Aida Rodriguez: Unpacking My Childhood Traumas Through Comedy Is Cathartic

Aida Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican and Dominican comedian, actor, and author. In 2019, she experienced her have half-hour specific on Netflix’s strike comedy collection “They All set,” government-developed by Tiffany Haddish and Wanda Sykes. In November 2021, she unveiled her initially-hour stand-up special “Fighting Text,” which premiered on Max, and in October 2023, Rodriguez unveiled her memoir “Genuine Child.”

For Mental Wellness Consciousness Thirty day period, we requested Latine comedians we admire how comedy has supported them in conquering trauma and confronting life’s most important challenges. Browse the pieces below.

I have often seen comedy as a coping mechanism for folks who are in lower economic cases or just dealing with quite tough circumstances. In the words and phrases of Kevin Hart: “Chortle at my suffering.” My upbringing was no unique. I didn’t truly engage in comedy as significantly when I was more youthful because I was a quite shy and timid kid. But humor was often around me, and I figured out at a really youthful age the electric power of laughter.

My grandmother was a incredibly amusing lady. She had this amazing capacity to present heavy matters like poverty and even loss of life in techniques that were being humorous. At to start with, I used to feel it was insensitive, but I speedily acquired that it was just a coping system and a way to make points digestible because life was already tricky ample. Rising up, I saw it all. There was poverty. There was violence. There were medications, adultery, and misogyny. For some people, laughter was the only device they had to navigate all that.

It was at university that I really started out to obtain my comedic voice. Comedy became my way of surviving bullies and imply persons. It turned my armor and way of protecting myself from the children who ended up clearly going via stuff at residence but needed to poke enjoyable at other people to come to feel far better about them selves. Alternatively of becoming confrontational or volatile, I was just funny.

My grandmother and mom closely motivated my comedy and feeling of humor. They were being in a natural way amusing women of all ages. My mom is a incredibly confrontational woman. She would get into it with the other females in the creating or in the community, and would often occur out profitable simply because she realized how to shut folks down with her text — and in many cases, the issues she stated were being just straight-up humorous. My grandmother was always so witty with it. It’s amusing when I listen to people today say that ladies aren’t amusing, or I’ll at times listen to Latino adult males say they don’t actually like girls comedians, and then you listen to them notify their tales. They’re usually speaking about how hilarious their grandmothers or their mothers are. Latinas are truly the comedians in the family. A great deal of us are the natural way amusing — it can be in our blood.

I started off watching stand-up comedy when I was tiny. My uncle used to hear to Richard Pryor. That was my to start with introduction to stand-up comedy. I beloved Johnny Carson, and I beloved “I Like Lucy.” I utilized to observe El Chavo and La Chilindrina with my grandmother. In Miami, they had a clearly show referred to as “Qué Pasa United states.” It was a show about a Cuban relatives, and the grandmother on the show was one particular of the funniest individuals I’ve at any time seen. I started appreciating humor and knowledgeable the aid it presented at a fairly youthful age. But it was not until later in my daily life that I realized I preferred to do this for a living.

Comedy arrived following performing. I was a product for several years, and I moved to LA in 2000 to grow to be an actor. I commenced accomplishing stand-up in 2008. I experienced gone out for brunch to rejoice a friend’s birthday, and she asked us to roast her. I roasted her, and a pal there mentioned, “Oh, you must be undertaking stand-up. You’re in a natural way humorous.” He gave me the handle and information to an open up mic, and I went and did it, and I in no way stopped.

Once I started carrying out at open mics, I started noticing how therapeutic comedy was — not just for the viewers but also for me. I did not truly start out with observational humor. I went straight to the wound. My to start with jokes were about my modeling job and starting to be anorexic. I resolved difficult items I had professional in my individual existence, and it aided me heal from those people encounters even though also generating individuals who could relate feel noticed.

My work became cathartic when I began creating content about my childhood. Persons would strategy me immediately after my sets and say, “Oh my god. Thank you. I’ve in no way observed a model of myself or a reflection of myself.” My childhood started off to influence so a great deal of my material that it turned like treatment for me. I started off unpacking and healing from a lot of traumas I skilled rising up, inevitably inspiring me to create my memoir, “Legit Child.” It made me know how a lot our stories matter, and we should not belittle them since white The united states is telling us they do not make a difference. That is what has kept the gasoline heading for me.

Generating jokes about my family members, my community, and the challenging points I knowledgeable increasing up has authorized other folks to see on their own in my tales. In terms of my have healing, that relatability was section of it. It was looking at that I was not on your own and that there are other individuals who also didn’t increase up owning their fathers in their life. It was the very first time I started off to experience very pleased of in which I came from, and it aided me do the job by way of some of the stuff I was dealing with. Even with the jokes about my mother, a lot of individuals would arrive up to me and convey to me their mom was the exact same way. In several techniques, it can be also healed my partnership with my mom mainly because carrying out and acquiring persons recover by way of my words and phrases contributes to my possess therapeutic.

As a Latina, we’re raised with this mentality that you really don’t share the family’s company. So, while I to begin with had my hesitations, they authorized each individual joke I’ve at any time told about the spouse and children in advance of it produced it to the phase. I often make guaranteed that they’re cool with it. I was specially thorough when it came to my mom and my daughter for the reason that sexism and misogyny, especially in our communities, are rampant and authentic, and individuals really like to demonize women. So, I was always extremely leery about presenting them in a way the place it would get off on its very own, and persons would discuss shit.

Making jokes about the matters I experienced rising up has also permitted me to see the magnificence in my upbringing. It wasn’t all dim, and it was not all lousy. When I started out undertaking stand-up, I employed to listen to all the time people say items like, “All these Black and Latino comedians communicate about is their lives in the hood, foodstuff stamps, and staying broke.” You would listen to that from white comics how our comedy wasn’t “elevated.” But I hardly ever permitted them to drive me into a corner exactly where I felt like I experienced to emulate them to be of worth for the reason that a good deal of men and women do. At the commencing of my profession, I undoubtedly saw that there was a ton of tension put on comedians of coloration not to perpetuate stereotypes, but the fact is that some of our kinfolk are hood. Some of our relations did behave a selected way, and you will find absolutely nothing wrong with that, and which is not just distinctive to people of shade — there are white persons like that as effectively.

Comedy delivers us all jointly. There is a connective tissue there, particularly in a neighborhood with so a great deal range. By humor, we can come across every other and locate relatability. Men and women cherished when George Lopez talked about his grandmother simply because that’s one thing many of us have in common. Comedy also is effective as a common language. Even if we’re not from the exact tradition, everyone laughs since it has this connective tissue. Comedy connects individuals of all backgrounds and walks of existence as a result of laughter.

Johanna Ferreira is the content director for POPSUGAR Juntos. With far more than 10 years of experience, Johanna focuses on how intersectional identities are a central component of Latine culture. Beforehand, she put in close to a few several years as the deputy editor at HipLatina, and she has freelanced for numerous outlets including Refinery29, O Magazine, Allure, InStyle, and Very well+Superior. She has also moderated and spoken on various panels on Latine id.