Bring Receipts Podcast
Bring Receipts Podcast
Tales from the Hood (Chupacabra v Crichton Leprechaun)
In the season 2 premiere, Teresa Basilio Gaztambide, the Network Director at MediaJustice joins Brandi and Steven to talk about a 90s Puerto Rican phenomenon. No we don’t mean Ricky Martin! We do a deep dive on the legend of the Chupacabras aka The Goat Sucker. We also explore the political and cultural history of Canovanas, the city where the first sighting of the Chupacabras was recorded.
Brandi introduces us to the legend of the Crichton Leprechaun, a sighting of the Irish supernatural being in the middle of a Black neighborhood in Alabama.
Brandi and Steven debate which of these folk tales has the better lesson to teach us. What do you think?
Resources from this episode:
Imperial Secrets: Vampires and Nationhood in Puerto Rico by Lauren Derby
It’s Time to Retire The Crichton Leprechaun by Sharonda Harris-Marshall
Follow us on social:
Twitter: @bring_receipts
Instagram: @bring_receipts
Website: https://bringreceiptspodcast.com
Creator & Host: Brandi Collins-Dexter (@BrandingBrandi)
Host & Producer: Steven Renderos (@stevenrenderos)
Artwork & Logo by: Andrés Guzmán (IG: andresitoguzman)
Beats by: DJ Ren
Shaggy [00:00:00] Our deductions make perfect sense. But if Smiley is behind the huge macabre attacks, then how do we explain?
[00:00:14] Sure doesn't look like a special effect to me. It is the monster.
[00:00:23] It's the Chupacabras! Like...this is going to be bad. Real bad.
Steven [00:00:31] I'm Steven.
Brandi [00:00:32] And I'm Brandi.
Steven [00:00:34] And welcome to Bring Receipts. On this podcast, Brandi and I debate our unpopular opinions about pop culture.
Brandi [00:00:41] In this episode, we're talking about our favorite tales from the hood. We're going deep on the Alabama leprechaun and the legend of Chupacabras.
Steven [00:00:50] And debating which of these two folktales teaches the more valuable lesson.
Brandi [00:00:54] Clearly, clearly, it's the leprechaun in the hood.
Steven [00:00:57] Joining us to decide who is right, the Puerto Rican Ethel Merman. Teresa Basilio Gaztambide. So pull up a seat. It's time to bring receipts. And we are back for season two. Brandi, the people have been clamoring for us to come back. What have we been up to since season one? How are you doing? I don't even talk to you unless we're recording. So it's been it's been, what, like seven, eight months now?
Brandi [00:01:38] Well..I mean, yes? We just dropped like two episodes in October and December, but yes, it has been like several months....
Steven [00:01:45] Not part of the canon. It's not part of the Bring Receipts canon.
Brandi [00:01:47] Oh, oh, so we don't acknowledge those...
Steven [00:01:49] We don't acknowledge those. So yeah, like the first three Star Wars episodes, they're not part of the whole timeline.
Brandi [00:01:56] And so in the last eight months since I've seen or talked to you or like seen your face, at all I've been finishing up the book that folks are going to hear a lot about in really annoying ways. Over the last few months I've been doing some investigating on January 6th, then waiting for some accountability, which is also eating up a lot of my time and then getting sick from the OMARION variant from my loving family members. What have you been up to?
Steven [00:02:30] I've been I've been I've been just hunkering down like in my own little bomb shelter since since we recorded season one. Actually, that's not entirely true. I ended up moving, I bought a house and I moved to Arizona so I'm now in the desert because I needed to get away from things. It's been it's been busy. Yeah. We saw, like, a violent insurrection and a pandemic that just refuses to go away. I think in my mind, like when we wrapped up season one, I was like, okay, cool, we're going into the summer. Maybe we can like we can like link up to like actually record some, some episodes. And I actually think we had plans to do that because you were going down to, to New Mexico.
Brandi [00:03:12] And I went to New Mexico for my dad's induction into the New Mexico Sports Hall of Fame.
Steven [00:03:18] And I was like, well, we'll get together, we get to record together. And of course, that never happened. But it's exciting to be back for season two. I know that we actually released like a teaser a few months ago trying to talk about like what season two was going to be about. And initially, I think we had ideas of it being this like...you know...Initially we were like "Nineties Mysteries" and now I think we've evolved and we're settling into, what will be the official theme for season two, which is "Nineties versus." Can you talk a little bit more about that?
Brandi [00:03:52] I feel like that's like the real reason actually why it's taken us this many months because we've cycled through so many aspirations in terms of what this season was going to be.
Steven [00:04:03] Very true...
Brandi [00:04:04] Like, you know, recorded some episodes that may see the light of day someday. But, you know, I'm excited to dig into the nineties. I think that's something that a lot of folks are also excited about because a lot of our, you know, friends and listeners and folks like we don't remember the eighties necessarily in the same way that we do the nineties, like we remember the eighties. But like I feel like for a lot of us, the nineties were the times in which we were, moving into our teens and twenties and and that time in your life where you can really remember stuff. And it's not just like shadows of memories. So I'm excited to dig into some things that may be more familiar with folks, and we decided to switch up the format to have it be more of a versus. So instead of, you know, arguing one side of a question such as should Sylvester Stallone have won an Oscar instead, we're going to pit two things against each other and then argue to the death which thing is better in this context?
Steven [00:05:11] And I'm really. The excited to get into some of the different topics. And as you know, with us, like "unpopular opinions about pop culture." So you can expect some stuff that when you think about the nineties, you cringe. We're going to be talking about those things. Now, today, we're focusing on two kind of folktales that permeate through our respective communities. We're talking about the Creighton leprechaun and the Chupacabras. And both are, you know, indicative of folktales. So I actually was curious, Brandi, what sort of folktales were really active in your family growing up?
Brandi [00:05:52] I think there was a lot of stuff around...things that I think if I just said them straight out wouldn't be funny to people. But a lot of stuff around like PTSD, to be honest, because we had a lot of military vets in our family. So there were a lot of folktales around, you know, people coming back from Vietnam and not quite being the same and, doing different things at family events. A lot of talk of like divorce and cycling through several wives that became like this source of folktales and urban legends. So it was, I think in hindsight it was a lot of dark things, but built out of the sort of circumstances in which we were living and experiences, which I think is a lot of, you know, what we'll get into in this episode. But what was a folktale that was active in your family growing up?
Steven [00:06:38] We had several, so my family came up in an area of El Salvador that was like immensely rural, and so it was actually like pretty typical...for there to be multiple stories that circulated in our family growing up. And my, my uncles would tell me the stories like at night to just scare me and stuff. But there was one I remember very vividly, which was about [00:07:04]El Cipitin [0.1s] is what the character was called, and it was supposed to be like a really young child wearing like a big hat who had feet that were facing in the wrong direction, like both feet were facing in the other direction. Like completely opposite. And apparently like the story is about this child really emerging from a forbidden love affair between, I think, like an indigenous woman and a Spanish man. And so this child came out, you know, deformed or whatever. But there's this legend of [00:07:48]El Cipitin [0.0s] between kind of popping up, you know, for people in the rural parts of El Salvador and, you know, just creating mischievousness like, you know, messing with people's crops and like fucking with the animals and stuff. And a lot of my uncles would talk about sightings of [00:08:08]El Cipitin [0.1s] and you would see all these kind of like little feet. Sightings all over the place, and people would go mad trying to track down, you know, who was fucking up all their shit, you know, their crops and stuff. But the thing about it was, you follow the footsteps and you're you're actually going in the wrong direction. And apparently, like, I think the captain's mom was this other legend, the other kind of legendary folktale figure called [00:08:35] La Siguanaba [0.5s] which was this woman that, like, supposedly would try to, like, seduce men in in the in the back country of El Salvador. And we were told, like, scary stories, as like cautionary tales: stay away. But yeah, those are those are at least a couple of the ones I remember. And there were there were several others, but it was just like it was pretty, you know, those are the kinds of stories you would tell, like your kids, you know, growing up and were very real, felt very real.
Brandi [00:09:07] That's kind of but they're kind of fun too. Like, I feel like in my family, it's like stories like, Oh yeah, your grandfather was an undertaker, but he had a habit of showing up for the bodies before they fell. Like, it's like that kind of stuff.
Steven [00:09:21] It's.
Steven [00:09:22] You know, he was a serial killer. He might have been a serial killer. We're not sure.
Brandi [00:09:26] Like...Dark dark shit.
Steven [00:09:29] Well, ours was dark too, because I think people would say, like, you know, in some ways, like, you know, there would be people I would see when I would go back to El Salvador who, you know, had had obviously been afflicted by something, you know, had some some mental health issue or something else. And like people would explain it away by saying, oh, that person, you know, Sila Si. Whenever he, you know, used to be super normal before then, which I think is interesting. Like I think nowadays when I think about folktales and having studied them only a little bit, I know you study them, you know, much more like I think it speaks to, I think kind of the the function that these stories play. In our lives. But before we get too far down the pipeline on folktales, why don't we bring in our special guest for this episode? Who will be guest judging? I actually have the pleasure of working with this person Teresa Basilio Gaztambide is the current network director at the national racial justice organization: Media Justice. Actually, Teresa has like a really long, like steeped history in working towards like people-controlled media and technology. She previously ran the Youth Media Organization based out of New York City called Global Action Project. Also ran a project that helped communities build their own wireless broadband networks. And and if that's not enough, there is also a filmmaker who's currently working on a documentary about the history of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party in the United States, tentatively titled Everybody Wants a Revolution. Welcome to the part that is. How are you doing? Oh, I love that.
Brandi [00:11:18] I love that title. That's so dope. Welcome.
Teresa [00:11:21] I'm so happy to be here. I'm a big fan.
Steven [00:11:23] Thank you. Well, we're so happy to have you here. I did kind of just want to throw a question to you, like since we were just talking about folktales that we grew up kind of listening to. There are the serial killer stories that Brandi's family populated. And then there's the folktales that I came up with, like [00:11:39]El Cipitin. [0.0s] What were some of the folktales you grew up around?
Teresa [00:11:45] Well, it's funny, Brandi, you brought up like your family stories. So I do think that there's two categories. There's like family stories that are kind of like urban legends, but really limited to the family. And then there's the ones that are broader. Right. And when I was thinking about this first, I thought about ...so I was born in Puerto Rico and I lived there until I was seven years old. And what I remember is a lot of a lot of stories about being taken by aliens on UFOs. So people are always talking about that, like, I get to be really careful. And the one place where I was personally told to be careful about was [00:12:28] El Yunque [0.0s] which is the rainforest in the tropical rainforest in Puerto Rico. And I was told, you know, don't wander off alone, because if you do, the aliens will get you.
Steven [00:12:39] Wow.
Teresa [00:12:40] And, you know, stay close to the family. So it was a little bit of like a family, like you don't want to move away from the family. You know, aliens will get you. But on a family tip, the most common sort of stories that I heard were about the ability of my family to talk to the dead and to tell the future. So my great grandmother, [00:13:04]Abuela Paca, [0.4s] used to read people's fortunes, and she used, like, those Spanish cards. Mm hmm. And the story goes that she, you know, she was pretty famous in her circle, and people would come to see her, to hear about their future. And at one point, she was doing it and she saw something really bad that was going to happen to this person. And I guess it did happen. And so she became convinced that it was the work of the devil. So she stopped doing it.
Brandi [00:13:34] Mm hmm.
Teresa [00:13:34] But it didn't stop my grandmother, her daughter, from doing it. And, you know, the evil eye on people. And she told me all sorts of stories about, like, how she would, you know, she had a teacher in school that gave her a bad grade. And she gave him the [00:13:52] mal ojo [0.0s] and was like: if this grade wasn't deserved, may you break both your legs. And he had some kind of accident and broke both his legs.
Brandi [00:14:02] Wow.
Steven [00:14:03] So, yeah, that that reminds me of the thing that they used to put on kids, you know, to protect kids from [00:14:09]mal de ojo. [0.0s] So at least when I was growing up, it would be I know I had it was like a little red bracelet with the with the stone. I don't know what kind of stone it was, but like every every Salvadorian kid I ever grew up around had it because it was like you had to protect you had to protect your kids away from people who had this sort of power, this like this ability or my grandmother like negative intentions to like cast like a, you know, cast some sort of like negative spell on your kid or whatever or had like bad thoughts, like you have to protect against people like that. That's so fascinating. Wow. I hadn't thought of those bracelets in a minute, but it's a it just felt like commonplace for me growing up.
Brandi [00:14:52] I'm trying to think it there's like something that I could relate to in my understanding or experience of, like, Black American culture. And I can't come up with anything beyond, like, the cross.
Steven [00:15:03] Mm hmm.
Brandi [00:15:06] So that's really fascinating to me that you guys...that you grew up that way. And I have never heard that before.
Steven [00:15:13] Yeah. I mean, I feel like it's this like, you know, I think what's interesting to me about the presence of these, like, folktales and like, you know, sort of common practices that feel very commonplace and feel very logical, is that there is a role that these stories play in transmitting an idea or a set of values, right? The idea of, like, don't stray too far from your family because when you stray too far from your family, bad things happen. Right. Or the story of like, [00:15:45]La Siguanaba [1.6s] which is probably an effective story to try to prevent, like, you know, a lot of the fucking cheating men in El Salvador from like straying outside of their relationships. You know, so I think there is a way that these stories, like, try to, like, reinforce certain values to keep us on a very particular path. And I'm curious what you all think about, you know, what other roles I think, you know, folktales might or what other kind of purposes folktales might play in our lives.
Teresa [00:16:16] I will say that the stories of my family being close to the dead and having all these like powers that sort of like came from God, I guess I think it was connected to God. I think it was a way of rewriting the story of our family, which my grandmother was very fond of. She had her story to tell, which is not the story that I have since learned is true. And so when she would talk about the brothers and sisters of her mother. Right. They all had mental illness issues. They were all in and out of mental institutions. And she would talk about them as having like powers that they were close to God and that they could speak to God, you know. So it was a way of like rewriting the story from something that was like a lot of shame in our family to something of like our family was special, you know, because they had this, these abilities.
Steven [00:17:21] Wow. It also makes me think of like a lot of the early folktales that were present within a lot of, you know, Western African tribes and stuff that had stories of the white men like they were. I think the the idea of cannibalism, like, was a thing that like was pretty present in that time period. Like right before, right during kind of the, the, the forced enslavement of people anbd forced migration of people out into the territories here in the Americas. But there were stories of like: the white men are cannibals as if to say: stay away from them, right? Like don't trust them. And almost as a way to like prevent people from stepping in to danger. So, yeah, it's like there's kind of that rewriting the story and telling and repositioning the characters so that you can take a story that might be of like. You know, powerlessness and to something that's a little more that's more benevolent and more powerful. And then there are these places where these stories actually serve as like defense mechanisms, like stay away from danger, you know, and try to explain, like, dangerous things around us. Well, can I pivot us into the topic for today, like we're talking about to two of these types of folktales? And we'll get a little bit deeper into kind of the function and role that they played. And Brandi, I want to kick it to you to talk to us about the Creighton Leprechaun. This was something I didn't know a whole lot about until you brought it up to me. Yeah, you brought it up to me.
Teresa [00:19:04] I had never heard of it.
Brandi [00:19:05] Yeah. And before that I want to add a bit about what you guys were saying, because I think that definitely ties in to this legend. I think I want to double down on this piece around, you know, retelling a story to have it come from a place of empowerment instead of shame. And I think, you know, I don't necessarily think of this as folktale in the traditional sense, but one of the things that I think of is, you know, a lot of black people to explain, you know, hair texture or skin complexion will say something like, oh, yeah, we have Native American ancestry, but most of us actually don't or have a small amount. And it often comes from having been raped, frankly, by a white enslaver. So it's like those kind of like little things that you don't necessarily think about. But I think, you know, some of the functions of folktales in black America that we've seen are similar to what you guys talked about. So it's like a way to convey lessons and, you know, pass down an understanding of the dangers in society and also to tell a story of coming out on top and persevering through challenges. It's a way to speak in coded language, particularly historically, you know, post-Civil War and really continuing to this day, black people, you know, enslaved folks weren't necessarily able to speak freely about certain concepts like liberation or really speak freely about much of anything. And so these fairy tales and folktales became a way to, like, you know, communicate ideas, even like warnings that could be as literal as where not to go or where the Underground Railroad is, or like, you know, things things of that nature. Also a way to kind of like protect the community, but they also have like more of a fun aspect, which we'll get to in this. And that's like....not just be like: don't mess with white people, which is definitely a huge thing, but it's also to make fun of white people. I think what's kind of interesting is that white people generally, for a number of reasons, have a hard time believing that black people are capable of like, frankly, trolling hard because they think that trolling requires a certain amount of intellectual prowess, that through implicit bias and other things, people don't always think that black people have. And so like these very these like folktales and urban legends sometimes serve this function of like literally making fun of white people right in front of them while they're just like, Oh, look at those, like little can I say, pickaninnies dancing. But, you know, while they had like a rather, you know, simplistic view of black people and what black people would be thinking or how they would like sort of engage in intellectual games. And so that brings us to the Creighton leprechaun, which for my fairy tale, finds its origins in a neighborhood in Mobile, Alabama. It's also referred to as the Mobile Leprechaun and the Alabama leprechaun. It appeared in a news story with a local NBC affiliate. Remember I said that because we'll come back to it. In March 14, 2006, as part of a news segment, a local resident claimed to have seen a shapeshifting leprechaun appear in a tree and then disappear. Residents from the neighborhood came out in droves. And in the news report, you have multiple people claiming they're able to see it. Can we just can we fire up a little piece of that just so that people can get some of that flavor?
Newscaster 1 [00:22:44] Well, just in time for Saint Patrick's Day, crowds are coming by the dozens to get an up close view at what some say as a piece of Irish folk folklore.
Newscaster 2 [00:22:53] Some people in the Creighton area of mobile say a leprechaun has taken up residence in their neighborhood. A leprechaun received for things. Brian Johnson has more.
Brian Johnson [00:23:03] Curiosity leads to large crowds in Mobile's Triton community. Many of you bringing binoculars, camcorders, even camera phones to take pictures. To me, it looks like a little cold to me. I got to look up to see who else in the room could say yes. Eyewitnesses say the leprechaun only comes out at night. If you shine a light in its direction, it suddenly disappears. This amateur sketch resembles what many of you say the leprechaun looks like. Others find it hard to believe and have come up with their own theories and explanations for the image.
Witness 1 [00:23:37] Our theory is that it's casting a shadow from the other limb.
Witness 2 [00:23:42] Could be a crack head that holds it around stall and it told him to get up in a tree and play A leprechaun.
Witness 3 [00:23:50] We will get down to the bottom of this. Yes, they're down there. Guy don't be afraid. Don't be afraid, man.
Brian Johnson [00:23:57] This guy helping to direct traffic, says he's prepared for his encounter with the leprechaun. He's suited up from head to toe.
Witness 3 [00:24:05] This wards of spells right here. This is a special leprechaun flute, which has been passed down from thousands of years ago, from my great great grandfather, who was Irish. I just came to help out.
Brian Johnson [00:24:15] Others just keen to get lucky and hopes a pot of gold may be buried under this tree.
Witness 4 [00:24:21] I'm gonna uproot that tree. I want to know where the gold at. Give me the gold. I want the gold.
Brian Johnson [00:24:29] This is Brian Johnson, NBC 15 News.
Newscaster 1 [00:24:33] People will do anything for a pot of gold. I mean, anything.
Newscaster 2 [00:24:36] You know what I like? I like the amateur sketch of the leprechaun. It's like somebody got a really good looked at it and got that good drawing out.
Brandi [00:24:42] Okay. So I just want to say a couple of things before, before we wrap up the section to really put Crichton mobile into context for the purposes of the rest of the show. So the neighborhood or suburb in Mobile is a low income, one of the lowest income neighborhoods in America. Research shows that this neighborhood has an income lower than 95.6% of U.S. neighborhoods, with a 34% rate of childhood poverty. It didn't get there by accident. It was once a labor stronghold, and there was a lot of sort of black wealth being built in the Mobil and Crichton area. In 1933 and 1943, there were uprisings slash massacres where white people attacked black union organizers and people working for labor rights. Alabama has not fully recovered from that, and even in and of itself, Crichton used to be called the neighborhood, used to be called Napoleon ville, and the neighborhood was renamed in the early 1900s after a Confederate veteran and transplants as part of the sort of rewriting of history to favor the lost cause, which we talked about, the phenomenon of that in our Marvin Gaye Star Spangled Bangor's episode and how that was resurrected. It was once a tight knit space. It still continues to be a tight knit space, but like it has routinely been attacked by white mobs which have gone into, you know, lynch rape and burn. With one of the more recent examples of that being in 1981, where Michael Donald was randomly lynched by Klan members as a retaliation killing. And so that's like a huge part of the story and the things that are shaping the neighborhood. And then the last thing that I'll say is that there's also a lot of ways in which other people, like specifically white business owners online and in Alabama, have continued to monetize the Crichton Leprechaun story and use it for their own personal gain. Selling t shirts. Even the sketch was sold at auction for a certain amount of money, but a lot of those resources have not gone back into the community. So the community hasn't benefited, even though they're constantly sort of being talked about in these ways. And so that's that's a little bit of the back story. That's really the setup for what happens with The Creighton Leprechaun.
Steven [00:27:11] Yeah. And I think we should probably name that, although we know that this happened in 2006. Yes, we're putting it here in the kind of nineties versus for a couple of different reasons. One, I mean, I think it's interesting that we have a leprechaun as kind of the figure here. But, you know, those of us who grew up in the nineties remember that there was a whole franchise series that was pretty popular in the horror movie genre, which I was a fan of in the nineties. I was huge into horror and the Leprechaun movies were a thing like first came out in the early 1990s. There was like.
Brandi [00:27:48] Yeah, around 1993 the first leprechaun came out.
Steven [00:27:51] Yeah. And you have like multiple versions of this movie. There's even a Leprechaun in the hood that came out right in the 10th price shot in the late nineties and then came out right and in the year 2000, 2000, March 2000. So that's why we're placing it here. We think it fits.
Brandi [00:28:08] But yeah, there's also sorry, there's also like a huge part of this around. So the theme of the leprechaun movies for folks that haven't seen it is a story of a vengeful leprechaun. That feels like it's been deprived of its economic treasures. So it goes out. And so like usually it's like a greedy person goes out and they steal, I believe, the leprechauns magic wand or something like that. And that triggers the leprechaun coming to seek revenge. And so in the late nineties, they film Leprechaun in the Hood, which was Leprechaun five, which really, you know, took that story and set it in the context of, you know, a black black community in the hood and the theft of, you know, money, success, talent, a number of other things. And so that's really setting the context. It's a cult classic that's really setting the context for this story in 2006, a few years later.
Steven [00:29:03] Yeah. And I think there's a really strong element, I think, in this story and also in the in the next kind of folktale that we'll get into about people really just trying to have ownership over kind of the story that's being told about the place that they're from. I think one of the fascinating things I found about the new segment, honestly, is that there were two people in there that look exactly like, you know, famous, like nineties and early, 2000s rappers. So there's there's a guy that looks exactly like Cam'ron. Exactly. And then the dude saying he's going.
Brandi [00:29:37] That didn't occur to me. But you're right.
Steven [00:29:39] And then the dude said he's going to uproot the tree. Looks exactly like Lil Jon that is like that's....
Brandi [00:29:44] That's so funny. Damn. I didn't even put that together.
Steven [00:29:46] Could it be though?
Steven [00:29:49] Could it be them? That's what I want to know. But yeah, they're just, they're just the function of these stories as like as these folktales, as like being a way to, to shape and control the narrative about the community that you're in. Should we dive into Chupacabras?
Brandi [00:30:06] Yes, we should.
Steven [00:30:08] Thank you. All right. So my folktale is going to be the story of the Chupacabras, which first emerged in 1994 in the small town of [00:30:19]Canovanas [0.7s] in Puerto Rico in that region. Local residents discovered dozens of farm animals popping up dead, including like ducks, rabbits, pigs, chickens and goats. And more of the sightings tended to be of dead goats. And so hence the name Chupacabra, which means goat sucker. That's where this folktale gets its origins from. So it started as people finding dead farm animals. But then some of the residents actually started reporting the actual sightings of the things that they thought were actually killing the animals. So people described the animal as this kind of grotesque creature that was about three feet tall with, like, membrane wings and a hunched back and really large like red eyes, almost alien like and covered with like scales. Some people had described it as quills. It was said to kind of resemble a kangaroo, since it leapt from it leapt from like its large back legs and had like really tiny front arms and people. A lot of people actually reported like really strikingly pungent smells. Now with strange is like this is a story that, you know, has like very clear origins in Puerto Rico. But pretty soon after its early sightings of of this this creature, the stories like sightings start to spread all throughout Latin America. You get it all throughout kind of different parts of Latin America. Lots of sightings in Mexico, lots of sightings along the southern border of the United States. And there were even sightings within the United States as far up as Maine. And so what's also fascinating is that there was this almost like pretty significant cultural appeal that this story took in a relatively short amount of time. And this is like pre-Internet days before we even conceived of things of going viral. But this is one of those things that went viral fairly quickly. There were multiple news segments. You know, the media was heavily involved in perpetuating this the story. There was a whole episode of Christina, like, dedicated to the Chupacabras. And if you don't know what Christina Christina was like, you know, the Latin Oprah like of the nineties, you know, there were TV and music references as well, which we'll talk about in Puerto Rico. The story was so widespread. So it wasn't just like rumors of something going on. It was a part of like public conversation. It actually led to the Agricultural Commission and the Puerto Rican House of Representatives to launch an official government investigation. You know, you had scientists pouring into the mics, journalists pouring into the mics, trying to figure out like what is actually going on. And a lot of scientists tried to explain the phenomena away. You know, they use kind of scientific thinking to say, actually, no, these are just probably dogs or some other kind of animal that's inflicted with some sort of disease. And that's what might give it kind of its weird appearance. But those are you know, it's likely that that's what it's what's going on. And nonetheless, I think, like, people continued to believe that it was something else and it had like a real significant hold over the people in Puerto Rico and in particular in that region of kind of illness. I'm curious, Teresa, what were your memories of the Chupacabra when. When it popped up in 94?
Steven [00:33:58] Mm hmm.
Teresa [00:33:59] Yeah. So in 1994, I was living in Boston, and I must have heard about it from, you know, family in Puerto Rico. And immediately I was like, hooked.
Steven [00:34:12] Was.
Teresa [00:34:12] Like, this chupacabras is very interesting. And trying to figure out all of us are trying to figure out, like, what was it like? Was it an alien? Was it a some sort of horrible experiment from the U.S. government? So that was like another very popular theory was that the U.S. government in their research labs created this monster and then it escaped. Was it, you know, monkeys, which are also not native to Puerto Rico or brought in for research purposes? So there's a lot of stories actually in Puerto Rico about escaped monkeys.
Steven [00:34:50] Wow.
Teresa [00:34:52] But anyway, so they were like, is it like an escaped monkey? Is it a rabid dog? Like, you know, is it Satan? That was another popular one. So, yeah, I just I got really obsessed with it. And then, you know, when I moved to New York in in 1996, still obsessed and and just remember all the T-shirts, the refrigerator.
Steven [00:35:14] Magnets.
Teresa [00:35:16] The like, it was just it was such a craze. And I was part of it. I loved it. I was into.
Steven [00:35:22] It, I. Definitely remember it. Like populating. Probably watching it for the first time via new segments that I would see on TV. And like I was, my mom would watch this show called Manning Backdoor, which was like. Mm hmm. It was kind of like a new show, but not really a news show, you know, like the did a lot of sensationalized stories like that. You would definitely see, like, whole new segments dedicated to, like, the the one shaman in Brazil who can predict the winner of the World Cup. Like, it'd be a whole new segment just on that person. And so that that's what that that show was like. But. But that's where I would see it a lot, because my mom would watch it religiously, because that's where Walter Mercado would pop up. It was it would be during that broadcast. So we would watch it just for that. But but I remember seeing it growing up, like hearing it a lot. And it's fascinating because you were saying like there was a whole craze around it. People had merchandise around it. And the story pops up sometime in early 1994 and I guess within a few months at the Puerto Rican Pride Parade in New York City, which was that June of 94, there were so many people wearing T-shirts of the Chupacabras that, like even local news reporting, had to, like, focus on it. Cause I like what that what is this like? What's going on? So that's it's fascinating how quickly like that appeal happened. I'm curious, what was it in the story that you out that, like, attracted you to it?
Teresa [00:36:54] It was. Well, part of it was the humor around it. I mean, I know initially it was supposed to be really scary. And, you know, a lot of kids were scared or thinking that, you know, it's too sanguinary and all the all the livestock. And so it's going to get sick of the livestock soon and going to go to humans. So that was like a popular kind of fear that people had, but it was also kind of funny. And in fact, those t shirts to me were hilarious because the majority of the t shirts were not like kind of scary. They were more funny. There were a lot of cartoony versions of a Chupacabras, whereas like there's one famous, one of, of, of the Chupacabras sucking on a go through a straw wearing boricua like dress like he's going to the Puerto Rican Day Parade, wearing like a Boricua type t shirt and short shorts. And, you know, it's like he was ours. You know, he in some ways represented Puerto Rico, even though he also represented kind of a lot of the fear and anxiety that we were facing. I feel like we also reclaimed him as like a nationalist symbol. So sort of similar to to the [00:38:06]Coqui [0.0s] which is the Puerto Rican tree frog, which is like emblazoned and everything. There was even T-shirts of the [00:38:13]coqui [0.0s] hanging out with the two of us, you know. And then there was another subgenre that really disturbed me, which was of the [00:38:20]Coqui. No, not the coqui, [1.4s] the chupacabras as a lecherous man who was like thirsting after women. So there was like something there was like some something around, like, he can't exist on blood alone or something. So there was a whole sort of subgenre of lecherous chupacabra also.
Steven [00:38:39] Now I know, Brandi, for you, like when you and I talked about Chupacabra, your kind of immediate recollection of that wasn't like the phenomena around the story. Like it wasn't necessarily something you had you had noticed kind of growing up, but you had related it to a music album, right? Imani Coppola. I'm curious like what you think that's in relationship to like I mean, I think it speaks to like almost its popularity, right? I don't know exactly when that album came out, but...
Brandi [00:39:11] So I think I believe the album came out around 2000, So I was at a women's college at this point in time and pretty much only listened to women musicians. And Imani Coppola was like a popular artist on the sort of Lilith Fair Circuit, if you will. And she had an album with that name, and she actually later said that she didn't even know what it was. She thought it was an alien, so she thought she was naming her album after a type of alien and then realized later on what it was and was like slightly horrified. But I do think this also speaks to like this sort of pre-Internet time where we're still, as you know, somewhat segregated in terms of our echo chambers, our stories like the things that we hear. And even though I know that the Alabama leprechaun is like kind of early 2000s, it still predates that time where everything's kind of intermingled and we all are having more of the same shared frame of reference. And so I think there's something interesting about the fact that you guys hadn't heard this story. I was shocked by that and I hadn't heard of your folktale and you guys were shocked by that. That, I think speaks to again what that time was like for us.
Steven [00:40:32] Yeah, I think one of the commonalities between these two stories, you know, both the leprechaun and the chupracabras is they both kind of center around a very particular place, like have very clear origins, right? You know, mobile in one. And with the Chupacabras, there was this kind of small town [00:40:52]Canovanas. [0.3s] And I guess I wanted to ask you to dress like, you know, as as as the resident Puerto Rican historian here in this podcast, at least right now.
Steven [00:41:02] Like.
Steven [00:41:02] What should we know about this particular region, that that might just help kind of add a little bit of color and shape to the story?
Teresa [00:41:11] Sure. So it's actually pronounced [00:41:13]Canovanas [0.4s] and..
Steven [00:41:16] Dang...Sorry.
Teresa [00:41:18] It's all right. It's all good. Prior to the prior to the sighting in [00:41:24]Canovanas, [0.5s] there was actually some reports of of some desanguinations of livestock. And like desanguination is a word, right? Like bloodletting is.
Steven [00:41:35] I guess. It'll be a word today.
Teresa [00:41:38] Anyway, it sounds good in other towns, like [00:41:41Orocovis, [0.6s] I think, and maybe another town. And then in the seventies, there was also reports of that of of one in [00:41:48]Moca, [0.0s] which is on the west coast of of of the main island in Puerto Rico. That was called El Vampiro de mocha, the mocha vampire. So so there had been like some, you know, sort of things like this already percolating, but it really picked up in in [00:42:06]Canovanas [0.0s] on us because of a couple of couple reasons. One, because you had eyewitness testimony and and also because the mayor of the town, [00:42:19]Jose “Chemo” Soto, [0.6s] who was quite a character, he was a former police officer and Vietnam vet and he ran and was successfully the mayor of [00:42:34]Canovanas [0.4s] for four different sessions over I think 22 years maybe something like that which is unheard of. And, and that and he was part of the what's called the [00:42:46]PNP, [0.3s] which is the new Progressive Party, the the pro-U.S. Statehood Party. And and that town was very [00:42:54]much PNP. [0.7s] Folks know about that, that kind of the political issues in Puerto Rico. So it was like very much a lot of that and then also very Pentecostal. So the role of Pentecostal religion in Puerto Rico has been kind of interesting as a separate story. But so the woman who was the the housewife who saw and described the Chupacabras was someone who was a member of a Pentecostal church who, you know, you know, got a lot of then interviews and things and then other people started coming forward having seen the Chupacabras. And so it became it became this thing of, you know, like it's real. And so the mayor of the town decided that he was going to hunted down. And so he would go out in camouflage with about 15 of his of his friends and armed every morning as part of his as part of his role as the mayor of kind of us two hunted down never did catch it. But I know that up until I think he was even 2012 or 2013, he was still searching for that thing. And he just died actually in December. And his daughter is now the mayor of kind of on us and also part of that party. But yeah.
Steven [00:44:19] Dang, it's like family ties, you know, reminds me of those excursions like another nineties reference. Remember, remember after O.J. was acquitted, he was like mounting, like, you know, investigations to try to find who really killed, like, Nicole Brown Simpson.
Teresa [00:44:37] Mmm hmmm
Steven [00:44:37] Come on, now. Come on. We should.
Steven [00:44:41] We should have known. Damn. Cool. So that's I think the other thing that's interesting to me about how that came up, I think, you know, from some of the stuff I read like [00:44:54]Chemo Soto [0.4s] was also there were some like legitimate political stuff that was going on like within his like that administration, but like within his kind of government, his it's like municipality or whatever. And it struck me that I think the Chupacabras took on this kind of life, became like a really creative tool for politicians who were embroiled in mess to like, distract the. Attention away from what was actually going on in in Mexico. Some people and, you know, a lot of the things that I think I've reference here today come from this academic paper called Imperial Secrets, like vampires and nationhood and Puerto Rico. Written by Lauren Darby, who's a history professor over at UCLA. And some of what she was talking about in there, you know, was elevating how and Mexico during this period of deep corruption by the the the PRI party was like the dominant party in Mexico, the Partido Revolutionary or something something the party. But they he was like, deeply corrupt. Like his brother was like. Like involved with, like, you know, embezzlement of money, like re appropriating public resources and really enriching their own coffers, like engaging with narco traffickers and taking kickbacks. And he was, like, embroiled in so much corruption and the chupacabra story, like, all of a sudden took like a major foothold of the public consciousness and became part of the public conversation in Mexico in a way that a lot of people point to and say, like, well, it became a very convenient tool to kind of distract attention away from like the real fundamental stuff that was going on in in government. So it's interesting to me how it's been utilized in that way.
Teresa [00:46:51] Can I say that's also a parallel in Puerto Rico at the time. So we had at in the nineties for eight years, we had Pedro Rossello as our governor and he his administration was completely corrupt. I think they had over 40 people be indicted on corruption. He was also known as the father of [00:47:08] Ricky Rossello, [0.0s] who was also governor of Puerto Rico, who was forced who was forced to step down because of, you know, the political movement in Puerto Rico against him and his corruption and his total lack of any good ness. And so he was forced to step down so that that whole family that also your family is pretty infamous in Puerto Rico for for corruption.
Steven [00:47:33] There is also, I think, a sense of how the story really kind of got away from the people in [00:47:41] Canovanas [0.7s] did I say that right?
Teresa [00:47:43] [00:47:43] Canovanas [0.3s]
Steven [00:47:44] [00:47:44]Canovanas [0.5s]
Teresa [00:47:46] [00:47:46] Canovanas [0.9s]
Steven [00:47:48] Why am I putting the accent in the wrong place???
Teresa [00:47:51] It's okay.
Brandi [00:47:52] Come on, Steven. You're so rude...
Steven [00:47:53] I know. Typically typically it's not me, but this is a new season. It's a new new thing, new mistakes. But how the story really kind of got away from kind of the the the initially I think a lot of the media attention in this region that really had kind of shaped itself as an outsider to the rest of Puerto Rico and like moral ways, you know, through kind of it's steeped Pentecostalism. It's like, you know, deep kind of alignment with like statehood as a movement, like was really kind of pushing itself as kind of this its outsider status. And yet, like as further and further media attention came in, like the the story shifted from like interesting thing that's going on in this place to like almost ridicule in a way that I think people there really resented and reminds me. I think I'm curious, Brandi, in you're kind of looking up at the the story of the leprechaun like what was the what was the kind of perception for folks that were ingrained within that community of how this story kind of bubbled and and evolved?
Brandi [00:49:05] So, I mean, I think that's an interesting question. I think for the people in the community, they definitely perceived it as something that was light hearted, that for that, they were, you know, poking fun at institutions, which I'll get into later. Also, allegedly, like a man that goes by the street name midget Shawn. That's not my name. That's the street. And he goes by is allegedly the the man who dressed up as a leprechaun and sat in the tree and kicked everything off. But again, I think there was something around like, you know, relief from everyday circumstances and storytelling about the community. But like outside of it, what you saw in terms of the perceptions of it on and off line was this, I think, opportunity for people looking through a coastal or white gaze to. Essentially look down on this community and see this example of like like sort of foolery or look how silly they are or look how crazy these people are, quote unquote. But it's like the people that were like the most memorable in that broadcast were the people that were trolling the hardest. Like the guy with the flute said he literally just came out his house and saw what was happening and just, like, made some shit up. So, like, it's, you know, I just.
Steven [00:50:30] I just wanted to help. I just came to help.
Brandi [00:50:33] I just came to help.
Steven [00:50:36] I feel like. What are the fascinating things about that new segment is in like in a very relatively short amount of time. You got it. You had a chance to like cover a bunch of different, like, black archetypes, you know, because like it's just a gray kind of retelling because that dude is also, like, decked out in, like, military gear.
Steven [00:50:53] Yes.
Brandi [00:50:54] Which is funny. I don't know. I don't know if you guys have this in your in your respective cultures. But I feel like in black culture, there's something about at some point in your life, dressing in military attire or naval attire. Like I feel like the older black folks get, the more likely you are to at some point wear a sailor cap. And I'm not sure.
Steven [00:51:13] Yeah.
Brandi [00:51:13] What that's about. But that's just an observation I have.
Steven [00:51:16] No, I feel like for, for me growing up it was hairstyle like it was getting the, getting the buzzcut, kind of the marine style buzzcut with the flattop, I'd see my, my uncles wearing like military style boots, wearing kind of gray, fatty, neck, green fatigues or whatever. It was a thing. It was a thing for sure, but in a different way. And I don't know if we got into the sailor hats, I think it probably just had to do with like what what sort of like U.S. military presence there was in the region.
Brandi [00:51:50] I think it's a quickly I think it's an interesting thing because I think it's both the disproportionate representation of black, Latino and indigenous people in the military that I think ties directly to it. But then there's also, as you guys were talking about, this story of militarization and and the ways in which government has like taken over our our communities and policed it in different ways. That, I think makes it fascinating when we're like sort of drawn to that esthetic and owning it, particularly when we use it in a more sort of like rebellious context of art making, thinking of like public enemy and like, you know, different groups like.
Steven [00:52:28] Yeah. All right. So these both of these stories are just super deeply fascinating that so you have to decide which of these two folktales has the most valuable lesson to teach us. And I think we've already started ceding some of our ideas, but I think it's going to be a great debate. But the clear winner here is obviously the chupacabra. But I will, you know, for Brandi sake, go through the motions of the debate, you know, for the show's format and everything. You know, I'm a team player. Let's take a quick break. But until then, Brandi, good luck.
Brandi [00:53:01] Good luck to you, sir. In. And we're back and it's time to bring receipts. Recapping the rules for our audience and our guest who will serve as special judge is inside, gets 5 minutes to convince the judge on their answer to the topic, which in this case, which folktale has the most lessons or important takeaways from it. Something like some some stuff that Steven made up. When our time is up. We'll hear a hawk noise or something like that. And we're being judged on three criteria energy, creativity, and most importantly, did we bring receipts to back up our story. And Steven, since you've been sort of overly confident about this, we're going to go ahead and start with you. 5 minutes on the clock. Take us away.
Steven [00:54:05] By the way, I feel like our ding should be the like, you know, when your time is up, say, yeah. And then we could do that. Yeah.
Steven [00:54:13] Who else in the world could say yes?
Brandi [00:54:18] We could do that. Yeah. I feel like when you said honk noise, I was like, Is that like the clown?
Steven [00:54:25] Or is it? We could do that.
Steven [00:54:27] We could do whatever sound effect we want. Okay. All right, cool. Well, let me go ahead and dove in. Um, there's two very particular lessons that I think the story of the Chupacabras teaches us, which I think is very valuable. One, I'll pull a quote directly from that academic article that I was referencing earlier, written by Lauren Darby Imperial Secrets, Vampires and Nationhood in Puerto Rico. And in that, she writes this, quote that says that the Chupacabras was a reflection of how the U.S. imperial state was seen in the political imagination of Puerto Ricans. So that's my that's the first lesson I want to throw out there. You know, Puerto Rico, if you don't know, has this colonial relationship that still persists to this day with the United States? It it it has the kind of the relationship of having to belong to, but not necessarily being a part of the United States, almost. It's kind of like it's a it's a territory. It's it's it's how it's been. It's how it's treated and how it's oriented. Puerto Ricans are shaped by this kind of federal authority of the you know, by these kind of decision makers that Puerto Ricans have no real kind of say or relationship to and no real participation in shaping those those decisions that impact like its its daily life. And you see this reflected in the kind of major like U.S. military presence on the island historically and even to this day. It's been used as a, you know, military strategic point in the South Atlantic. It has the highest concentration of, like, U.S. military personnel. It's been used as a training ground for war preparation. And I think, like part of how the story of Chupacabras to me fits in is that in the eyewitness accounts by people, the Chupacabras was always described as and other as not really being from us in the social context, you know. So a lot of eyewitnesses would say, like, this thing is not human. This thing is not an animal. This thing is not anything that's known to us here locally, which I think speaks to this kind of like this in a very subconscious way, the relationship that Puerto Rico has with the United States. You know, you see it also in the presence of like, you know, military installations like the Odyssey War Telescope, which for a lot of people in Puerto Rico. You know, a lot of stories I think I was thinking about with what with the story that that the NSA shared earlier about don't go. Don't stray too far from the family because like you will be taken away by aliens. Well, this telescope, one of the largest telescopes and in the world, is used to like supposedly like broadcast messages to to aliens and to invite aliens to come here. And so it's not kind of, to me, not surprising that there are these stories of like alien sightings and these and these in this region and in this area. But it is the out of school telescope for up until like the 1970s was controlled by the Department of Defense. It's only been until like in recent years that it's been kind of turned over to to more kind of scientific endeavors. So there is this way in which, like the United States is kind of imperial imprint into the into the island of Puerto Rico Islands, because also they've ran military operations in islands like Libras and Vieques. That this is the story, I think is a reflection of this this relationship with this imperial state. I think the other thing I'll say very quickly is I think that the other kind of element of the chupacabra, the story that is trying to tell is about modernity. You know, and I think this ties into the colonial relationship of like building up Puerto Rico as this kind of industrialized area. A lot of the sightings would have the chupacabras would describe the Chupacabras as almost like a mechanical figure, the pungent, like nasty smell. People would, you know, related to the smell of battery acid, the kind of lifeless eyes people would describe it as, like these Christmas lights that you would see the mechanical moves of it would be more like a robot. It would fly really fast. It lacked genitalia. And a lot of the sightings would actually position it in places that I think are. Reflections of this kind of more modern technological age. So mechanic's shops, the Kmart, there were a lot of sightings around the telescope and which I think is is interesting. There was an exhibition. I think my time is up. Dang. But let me just say one last thing about the the chupacabra. So I think that the story here is beware of this this industrial, this nation that is imposing its influence and control over over Puerto Ricans. And secondly, beware of what it brings. Beware of this technology that is reshaping the fundamental like nature of who we are as people. So I think the Chupacabras has a lot to teach us. And those were just a couple of things that I wanted to point to, and I'll leave it at that and I will turn it over to you. Brandi.
Brandi [01:00:17] That was great, Stephen. That was a good argument. Here's where I'm going to start. I'm going to start about with talking about the racial wealth gap, which we touched on earlier. And what we see is the racial wealth gap, starting with the failure to provide formerly enslaved people with a certain amount of land. That was an opportunity. And the failure of the sort of promise of the kind of what we call the 40, 40 acres and a meal and all of those things. The failure to acknowledge that theft of labor, intellectual property. And what I mean by that is, you know, the number of patents that were filed based on agricultural and industrial tools developed by enslaved labor, which families continue to build their wealth on in this country, the theft of a chance for the most skilled labor force in America at that time to build their own version of the American Dream and the literal stealing of land, money and freedom in order to maintain an economic class built on race. So it's not just a story of what we weren't granted that we deserved, but like even when we had it, there was a lot of ways in which it was stolen out from under us. And so when you look at and you see a community that was systemically robbed of its resources, ripped apart by highways, like many black communities in America. And you see this story of white people loving the leprechaun, but still fearing black people in this country and black people living in Creighton. And it's within this context that the that the Creighton leprechaun should be seen not just as a symbolic representation of the theft and labor suppression wielded against residents and a looming threat of vengefulness from the broken social contract. But it should also be placed in the tradition of the trickster and black American folktales. By definition, tricksters are animals, are characters who are seen as disadvantaged and weak in a contest of wealth and power and resources. But they succeed in getting the better of their larger and more powerful adversaries tricksters up to keep their objective through indirection, mask wearing, and through playing upon the gullibility of their opponents, they outsmart and outthink their opponents, and in executing their actions, they give no thought to right or wrong. And you see these trickster tales in African-American culture, not just as a source of humor, but also as commentary on the inequities of existence in a country where the promises of democracy have been denied to so many of us. And so often when you see when you pair that with what we saw with the Crichton leprechaun phenomenon, you see them trolling people broadly and specifically trolling a local news that has made the community deemed undesirable for so long that only told stories of violence and death and harm in that community and not anything of its potential or successes. Which brings me to my second point, and that's I mentioned earlier that it was a NBC affiliate that aired this, but specifically it was a Sinclair news station, currently the nation's largest television station conglomerate, with a long track record of forcing their hard right ideology on its local affiliates. It comes in to half of our homes and they tell us to fear our Muslim neighbors and not worry about the white nationalists marching on our lawn. They tell us black protesters are a threat to our democracy, but that murders in places like Charlottesville are what make America great. And they deliver that message through trusted news broadcasters. Crichton was a community that, in the eyes of local news, could only be seen as a source of harm and danger. And what we saw with the Crighton Leprechaun is an example of community organizing to push back against the narrative of the community that comes from outside the community. Perceptions of. Powerlessness and a story purely defined by its more traumatizing moments, and inevitably that the power lies with elites to fix it, and not with the community itself to own and tell its own story. And so I think that's part of what you see. And I might be over time, but I'm going to close with this one thing. I think oftentimes how we see blackness depicted in media and particularly in local news, is that it's assumed to be this inherently traumatic experience about solely on the memory of enslavement and murder. And there's no room for black nostalgia, comfort, pride, joy, complexity and nuance. And what we saw in the Crichton Leprechaun episode that I think makes it so important is this community. Well, to sort of take back that narrative, to challenge that narrative, and to create our own story based on humor, whether other people understood that or not.
Steven [01:05:12] Dang. See, this is why I get my ass kicked in debating you, Randi. Damn it. You're so damn good at this. Not to tip like.
Brandi [01:05:21] Nah, I feel like you're. I feel like you're. When I was listening to you, I was like, damn.
Steven [01:05:25] Well, good tip not to not to try to unduly influence our judge here. But I knew I knew, you know, I knew this was going to be a tough one because Brandi is incredible. The results turn it over to you. Creativity, energy and receipts, that's the criteria. What do you want to say? What do you think?
Teresa [01:05:45] Wow. I'm like, I'm blown away by both of you. And also, 5 minutes is not enough time to give to this amazing, like analysis of these of these things. I want to maybe, like off the air, we can have more conversations because there's a lot going on here. But yeah, I think, you know, in terms of creativity, I'm going to give that to Brandi specifically because of your ability to sort of trace this idea of the tricksters to me is a really is really compelling and yeah. And just, you know, the story of how, you know, we're able to infuse both social commentary and humor into into their stories and how that's an act of resistance and subversion. And I love that. So I give that to you. I gave the receipts, too, to Stephen on this one because he went deep on the U.S. imperial colonial relationship. So I appreciate that. You know, there's a lot of invisibility and lack of knowledge about the ongoing colonial relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States. And so appreciate, you know, having that those receipts and making kind of connections to popular culture and folktales. So it comes down to energy.
Steven [01:07:12] Oh, okay.
Teresa [01:07:18] And you're both amazing and wonderful. I have to say that before I picked somebody, I said, this is horrible. You're both really energetic. But I really I really felt felt what Brandi was saying. She was saying.
Steven [01:07:38] I see what I'm saying and I give my eyes. Because your energy is matched by Brandi.
Brandi [01:07:43] No, it's the energy thing. It's because your energy is so, like calm and chill and cool.
Teresa [01:07:47] Whereas I think that's the issue.
Brandi [01:07:48] Of a lot of Tracy Flick energy. So. I don't know from them in the election, basically like Hillary Clinton energy except in black woman form.
Teresa [01:08:00] Although, you know, Steven, though, you did bring the energy when you were talking about your family's stories. So I had to just base it on this.
Steven [01:08:08] I see.
Teresa [01:08:09] Last 5 minutes, right?
Steven [01:08:10] Yes, but it's all good. No, I understand. I understand. I was like I was I had not made the connection between the news segment as like a, you know, as trolling in the story of a, you know, folktale figure that was known as a trickster. And I was like, fuck, that is a really good argument.
Brandi [01:08:33] So I thought that was a clear thing. I feel like I know my audience, I know my judge. So I was like, Ooh, the Sinclair thing, I feel like.
Steven [01:08:41] Yeah, yeah, yeah. Little. You went there. You're like the media conglomerate, blah, blah, blah. I was like, Oh.
Steven [01:08:48] Okay.
Steven [01:08:50] You know, it's, you know, one thing about the the Chupacabras that I hadn't had a chance to say, but I found interesting as I was doing some digging on this. So there was a movie that came out in 1995 called Species that was about like this kind of hybrid alien human figure that was like a it's like a it was supposed to be like a team of scientists that are trying to track down this female alien hybrid human figure that is trying to mate with the with that is trying to mate with a male figure. And like the whole stories. But we got to find this thing before, like, you know, this thing happens. And I was looking up the the notes around the filming and part of it filmed in at the Arecibo telescope in Puerto Rico, which would have been shot in 1994. And it's like that is fascinating. And the figure actually looks a lot like the Chupacabras.
Teresa [01:09:52] Yeah. Something to know about the [01:09:53]Arecibo [0.4s] Telescope is that it's collapsing. Mm hmm. So. And there's a lot of. Yeah, it's, like, connected to the. The collapsing of our economy, the theft of our of our, you know, labor nature, everything with the current economic structure of the colony. So the article has become like this was just happened, like the Odyssey. The fact that it's collapsing has in a lot of ways people are just like, this is very upsetting to Puerto Ricans.
Steven [01:10:29] Yeah. Wow. That's.
Brandi [01:10:31] Wow, this. Yeah. No, I. I appreciate this episode. Every episode, I learn something, but this is definitely the one that has been the most out of my depth of knowledge. And so I think both of you, for the opportunity to learn more about that. And I definitely have a lot of rabbit holes to get down, you know, after we wrap up. QUESTION Is there any, I don't know campaigner like way in which people could if they want to learn more about what's happening in Puerto Rico. But like I know there's a lot of things that are happening now, a lot of ways in which folks have still haven't recovered from the hurricane. Is there any place that we should point folks to, to learn more, be active?
Teresa [01:11:18] Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks, Brandi. There's a couple of things that that folks are fighting right now. Well, the biggest one is, of course, the fiscal control board and the law that was passed by Obama and the U.S. Congress, which was the [01:11:31]PROMESA law, [0.5s] which basically sanctioned this new form of colonial extraction and by Wall Street vulture funds. And so there is a couple of things people are doing right now to fight that. One is trying to abolish this law, 60, which is giving all these tax breaks to all these tech brokers and gringos to come and sweep up all of the land in Puerto Rico. So folks are trying to get that repealed. So, you know, getting involved and learning about that. And also, you know, just in general, there's also a fight for for the land. And so today, actually, there is a beautiful thing happening in the beach of Ocean Park. There was a a situation where people are calling her the Ocean Park, Karen, where she told some people that they couldn't play volleyball on this public beach because, you know, it's belongs to to her. It's a private thing. And in our Constitution, we fought for specifically our beaches to be part of the patrimony. And and so there's been a long struggle to ensure that that happens. And so the beaches are a site of struggle right now. So just today, they're having like a volleyball tournament, again, using humor and joy and fun. But to like lay bare this the situation.
Brandi [01:12:51] Thank You.
Steven [01:12:52] Wow. What barbecue is to Oakland?
Brandi [01:12:56] I was going to say barbecue to black people. What, like volleyball is to Puerto Ricans?
Teresa [01:13:00] Well, it's just because she was playing volleyball. And when the. Yeah. When that ocean park Karen stepped.
Brandi [01:13:06] I do know. I do know a lot of Puerto Ricans that play volleyball though....as an aside. I feel like Puerto Rico, my low key, be a volleyball powerhouse. To be honest.
Teresa [01:13:16] But sports is not my forte.
Brandi [01:13:18] Yeah, but like, one last thing I'm going to make a request Steven for for this season. I feel like the winner of the debate should get to choose an outro song that we can listen to 20 seconds of when we go out.
Steven [01:13:34] All right.
Brandi [01:13:35] Is something we could do?
Steven [01:13:36] I think that's something we can do.
Brandi [01:13:37] So I'm going to.
Steven [01:13:38] What would be your pick? You've already came prepared, you know. This is. See?
Brandi [01:13:42] No, no, no.
Steven [01:13:42] You see what happened. Brandi So confident--
Brandi [01:13:45] No,.
Steven [01:13:45] In her debate prowess. She already has a song picked out. I'm already going to make this request at the end of the episode. Because I know I'm going to win. So this is what I'm up against.
Brandi [01:13:53] No, no, no, no. It's directly related. Steven, I'll have you know, I was just going to say Legend of a Cowgirl. By Imani Coppola.
Steven [01:14:03] From.
Brandi [01:14:05] The Chupacabra album from I think 2000 is going to be my request.
Teresa [01:14:11] I wish I had the song I wrote about Chupacabras I could play it for you.
Brandi [01:14:13] How we could do that. Well, if you find out, we could play that. But until then, Imani Coppola. It's my request.
Steven [01:14:19] Perfect. One last question for you, Teresa. If folks want to support also the film that you're working on the about the history of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party, where can people go to support and connect?
Steven [01:14:35] You've no idea yet.
Teresa [01:14:37] I'm still in kind of pre-production situation. We did just to get some funds to to do another shoot. So I don't really know. I don't have any if.
Brandi [01:14:48] You have like a cash app.
Steven [01:14:50] Situation. Yeah. How are you doing that? Where do you. Oh.
Teresa [01:14:56] I know. I need to get to that. I just haven't gotten to it yet. I know it's bad.
Brandi [01:15:01] Is there, like, a website or no handle? No. Okay, cool. Well, I just.
Teresa [01:15:05] Have to find me. You know what? Find me on Twitter. I guess they don't know.
Steven [01:15:10] That's a great handle. @terenovela.
Brandi [01:15:12] And the title of the documentary One More Time.
Teresa [01:15:14] Everybody Wants a Revolution. That's a quote from Alfredo Lopez, who's featured in the film. Yes.
Steven [01:15:21] Yay! Shout out to Alfredo. All right. We're going to roll out to Legend of a Cowgirl by Imani Coppola for the winner of today's episode, Brandi Collins-Dexter.
Teresa [01:15:33] I'm sorry, Steven. Please don't be mad at me.
Unidentified [01:15:35] Wow.
Imani Coppola [01:15:38] I'm gonna drink my whiskey
I'm gonna have my man
I know you got nothing to say
Steven [01:15:56] That wraps it up for this episode of Bring Receipts. We’d like to thank our guest judge [Teresa Basilio]. If you like what you heard, rate us and leave us a comment on your favorite platform. And if you don’t like it, well I hope the chupacabra comes to get you. If you want more Bring Receipts, go check out our website bring receipts podcast.com. Sign up to receive email updates from us!Next time we debate two shows about nothing, it’s Friends vs. Seinfeld! What’s the deal with bring receipts? Tune in to find out!
