a group.
And I'm sure some of you are here, like
"Marcello, am I in the group?"
"I wanna know if I'm in the group."
"I don't wanna be in the group."
"I have a bunch of Latino friends.
I'm not in the group, right?"
"I mean, really, am I in the group?
Just tell me 'cause I wanna know."
I'm gonna help you find out
if you're in the group, okay?
If you are white,
and when you were little,
your mom hit you,
you're Hispanic.
We accept you. We appreciate you.
AndSweet Caroline
Bam, bam, bam
You see? We're cool, guys.
We're cool.
Now, if you are white
and you find
that a lot of times in your life
someone will say something, and you go
then you are who we are talking about.
So let's try to enjoy this together, huh?
How about that?
I'll tell you this. When I went to Ohio,
my biggest surprise
were the parties, you know?
The way that white guys party
did shock me a bit
because in Miami, when we party,
it's all about the girls.
"How many girls are gonna be there?
There can be no guys."
"There can only be girls."
"The party tonight is gonna be 700 girls
and us four."
That's how we like to party.
And in Ohio,
it's not about the girls at all.
It's about the beers.
"How many beers are gonna be there?"
"If I sell my car,
how many beers do you think?"
And I'm like
"I want to go home."
You know? I didn't feel right.
'Cause in Miami, you dance.
And you have to dance.
In Miami, the music is making you dance.
You don't have a choice in the matter.
In Miami, it doesn't matter
what status you are socially.
The quarterback of the football team
and the guy that likes chess
are both getting disgusting
on the dance floor.
No matter what.
No matter where you are, you have to.
And it's not because you want to.
It's 'cause the music makes you dance.
We cannot stop. The music is too crazy
for you not to dance.
You're sitting there, standing still,
and then you hear
Look at you!
You can't stop. You're like
You have to. You just have to.
That's what it is.
The music's playing, the guys are dancing,
and the women are everywhere.
They don't wanna dance, by the way.
Latina women do not wanna dance.
They are strong feminist women.
They're not interested in dancing
with any man.
"I don't need any man to talk to me
tonight. I'm not interested."
"I don't need you to tell me."
"I don't need a man to come up to me,
'You look pretty.'"
"I know I look pretty, papi.
I don't need you to tell me."
"I don't need you to tell me
what I do, who I am,
what I need to look like, or anything."
Ah, I
"'Oh. Oh, you look beautiful.'
I don't care what you say, papi."
"I work very hard to look beautiful.
I put a pencil in my eye and made a clip."
"So don't even talk to me."
"I went through a lot to be here already."
So no, man. They're dancing.
And and they and they don't wanna dance.
They're very strong feminist women.
They're not interested.
And it's funny because they have
this strong feminist energy,
but the music
the lyrics of the music in Miami
are not feminist at all, are they?
They are not feminist at all.
This strong feminist Latina woman
is at this party.
And then the guy in the song is like
And out of nowhere, he goes,
"I grab you. I take you to my house."
"You don't have a choice."
And the women are like
"I don't have a choice!"
She does all that.
And then the next day,
she goes back to her nonprofit.
That's 2:00 in the morning in Miami.
2:00 in the morning in Cleveland, Ohio,
it's a totally different story.
All you hear is
Jealousy, turning all my
Turning all my
The girls are nowhere to be found.
These guys are destroying the house.
I have never felt like
more of an immigrant in my entire life.
And it's a sad They're singing sad songs.
It's the price I pay
Like, why are you paying a price?
It doesn't make any sense.
And we don't do that. Latinos,
we don't have sad songs like that.
The saddest song we have
has a happy beat, you know?
The beat is always happy.
My wife, she left me
She took the kids
I'm homeless, I don't have money
The beat is so happy,
you don't even know what's happening.
This guy's like, "I'm gonna die
in three months." And you're like
Not even thinking about it.
But that's how it is. We don't do sad.
We don't do depression, you know?
It's hard for us to do depression.
The Latinos, we don't really
have it like that, you know?
Me and my sister,
we tried to get depression.
When we were little, we tried to get it.
We were like, "Mommy, I'm depressed."
And and then she did like a rap.
She did like a performance.
We were like, "Mommy, we're depressed."
She was like
Whoo
"You're depressed."
"Ay, Dios mio."
"Allow me to reintroduce myself."
"I am your mother,
and when I was 12 years old,
I had to leave my country
because the government took my house."
"I had to go to the United States
by myself, work 27 different jobs,
and go to sleep in a washing machine
and wake up in a dryer."
"I didn't have any friends, any money,
any toys, any YouTube,
any Netflix, any Amazon, any Hulu,
any YouTube TV,
any Toys"R"Us, any Best Buy, any Target,
and I didn't have anything."
"And then I had to
I had to learn to speak English
and pay my way through college."
"While I was doing that,
I got pregnant with you."
"And you didn't ruin my life,
but you didn't didn't ruin my life."
"When you were born, you were so stupid,
you didn't know how to walk."
"I had to teach you how to walk
because you didn't even know how to walk."
"Then you got a little older
and wanted to do activities."
"I had to pick you up and drop you off,
and drop you off and pick you up,
pick you up and drop you off,
drop you off and pick you up,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
drop you off and pick you up,
and pick you up and drop you off."
"Sometimes, I had to drop you off,
and then I had to wait."
"And then I pick you up and drop you off,
and pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off,
pick you up and drop you off."
"So if anybody in this house
is gonna have depression,
it's gonna be me."
And that is when I learned
that depression is something
that you earn.
You have to deserve it.
And listen, I know
that mental health is real, you know?
I'm just telling you my experience,
which is I was not allowed to have it.
Okay? And and I I tried to have it.
I don't know what my life
would've been like if I got to have it.
But I know that not having it
kind of helped me in a lot of ways.
It helped me push through
a lot of dark situations, you know?
It wasn't always this nice for me.
This is a beautiful moment.
I'm very grateful for you guys
and everything you've done to support me.
It means the world.
People people sometimes ask me,
they go, "Marcello, do you like it?"
"Do you like to be
on Saturday Live Night?"
And they always go, "When does it film?"
I'm like
"It's okay."
People ask me, "Do you like it?
Do you like to tour, do these shows?"
"Do you like what you're doing?"
I'm like, "Do I like it?"
"I used to be the guy
at the top of the slide at a water park."
"I love it."
I It is insane what has happened to me.
My my job used to be
to look at a little kid and say, "Wait."
A little kid would be like
"I wanna go right now!"
"You have to wait. I'm so sorry."
That was my job.
I had little kids coming up to me
and screaming at me, you know?
And I learned a lot at that job.
I learned about hard work
and about, you know, and struggle,
and about being in the wrong place
but having to continue.
And I also learned
that I don't like skinny kids. I, I
I don't like them.
I'm sorry. I don't like them.
Have you seen them?
Have you seen a skinny kid?
They're possessed. They're like
And the blood is pumping too fast
in their body, and they're crazy.
Skinny kids used to come to the slide,
look me in my eye, and be like
"Push me!"
And I'll tell you the truth, I wanted to.
I wasn't allowed, but I wanted to.
I don't like them.
And they'll say random stuff.
Skinny kids will just lie to your face.
They'll just say a lie.
A skinny kid will be,
"I can run faster than a car!"
I'm like, "No, you can't.
You can't do that."
"Nobody can do that. That's so stupid.
"Why would you even say that?"
Skinny kids are insane.
Skinny kids will reveal a family secret.
Don't tell a skinny kid anything.
A skinny kid will tell everyone
a family secret.
A skinny kid will be like,
"My mom takes pills to go to sleep."
"My mom hits my dad, and he cries."
I'm like, "Shut up."
And I can talk about skinny kids
because I was one.
I might've been
one of the skinniest kids of all time.
And I did some skinny stuff.
I did. The skinniest thing I ever did
When I was ten years old,
I used to take the bus to school and home
because, uh, my mom worked a lot.
And, um, I wasn't getting
a lot of respect on the bus.
'Cause I was new on the bus.
And the bus is like jail.
Whoever is there the longest,
they have the most respect.
And I was new on the bus,
so I didn't get any respect.
So I decided one day
to convince everyone on the bus
that my mom lets me smoke cigarettes.
And they believed me.
And then, when they were like,
"Oh, that's cool," I was like, "Yeah."
"And my dad lets me drink alcohol."
And they were like, "Whoa, that's cool."
And I'm like, "Yeah."
And they were like,
"Well, we better enjoy Marcello
because he's gonna die very soon."
And I was a legend on the bus. A legend.
They thought that I was getting drunk
and smoking cigarettes at ten years old.
I was a legend.
Every time I'd get on the bus,
the girls would be like, "Marcello!"
And I'd be like,
"Chill, mami. I'm wasted."
I was a badass on the bus.
And then after like two or three weeks
of being a legend on the bus,
I got home one day,
and my home phone rang.
And I picked up the phone.
And I swear, this lady on the phone goes,
"Hi, this is Ana
from Child Protective Services."
And I was like, "What?"
She was like, "I'm calling
due to a report by your driver
that your mom lets you smoke cigarettes
and your dad lets you drink alcohol."
"Um, we just wanted to let you know
that we are in the process
of finding you a foster home."
And I'm like "No!
They don't even let me drink soda!"
She goes, "I understand you're scared, um,
but just, uh, please,
let me talk to your mom."
And I'm like "No!
Find the foster home first!"
Hell no. So the obviously was like,
"This is serious.
Let me talk to your mom."
I'm like, "Okay."
And so I talked to God for a moment.
And then I gave the phone to my mom.
And my mom is like, "Who is it?"
And I'm like, "She's gonna take me!"
She's like, "Who?"
I'm like, "The woman on the phone!"
My mom's like, "What?"
She grabs the phone.
She starts talking to this lady.
She gets emotional. She goes, "Wow, okay."
"All right, I will. Okay, I will."
When she hangs up the phone,
she tells me that now, by law,
her and my father need to report
to Child Protective Services.
My mom needs to check
her nails and her lungs
to see if she's an active smoker.
And my dad has to pee in little cups
to see if he's an active drinker.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's how skinny I was.
Yeah.
Maybe one of the skinniest of all time.
And so, imagine the guilt
that my mom put on me
for those two weeks she had to report
to Child Protective Services.
Imagine, every day,
"Have a great day at school, Marcello."
"I'm gonna go to Child Protective Services
to see if I can still be your mom."
I felt so bad. I felt so guilty.
I was paranoid, super paranoid.
I told everyone at school,
even the teachers,
they cannot say anything
in front of the bus driver
because he is undercover
for Child Protective Services.
I was freaking out. I have never been
so freaked out in my life.
And those two weeks felt like an eternity.
And after those two weeks,
my parents sat me down.
We had a conversation.
And they were like, "Marcello, um,
your father quit drinking a long time ago,
I quit smoking 15 years ago,
so obviously, we've tested negative,
and you get to stay with us."
And I was like,
"Good job, guys."
And it was one of those that was so bad
that they don't have to punish me.
I punish myself, you know?
They look at me like this.
And I'm like, "No, yeah, I know."
"I, I, I, I threw away my TV.
I threw away my Xbox."
I called Disney World and I told them
we're never gonna go back there again.
And we never talked about it again
after I after it happened.
It was something that was so bad
that we never talked about it again.
It was that bad.
It was one of those things
that you just you let it go.
The kid learned the lesson. You let it go.
That's how bad it is.
And we never communicated about it again.
I never apologized.
I never asked her
what it was like. Nothing.
And that was when I was ten.
When I was 21 years old, I was in Ohio.
And I saw a sign
for Child Protective Services
inside of a CVS.
I'll never forget it.
And I saw the sign, and I went, "Wow."
"I have not talked to my mom
about our experience."
"I have never asked her what it was like
to have such a skinny kid."
So I decided to call her and apologize.
So I call my mom, and I go,
"Mommy, do you remember
when Child Protective Services
almost took me
because the bus driver
was a double agent?"
And my mom goes,
"Ay, s, yes, Marcello. I remember."
"And I forgot to tell you that
that was my friend Maria
that called you that day."
And I'm glad it's funny to you guys.
I was so confused.
I was like, "What?"
And she was like, "Your sister told me
what you said on the bus."
I was like, "Wow, I had no idea
she was such an evil little witch."
My mom was like,
"Yeah, your sister told me,
so I was like, 'Oh, he wants to lie?
Let's see who can lie the best.'"
And to this day,
every year on my birthday,
this evil woman posts on my Facebook page,
"Happy birthday from Ana
at Child Protective Services."
People sometimes, they wonder,
you know, they go,
"How Latino is Marcello?
He looks like he plays lacrosse."
And
And I'm gonna tell you
exactly how Latino I am.
My mom used to hit me
in the women's bathroom at the mall.
I'm a real veteran, dawg.
To a lot of people,
that was just a bathroom.
To us, it was the Colosseum.
We lost a lot of great men in there.
And I never did anything crazy
to deserve to go to the Colosseum.
Sometimes you'll be at the mall
and see a kid talking to his mom.
And he's like
"I hate you, and I wanna go home!"
You know. And I'll let you guys decide
the race of that child.
Anytime I see a little kid
talking to his mom like that,
"I hate you, and I wanna go home!"
I'll go to my mom and be like,
"You know I'd never do
that to you, right?"
"That little boy has crossed the line."
"And I pray that he pays the price."
"That is all, your highness."
No. I would never do
something like that to my mom.
The reason I would get in trouble
is because my mom would notice
that I would do, like, a personality trait
that she didn't like, you know?
We'd get in trouble not for saying
something crazy to our mom.
We don't have the balls
to say something crazy.
Our mom is too scary for us
to say something crazy to her.
We say it in our room
behind her back, you know?
In your room,
you talk to her in an imaginary
"Mm, you better not talk to me like that.
I'll kill you." You know?
And then she goes, "What was that?"
And you go, "Nothing!"
"Talking to myself!"
No, we get in trouble for going like this.
She tells you to do something, and you go
And sometimes, you realize in the moment.
Have you ever done that?
Have you ever realized in the moment
what you just did
and what your future holds?
Have you ever done that? Your mom's like,
"Take out the trash!" You're like, "Ugh."
"Aah!"
"No, no, no.
Please, please, Mommy, no, please!"
"I don't even know that guy!
I don't even know who did that!"
"I would never do that to you
after everything you do for me,
all the sacrifices you make,
everything you do to give me a good life."
"I would never do that to you."
I've been there.
What happened to me is,
right before we leave the mall,
we'd be about to leave the mall.
And right before we leave the mall,
we'd be at the door of the mall.
And I can feel the air of the outside.
And I can't wait to leave the mall
because we have been at the mall
for ten hours.
And we have not bought
anything for anybody.
And I am so ready to leave the mall.
Right when I get to the door, my mom goes,
"Ah, Marcello, I forgot
to go to DSW. Let's go!"
And I I go like this. I go
And that's it.
Time to go to the Colosseum.
And now I'm in the women's bathroom
in Miami in the early 2000s
because I breathed incorrectly.
I am in there,
and my mom is twisting my ear
in way that is teaching me about anatomy.
I'm learning about cartilage
and how it cannot be destroyed.
She's twisting my ear. I'm like
And it's a very Latina environment
because the music in the bathroom is
Come on, baby, come on, baby
Do that conga
Come on, baby, come on, baby
Any longer
I'm getting my ass beat to Gloria Estefan.
I look across the bathroom,
and there's another little Latino kid
getting his ass beat.
I'm like, "What'd you do?"
He's like "I didn't do anything."
"She just wanted to hit me."
I'm like, "I don't understand you, papa.
You're gonna have to slow down."
He's like, "Nothing."
"My mom got me some sneakers,
and I didn't like them."
I'm like, "What'd you do
when you didn't like the sneakers?"
He's like, "Nothing."
"She showed me the sneakers,
and I didn't like them."
"And then very quietly to myself,
I just I went like this, like"
That's suicide.
You deserved that, my boy.
My mom never hit me hard.
My mom hit me a lot.
Very different.
She hit me a lot,
and she had talks with me.
She would tell me little speeches
out of nowhere
that would make me grateful
for what's going on, you know?
Out of nowhere, on a random day,
my mom would be like,
"Marcello, what if I told you
that everything
that you think is yours is mine?"
I'm like, "What?"
"What if I told you
you don't have anything
because you don't have a job and money?"
I'm like, "What?" "You don't have a job
and money so you've not bought anything."
"I've bought everything.
You don't have anything."
"Nothing you think is yours is yours.
Everything's mine. That's my TV, my Xbox,
my bed, my sheets,
my underwear, my clothes."
"The door is mine. The air is mine.
Don't touch the air. That's my air."
"Don't touch the refrigerator.
That's mine."
"Nothing's yours. Everything's mine.
Do you understand that?"
I'd be like, "What?"
She'd be like, "You don't have anything!"
"You don't have anything.
I have everything."
"You don't work. I work."
"I have everything.
Everything is mine. Nothing is yours."
I'm like, "Okay, Mama, I understand."
She's like, "Okay."
"Happy birthday."
And when you grow up like that, you know,
when you grow up
with that type of upbringing, you know,
American TV and American movies
start to become very unbelievable.
I never understood any of the TV shows.
I would go home
My mom would twist my ear in the bathroom,
and then I would go home
and watch Full House.
And if you don't know Full House,
Full House is a show about a white guy
that his wife dies,
and then him and his two friends
need to raise three little girls.
And they call it Full House
because that's a lot of people
in one house
for the whites.
Let's be honest.
If that was a Black, Latino,
or Asian show,
it would be called "House."
Every episode of that show
used to blow my mind
because the daughter would do
something crazy.
The daughter, the oldest daughter,
would do something insane.
She'd be like,
"I'm gonna smoke cigarettes."
I'd be at my house like,
"Don't do that, D.J.!"
"That could be very
Come on, D.J. Please, don't do that."
I was like my grandma watching a novella.
"Please, D.J. You're gonna die."
Then, of course,
she wouldn't listen to me.
She'd go smoke cigarettes
with the girl with the long neck.
You remember, Kimmy.
And listen, I love Kimmy,
and she grew into it,
but back then, it was crazy.
So they would go smoke cigarettes.
And then D.J. would come home
smelling like cigarettes.
Uncle Joey would be in the kitchen.
He'd smell the cigarettes. He'd be like
"Oh my God.
I have to go tell Bob Saget about this."
And he would go tell Bob Saget.
That's the dad.
Then Bob Saget would come
into the kitchen and be like, "D.J."
"Why does it smell like cigarettes?"
"And where were you?"
I'm already a little bit pissed off.
I'm like, "Speak up, Bob Saget."
"You know exactly why
it smells like cigarettes."
"That little girl disrespected you
in your house."
"After everything you do for her,
all the sacrifices you make,
all the money you spend
to give her a good life,
she has the balls to go behind your back
and smoke cigarettes, Bob Saget."
"That little girl has crossed the line,
and today is the day she pays the price."
And, of course, Bob Saget,
he's just looking at her,
and she's looking at the camera.
And the camera goes to D.J., and she goes
And I'm like, "Don't be scared now."
"You were a big girl
when you wanted to smoke cigarettes."
"Be a big girl now."
And then it would go to commercial.
And I'd be like, "Oh!"
Bob Saget
When we come back from commercial,
Bob Saget is about to beat the brakes
off of this little bitch.
Or, at the very least,
make her smoke
the whole pack of cigarettes.
At least show me something, Bob Saget.
We come back from commercial,
and D.J.'s like
"Aah!" And then she runs up the stairs,
and I'm like,
"Running makes it worse."
If you know, you know.
She runs up the stairs.
And she gets to her door,
and she goes, "Pow!"
And she slams the door.
And I'm like, "Ohh!"
"Whoo!"
"Strike two, mama."
"Now you're really gonna get it."
And then Bob Saget runs up the stairs.
And I'm screaming at Bob Saget.
I'm like, "Take your belt off
on the way, Bob Saget."
Bob Saget runs up there.
He gets to the door, and she goes
And she locks the door.
Exactly.
I'm not even upset. I'm confused.
I'm like,
"Where did this little girl get a lock?"
"She must be paying rent in this house."
And then Bob Saget gets to the door,
and he blows my mind.
Bob Saget gets to the door, and he goes
That's when I freak out.
I'm like "You don't have to knock
on the door! That's your door!"
"Take the door off the door
and hit her with the door!"
And I know
that's not the right thing to do,
but I was hungry for blood at the time.
He knocks on the door.
The little girl goes Unlocks the door.
What a lovely young lady.
And then Bob Saget walks into that room
and, again, does something
that my brain cannot even comprehend.
I gave him very simple instructions.
"Bob, you don't have to hit her
if you don't want to,
but at least find something
that she loves and destroy it."
That guy walks into this girl's room,
and he goes, "D.J."
"Why would you go smoke cigarettes?"
"Why would you do that, D.J.?"
"You know, not only are you hurting me,
but you're hurting yourself."
And she's like, "I'm sorry, Dad."
He's like, "It's okay, D.J."
"I love you very much."
"But today, I'm really disappointed."
And, uh, I throw up.
And then D.J. goes, "So,
safe to say
I can't go to the party on Friday?"
And I'm like, "This bitch."
And Bob Saget goes,
"Safe to say."
When I saw that, I wanted to record it
and present it to my mom.
I wanted to put a TV on wheels
and go up to my mom
and be like, "Hello, Sharks.
Thank you for having me today."
"I would like to present to you
a different method, Mama."
[audience laughing
Then my mom'd be like
"In my experience,
the only way that you learn
is when I twist your ear
or destroy something that you love."
"And, for that reason, I'm out."
And I'll be honest, when I was watching
those shows when I was younger,
I did want that life.
I did. I wanted that life.
It seemed nice. It seemed safe.
And I I was jealous, you know?
And now I've gotten older,
I have grown, you know, really proud
of the way I grew up.
I'm proud to have immigrant parents
and to be raised by them.
You know?
They made me strong, you know?
They made me strong,
and they made me powerful.
And and, um, I
I feel like one day, I want to have kids.
And I do feel like I kind of wanna have
a kid that grew up like me, you know?
And I think, sometimes,
when people grow up like I did, you know,
with the fake phone calls
and the Colosseum,
they they say stuff like,
"I'm gonna stop the cycle."
"I'm gonna stop the cycle of violence."
And I wanna say to you tonight, Miami,
I am going to continue the cycle.
And, you know, I think that, um,
it's very interesting to grow up
the way we did, with immigrant parents.
It is very interesting.
We are not allowed
to have mental health issues.
And I think that that's why
we steal the jobs.
You know, uh, who would you rather hire?
You know, Antonio,
who has no idea that he has
any kind of mental health issue,
or Jake, who's gonna take a personal day?
I don't know. I I don't know. I just
I've been watching the news now
for the first time in my life
because they're talking about us.
And, uh, it's crazy.
Every time I turn on the news,
there's a white lady like,
"The immigrants are coming here,
and they're doing crime."
And I'm like
'Cause I grew up around immigrants.
Everybody I grew up with was an immigrant.
My parents, my parents' friends,
my teachers, everybody was an immigrant.
My soccer coach. Everyone I ever
grew up with was an immigrant.
And and maybe we are doing crime,
but the biggest crime that we're doing
is working illegally,
which is a pretty solid crime.
There are a lot of Americans
that don't wanna work legally, you know?
So we are filling a void there.
We're helping out, you know?
And and I just don't like the idea
that the immigrants,
especially the Latino immigrants,
are scary.
I really know about Latino immigrants.
That's something I know about.
I don't know about politics, about laws.
I do know about Latino immigrants.
That's who raised me. That's who I know.
And when they get on the news
and go, "The immigrants are scary"
White people like, "Immigrants are scary."
I'm like, "No. And don't say that."
We're not scary,
and white people are not scared of us.
Have you seen a white person at a resort?
Do they look scared of us
when they're like
"Hola"?
"Cmo ests?"
They love us.
They go to a bar, they make a joke
with a Latino bartender, they laugh,
then they go, "That's it, Santiago,
you're coming home with us."
You love us.
We're fun.
I know some people want
the immigrants out of here,
and some people are sad
about the immigrants.
They're sad about what's happening
to the immigrants. Like,
"It's so sad what's happening
to the immigrants."
"They're throwing them over the wall."
And I wanna say something right now.
We'll be back, okay?
We always come back.
We're smart.
We're smart.
What are you gonna do when I get
to the border and I say, "Bonjour"?
We'll be fine.
We're genius. We'll be fine.
It just does bother me a little bit
to hear, you know, white people talking
about the Latinos like we're scary.
We're all scary.
Everybody has scary people.
I wanna say something to the white people
that think Latino immigrants are scary.
I want to say that if you're white
and you think that Latino immigrants
are coming to America
to grab a bunch of little kids
and put them in a basement,
no.
That's your thing.
We don't do that type of crime.
We don't like our own kids.
Why would we grab random kids?
That's not interesting to us.
We don't do that type of crime.
And I know I'm getting really aggressive
with white people right now,
but I can say it, okay?
Because I have a lot of white friends.
And they love me.
They're cool with it. So be cool, okay?
We're all flawed people.
And my big message is
to remember this, white people,
when you are judging
the Latino immigrants, remember this.
Remember that Latinos
do fun, exciting crimes.
What's a Latino crime?
Be racist for a moment.
What's a Latino crime?
"I'm driving the plane,
and it has a little bit of cocaine."
That's a fun crime.
That's a fun, exciting crime.
We're in the air. "Ha-ha-ha-ha."
It's fun.
So let's remember this when we judge
and when we put blanket statements
on the Latino immigrants. Remember that.
Remember that Latino immigrants
do fun, exciting crimes
that belong in movies.
And white people do creepy crimes
from documentaries.
Miami!
Thank you, thank you,
thank you, thank you!
I'm so happy to be home.
Thank you for coming out tonight.
Thank you for supporting me always.
This is where it started.
Y a los latinos, los quiero, los amo.
Gracias por apoyarme.
Se les quiere mucho.
Buenas noches, seores. Gracias.