Original subtitles

I'm the writer, creator

of the superhero series,

La Borinqueña, a superhero series

that was established in 2016.

And we're also the only superhero series

dedicated to charity work in Puerto Rico.

I am so honored and proud of the fact

that we come from the same generation.

Talk to me about how

you started this journey.

Like, what inspired you?

I think the journey in

becoming a storyteller

goes back as far as my childhood

when I lived in the South Bronx.

I am a product of public education.

Every week I remember

in elementary school

I had a teacher who would

write 10 vocabulary words.

Every week she wanted us

to learn the definitions

of these new words and we had

to write an original sentence

showing her that we knew

what these words meant.

I took it upon myself to

take these 10 words every week

and write and draw a story.

And not just a story, but a

series of episodic stories.

So every week, the story would continue

with these 10 new

vocabulary words that I would learn.

And I would always draw

my comics attached to that.

I recall like in middle school,

a lot of my friends would give me money

and I would create

original comics for them.

I would draw and write

these stories for them

and would sell them so that I can make

money to buy my own comics.

I grew up in abject poverty.

By the time I was 18,

I lived in 22 different

places across New York City,

Puerto Rico,

Pennsylvania, Central New York.

But comic book storytelling for me was

where I drew inspiration from,

where I drew community.

Because if you don't read comics,

you don't understand that these

characters forge a relationship with you

because those stories

continue and they still do.

Yep.

You know, Peter Parker is

like in the late 20s now

and he's aged about 10 years in the last

60 years that he's been in publication.

And all these stories is like a novella,

an ongoing novella that constantly

references itself over the decades.

So for me, these stories allowed and

created a community.

I may have moved around.

I may have been the new student every

time I enter the new community.

But these characters were always there.

I knew that every Wednesday when I had

enough money to buy those comic books,

I can revisit and catch

up with these friends.

And that part of

storytelling stayed with me.

So decades later, when I decided to

create La Borinqueña,

it really came from a place that was

tethered to my activism

and connected to my sense of

responsibility to make a difference.

And it all started in 2015.

It was a massive debt crisis that was

going to lead to a

humanitarian crisis in Puerto Rico

because Puerto Rico had

amassed a $74 billion debt.

OK.

And that's endemic to

the Inus colonial status,

which means that it has been a colony of

the United States for over a century now.

Led to, believe it or not, this debt

because Puerto Rico has been

dependent on the United States

because they are taxed and they have been

consistently

contributing to the U.S. economy.

A lot of people don't know there's a law

that is actually called the Joes Act.

And that act doesn't allow

Puerto Rico to bring in products.

They actually have to bring international

products to the United States.

The votes have to unload it, put it on

another boat, and that

boat goes to Puerto Rico.

Over the last 100 years,

the DAT Act has been in place.

But Puerto Rico has paid easily close to

$100 billion in tariffs,

contributing to the Floridian economy.

Florida's economy is booming because of

Puerto Rico for a century.

And no one really speaks to that.

So by 2015, Puerto Rico had

amassed a $74 billion debt.

And this debt, the governor at the time

said, was unpayable.

But this debt was also going to lead to a

massive humanitarian crisis.

And it did.

Schools closed.

For the first time ever in Puerto Rico's

economic history, there was an exodus of

white-collar workers.

That means that professors, scientists,

chemists left Puerto Rico

because the pharmaceutical industry in

Puerto Rico collapsed

when the United States repealed a tax

code, a tax code that was

in place in the Seseminis

that lasted through the 90s when the

President Clinton's

administration was repealed.

And by 2010, the entire pharmaceutical

industry would decimate it.

Now, let's put this in perspective.

The pharmaceutical industry was doing a

lot of damage to

Puerto Rico's environment

and was also doing something

to Puerto Rico's economy on the

positive and the negative side

because these companies were not Puerto Rican-owned companies.

These were American companies, right?

Pero, at the same time, they were still

putting money into the

Puerto Rican economy.

And when that was done, the economy

started collapsing upon itself.

And I stepped in as a storyteller,

realizing the power the stories have.

And I said, "We live in an era where

everyone loves superheroes.

They're lining up to see the movies.

They have superhero

games on their phones.

They're wearing apparel with their

favorite characters.

Some people have snacks in their bags

that have their favorite

superheroes on them and such."

And I thought, "What if I entered into

this space of superheroes

with our own superhero?"

But what would make her different is that

she's going to come

from a very real place.

She's going to come from a very real

people and she's going to look like us.

She's going to sound like us.

She's going to eat like us.

She's going to be the first superhero to

talk about pasteles and sancocho.

And when you hear it, hear and read her

say that, you salivate.

Can you think, "Are

you going to do this?"

Right?

So I thought of this character, but what

made the book even more

significant was that it

was going to become a tool for

fundraising and for charity work.

And over the last eight years that we've

been publishing La Borinqueña,, we've been able to

raise over $200,000 that we've used to

award grants to

nonprofits in Puerto Rico.

It makes us the only superhero series in

publication that is directly connected to

charity work, that is directly empowering

real life superheroes

that are on the ground

doing incredible heroic work every day.

That's beautiful.

I know that you don't

do this by yourself.

I don't.

I don't.

My partner is my wife.

My wife, Kyung Jeon, is an incredible

fine artist in her own right.

She actually heads up

our philanthropic division.

She came up with the idea.

When we had an opportunity to team up

with DC Comics, that was

actually this book, which

is Reconstruction, right?

This book became a number one bestseller.

This was also our second book.

When this book became a number one

bestseller, it stayed that

way for four months straight.

And Out the Gate already gave us over

$100,000 that we were

going to dedicate to charity.

This book came about as a

result of Hurricane Maria.

When Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico in

September of 2017, DC

Comics approached us and wanted

to know what they could

do with us for Puerto Rico.

And that conversation

DC approached you? -yes

The publisher of DC Comics stood online

at New York Comic Con

and had a conversation with

me.

By the end of that conversation, we came

into an informal

agreement, which in a couple of

days turned into a formal agreement with

legal contracts and everything.

They gave us complete access to the

entire roster of

superheroes that we could use for

this book.

That's why Wonder Woman is on the cover

and Superman is on the

back and inside you have

Flash, Green Lantern, Batman,

and so many other superheroes.

This book became the most important

fundraising tool in our work.

And as a result of this, my wife said,

let's create grants.

Let's not just give one big check to a

large corporate nonprofit.

Let's actually use this as a pot that we

could draw from and award

small grants to nonprofits

on the ground.

Actual organizations that are doing

significant impactful work every day in

the lives of people.

And that's what started it.

And since then, we've decided that a

portion of all of our

books are going to support our

continued charity work.

We even recently did a team up with

actress and activist

Rosario Dawson, who appears in

this book as herself with the support of

the Natural Resources Defense Council.

And this book served as a tool to talk

about renewable energy, solar energy.

As Caribbean people, I think if we had

solar panels, we could

literally sell energy to

the rest of the planet, especially parts

of the country that have winters, right?

We can literally export energy.

So the book has this idea of talking

about renewable energy,

but the challenges attached

to that.

And Rosario Dawson

appears as herself in the book.

And this book also

served as a fundraising tool.

And with the money we made from this

book, as well as our

others, we've come close to

over $200,000 that we've raised over the

last few years for our charity work.

Beautiful.

And the fact that you're the owner, you

were able to sit at the

table to talk to somebody

like Marvel Comics, NBC

Comics, and all of this.

In points of ownership, you mentioned

that George told you

very proudful, he told me to

keep owning the character.

He said never give up the character.

His lament was that he didn't

own any of these characters.

George Perez created

close to 70 characters.

Think about that.

That's incredible.

From villains to superheroes that became

TV shows, that became

motion pictures, but he

doesn't own these characters.

And he made sure to

impart that wisdom onto me.

He said, keep the character, empower

yourself by owning a character.

And he said, and keep

creating more characters.

And that's what we've done.

These are all the other

characters we've created.

We have our Dominican

superhero, Luz La luminosa.

We have Oro El Coqui Dorado, which was

co-created by my youngest son.

We even have a super

villain called El Galgola.

We have so many other

characters that we've created.

It's like I took that moment of a

conversation with George

Pettis and took it to heart.

And he's kind of like that Obi-Wan spirit

that kind of follows me.

And I'll always be very grateful for his

kindness, for

generosity, and for his wisdom.

You know, now that I'm

here and I'm hearing you say

"A magic comes from a unique place."

I see your family in

this character, honey.

She's mixed culture, right?

And then you have the other

design by one of your kids

and you mentioned, I think I saw another

book that one of you...

Yes, so my youngest son...

Can I grab the book?

Yes, please.

My youngest son created

his own comic book series.

How old is he?

He's nine now.

Nine years old, he's already publishing.

Yep, flip it to the back.

Look, it's got a... it's been numbered,

he's got his own barcode.

He's officially published,

he's got an actual copyright

certificate from the Library of Congress.

So this is an officially published book

that we did through our studio.

And this is what it's all about.

Yeah, it's about legacy.

It's about legacy.

It's about also, we have enough numbers.

We were talking about before I said that

if we support each other,

we could definitely make sure that these

talented artists and people like yourself

continue to do this.

How do you pass that on to your son?

What kind of message, how do you do that?

I feel that the best way to impart these

lessons to my sons...

And younger creatives, right?

Yeah.

It's the whole journey.

Is through example and through practice.

At a young age, he has been immersed in

the business of this

Publications that we've been doing for

the last eight years, you know.

And as is my older son, my older son

works the tables when

we do comic conventions.

My youngest son now

is a published author.

They see all of the work that we do.

And one of the other things that we felt

was so important that we

needed to share with our sons

was their real connection to their

heritage, a real

connection to Puerto Rico.

I'll share.

After Hurricane Maria, my

family lost their homes.

My family lost their jobs.

They had their lives.

Thank goodness.

They had their lives

and they had their health.

But they moved to the United States.

So when we visit Puerto Rico, we don't

have our family there anymore.

I don't have my Tia that I can go visit

for some Paz Peloho, my

Primo that I can go to the

Chiosco to hang out with.

And it was the vision that my wife had to

create our charity

work that established a

Nueva Familia, a mi hijos.

And this new family are these

organizations, these

nonprofits, these activists that are

doing incredible work.

So when we visit Puerto Rico, we visit

all these organizations,

farms, art spaces, schools,

goodness, health clinics.

And we bring our sons

there and we show them.

So we don't just show them the business

of making and the

production of these books.

We show them the impact that these

stories have and we show them how

important it is to be

involved.

I think about what you've done with with

Un Ching and I related to our work

because I feel that all

of us have to contribute.

Un Ching para transformal espe mundo en

algo mejor para todos.

You know, and that's the

responsibility that we all have.

And that's all we have to do.

If all of us just contribute Un Ching, we

can literally move mountains.

And that's the power of our culture and

that's the power of our heritage.

And that's something that I've always

recognized is what makes us superheroes.

See, this little character right here.

This is my little Ching to you.

Wow.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I want to put this on.