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[Intro]

Hola, chicas. Welcome to Encuentras Your Voice podcast, the vocal piece of Encuentras Media, to bring you all the hits and highlights of what is happening in the world of all things Latina. I'm your host, Consuelo Crosby, Peruana, structural engineer, mother, and Scorpio energy Latina. Ready to hold the mic for you to share your valuable story of living in your authenticity and the success that it brings you. Join our sassy guests as they proudly share how it started, how it's going and where they are headed to support and encourage the comunidad to amazing success.

Your voice is powerful, and it's time we kick it up to maximum volume for everybody to hear. You want representation, then you have come to the perfect comfort zone. Relax into this and feel a major part of something big, bold, and beautiful.

Coming to you every Wednesday, 5 PM California time, but available to you anywhere in the world because our Latinidad is global. Love having you here, so sit back now and join the fun.

[Episode]

Consuelo: 00:00

Hola chicas

Always a joy to have you here each week and hoping your March is starting off exactly as you need it to be and with that, Happy Women’s History month! I’m your host Consuelo Crosby welcoming you every Wednesday with amazing mujeres who define today’s cultura through journeys of self discovery and the success that followed, helping each of us find our true path. Here we are making history everyday by creating our narrative as a comunidad, in our own words, in our own time.

Seriously can’t believe we are at Daylight Savings time again this weekend. So you all better prep for losing an hour of that precious sleep and up your cafecito game. Especially for next week’s dynamic duo, who are absolutely eating it up in film festival awards for their short film.

We’ll get more into that at the end of this Pod Club episode which pulls the gems from last week, the full length episode of Jessica Bejarano, Founder of the San Francisco Philharmonic, Our full length shows give our amazing Latina guests the time to fully describe themselves and their journeys. It’s so important to us here because we want to emphasize to all of you that who you are is so much grander, more spectacular and unstoppable than anything that you do.

Even if what you do is literally shatter a 200 year old tradition and rebuild an entirely new one for all of us who felt left out of those spaces. Jessica literally was so fed up with being only allowed into the traditional symphony spaces that she decided to maker her own, where everyone was welcome and seen. It took San Francisco 100 years to host a female composer’s work at the Symphony but it only took one plane ride for Jessica to create an entirely new one for all of us.

Now if you haven’t listened to her heart wrenching and celebratory episode, no worries. This one stands alone and will inspire you to find out more about this amazing mujer. You can also watch the full length episode and shorts on our YouTube channel at Encuentras Your Voice with full captions and links to all of her favorite places that she gave shoutouts to… which, are also on the show notes of last weeks episode.

So woof! Let’s dive in. I’d love to know which of Jessica’s experiences just spoke to you, made you feel seen, or maybe gave you some insights to how to maneuver through a similar experience now? Was it her determination to follow what she loved even though she had only discovered it at 18? Or maybe, her ability to break cycles within her family, go to college and earn her Masters. Or, her positivity that helped her overcome the toxic bias against her and ultimately reach her dream? Or, her willingness to push beyond her dream and do the heavy lifting for all of us to join in on it? All of it? I believe it..

She is a Queen! Unbelievable. And so are all of you for believing so strongly in yourself, even if doubt crept in sometimes, to rise above to the world you see as your own.

Because we all need a dose of positivity and hope in midweek, let’s listen to Jessica’s words of encouragement that may help you get beyond any struggles you may be facing right now:

“I remember just staring at the wall and thinking if this is how academia is going to treat me where in academia, they're supposed to embrace you and nurture you and prepare you and educate you for the real world.

If this is how academia is treating me, what is the real world going to treat me like? Like, do I really not belong? Like, should I just give up? Like, this is too hard. This is too abusive. This is, this is, uh, this is stressful, painful. Yeah. So for a split second, I said I give up, but then there was a voice in me that said, no, no, no, no, no.

Do not let anyone take away your path, your, your, your dreams, you know, your passion, your goals. They're yours, not his. And so I had to learn. In that moment, you know how to take a no and turn it into a yes, how to take a negative and turn it into a positive, how to use, negative energy and use it to catapult me even further than I thought I could go.

And so I learned resilience. I learned how to be incredibly resilient, um, in the face of adversity. The situations that sometimes are, you know, negative, horrific, horrible, there's a way to find a silver lining in the experience and how to use that experience to make you a stronger person.

It made me hungry for, for this career. Um, not just for the love of music, but now for the sake of representation, you know, so it's not just about becoming a conductor and bringing the music alive. Yes. Very, very important.

But now there's something else that's in the mix and it's. Representation and for me to stand strong on the podium in the concert hall, whether it's the symphony, the ballet and the opera and represent not only for future conductors. Um, but for audience members as well, for musicians on the stage, for patrons, for board members, you know, and so my work has become bigger than I ever thought it was.”

Now I know this experience is heart wrenching to listen to, and I left out the most painful component of this scenario which you find in the full length episode, but the beauty of what Jessica offers to us is finding the silver lining in all experiences that are hard, stressful, hurtful … find the silver lining that will move you forward, even a little bit, because each step forward brings you closer to something so much better than what you are leaving behind.

For Jessica, it was developing her resilience to persevere towards not only her passionate goal, but something much bigger, beyond her dreams. And if that harsh experience had not happened then perhaps, she would have been content to be , as she says, allowed in to the traditional spaces, just happy to be creating music and fulfilling her dream.

Instead, she shattered the elite space of orchestral symphonies, literally created her own that she then gifted to all of us, determined to never let anyone feel like she did in that horrible moment. A genius, a saint, a girl from East LA, a first gen, a Queer Latina, tatted and everyone’s friend. She’s all the pieces of you all and she is here to encourage you to be your authentic self, to love who you are and stand strong. This world may not be perfect but you can carve your own piece of positivity out that can move you into places you never saw coming.

Thank you for all the enthusiastic comments and support you showed Jessica on our social media and to us directly. If you have been following our Instagram, you know that I had the insane opportunity to conduct a portion of the symphony on Saturday and let me tell you, it felt like I was the goddess in full creation mode. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, a memory I will keep forever and seriously the most astounding thing I have ever done.. even more so than climbing glaciers in Patagonia!

If it weren’t for women like Jessica Bejarano, we would never have these golden opportunities that change our life. It’s more than representation. It’s more than diversity. It’ having a chair offered to us and sitting at a major table of game changers. All because we choose to support women who are yes, breaking barriers, but more so, building a whole new world for us.

Join us next week for the full length episode of our dynamic duo, Latino filmmakers and Co Founders of Cabaldana Alchemy production studio, Miguel Antonio Caballero and Luis Antonio Aldana, who have been winning it big time with their short film, The Ballad of Tita and the Machines. I absolutely looooved this movie and am sending out the manifestations to have it distributed soon so all of us can watch it! You can hear more about the film and the journey these two amazing Latinos made to get to the Big Screen. So get your rest this weekend and make sure to subscribe to the podcast on your favorite streaming platform so you don’t miss them!

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Step into your truth ladies! Ciao!

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