Heal Your Pain Or Pass It On with Kali Fajardo-Anstine and April Morland

The Self-ish Latina Podcast

On this week’s episode of The Self-ish Latina Podcast, I had the honor of meeting with the one and only Kali Fajardo-Anstine. Kali is a Colorado native and author of the story collection series Sabrina & Corina, which has been recognized as a National Book Award Finalist in Fiction, among many other recognitions and awards. Kali’s stories, which take place right here in the familiarness of Denver, Colorado, explore themes of identity, relationships, the truths and exploitation of ones homeland, and navigating indigenous ancestry. With strong Latina females as the protagonists in her pieces, Kali emotionally and elegantly deconstructs systems of oppression, confronts the experience of abandonment, and speaks to her truth. In this episode, we not only discuss Kali's stories, but we step into vulnerable and deep territories.

Along with Kali, I feature a conversation with our summer intern, April Morland. April is also from Denver, Colorado and is in her fourth year at Santa Clara University studying Communication and Film! She worked alongside the team this summer helping with podcast production, social media content creation, and has even helped us behind the scenes with the exciting projects yet to come (read: She was deeply involved in several development conversations about our new film!) She not only taps into some of the themes discussed by Kali, but shares her own story of healing through the exploration of her roots and the importance of personal expression through art.

In this episode, we talk about:

• Kali’s journey of writing Sabrina & Corina and how she has to be self-ish in order to get to where she is today through honoring her calling. She speaks about coming to own her Latinidad through the many barriers presented to her. Some of the topics we discuss include the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship, the abandonment of one's roots through colonialism, and learning to embrace who we are through our own “enoughness.” We touch on navigating being in “two worlds” and the ever familiar not feeling “Latino/a enough.”
• One of the main themes of this podcast is sharing how we can use personal experiences and hardships to create art, heal, and touch others. We can make beautiful out of the ugly and difficulties life throws at us. I speak with April about her journey as an artist and how she uses her art (filmmaking) as a form of healing.
• Through our conversations, I introduce concepts often discussed in the Eñye Dream Accelerator (EDA), such as allowing ourselves to ask for help. That fact that it is OKAY to seek help from others as uncomfortable as it may feel and one of my personal favs, you earn your success in life simply by being who you are.

Join the conversation about this episode in our Facebook group or shoot me a DM on IG @projectenye and share some of your answers with me there!