Hyacinth Rosalinda Rios

Artwork for podcast Beans Without Boundaries

Episode 14 • 22nd November 2023 • Beans Without Boundaries • Elena Mahmood

Elena: Hello

Elena: I love the moody lighting you have.

Hyacinth : I was just going to ask like, is it okay?

Elena: Whatever your comfortable with. No, you're good. I mean, I'm also tired and this is a, uh, doom basement, basically. Um, interesting.

Hyacinth : I love the complete and utter lack of anything else in the background.

Elena: If it makes you feel better, these are curtains. These aren't even literally like the wall. It's I think for sound reduction. Well, one of my really good friends, their name is Laurel. So it's like, keep eating. Really cool flowery botanist kind of names.

Hyacinth : Mhm.

Elena: Um, yes. Welcome. I am glad to have you on the show.

Hyacinth : Yes. I'm really happy that you asked me, um, to chat with you. That was like super nice and unexpected. I think you also chatted with my friend Alex, right?

Elena: Oh my god. Everybody knows. It's great.

Hyacinth : Yes, that's so true. Um, that's such a just correct statement about Alex's impact period.

Elena: Yeah. Honestly, I really fuck with her attitude and her whole agenda with what she's been wanting to create for the space in New York.

Hyacinth : Yeah. Alex is one of the most unapologetically, um, unabashedly I don't know, just themselves, people that I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. And it's made me feel more safe to be unapologetically and unabashedly myself. But also it makes me feel so alex is also just like a really amazing friend. So to be loved by someone who is so purposeful and straightforward in every single thing that they do, it's a really good feeling.

Elena: Well, it's good to know that there's representation and a good, powerful voice, creating a good community with a lot of the people that I keep bringing on the show. So I keep seemingly finding my way in this circle that, uh, everybody's creating over on the east coast. And I'm like, HM.

Hyacinth : Oh yeah. Where are you located? Where are you based out of?

Elena: Ohio.

Hyacinth : Oh, okay. I've, uh, been to Ohio once recently. Um, we drove through it on our way to and from Louisville, um, for like coffee. Yeah. Yeah. And we stopped in Columbus. We went to the parable.

Elena: Wow. I'm literally based in Columbus. So that's funny. You could have met me at one point in, um.

Hyacinth : Recommend everybody go there. And that's the only thing I know about Columbus or Ohio. We literally just only stopped in that state to go to a coffee shop. Otherwise we could have just kept going.

Elena: That's interesting. Like, of all the cities you chose Columbus, or was that just out of.

Hyacinth : Really, really wanted to go to that coffee shop? Specifically?

Elena: What's your connection to Parable?

Hyacinth : Um, one of the people who opened up the Parable, Jeffrey Clark, was in my cohort, uh, in Glitter Cat. In the Glitter Cat digitition. We did the first iteration of it and we were both in the Barista cohort. Um, so everyone who was in the Barista cohort, it's crazy. Everyone's like I'm so close with. I have long lasting, close relationships with. Um, so, yeah, that was really special to me. And also, if you just even follow them on social media, everything they do is crazy and amazing. I wanted, like, a big old stuffed croissant and a crazy, amazing miso caramel latte and just like, just all the goodness.

Elena: Well, I'm glad you had a good, positive experience driving through.

Hyacinth : Yeah, Columbus is a thumbs up for me.

Elena: I'm glad. Um, but I wanted to bring you on the show because I feel like you have a lot of stories to tell. I didn't even know you were part of Glitter Cat at one point. So I felt like, um, we've had another person that was Breeze that came on the show too. Firecracker personality. I cannot wait for that episode to come out. Um, but I think it's a rare opportunity for me to have more one on one conversations with more of the front of the house people than the back of the house because that's a lot of what the whole genre of this podcast started off as.

So I was curious on your journey to get to this point of

Elena: So I was curious on your journey to get to this point of, did you originally want to start in the coffee world? Did you work your way up in a different way to get where you're at now, kind of, like, explain a little bit more about yourself?

Hyacinth : Yeah, well, um, I wear a lot of different hats in the coffee industry. Like, a lot of us do. I know. Um, so talking about how it happened and also what it is, is just so funny sometimes because, um, most of my coffee industry experience is like, front of house. It's like service, m? Um, but now I also have gotten more into in the past few years the competition side of coffee industry, the mentorship side of coffee industry, like the education, like freelancing, um, all of that fun stuff, mhm, that you have the ability to try out in an industry like this and kind of see where your niche is. But so I got my first barista job when I was 17, um, so like ten years ago now. And I was at Starbucks. And, um, it was just like a job. And unfortunately, it was kind of a nightmarish experience.

Elena: Um, yeah, I was going to say you. Uh, and I kind of started around the same time with Starbucks. Were you for the post, um, frappuccino war era? Ah, like with the unicorn frappuccino shit? I was pre same, though I experienced.

Hyacinth : It too early thereafter. I remember they had those store to store competitions about like, oh, frappy hour.

Elena: That's what it was.

Hyacinth : And like, oh my, it's all it's all being the nightmares. Dredged. Yeah, but so I just had unfortunate labor issues, as many people who work with Starbucks seem to experience. And, um, I ended up getting fired, uh, because my availability changed. And so I was trying to get just the quickest job that I could possibly get. And I was like, okay, what do I have experience in now? Coffee. So it happened to be, like, at a specialty coffee shop that I was able to get a job at. Um, and this is when I was 18, I was in college already. Um, I had just moved out on my own, so I was looking for a job to have and to.

Elena: Work.

Hyacinth : Full time, sort of provide for myself. And I just found that this whole world of specialty coffee and everything that it takes to kind of like all the things that go into being a knowledgeable specialty coffee professional or just even like a professional who works in the industry full time learning all those niches. I found that I was good at it and that it came sort of naturally to me. And that, um it also interested me, which I hadn't experienced much in my life before that I had a lot of trouble in school growing up. Um, being undiagnosed with autism and just not learning like everybody else learned. And kind of nobody having any idea why or why I didn't enjoy school or why I just couldn't function in that sort of structure. Um, I spent most of my teenage and formative years feeling like I would never really be good at anything. Success and aptitude just wasn't for me. I was just like a person who was below average and struggled. But then I realized that I just hadn't been given the tools that I needed or found anything that I could relate to well enough or find enough interest in to really be good at. So finding something that I was able to excel in, mhm especially like, being self taught and still being able to excel, it, um, sort of really opened up my ideas about myself and kind of introduced self confidence and professional confidence to me for the first time. And so it definitely became an immediate special interest and probably my longest special interest to date. Um, so, yeah, I spent a lot of time being a barista, ah, because I have a natural curiosity and I also, like, like, meet people who have the same interests as me. And I feel really determined to create community. Um, I would go out of my way to go into New York, because I live in New Jersey, um, I always have, but I would go into the New York specialty coffee scene to try and make new connections and see what else was out there. And, um, I ended up being pushed by some of my mentors to compete in, uh, us barista Champs prelims. And through that, I met different people who introduced me to different sectors of the industry. So I bounced around in Jersey for a while, um, looking for a shop that I felt really comfortable at. And I think it's hard for autistic people to find jobs where they feel like they're set up for success, mhm, and to feel like where their personhood is taken into account as opposed to just being like some labor machine that can help you, um, take advantage of capitalism or not.

Elena: Right?

Hyacinth : And, uh, that's been probably the biggest struggle in finding where are the right places for me to work and for me to thrive in, and that will invest in my development and also will understand my limitations and not expect me to pull twelve hour shifts every day or like three days a week and then eight hour shifts the other two days a week because they're a mom and pop shop and they will work for free and sort of expect you to as well. Um, and so yeah, I just always had a drive for more, to find more opportunity for myself. I started doing contracting, um, gigs at coffee trade shows like Coffee Fest for companies that needed help working their booths or things like that. I started attending, um, late Art Throwdowns in the City because they go on on like a monthly basis and it's its own community as well. Um, and I started dabbling and competing um, in US Coffee Champs and just being more involved. And because of that I met M, my husband who works um, in the green side of coffee as well. So opening up a whole new door for me. I met some of my best friends who are Lattier champions and who have pushed me to see that as a real discipline, um, as well, and to put some heart and soul into that. And I have also become really close with other people, like coffee community members who volunteer to make us coffee champs run, and who are really, um, interested in making sure that the US. Specialty coffee scene, um, evolves and that it has our voice and that, yeah, I just met so many different types of people who were into so many different things. And just the way that I am, I'm kind of like, oh, I want to try all of it. So now I'm um, a manager at Coffee Project, uh, which I don't know if you know them, but New York based coffee company, um, Roaster, uh, Specialty Coffee Association, Premier Academy, like wholesaler competitors, uh, things like that. Um, and yeah, I feel challenged, but also given the resources to take my career further there. So doing that, kind of pushing myself to work for a company where there were people there that I really respected, really um, wanted to live up to sort of the things that they do as well, like seeing these people's names all the time in US coffee Champs and wanting to push myself to do things like that. Um, that opened up a lot of doors of possibility for me as well. And uh, I also volunteer with Get You Some Gear, um, which working in the mutual aid end of the coffee industry is much more, um, like a natural sort of extension of my personhood. Uh, rather than just having a job in something that you love, to be doing mutual aid in something that you love. I've always had a very community focused mindset, I think probably because I needed so much assistance from my community and I really needed a community growing up. And I think I'm a great example of what community support can achieve because without the help of other people and without other people to show me that I did belong here, I never would have achieved everything that I feel like I have now achieved. So it's really rewarding for me to be in that sector of the industry as well and just actually work one on one with giving coffee professionals more access, which, um, was why doing Glitter Cat was also awesome for me. And yeah, that's just like a little overview of all the hats.

How was your experience with Glitter Cat? Well, what was it like

Elena: How was your experience with Glitter Cat? Well, what was it like?

Hyacinth : Unique, because it was like the first online iteration of Glitter Cat mhm. Um, and I remember it was really early Pandemic. Everybody was in the house. In the house. Um, even those of us who were employed, unless you were frontline worker, there was no in person work at that time. Um, and I don't know if it was like that everywhere in the country, but it was like that up where I was, like, in the New York metro area. Everything's just closed down for a really long time. Um, and so we really needed something to do. And I think Glitter Cat was something at that point that I had an awareness of. Um, I had seen boot camp applications come out, but I was at a point in my coffee career where it was not something that I would do for myself, yet, where I would kind of make up reasons when really I just didn't feel ready to take the leap. But like, oh, real things. I have a job, I can't just take a week off. Oh, I don't even plan to compete anytime soon or know if I ever want to compete, so why would I take this? I just wasn't ready to take that leap. And then Pandemic came around and when they announced the digitition, um, I kind of thought to myself, like, okay, look how much life has changed. If I don't do this now, who knows if I'll ever get an opportunity to be a part of something like this again? And it was really intense, um, the actual experience of competing in the digitition, because we got sent espresso machines, we got sent grinders, uh, we have to send all that stuff back, but we had to build a cafe in our house. We had to really intensively for a week yeah, commit to this competition. And it showed me how much I could do, to be honest. It showed me how much I could figure out. It showed me how proficient I could be in taking something on by fly like that.

Elena: Mhm.

Hyacinth : I can picture my performance video right now. And I was literally just like, in my kitchen and I created a whole backdrop and I got someone to film for me.

Elena: That's crazy.

Hyacinth : Yeah, I'm really proud of it. To be honest, even now, to this day, when I see people competing in US. Coffee champs, like in Barista champs, I'm like, wow, that's a lot. That's a lot of work. I can't even imagine being up on that stage anymore. Like, having that routine. But at one point, I was willing to do that in my own home. And it was a tough experience. I, um, experienced that same sort of emotional thrill of like, okay, what am I going to place? I want to get such and such place. And the thrill of just waiting for those scores to be announced. The feeling of reading your score sheets, the disappointment. I remember I went over time and it was the difference. Me m getting such and such. I think it was like first and third. And I had to have that moment with myself where I'm like, okay, in the future, if you want to be a competitor, take what you've learned from the disappointment of fucking up your score like that. But then the pride of just having enough content in the first place that you didn't want to stop your routine. All of those emotional highs and lows. It was such a thrilling feeling. I don't know, I feel like I got so much out of that experience despite the fact or not despite the fact, but just even knowing that it wasn't an experience we all got to share in real life. And, um, like I said before, I'm still so close with all those people. So it was a really valuable experience to me. And then all the mentorship and just the camaraderie that even the seasons of Glitter Cat after that, just knowing meeting someone for the first time, being like, oh, we were both a part of this thing. The instant camaraderie, the lifelong connections that it affords you, it also so valuable to me.

Elena: Yeah, I could see that. Um, especially during a time where that social isolation was so big in the beginning of COVID it's like everyone was so repellent of everybody else. So it's like when you were able to finally have that social inner circle. Probably had a lot of those similar struggles, experiencing the same kind of competitiveness too. I feel like that would just automatically kind of create a really good bond.

Hyacinth : And I know I'm a really competitive person.

Elena: Same.

Hyacinth : Yeah, I found that out about myself. Um, I'd like to say that I'm not, but especially once I'm good at something, I'm really fucking competitive. Um, I'm a good loser, don't get me wrong. If I find myself, I'm glad you.

Elena: Are, because I'm not.

Hyacinth : Yeah. I mean, not with my the one person that I'm comfortable being a sore loser towards is my husband. Because he gets it. Yeah, that comes up a lot because we have to compete a fair amount in Lafayette art.

Elena: Yeah, I mean, to be honest, I've never personally participated in any throwdowns or any of the competitive side of being a barista. I kind of really, um, enjoyed the kind of routine numbness that came from being a barista. It was really second nature after a while of just doing it. So I could just kind of like my ADHD is like, cool. There's so many shit things going on. I can just focus and plug out. Um, I also never thought I was good enough to do competitive Latte art like that. I've always, like, had a big part of it.

Hyacinth : Right. We limit ourselves, um, by setting these standards that we can't even try unless we deem ourselves to be this good.

Elena: I've had a lot of running with specific personality types. That hasn't really made me want to kind of involve myself with that part of the community. Um, which is why I kind of retracted for a really long time after being a barista to just doing more production, because I got really burnt out with a lot of the highs and lows that came from, uh, working as a barista and working like lead roles and then a lot of the personality types being so drastically different or really clicky. Um, yeah.

Hyacinth : Is a big one. Is a big one. And also, like, the yeah, I would love to touch on that, actually.

Elena: Yeah, no, go for it.

Latte talked about having issues with personality types as a barista

Elena: I was about to ask you, I'm like, do you have any run ins with your experience, having a lot of issues with personality types or a lot of people accepting you? Because I know that you had just briefly talked about being autistic, um, or on the spectrum, um, or with your identity. I know that queer identities don't always kind of coexist completely well, and a lot of things can get thrown in the mix. And when you're constantly surrounded by that environment as a barista, it becomes a little bit claustrophobic and it gets a little bit tighting on strings and the tension can get a little bit rough, especially during peak work hours. So that's what I was going to ask. So the fact that you're kind of, like, on the gun, we're on the same, go for it.

Hyacinth : Um, well, that's been one of my lifelong struggles, is, like, matching other people's personalities or getting along with others. Which is not to say that I'm not friendly, because I am. I try to be. I like people. Um, but I do find that often what I like to call my autistic swag, um, does not sit right, necessarily with, uh, everybody else. I communicate differently and I'm very blunt and I'm very interested in having conversation that matters when I see an issue or when I see something that I think should be talked about, should be communicated about, um, I'm going for it. I was also very hesitant for a long time to get into the latter community because I experienced it as quite a boys club. Um, so in spite of that, I would show up.

Elena: Well, good for you.

Hyacinth : Well, thank you. Uh, I was not always like that to where I was willing to be in a space and be alone and just be comfortable by myself. But now I am. I kind of have the idea, especially ever since I stopped drinking almost three years ago, I realized if I'm fun sober, if I don't have to drink to have fun, or to be fun for other people, oh, I might just be fun for other people. That gave me the confidence to put myself in social situations that made me uncomfortable, because if I already had forgone a crutch like that, then I knew I kind of had the upper hand over my anxiety than other people might be having. Um, so I put myself in those situations, and I struggled and still kind of struggled to this day with La Terre is a huge boys club. Um, and I've had discourse with a lot of the latter community over what I feel to be, like, regressive treatment and a regressive attitude in a space in the coffee industry that I think should celebrate so many more people than it does. And I actually had a big conflict, um, and controversy, uh, because I and one of my good friends, Maxi, um, spoke out against can I just say.

Elena: Maxi was on the show, too.

Hyacinth : Yeah, I thought that Maxi was also on the show.

Elena: This never ending compilation of, um, so many people from the East Coast being so tight knit. Oh, my God. Maxi was that's a firecracker personality. I was like, I fuck hard with Maxi's personality. So that's great.

Hyacinth : Maxi is one of my best friends. Uh, I love her so much. Can you see my cat? I can see her cat. Yes. She's being naughty. Um, yeah. I love Maxi so much. She was at my wedding. She has been there for me through so much. Highs and lows, good and bad. Max is probably one of the first people that I call know something big is happening to me, or I just need know to tell.

Elena: Like, that's wild.

Hyacinth : I also think that Maxi and I became close, um, because of instagram and during the pandemic, and yeah, I don't know. My life without Maxi in even I don't want to imagine. Oh, yeah. I have so much love for that girl. Anyway, Maxi is one more thing.

Elena: Yeah, no, I just figured I was like, oh, I could see you going on a whole trail, and we'll probably get off topic. I just don't want us to get too far off the wheel.

Hyacinth : It's just I want to say, like, one of the people who I think the industry should be, uh, giving flowers to so much more than they are. So I just like real shout outs to, um and back on the Latte know community. Being a boys club, Maxi, is the biggest reason that I stayed in that scene was because there was someone else there who I saw was trying to do the same thing that I was trying to do, which was be me and succeed. And me is, like, not all these other boys, essentially. Um, so be someone completely different and succeed. And yeah, that empowered me and kept me going to really, like, I don't know, I'm here, whether they like it or not.

Elena: Yeah.

Hyacinth : And I only have the best intentions and really the best interest in mind of the community because the community is not all men. It's really not. And it would be so much more visibly not men if people just felt comfortable. Um, I've spoken out about sexual harassment that goes on. I've spoken out about boys club ism that goes on about, like, the misogyny in these spaces about how before I was with my husband, there were men who I would see every month at, uh, these throwdowns who wouldn't say a word to me or introduce themselves or just be kind. And then when I got together with my husband, all of a sudden they would talk to me and introduce themselves to me as if I didn't know who they were for such a long time. And I would say that to them as well as you should. I was not always, like, the most popular for it, but I've always been the kind of person that I'm like, okay, if no one's going to tell you, I'm going to tell you.

Elena: Right.

Hyacinth : Because I've got the time, essentially, and I'm game for the conflict.

Elena: Yeah.

Hyacinth : Um, but yeah, I see now, especially ever since we spoke on our views about the coffee fest Latte art scene. Um, and that was a really, I want to say, formative conflict for me, even though it was kind of fairly recent, because I learned so much from just speaking my mind about something that I happened to notice. I learned so much from people who were willing to have genuine conversation with me. I learned so much from people who assumed immediately that they knew what I meant and therefore started treating me a certain way. I learned so much from people who were genuinely just trying to clarify certain things. It was not that I was correct from my very first assumption, um, about how the scene treats non men, treats people of color, about who has more opportunity. I mean, I was not wrong, right? M. But some of the things that I didn't understand or I thought, uh, were a completely different way than they are. I had people able to speak to me and teach me something as well about why it takes some people so long to come up in the scene and why others sort of immediately take off. And I learned that there was room for my view to improve as well. Um, and I'm always down for those teachable moments. I don't shy away from them. I don't think that I was born knowing everything. And I'm still a young person in this industry. And so I understand that there are social dynamics, there are industry historical events that I wasn't around for and I wasn't privy to. And I'm always happy to learn. But yeah, I consider that situation to be so valuable, even though I think for a lot of people, it really soured their impression of me that I would kind of accuse men of being men or accuse this society, uh, of favoring them. Uh um, and that's fine, because then I know who I kind of essentially have to look out for to see if they are perpetuating these things or not. Um, but I also really think that since we spoke up about that, I have seen, at least in the New York Lasira scene, so many more non men feel comfortable to come out.

Elena: That's great, though.

Hyacinth : Yeah, it's been really visible. It's been really visible. And I fuck with it.

I want to see more people that are not men compete in Latte art

Hyacinth : That's what I want to see. I don't want young non men to just be standing around scared that no one is going to talk to them and scared that they're never going to get better. Because the first time that you compete in Latte art, you almost always suck. Because, uh, no matter how good you are at Latte art, the nerves that you're trying to overcome to perform in a sudden death style showdown in front of a bunch of people, that's a whole new skill in and of itself that you only achieve by showing up. So people are already discouraged off the bat. And to be able to see more people that are not men overcome that discourage feeling and just keep coming back and coming back. That's all I want to see. I just want for them to be able to do that. They don't have to like me. They don't have to want me there. I want that diverse community.

If you show up consistently, chances are someone will connect with you

Elena: So what would your advice be for the people who do show up, but they're too anxious to continue? You know what I mean? Like, they could show up and be like, okay, I'm going to put myself outside of my comfort zone and show up. And they're like, oh, yeah, I just don't see how I can fit.

Hyacinth : Well, my thought has always been, like, what's the worst that can happen? Um, and the worst that can happen is kind of that you lose and that nobody talks to you. Right. But I have gone so many times to a late art throw down where A, nobody talked to me, and B, I also. Lost, and it sucked at first, or I don't know, it didn't even really suck that bad. Like, the alternative is just kind of staying home or doing whatever else. But A, you will make a friend. There will be someone there who you will connect with, especially if you see them over and over again, because the coffee industry is full of great people. Um, and B, you will eventually win. It's just a numbers game. You're not always going to be the new person that shows up. And if you can just take a few losses in both areas here and there, eventually you'll start seeing, like, oh, I know more people now. I do a little better now. Um, just don't give up because we need you there. And chances are someone else, especially if, you know, if you're a non man and you're showing up consistently to these events, someone else that is also not a man notices, trust me. And they're happy that you're there. And also maybe go talk to them.

Elena: Bond yes.

Your coffee shop is in the LGBTQ center of Manhattan

Elena: So having traversed a lot of the Barista world and doing a lot of competitive stuff, I know that you had briefly mentioned how you're doing education now. Where is this trajectory leading you? Where, at this point, now that you have a lot of different experiences, what's the realm that you're, like finding yourself a lot more like, yeah, I want to stay here.

Hyacinth : Well, I haven't gotten to any place that I want to stay yet. I want to keep making new experiences and keep kind of jabbling in many things. Um, taking a serious long term management position, which is, like, what I'm doing right now is new to me. Wanting, um, to be so reliable and responsible and committed, essentially to one shop, one location. That takes a lot. And it's only because I have an incredible team of staff. Um, I feel so blessed because the coffee shop that I manage is in the LGBTQ center of Manhattan. And so I also get to work amongst my community all day.

Elena: That's fucking.

Hyacinth : Um, know, it's a nonprofit, so obviously it has its own issues and politics and whatnot, but I can't stress enough just how valuable the experience of just being around gay people all day is to another gay person. I don't know. To work in a shop in heteronormative society, people would assume that she hurt a girl or that I'm straight, or people would just assume that upon seeing me. Um, unless you know and, you know, you can peep that I have green hair and pronouns just from seeing me, but chances are that's, like, only one in every ten people. So being in a place where the norm is non heteronormative, it's allowed me to just be a different version of myself as a professional. Um, and we see a lot of the most vulnerable members of our community because we're just an open space for unhoused people, for people seeking services for people, um, who are going to groups who are in recovery. We see very vulnerable members of the community and getting to just be there for them as well. And to really witness people and to provide a customer. It can be a lot of emotional labor, I'm not going to lie. And you definitely have to sign up for it, um, or be aware that you're doing that. But I find it very fulfilling to have interactions with people that are not just like, a customer service facade and to actually get to care for my community. Um, and also my staff is just so sweet. I love them all, but just like, Gen Z fucking queer people. And I'm 27, so of course they think I'm 50 years old.

Elena: But you and I are literally the same age. And I feel like I'm 50 years old, to be honest.

Hyacinth : Right. The youngest are making me feel old now.

Elena: I don't even care about the lingo. It's the fact that I'm like, man, when I was their age, it comes out now. I'm m like, man, when I was that age, man, when that was the biggest thing that was going on in my life. It's funny how shit changed.

Hyacinth : Oh, my God. To two of my coworkers, I was like, you literally don't even remember 911. And they're like, I was like, that's crazy.

Elena: I grew up during that.

Hyacinth : Yeah, I was cognizant we all know where we were.

Elena: Yeah, that's wild.

Hyacinth : Whatever. It is wild. And then I have a coworker who's like, 24 or 25, and my 20 year old and my 21 year old coworker both compared that coworker to a Larry David. And I'm like, okay, what am I, fucking dead because I'm older than them?

Elena: You're a walking ghost for these people.

Hyacinth : Yes.

Elena: I will say that I think that, um, working in a really non heteronormative atmosphere, there's so much, um, nuance and cognitive behaviors. And there's a word that I can't think of right now, but it's like the social aspect of things not needing to be communicated nonverbal m, where it's just like, that's got to feel so comforting.

Hyacinth : Yes, go ahead.

Elena: I was going to say there's a break of this sad reality that comes from living a very heteronormative lifestyle that it affects how we communicate with people, especially people who are very queer, identifying and very vocal with their opinions and political stances. It's something that's really hard to go about life and have to stifle all the time versus being in a space where none of that kind of exists. It's just like, free fall. And it's just, um, thrown into the wind. And as chaotic as that can be, it can also be extremely emotionally nurturing and affirming. Um, but yes, the queer community has its faults and it has its positives.

Hyacinth : Yes, definitely. There's drawbacks to every community has its weaknesses. But as opposed to, like, I find, I think, a lot of us who have worked in the coffee industry for a long time and also are queer have found that it's a place where queer identities often get appropriated or they get taken advantage of, but not often celebrated because we're drawn to this industry. Um, there's so many queer people in the coffee community, but maybe the ownership of their shop are not or are not queer friendly or just kind of are capitalizing on, um, that image, so to speak, the image of their baristas. But they're not really there for their baristas.

Elena: That's true.

Hyacinth : There to stand up for them.

Elena: Seen that time and time again.

Hyacinth : Exactly. Yeah. So to be in a place where I know that that is truly celebrated, that definitely means a lot to me. Um, so that's kind of the reason why I wanted to take a management role there, is because I wanted to be a leader in that community and be someone who could be relied on in that community and for my baristas. But honestly, I see myself getting more into, um, the green side of coffee.

Elena: Come over to the dark side.

Narino: This podcast has helped me learn about the coffee industry

Hyacinth : Yes, I know that that's kind of where the focus in this podcast has been with people who are on the green side of the industry. And I'm definitely I was going to.

Elena: Say, if you're interested, uh, not to self promote, but I'm self promoting. Please. Um, this podcast highlights a lot of shit. I'm not going to lie. I've learned a lot. I've said this throughout so many of my episodes. And I don't know if you've actually listened to them or not, but, um, I haven't.

Hyacinth : Ah, yet.

Elena: That's fine.

Hyacinth : I'm going to have to listen to at least two of them.

Elena: I was going to say at least when Maxis and Alex's come, like, Alex's was the second episode. It was a great way to kick off the show. But Maxis is going to be it's a conglomerate of so much chaos. It's such a representation of that energy. Um, but no, this when I started this journey of this podcast versus where I'm at now, the way that I've accounted so much information that I think that I would have never been able to do. Because what sucks about my position where I stand wow, what's wrong with my voice from the position where I stand is like, the Midwest has a very closeted gatekeeped, um, roasting community. Like, a lot of the production industry here, isn't as open and willing. From the experiences I've had being a person of color and being queer, um, it's very male, white, cisgender, uh, predominant. And it's been really hard for me to create community. It's been really hard for me to, uh, feel comfortable to do that also. Um, and with my personality type, I'm just the most easily lovable person on the mean.

Hyacinth : I think that we would get along really well.

Elena: Yeah. I mean, like, honestly, if you get along with maxie. I fucked hard with Maxie and I fucked hard with yeah, I think in general, I'm living on the wrong side of the fucking country, but I agree.

Hyacinth : I think you have to come to the East Coast.

Elena: Yeah. You and me. Um, yeah, I just I had a really hard time acclimating myself into the industry. I exposed myself through going to an SCA retreat that opened my eyes to a whole lot of other things. And that's how this kind of created the umbrella of this entire podcast. And then, um, this has been the only way I can learn about the industry, really, because there's really no outweigh outside of going on spruge or the daily coffee news. So this has been a lot of my absorption of how to learn about the industry, especially from the coffee production aspect. And I've been grateful to meet amazing people along the way. Um, and a lot of these women and people of color and queer folk that I've been on the show have been so transparent and raw about a lot of their experiences, which I appreciate you also being on this. And saying the same as well. That it's like, I always feel like I have learned so much more shit underneath the covers of what my job is versus what my actual job entails. And that makes a lot of what I feel like my job is right now a lot more meaningful, because I can apply a lot of the stuff that I've learned through these people to a lot of the work that I'm doing now. So, uh, I have learned a lot of amazing things. I think the production industry is an interesting, dynamic shift from being in a lot of the no, I'm not trying to be offensive, but a lot of the showmanship that comes from being a barista no, you're right.

Hyacinth : I mean, it is front of house is so customer centric and so appearance centric. And you see certain types of people succeed easily, and certain type of people struggle and are marginalized repeatedly. And that's socio. That's like social dynamics, that social hierarchy. Um, and it can be a welcome challenge. And for a while, I have to thank that side of the industry for giving me people skills and for giving me hands on experience, even though it was trial by fire, and it always has been for me, being autistic and trying to be, uh, a person with people.

Elena: Yeah.

Spudgy for best build out in: 2022

Elena: Have a lot of that same quality, by the way.

Hyacinth : Right. Well, my mom is actually Syrian.

Elena: Okay.

Hyacinth : Yeah. So I'm Syrian Jewish, bro.

Elena: That's wild. There's so much going on.

Hyacinth : There's a lot. And so both of these reasons and both of these aspects of my heritage when I say that people are the most important thing to me, um, being someone from a Syrian Jewish background, I have seen my people marginalized, and I have seen know face such atrocities, and I have seen conflict and struggle. Right. And then also, being South American, one of the three poorest countries in South America where the US would love to be meddling, um, where also big oil companies love to come in and infringe on indigenous lands, drill in the Amazon, DeForest, kill the Galapagos, kill some of our biodiversity. These things, they mean so much to me that no matter what I would have ended up doing in life, the ancestral call to just care about all of these things will always come to the front. Um, yeah, I can tell that you know where I'm coming from.

Elena: Yeah.

Hyacinth : Mhm um, when I got to experience that firsthand, and I went and I bonded with coffee people in Ecuador, and I saw how beautiful it was to be connected at origin, and then also very shortly thereafter, fell in love with someone who grew up on a coffee farm. And his fondest memories are growing alongside coffee, literally. And it's how he feels close to his family while he's here and they're over there. The green side of the industry is calling to me and also to fucking leave America and go be with people who understand me and who I can actually get into community with. M uh huh. That desire is strong, too, because we're all very polarized in, like even the left is very polarized in America. It's hard to get things done. It's hard to get on the same page. It's hard to all be working towards the same community initiative.

Elena: Um, I wonder what you're hinting at right.

Hyacinth : Now. I'm hinting at a lot.

Elena: Oh, man. Here's the thing, though. I will be totally transparent. There, uh, is an episode where there's a whole segment. We talk politics. So that's why I'm like, I wonder what you're hinting at.

Hyacinth : Um, okay. Yeah, because I don't want to blow up your spot here.

Yes, I completely agree. Things are important. There shouldn't be boundaries. Well, that's the whole purpose of this podcast. The beans

Elena: For what?

Hyacinth : Well, I don't know. I don't know how controversial you want me to get because I can get really controversial.

Elena: Well, that's the whole purpose of this podcast. I didn't want people to be like.

Hyacinth : Nice and pretty without boundaries. The beans are without boundaries.

Elena: There shouldn't be boundaries.

Hyacinth : But yeah. Yes, I completely agree. Um, I find myself still trying to a large part of for me, becoming more acceptable and becoming more professional, learning when to be quiet because I've never had to push myself too hard to come out of my shell.

Elena: I can relate to that.

Hyacinth : Yeah. So I felt like my journey in becoming an adult was learning to draw.

Elena: It back a little more.

Hyacinth : Things are important.

Are you first generation immigrant or are you second generation immigrant

Elena: I will ask, um, uh, uh, are you, like a first generation immigrant? Like, were your parents from the countries and then moved here?

Hyacinth : My father was born in Ecuador and my mother was born here.

Elena: Okay, so you still have, like, that.

Hyacinth : Sense on my father's side?

Elena: Yeah, I was going to say I think that either way, immigrant households, children from immigrant households, we all have the same fucking experiences.

Hyacinth : Yes. Very similar. At least for all of us.

Elena: I think I was going to say I fuck with a lot of the same vibes that I've met from a lot of Latinas and Latinos, um, who are, like, children of immigrants. Because I'm like, yeah, there's a lot of the same kind of nuances that exist.

Hyacinth : Yeah. I mean, a lot of inheriting our parents traumas. Generational trauma. Yes. And as a Jew, experienced pretty heavy generational trauma as well. Despite the fact that my mother's side of the family has been here for two or three generations, they were immediately displaced by World War II. Um, so it's been a little while.

Elena: But not that long. To go back to the original subject. Yes.

Let's go back to the world of coffee that, um, I am very glad to hear your connections with

Elena: Let's go back to the world of coffee that, um, I am very glad to hear your connections with and the amount of intimacy that you have with it touching down from your roots to the person that you've chosen as your partner to how you choose to interact with it in daily life.

Hyacinth : Um, the intimacy.

Elena: I love that. Yeah. I feel like that's what it is. I feel like especially with the way that you've been talking about things, there's a sense of extreme intricacy and intimacy that exists in a lot of what you want to do for your life, because that's what it means for you. That's what you've been kind of like those ethics and morals have been put onto you, which is great because that gives you a pathway and a trajectory to living a more fulfilling and satisfying life.

Hyacinth : Yes, completely.

Elena: The nuances in between are kind of like iffy and the ups and highs and the lows and the whatever are going to be there, and you'll meet people that will test you. But overall, I feel like, oh, I've.

Hyacinth : Met many to test me.

Elena: Yeah.

I'm interested in supporting coffee communities in, um, coffee producing countries

Elena: I feel like, um, what what part of the coffee, like, green are you interested in? Are you interested in importing? Are you interested in roasting? Are you interested in quality?

Hyacinth : Are you interested in I'm interested in supporting the growing coffee communities in, um, coffee producing countries.

Elena: So economic development.

Hyacinth : Yeah. Or like humanitarian effort.

Elena: That's awesome. That's something I've been recently interested a I didn't mean to cut you off.

Hyacinth : No, that's no, no, keep going.

Elena: But I had somebody on this episode. Her name is Ruth. She works for Artisan Coffee imports. Great woman. She stands for a lot of great qualities, and she's doing a lot of great things for, um, the countries she's involved in. So essentially, she's creating, um, these funding and essentially giving it to the communities for a lot of what they've already built for themselves. So it's not like white savior complex where I need to fix everything. It's more like so what you're doing is work for your community. I'm going to reinforce that. And that really kick started a lot of my interest with economic development. So it's like, cool that you're also interested in doing that too.

Hyacinth : Yes, I, um, think that that is for a lot of people, uh, especially a lot of people of color, that is such a pillar of how we believe that our culture survives right. Is that we do well for ourselves and then we put back into it. Um and you can see that in the ways where multigenerational households are a common thing, where you're raised by someone, and then at the end of their life, when they can't do it for themselves anymore, they come live with you because you've built the kind of life for yourself, where you can accommodate for them and things like that. Um, and even just the idea of so many people who come to America just to work really fucking hard for six months and send all that money back to their family or to anyone who needs it where they come from, because not everyone can come to America in the first place. Can weather that journey, can do that sort of hard work. Um, just the work of immigrating and then the work of working nonstop for so long. Um, I find that when speaking to other people of color from many backgrounds not just Latinos, that we all kind of have this idea of do it for the culture, right? Do it for the people. Um, my husband, as a coffee importer, one of the coffees that he imports from Aponte, um, the proceeds go to rebuilding the indigenous Aponte community. Um, the reason that they even started selling this blend was because, um, the indigenous community there, their village, was all built into the side of a mountain. And so because of just weather and earth and natural disaster, their community began to essentially collapse. Um, and this is where these people, they wanted to live. This is where their ancestral home was. This is also where everything that they had was. And so the coffee that they were growing directly went to rebuilding that community. Um, and that's so what I expect of my people to be hardworking and driven and also crafty and resourceful as hell to know, be like, hey, let's put that money right back in here. M? And so I think that the countries that I would want, I don't see myself necessarily bouncing around, um, to a, um, multitude, m, of different coffee producing countries, um, to sort of impart what I've learned and my secrets and this and that. No, it's more so know, the countries like Ecuador and now Colombia that know, loved one and his family are also from that's where I feel like I can go to come back home. Where my future. Yeah.

Elena: Well, I love when I'm like, that's pretty. And you're like, yeah.

Hyacinth : Well, that's just what I think. Yeah. Um, well, I guess it's true. I guess it is poetic, it is sort of idealistic, but that's really how it feels, is that this is the home I'm working towards. I've never felt at home where I've been. I know that home is a place that I'm working to go. And, um, I think a lot of children of immigrants feel that way. Our parents were sold an American dream that didn't exist. We were sold that fantasy. But most of us have seen what our parents have gone through, and, uh, our communities have gone through enough to know that what is really worth working for is not what they were sold in the first place. And so I think a lot of us are reckoning with the fact that our journey is to go back, is to bring it back.

Elena: I will also add on to that. I remember having this conversation with my mom, too, when I was growing up in America during 911. Uh, I remember, I'm like, by the way, I did, because it affected me and my family. Um, but I remember coming home all the time as a kid. I'm like, Mom, I fucking hate it here. I don't want to live in America. Why'd you choose Ohio? And she's just like, what do you mean America?

Hyacinth : Such a valid question. By the way, why did you choose Ohio?

Elena: There's no Iraqi community here by the like, it doesn't really exist in and.

Hyacinth : So why did they choose Ohio?

Elena: Who fucking knows? I asked that question, and they don't even have an answer. Um, remember? And she would be like, what do you mean? America's great. The way that that answer has changed in the last decade is wild. Like, my mom was so driven on being so patriotic of being an American to the last five years. Um, it being just we're over it now. She's like, if you can leave, leave. I don't want you here either. And it's just like, I also understand this constant disconnect from not feeling connected to a home. And that's not ours in the first place, but it's not ours times two.

Hyacinth : Yes. That's something that, uh, has definitely been, like a, uh, lifelong identity struggle for me. What am I? Am I an American because the Americans.

Elena: Don'T want me same.

Hyacinth : They don't appreciate my worldview? Am I an Ecuadorian? Because I'm not Ecuadorian enough for these Ecuadorians. Um, really tough. And I think that immigrant children culture is almost just a culture of its own. It's almost a diaspora of its own. And I m think that's great in the term that it means that a whole generation of people who are more global thinking has been brought into creation. But so sad that so many of our empathetic hearts that have just years and years and years and generations of the same culture mhm just nurturing it and feeding into it. It's got to be programmed into our DNA. Now we're just, like, left without it. Like someone who lost their twin in the womb.

Both cultures don't really know what to do with you, or don't

Hyacinth : There's just a part of us that is not accessible, that we're chasing towards, that we're always chasing towards, and trying to create our own individual cultural meaning to not to be like, uh, certainly not, um, the biggest proponent of mixed kids have it harder or anything like that. But it is weird when both your cultures don't really know what to do with you, or don't see the Latinos see me as more of an American Jew, and then the Jews definitely don't see me as one of them. They see a Latino and then the white people, they don't know what they see, but they don't like it. Oh, my God. So I'm just like, what is going to be enough? If Spanish were my first language, but I still looked the way I looked and had a Jewish mother, would you guys accept me more? Or if I was BAP Mitzvah and I spoke Hebrew, would people stop questioning the validity of my Judaism? Um, but at the end of the day, the answer is that I have found that when you assert who you are, and you put yourself in those spaces and you say, I belong here, eventually people start to realize that someone who chooses you is your community. And there is retroactive acceptance in that way. Um, I definitely won't say the Latinos have rejected me. I mean, that is all of my close friends, family, my husband. Um, I'm accepted by my community. But I feel the difference in, uh, myself.

Elena: Um, do you ever feel like sometimes it's just like a tolerance?

Hyacinth : Sometimes I think I used to feel that way.

Elena: Maybe that's where that I'm at.

Hyacinth : I think I used to feel that way. And I think that now I have found people who really love me and accept me and see me. Um, and that when you know yourself well enough to show up and be like, hey, this is me. Don't try and tell me anything different because I'm not going to hear it. People respect that, and people give heed to how you show up. I think that if you question who you are, people are much more quick to try and label it for you.

Elena: I feel like I've always struggled with that, especially in my own community, because Arab women are perceived a specific way in our own community. Um, we have a specific level of participation we're almost, quote unquote allowed with, and the oppression that exists just in the female community alone, among the female community as well. I also grew up with old Arabs versus a lot of what the newer generation is experiencing. So it's like I always have this imposter syndrome, and I always have this sense of, like, I'm only being tolerated in their space versus being actually accepted for who I am because I'm so far left field. Going back to what you were saying about, like, I'm not Arab enough for Arabs and I'm not American enough for Americans, and I'm not even perceived by a lot of people as an entity. I'm a constant, ambiguous thing that exists that is mislabeled, mispronounced by name. It's just a constant thing.

Hyacinth : So it's like, uh, that's really true. I think I've desensitized myself to a lot of that otherism feeling, um, because in personality, I feel like I'm very similar to you. And I, um, think we're easy to pick out in a room. We're loud and we're here. And I guess at a certain point, I think it became a coping mechanism for me to not expect to be accepted and to instead embrace being one of a kind. That's kind of just like how I see myself now. I do have community and I have people that I align myself with, but I do see myself as one of a kind. I think everyone is individual. And so to find that you don't see anyone who reminds you exactly of yourself, you can feel proud of that, too. Not just let it make you feel.

Elena: Othered. This has felt like a therapy episode, um, preachy, but no. I love when episodes actually get emotional versus it just is like spouting stuff.

Hyacinth : Well, part of me is a person who I'm not cynical. I'm definitely not cynical. I speak loudly. About things that upset me. But I'm such a grateful, happy person, believe it or not, because and this is something that I've even heard my parents say about me as a child. I struggled so hard. No one thought I would live this long. We all thought that I would have not to trigger warning for mental health stuff, but we all thought that I would have ended my life by now because I tried a lot in my late teen years and I hit rock bottom. And I felt hopeless. And I struggled so badly with mental illness and not feeling like I would ever be loved, um, for who I was. And I don't know what came first, other people loving me or me learning to love myself. But at this point, I feel that I'm so precious for having survived it all. Um, for not only having survived it all, but having created a life of meaning that brings other people joy and, you know, that connects. And I really know my life is worth something. I see the way I am able to touch and be touched by others. Um, I see the way important, life altering events are always happening in my life and around me. And I accepted at one point that to be special is probably really difficult. And so that's just the two sides of this coin that I'm experiencing. So, um, I'm grateful. I'll talk myself up any way I need to, to just give myself the strength to keep living my life and to not let anybody take any moment of the feeling of possibility from kind of why I poeticize my motivation for just continuing on romanticize your life a little.

Elena: I have said this with every slash New York guest.

Hyacinth : I'm from New Jersey.

Elena: Well, bitch, you still on the I know, I know.

Hyacinth : And I read New York. But I feel the need to just say, I'm sorry.

Elena: I'm not trying to join you in a whole conglomerate of a whole other type of people. That's okay. But I say this where I'm, like, literally, all the people who I want in my daily life don't live here.

Hyacinth : Come, um, to New York. Or literally, we'll show you a great time.

Elena: I have been told this a few times.

Hyacinth : Yes, definitely. Me and Maxi, at least.

Elena: We'll take you out. That would be the best night ever. Talk about loud people being loud, unapologetically. Ah. Fucking crazy. It'd be wild.

Hyacinth : It would be amazing.

Elena: It'd be amazing. You're just so great.

Hyacinth : Thank you.

What do you think your sign is? When's your birthday

Hyacinth : That's very nice of you. I want to be a person who other people have a positive experience knowing.

Elena: You just have a really good aura about you, too. It's very warm, and it's just very much like, oh, well, we've just been friends for the last three years and we're just catching up kind of vibe.

Hyacinth : Um, I try to be very open. I can see that. So I hope it has the effect where other people feel that they can also tap into that around me.

Elena: Yeah, I could see that 100%.

Hyacinth : There's a time for hyacinth with the sharp edges and I don't like that time, to be often, to be honest. Yeah.

Elena: Um, when is your birthday? We're talking about this, whatever about the.

Hyacinth : Episode, but when's your birthday? What do you think my sign is?

Elena: You, uh, give me PISCES energy or you give me, like, damn. Yeah. Cancer.

Hyacinth : Maybe I'm a cancer. Yes, I was going to say you were close with PISCES.

Elena: It's just full water energy.

Hyacinth : Yes. I am the most cancerian cancer. I'm a cancer sun. I'm a Gemini Moon and I'm a rising Leo. Mhm. I have a lot of Gemini in my chart, though. Oh, fuck mysterious.

Elena: How about you?

Hyacinth : Like, guess my sign? I feel like you're a fire sign. What gave that away? Are you by any chance, um well, I want to say Leo.

Elena: Are you a Leo? Everybody always guesses it wrong, which is funny.

Hyacinth : Are you an Aries?

Elena: Yeah, I got a lot of Aries in my chart, too.

Hyacinth : I get along well with Aries.

Elena: Maxis, I didn't ask hers.

Hyacinth : Maxi is a Leo.

Elena: That fucking checks.

Hyacinth : I think Maxi's a July Leo, if I remember correctly. But I could be wrong. I think end of July is Maxi's birthday. Yes, I think that, but m Maxi, I'm so sorry if that's wrong, but I know that she's a Leo for a fact. She might be August.

Elena: 5. Two different types of Leos there.

Hyacinth : Yeah, definitely. But also everything else. I think everything else in your chart is just so much more important than.

Elena: What side of your okay, so my sun signs and Aries. You ready for this shit?

Hyacinth : You ready for this? Yes, I'm ready.

Elena: I'm ready. My moon's a scorpio. Okay. And then my rising Taurus.

Hyacinth : Okay. So I'm a lot I think the Taurus is really great in there.

Elena: Because you can have it. Yeah, because it's this constant RBF that I carry and this constant lack of fashion sense and the constant amount of times where I'm just so, like, if I'm not comfortable going, you're not going to catch me there.

Hyacinth : Well, that's so fair. Why waste your time? And others? But also, Tauruses have natural leadership abilities, um, which I think is a good way to channel the unabashed principled nature of Aries. Um, but self principles, but still principles and just the general bossiness maybe that scorpios, uh, tend to have about them.

Elena: Yeah, I'm emotionally intense.

Hyacinth : That's totally I respect that caliber of person more than any US.

Elena: Marine. You can take it. This amount of aggressive, um, feeling of feelings is.

Hyacinth : So it's god gives his toughest battles. What's?

Elena: Your mercury.

Hyacinth : Um also with cancer.

Elena: No wonder you're so good with words.

Hyacinth : Um, well, I hear that's a Gemini moon thing as well. But my Mars and my Venus are in Gemini. Here's the thing.

Elena: There's a difference between being good with your words emotionally and intellectually. I think you're an intellectual. I think you are very eloquent with ways of how you're expressing yourself. But there's a sense of meaning and emotional aspect that comes a lot from that water placement.

Hyacinth : I love that. Thank you. Yeah, I want to be, um, more emotionally verbose than I am. Just needlessly intellectually verbose.

Elena: Well, you got to hone that skill in and focus on it.

Hyacinth : For sure. Uh, because when I was in first grade, I had a teacher who actually used to get mad at how much I would raise my hand and want to speak in class.

Elena: Yeah. No, I'd be like, who keeps asking questions? Let's have the class over.

Hyacinth : Come on, let's get it going.

You're right on the cusp of like, millennial and Gen Z

Hyacinth : Literally, I think she felt like I was, ah, just, like, vying for attention.

Elena: That's funny. I have a lot of Aries placements. So, like, Aries Sun, Aries Mercury and Aries Mars. So I'm just a fucking dragon.

Hyacinth : I love that. I really do love that. That reminds me, um, did you ever watch the Jackie Chan cartoon? Yeah.

Elena: Remember, we're the same age.

Hyacinth : Oh, yes. Very fair. That reminds me specifically of, uh, that dragon fuck. Yes. That's what Aries energy gives me.

Elena: I have been told I give snake, serpent, ratlesnake energy, which I love that.

Hyacinth : Just love it. Snake energy is, uh, snakes. So when I think of animals that I kind of identify with, snakes is definitely one of them. And then, like, squids. Like giant squids.

Elena: Squids. Squids. For you.

Hyacinth : For yeah, I have a big tattoo on my back of, like, octopus tentacles.

Elena: There you go.

Hyacinth : Yeah, there you eldritchness of those creatures. Really calls out to me.

Elena: I always wanted a praying mantis tattoo. I felt like that really embodied my energy, too.

Hyacinth : I could say the same, to be honest.

Elena: Also, it's really funny. Um, my partner has also an Aries Celium with me. So they are an Aries sun, an Aries moon, and a rising cap.

Hyacinth : How do you all do.

Elena: It?

Hyacinth : Uh, well, so much intensity. Well, I guess you just are both gluttons for the punishment.

Elena: Honestly, it's not as chaotic, um, as I feel like everyone points it out to be, because that rising cap really hones shit in. And they also have a Mars and Virgo, and they have a Taurus Mercury. So they still have, like, throughout their chart, like, good balance of Earth energy. They just don't have any water energy. So the person that's the explosive volcano doesn't have a competition, and she just goes on these rampage of hurricanes, and then there's this person that's just a rock that doesn't move. It's great.

Hyacinth : Well, good. I think everybody needs their rock, for sure. I don't have any Earth signs in my chart. I don't rip. Yeah. For real?

Elena: Yes.

Hyacinth : The emotional regulation is not there's just my cancer. That's really the only sun and the Mercury. That's the only water sign most of.

Elena: It is your Venus and Gemini, too. Yes.

Hyacinth : Same boo Gemini.

Elena: Intellectual stimulation, intellectual wittiness, banter, sarcasm.

Hyacinth : All of it riz. All the riz.

Elena: We do got that though.

Hyacinth : That's like my favorite new, uh, slang.

Elena: Term that I have heard. Don't be old. Please don't be old.

Hyacinth : Don't be old.

Elena: Come on. It's the way you said riz. And I was like, Cool, we're all on the same page. And you're like, yeah, it's like all the new slang. And I'm like you just outed ashamed.

Hyacinth : I'm not scared to out myself. I will be honest and say that riz. I had not heard anybody say that before, like two months ago, I feel like.

Elena: And then all of a sudden you're living under a rock.

Hyacinth : I don't have TikTok, so I am living same M, though I can't I personally would take way too much time.

Elena: Out of my day, but I'm actually surrounded by a lot of younger people now.

Hyacinth : So it's like, I feel like same, but I actually really love it.

Elena: They're a whole different breed.

Hyacinth : Yeah. So you're also right on the cusp of like, millennial and Gen Z watching the transformation.

Elena: I find myself having a lot more millennial qualities than Gen Z. I agree. But watching these Gen Z kids is crazy.

Hyacinth : Yes, I love it.

Elena: Personally, I have a love hate relationship with it.

Hyacinth : Well, sure. I mean, everybody always there's always that generation shaking their fist into the sky at the young ends and everyone will grow, just fulfill that prophecy. But I love to see Gen Z just so easily get away with shit that we would have never done so weird for. Yeah, exactly. That I felt so alien for in my childhood or never would have thought I would be cool to do. And I love that for them, they've.

Elena: Definitely changed a lot of what the status quo is. Which is great because I think what we lacked in a lot of, um, our generation growing up was this destruction of toxic masculinity, um, versus that's kind of like being broken apart and almost shunned at this point for the younger generation. So there's this embodiment of emotional space that's open and free to explore through creative outlets, through verbal outlets. And it's just great to see because we weren't basically allowing ourselves to kind of have that element.

Gen Z is direct. They go for what they want. Very true. We were nonverbal the entire generation

Elena: So we kind of just were all I think it's like the best way to describe Gen Z in our generation, that in between is the fact that we were like, gen Z is direct. They go for what they want. They are not going to settle for what they don't want, and then they're going to create versus us. We were nonverbal the entire generation. I feel like we just always knew what was going on. And we spoke in these nuances where it was like, let me leave this little nugget. And then they pick it up and they leave their little nugget and then there's just, like, maybe that nugget will kind of, like, meet, and then we'll talk about it for, like, five or ten minutes, or we'll talk about it for 2 hours, and then that's it. Versus these are activists and a lot of these protests that are coming about that they've started. I would have never seen myself ever having the balls to do, which is where these love hate things come. They have such a fierce passion to see justice. Um, on the flip side, there's a.

Hyacinth : Lot of other things, but there's other things as well. But I do generally share that sentiment, by and large, about Gen Z especially. Um, I mean, I definitely feel like we walked so they could run, and we were searching for people, uh, with like minded interests on Tumblr so that they could have just, like, their regular old community man.

Elena: I mean, yeah, if you think about.

Hyacinth : It, I'm happy to do that for them.

Elena: I was going to say, if you think about it, too, gen Z, for the most part, are around our age group of their parents. They're kind of like mini millennials there, who are their parents that are kind of trying to reinforce the things that we didn't get. So it makes sense.

Hyacinth : Very true.

Soft parenting is basically not using negative reinforcement with your children

Hyacinth : I'm obsessed with, um, soft parenting.

Elena: Soft parenting is an interesting yes.

Hyacinth : Um, I don't know if you've seen this trend. It's basically just not using negative reinforcement with your children, um, and not yelling at them and being very thoroughly communicative, very thoroughly bringing awareness to feelings. Um, I'm obsessed with seeing parents on Instagram, and somehow TikTok vids will still come to me, even though I don't.

Elena: Actually yeah, because, uh, Instagram is basically TikTok.

Hyacinth : Yes, everything is basically TikTok now. But seeing parents just completely empathize reason with and give space to their small child large emotions, because that is just something that would have so changed me if I had experienced that as a child. The idea. And my parents and I, we've been through a very long journey. I was actually just talking about this with my nail tech earlier, but both of my parents did so much work on themselves. My, um, dad particularly, which I know is the dream for most people, but I can genuinely say that my dad completely became the man in my adulthood, of course. So I had to parent myself in the meantime, but became the man who I needed him to be when I was a kid.

Elena: Damn me. And you are good. God, I really relate to this, but on the mother spectrum.

Hyacinth : Okay. Yeah. My mother had a renaissance of our own as well. More so on my behalf of being able to understand her, rather than my father's behalf of being able to communicate it and also let go of a lot of his authoritarian, uh, Latino machismo bullshit. Um, but, yeah, my parents now, they get that, and we talk about all the time how people should just give their kids just love and safety. And especially I found that especially brown communities and brown cultures, why are we so afraid of, quote, unquote, spoiling our children? How do you spoil a child?

my mom. We're talking, like,: 1930

Hyacinth : I agree.

Elena: So I was just, like, completely agree. That whole experience kind of shaped why we have a relationship. Because at one point, I was totally coming to terms and content with the idea of just not having a relationship.

Hyacinth : Same with me and my father as well.

Elena: And then the last two years have developed such extremely fast levels of intimacy and bonding as a mother and daughter that it's like, I'm very grateful for it because, uh, it created this relationship that I never thought I could have and that was the parent that I needed when I was younger. And it was a hard thing for me to come to terms with this sense of resentment and the guilt towards my inner child not having been able to receive what I'm receiving as an adult. But um it almost comes full circle with this extremely well developed, well rounded mindset now.

Hyacinth : Yes, I agree. Because you learn to give yourself that.

Elena: Yeah. And then you also get to heal certain things once you're allowing yourself to accept it, by the way, because that was a whole process is learning to accept that. Um but once you're able to allow yourself to accept that kind of familial love, that mother or father love that sort of was so unobtainable at a time, it breaks down so many aspects of trauma that apply to so many different things. Because your family are huge representations of your relationship building skills with yourself and with other people.

Hyacinth : I completely agree. And I think for a lot of us who have had estrangements with family members, that becomes such a part of our identity that we're almost not willing to let it go.

Elena: And then trauma bonding.

Hyacinth : Right.

Elena: Yeah. Once we're here talking about trauma bonding, it creates almost another sense of this otherism, this identity of like we're just from families that didn't have that warm soft parenting that you almost kind of didn't want to be friends with those kids personally, for me, that's how I took it.

Hyacinth : I agree. I definitely as a sort of coping mechanism learned to look down on that because I thought it was something I could never have for myself. So I convinced myself I didn't need it. Right. And then once I did have the opportunity to start healing relationships with my parents, my dad ah, definitely the most actively. It was something that I couldn't bring myself to fully commit to because I couldn't let go of my pride of who I was and also the grudge of what he did to me, of what I felt was done to me. And it requires being a bigger person to be like yeah, that is not a part of me and I can let it go because then you don't have to be that anymore. Then you don't have to be that broken child from a broken home who doesn't have mommy or daddy's love anymore. Essentially you can let that go.

Elena: Right. I think it's really interesting when you're able to kind of come to peace with it yourself and let that idea go. It almost feels like you're being a parent to them, to yourself. For sure. Yeah. It's almost like this other so hard to describe that feeling because when I kind of relinquish this idea that this father figure that I wanted in my life is just never going to happen. And then when it came to a terms of like, this is an old man who can barely operate anymore. I just need to let that go because he's never going to be the bigger person to come to me and apologize for what he's done to me. Versus I know a lot of my sisters have a hard time healing their relationship with our dad. And it's like, I have found so much peace, though, with just relinquishing that, like, just surrendering into the fact that I can never have what I have built with my mom, with my dad. But I will say another tangent. We're going off topic. Um, let's wrap this up because I could just sit and talk to you forever, but, um, I would love to do that, too.

Hyacinth : I could go on for you're really just bringing it out of me.

Elena: Oh, my God. I'm just, like, really bringing it out of you.

Don't forget about the sex workers on the US. Um, that's my hot take

Elena: Um, so on the show, we also have this little segment where it's called Hot Take. So you have the opportunity now to kind of, like, have we did talk a lot about controversy and a lot of controversial things, but, um, do you have, through all of your experience, exposure and everything, a hot take that can be controversial, be direct and just be upfront, honest and real that you want to just air off, that you're like, finally. So I have this platform.

Hyacinth : Let's go. Yes. Um, if you have enjoyed any labor rights, if you have enjoyed any organizing rights, if you have enjoyed any, um, community advocacy rights, if you have benefited from any of that, you should thank, acknowledge, and respect publicly and loudly, sex workers. Um, that's my hot take. Don't forget about the sex workers. And here's why. I love how you're just like, wait, you're like, go on.

Elena: My thing is, I was mostly pointing that towards the coffee industry, and you went completely left field. So I was like, interesting.

Hyacinth : There was a point in time in which I wanted to talk about sex workers on the US. Barista champ stage. Really? Yeah. Because so many of us in this world have had to resort to sex work to survive at some point. And a lot of people who are in the service industry that applies to and sex workers also. We're here amongst your communities. I have a sex work background, and, um, I'm not ashamed. And it's part of one of the reasons why I am so familiar with community organizing and advocacy. Because no one keeps their community safe. Like, such a highly policed community such as sex workers, where the only rights that we have and the only protections that we have, and the only sort of validation, like strippers having unions and the redebella organization and things of that nature, um, are because we did that for ourselves. And because such a highly policed, highly ostracized, highly, uh, sort of hidden community has done so much that has helped the labor movement, has helped mutual Aid has set examples for how to really create community advocacy that I just find it so fucked up that people erase us to such a high degree. I have met so many baristas who have done sex work, dabbled in sex work, who almost everyone knows and or loves a sex worker. There's just so much stigma and so much invisibility. And I feel like for the sort of workers focused labor movement, um, frontline worker ideology that the coffee industry loves to tout give some love and respect to sex workers.

Elena: Fuck. That's a good one. I didn't one was very ignorant. I just learned something today.

Hyacinth : Yeah, you should definitely look into, uh, sex worker advocacy, uh, and organization. Because some of the only laws that are out there to protect sex workers are created because of lobbying by sex.

Elena: Workers. Damn, that was a good one.

Hyacinth : Fuck, I'm glad. I thought that I would maybe be the only person to be like, hey, but sex workers, like, on the podcast, so had to definitely, um, shout out my roots.

You said you were sober, so coffee makes sense

Elena: You have, in this whole amount of time, taken me on many different ideas of your life story. Like, that's fucking crazy. You are such an interesting person.

Hyacinth : If we had all the time in the world, I would have so much more to even share with you.

Elena: Okay? So the next time if you're going to stop through fucking Columbus, you know, this bitch lives here now.

Hyacinth : Let's meet up and get a coffee.

Elena: I don't know if these are coffee stories. You seem like more like, let's chill and get a drink. But you said you were sober, so coffee makes sense.

Hyacinth : Yes, I am sober. I was like but I love hanging out in, um, a bar and getting a Shirley Temple. That's one of my favorite sober activities. I love me a Shirley Temple. I do smoke weed, though. So if you ever want to share.

Elena: A that's, like the one thing that I don't do. I'm like an old lady.

Hyacinth : That's okay. It's not for everybody.

Elena: It gives me panic attacks.

Hyacinth : I have so much, um, generational Jewish. Another thing that I also have said to my nail tech today, but I have so much inherited neurotic Jewish anxiety that I need to smoke weed or else I would be unbearable. Um, my mom is, like a much more unfiltered version of it. And it's funny because my partners are like, oh, you're just like your mom, but just a little more spunky and a little more easy going and a little more stoned. So without the weed, I would be God only knows how high strung.

Elena: Well, fuck. God damn it. I hate that you live so.

Hyacinth : Far. Sure. I'm sure that coffee will take me to the Midwest sooner rather than later.

Elena: And hopefully you don't stay for too long.

Hyacinth : Well, I actually like I really like Michigan. I have a really good friend who lives in Grand Rapids. And I've been out to visit them a few times over the years, and I just think it's so beautiful. And there's good coffee in Michigan, too, there's pardon me? Some really good coffee in Michigan. Um, but I just think that a lot of the middle of the country is so beautiful that white people can't just have it, you know what mean? No. Like, I'll be.

Elena: Out. Oh, my God. At some point, I need to make a trip out to the East Coast again.

Hyacinth : Um, please do. We'll show you a great time.

Elena: I have been told that too many times.

Hyacinth : Yeah, it would be memorable, for sure.

Elena: Y'all ain't ready for me out there. I'll tell you what, though. Talk about loud. Me and Maxi are on the same energy.

Hyacinth : I love that. I'm very content to let Maxie just be the show, take it over. I'm happy to be here and witness, you know what I mean? And then, like, ad libs. Like, give a little ad lib wherever it best fits.

Elena: I love that so much. Yeah.

Hyacinth : I'm just like, some backup singer. Um, but I'm happy to witness that sort of chaos. I thrive in it, to be honest.

Elena: Yeah, I think it's because it could possibly enable you into also being like that, too.

Hyacinth : Absolutely, it can.

Elena: Yeah.

Well, we've been chatting for a really long time, and I have loved every

Elena: Well, we've been chatting for a really long time, and I have loved every fucking minute of it. Uh, you are such a lovable person and love your energy. I love all the things we talked about. I really do want to hang out with you one day. Like all of the people I fucking have met on the East Coast. I just want to sit and be like, let's all just chill and get some food. It would be such a good time.

Hyacinth : I'm calling now that this will come to fruition.

hatting for a while, and it's: 08:00

Hyacinth : Yes, I will be. I also enjoy this conversation a lot. I wasn't sure what to expect. We didn't know anything about each other, really.

Elena: Uh, no. This has been the Go With the Flow show for the last couple of episodes. It's been nice.

Hyacinth : No, it's definitely been good.

Elena: All right, well, you have a great night. You too. I will probably reach out to you soon, just to chitchat.

Hyacinth : Yeah, let's shoot the shit. Yeah. And if you ever need anyone to talk to you I know. Just shit is unruly now. I'm always here. My inbox is always open, and yeah, same.

Elena: All right. Okay. Well, I'll talk to you soon. You have a good night.

Hyacinth : You too. Ciao.

Elena: Bye.

This episode just takes you on so many different wavelengths, talking about politics and identity

Elena: This episode just takes you on so many different wavelengths, where we talk about politics, we talk about identity, we talk about being children of immigrants living in America, and. Then also about being a barista and just trying to grow in that industry and fighting against these uncomfortable, um, uneasy working situations and then trying to find your voice and making more of a voice for a community that I did not even know existed, I didn't know much about. I mean, it checks out why it's an invisible part of the industry because who's going to march around half the time and say, I'm a sex worker? So it's just, like, amazing that they came on the show and they were so fucking vulnerable and very open about their emotional space and what they're feeling and what they've experienced. And it makes me very happy to hear that there are people like them that are creating spaces for other people to feel comfortable in emotional spaces and comfortable with coming forward and saying this stuff. Because obviously they need to build their community in the way they need.

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