Consuelo It’s not your typical scenario, but then, neither is living a First Gen Latina life. Straddling two cultures while trying to define identity is a struggle. Doing it alone is exhausting. So when Ana and Sandy, two peacocks, walk into an LA Trauma unit together, a lifelong sisterhood was born. Now, they are giving back to the next generations by offering immersion travel with Two Peacocks Travel, elevating life experiences of Latinas and women of color through luxurious and transformational travel
Transcript
[Intro]
Hola chicas!
Welcome to a fresh episode of the Life Lnxx podcast, where we amplify our First Gen Latina voices to share our stories, expand the narrative, and express our love of our cultura.
I’m your host, Consuelo Crosby, First Gen Peruvian here in the San Francisco Bay Area, bringing you thoughts and stories about the Latina journey and the power of embracing the culture from our ancestors to pass on to the next generations in strength. If we want our narrative to stay true, then we have to tell it in our own words, in our own time, out loud.
Today we have two special guests on our show, Ana Gaona and Sandy, Founders of Two Peacock Travel, a concierge travel company, elevating life experiences of Latinas and Women of Color through luxurious and transformational travel. Seriously, this isn’t your Carnival Cruise mentality.
Ana and Sandy will share their First Gen experiences and how that led them to each. These women are passionate about caring for our community, especially young Latinas who may not be able to afford travel, and women who have yet to live life on their terms. You will laugh and cry and ultimately shout out in celebration of the culture.
Consuelo: Welcome ladies.
Ana: Hi.
Consuelo: Hello, Ana! Good to have you here with us and Sandy,
Sandy: Hi!
Consuelo: So happy to have you here. Ana, why do you go ahead and jump in and tell us a little bit about yourself.
Ana: Sure. I’d be happy to. So, as you said, my name is Ana and I am the eldest of three. I am First Generation. My parents are immigrants. My father was from Oaxaca, Mexico and my mother is from Cordoba, Spain. So, I have a little bit of an interesting mix.
Growing up, being the eldest, I was given a lot of responsibilities. I was always the one that was the leader of the pack. I was given that responsibility very early on. So from then on, once you gave it to me, you couldn’t take it back. But, I really thought, that was just the order of siblings.
In High School, I started to really try to figure out like, who am I? Because even though I lived in, um, in the San Fernando Valley, I was on one side of the tracks, but I would go to school to the opposite side of the tracks where there were not people like me.
And so, in trying to find my identity, I went ahead and started to seek out, where I fit, because I never really took the the Mexican food to school or the Spanish food to school. It was always the sandwiches and stuff.
And, at 18 I got married, I had a baby, and I’m now a proud mother of three. I’ve been married for 33 years, I think I’ve lost track, and I have two grandchildren. I did my academics. I’ve done everything, but, it’s been a little bit of, you know, trying to find who I am as a First Generation, as a leader of the family, as you know, a wife wearing all these hats.
Now, I just finished my 26 plus years career in public service and I’ve recently retired and now enjoying life , at a whole other level.
Consuelo: Wow. There’s a lot of congratulations to go in there. That was a beautiful story. Yeah. Really beautiful.
Ana: Thank you.
Consuelo: Oh, and Sandy, how about you tell us yours, your story.
Sandy: Well, my name is Sandy. I am from Los Angeles. I was born and raised in East Los Angeles, uh, particularly in Boyle Heights. I am the daughter of a Salvadoran immigrant and a Puerto Rican father, um, who was pretty much in Puerto Rico majority of his time. And then, he immigrated to New York when he was young, right before he joined the military.
S0, my mom came here with my grandmother. My grandmother was the pioneer of my family. She left El Salvador to look for work. Her plan was to make money and go back, just like a lot of Latinos think they’re going to do.
I come from a long line of feminist women. So, my mom followed right after her and my mom and my grandmother have been very clear that we are not here to assimilate. That’s not our goal. We are here to make money. We’re here to pursue the American dream, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to lose who we are.
So, the majority of Puerto Ricans, especially back in the seventies, lived in the East Coast. There was not a lot of Puerto Ricans in, um, in Los Angeles. I look just like my father, but then my mom, my mom says that. And then people say, I look just like my mother, but my mother doesn’t have this hair or his nose.
So growing up in East Los Angeles, it was very hard. It was hard because no one looks like me. it was like 99.5% Mexican kids, Mexican, first generation. And so they would look at me and say, “What are you? ” And like, you know, body wise, hair wise, the whole thing.
It was most definitely a learning, uh, transition of being who I was at home. But when I went to school, I was what my friends were. So, I’m honorary Mexican because, you know, I can get down with some Rancheras and eat some Mexican food.
But, my friends coming to my home, you know, they were like, “What, what are you eating? What are these things, platanos? And so that’s where the education came in and people were like, “Well, you’re not Mexican”.
I’m like, “Oh, okay. No, I’m not Mexican”. You know, it’s just one of those things that I just happened to be like the fish out of water.
You know, It’s been hard. I went to college and for the first time I saw people who looked like me and I was like, “Wait a minute. There’s like some Latinas with some really extremely curly hair here”. Then I went to New York, and I told Ana, I felt like, “Oh my God, I’m home”.
“Everyone here looks like me!”. Like, oh my God, we all have that, ‘Where are you from?’ look, you know, that’s, that’s the look I have. ‘Where are you from? look. So, um, it’s been a road, it’s been a road
All these things that I know today, I definitely should have known like way back then. But, you know, we’re like late bloomers in a way.
Consuelo: So, it seems that there were some components of assimilation and others that were definitely against it. Assimilation most likely to keep you safe. Do you carry any cultural traditions forward to your children?
Ana: You know, we had the traditional Thanksgiving and the Christmas and the holidays, but we never really learned the assimilations of where our, our family was from. And so, you know, when my mom would talk about Dia De Los Reyes, I had no idea it was, you know, sometimes we would do it, sometimes we didn’t.
Dio de Los Muertos, I didn’t, you know, really learn til I was in my twenties, in college. But, you know, my parents did everything that they could to make sure that we spoke Spanish. So, I am completely fluent in terms of having the conversation, uh, reading and just fully understanding. And, we would do a lot of novella watching.
I remember my dad would tell us, you know, you always have to speak Spanish. You can’t mix the two. So, if he could hear us now, because I am fluent in Spanglish, as well. If he could hear us now, he’d be like, “What are you doing?”
He would tell us that our Spanish had to be impeccable and he would have us watch, Canate de Cuatro. He wanted us to watch the Spanish anchor, the newscasters.
I will forever hold them in my heart because it’s how I thought, “Okay, this is how I have to present myself. You know, I’ve gotta be this and I’ve gotta speak perfect”.
But, we had a really happy childhood in, in terms of just having our family unit together.
Sandy: We have never had a traditional Thanksgiving dinner ever, 53 years. Never. My mom says, “Don’t you dare bring that dead dry turkey to my house”. So, we have a very, very, uh, traditional Salvador dish. It’s called ‘Panes de Chumpe’, and it’s a Turkey. It just happens to be our style.
So, it’s funny because when people meet me, they’re like, “Your half Salve?” “Yes.” “Are you guys making Panes de Chumpe?” “Yes.” “Can you invite me to your house?” I’m like, “Oh, wow. I already have 30 people coming. For sure, come on along.”
You know, my mom does not speak any English, has no interest in speaking English. My grandmother’s not with us anymore, but she didn’t speak English, either.
Having said that, I’m a single mom of an 18 year old. I only have one child and he speaks Spanish. Not the best. But, we’re trying, because of my mom, my mom won’t even pretend, Consuelo. She’s like, “Ya no se”.
Consuelo: I love it. That is a full story and it relates so much over and over again to what we hear from our other guests on the podcast, the identity, and especially when you’re dropped into a location where you are the only one, but you are not necessarily the only Latina. But, you are the only one who’s identifying with your heritage.
And even from other Latinas, they’re like, “You don’t belong. You’re not a Latina”. Like, Well, wait a minute.
Sandy: Yes, that’s right.
Consuelo: So that is a common story. So, let’s get into the both of you no longer being with your first career and yet, isn’t that where you met?
Ana: Yes, that’s exactly where we met. I always love to tell a story because you’re at the right place with the right time, just when it happens and you don’t plan for, for friendships like this. I met Sandy, right after my dad passed away.
Consuelo: Oh…
Ana: And, I was in a really dark place, as you can imagine. They called me to interview for this position and, I said to them, “I don’t have any background in this. There’s no way”. And, it was gonna be to a place that was huge. I couldn’t even fathom the idea.
But, you know, when you’re not in the right mindset, you know, you kind of, everything just seems to be “No, no, no”. But, something just said, “Ana, just go”. “Okay, I’ll, I’ll go for fun. What do I got to lose?”
So, I interview with somebody and they said, “You need to meet this administrator. You need to meet with her because you need to have an idea of how the work is gonna be”.
And I’m thinking, “Well, wait a minute. I’m not ready to take on the work. First of all, did you offer it?” I see Sandy behind a desk and so, I sit down and we’re chatting.
She looks at me, she’s like, “You have no experience”. I said, “No, none of nothing at this”. She’s like, “Okay. Are you gonna go to school for this?” I said, “No”. I said, “I already got my, Bachelor’s in Education.
Sandy: Disclaimer, I don’t remember any of this. I’m just making sure …
Ana: Remember. She goes, “If you think you’re gonna do this job, I need you to go take a terminology class. She knew exactly what I was walking into, but I had no idea. So, ignorance is bliss, right?
Well, little did I know I was gonna be working with doctors and clinicians and, you know, nurses. That was not my cup of tea. The only experience I had was what I had done for my dad, advocated for him.
So, in full circle, like, “Dad, really after all this, this is where you send me?” And now, I find this woman that’s telling me I have to go back to school. Because, in my mind, I thought I finished.
Consuelo: Now, this was a medical scenario. This was City of Los Angeles Trauma Level One unit. So how was that for you?
Ana: So, it was supposed to be like two weeks of shadowing and we were inseparable from day one. We had the most crazy incidents that happened to us in the first week.
And, I just would looked at her like, “How do you do this? How do you maintain? How do you talk to all these people?” Because that’s what our job was ,to talk to patients, talk to the clinicians, relay the messages, advocate for them. The only experience I had was from a personal side, from my dad.
So, every patient was our family. And, that’s one thing that I admired from Sandy. She always made sure the patient was at the center. It’s always been about serving, publicly and then from there, we just started just doing all kinds of stuff.
I’m much more the, ‘Let me think about this. Let me strategically think about how this is going to go.’
Sandy: When yousay strategically, what exactly are you talking about? Like, I don’t understand what that term means. If it’s not gonna kill us, we should just do it.
Ana: Her motto is always go bigger, go home.
Sandy: Yeah. Go home. One life, this is what we are doing here.
Consuelo: You are the ying and the yang together. Different personalities that are meant to be together as a whole. Fully functional independently, but wow, put you two together and this is a whole different personality.
Ana: My upbringing was I’m the leader. I have to make sure that everybody’s taken care of. You know, no one’s being harmed. And so, I always have to try to think about what people are thinking ahead of time so that I know what my next move is.
Where Sandy’s like, just, just do it. Okay.
Sandy: No one’s gotten hurt.
Ana: We’ve had… no one’s gotten hurt from there. We’ve had numerous adventures. Um, you know, Sandy’s the one that has the thematic parties. Like we have done a royal wedding.
Sandy. A toga party. Cinco de Mayo. I had a cinquentañera, because I didn’t have a quinceñera, so we had a cinquentañera.
Ana: When I tell you, she goes big or go home.We were wearing quinceñera dresses.
Consuelo: Oh!
Sandy: You should wear quinceñera dresses.
Ana: And so, we all went and purchased it. So this is, you know…
Consuelo:You guys are hilarious.
Ana: And then there are times where she looks at me and then she’ll lean on me. So I lean on her for like, let’s just do things. And then there are times where she’s like, “Okay, voice of reason come in and tell me what should we, how should we go about doing this? We’re still gonna do it, but how do we do it in a careful way where no one’s going to get hurt?”
Okay. So it’s like we’re a good mix of each other and you know, I uplift her, she uplifts me.
That’s how our friendship developed.
Consuelo: Oh, that is a powerful thing. That is, that is true sisterhood. That is the true sisterhood when you have someone who you trust so much that you can let go of that side of you that always has that little voice saying, “Oh, no, no, no, no”. But then you’re just like, “Well, no, that little voice is like embodied in that beautiful woman over there”.
So, let’s just go.
Ana: I mean, it, you know, our friendship developed to the point where, to do what we were doing, we really had to find the ways to make things light, because there were some heavy things. So, we would say we are emotional support to each other. And, um, I always say, you know, she’s my, like my garden angel.
I think my dad sent her to me because it’s like he knew. I’m always very serious and very quiet and calm, but there is really the Latina in me, who is loud and happy and , I want to live life, right? But I’m always thinking like, “How is it gonna be perceived?” And then I have Sandy, who automatically, she’s like, “Girl, just, just do it.”
We were each other’s support system. And one day, from one story that I’ll tell real quick. We had a patient who brought in two chihuahuas, as emotional support.
Consuelo: I don’t see a chihuahua as emotional support.
Sandy: Put them through the x-ray machine.
Ana: Yes!
Sandy: They probably have cancer now. They probably have cancer.
Ana: Poor doggies. And then, here we go, we go with her and we go to talk to the patient. We’re like, “You can’t have animals in the room.” “It is my emotional support.”
But after that we kept saying, “God, we’re each other emotional support”. We saw an article of a woman, I don’t know if you recall, it came out on the news, too. There was a woman who boarded a plane with a peacock and she said that was her emotional support animal.
And, we looked at each other, we’re like, “Peacocks are pretty. We are each other’s peacocks. And so, from there we start. That’s how we ended up with two peacocks.
Consuelo: Oh. Which is the name of your new business.
Ana: Yes. Two Peacocks Travel.
Consuelo: Oh, so it, the two emotional support women for each other. The two peacocks. Stunning. Like now, colorful. We’re not even going to acknowledge that it’s the male peacock.
Ana: I know, but we’re going to ignore that.
Sandy: We learned that afterwards. No, it’s actually, it’s a natural mistake. There’s no way. I am who I am. I am as transparent as I as I can come. I walk the talk. This is me.
Consuelo: So, you develop these skills from a very young age to figure things out on your own without any help because there really wasn’t any help. You were the help.
Ana: That’s one thing Sandy and I are, we are very resourceful. We may not know the answer, but we will figure it out. And, and that goes based on someone we know may know the answer. We’ll know how to get the answer. And, I think that’s the biggest takeaway with my upbringing, is that my parents, I don’t know that they were intending to teach me, but it was very much, “You’re gonna learn how to figure this out”.
You know? Because if they came here from their country, they had to figure it out. Right. But it got to a certain point. I had to take it the next step. So now, I need my kids to take it to the next level.
Sandy: Because you can’t show up with, uh, “Can you make an appointment for me”? And you make, “Oh, they said they don’t have any appointments.” and they’re looking at you like, “Okay, so when do they have appointments?” And you’re like, “Okay, let me go back”. So, you learn in the process that you’re not going to come back with some answer that’s not going be acceptable.
Right? So you start developing this, this ability and skill of having to say, “I called, didn’t have an appointment. So, made an appointment with this doctor, and it’s going be on this day, and I make sure your calendar was clear. Ready to go?” “Okay”.
So you manage it all, but it’s all been in training, right? All these years.
Consuelo: This training, we’ll call it training. And I think even for every first gen that comes here, now, whether you are 10 years old now or already passed, that training is the life skills that will always have you ready for leadership because that’s not something that’s learned in university, and it’s not something that’s learned on the job, but it is those life skills that must make the both of you epicly grand for having a travel company.
So, let’s talk about this travel company. We understand where the name came from, but what’s the core? What’s the idea? Why did you want to do a travel company?
Ana: Like we said, we’ve always been in public service running to give back to the community. I’ve always had a passion that those skill sets that you were talking about earlier, that you don’t really learn this in class. You don’t really learn them in work.
It’s kind of something that you’re brought up with. Right?
If I knew then, at 9, 10 15, those were skills that I was going to use and that they were going be helpful in the future, I probably would’ve seen things very differently. So for me, the passion has been how do I help the next generation learn faster.
Let me show you that what you do now has value. When they tell you, “Put a resume together”, don’t think that you don’t have experience. You have experience. The babysitting that you’ve done, the banking, the errands that you do for your parents. Those are all experiences. So, when I think about that, it’s like, how do I move forward to help these kids?
Sandy: So, my son did not get a chance to go on the senior trip. I called Anna and I said, “Anna, I know you have family in Spain. Is there any way I can ship my kid out there to Spain for a couple of weeks so he can have the experience?” From that, it went from, “Well, maybe we should go”. And that went from, “Well, maybe we should go for four weeks”. And then it went from, “Maybe we should stay six weeks”. it just kind of, you know, snowballed.
Ana: Right.
Sandy: I love to travel. I’ve always taken my kid traveling because I’ve always, uh, someone told me, “Don’t give them gifts, give them memories”.
So, when me and Ana started talking about this educational opportunity for my son, then it became also something for her daughter.
Ana: So, in all this, I kept thinking and thinking, so I’m like, “Okay, Sandy, let’s, let’s send the kids and see what happens”. We have the connection, my family’s there, and so I have teachers and professors and classrooms available to us.
Education doesn’t just happen in a classroom, it happens in experiences. So what if we take them to other cities to explore? They still have their academics in a classroom, but how do we immerse them? And from there, one idea led to the other.
We did Barcelona, we did Cordova, we did Malaga, uh, we did Madrid, and then we did Paris.
But before getting to Paris, the kids had the opportunity to learn literally how to go to school on their own and after they had their class, they actually volunteered at a summer camp for little ones where they were interacting. And so, it was more laid back. So, they got a little bit of a history, like the background of the culture. Um, they got to speak it, you know, in a, in a professional environment. But then they got to really relax and enjoy with the little ones.
We’re like seeing the value. We’re onto something here. How do we do this and how do we scale it? And so from that idea, it is, we really wanna give back to the next generation. Sandy’s a testament of how much of an impact her going to France as an exchange student had on her at 15. How can we give the same experience to other kids?
We have the means to be able to do it. We have all the resources in the network now how do we give back? We want to sponsor kids and we want to help them develop, but we, also, want travel.
How do we do a win-win?
And so Two Peacocks Travel came to life because while we’re putting together these women groups, um, to travel, and we have a very, specific mission for that, as well. But the core of it is that each trip will be able to donate to, be able to sponsor, um, young Latinas to have an opportunity to go to Europe and spend, you know, two, three weeks in school without it costing anything to the parent, even the airfare.
So it’s full circle.
Consuelo: Wow. Wow. I just got, goosebumps. No. Wow. Oh my gosh. That is such a beautiful story. And you just feel the power coming from it and the excitement because of the experience from a lot, a lot of, uh, first generation Latinas is the “life without”, because it is such a survival life.
It is such a learn, help your parents and family survive. Figure out the culture and figure out how I’m going to get to school, pay for school.
ana: Yeah,
Consuelo: da da, da
Sandy: They get a job to support the family.
Ana: Yeah.
Consuelo: There’s no room for thinking that they can do else but survive.
ana: Yes.
Consuelo: And so this is amazing. Okay. So, Have you done this? Have you taken a group yet?
Ana: So, we have trips already planned. Um, we have one for Spain in December.
Consuelo: Oh that’s soon!
Ana: Yeah, that’s soon. The beauty of this is that we get to create on our own terms. We’re able to decide when, where.The following trip after Spain, we have Cuba in February.
Consuelo: Ooh.
Sandy: You know, and I have a funny story. So when I went away to France, I was 14, going to be 15, and my mom had to pay for my air fare. That was the only thing they wanted us to, um, to pay for. And so then, I leave and I’m out there and I forget to call my mom to tell her I’ve arrived. No cell phones, no wifi, no internet. It must have been like a week and a half later, I gett a letter from my mom that says, “I hope you’re alive. I haven’t heard from you”.
I was so freaking excited to be there that I forgot that I had a mother. And now, as a mother today, I would’ve freaking flown to France to go look for my child. It was like ‘Taken’ in 1987, right?
Like, oh my God, Liam Neeson was nowhere to be found at that time. So, I called my mom. She was like, “Oh, I thought you were dead”. I was like, “Oh my God”. She’s an immigrant, doesn’t speak, let alone English, French, right? And she let me go some strangers in a program to a foreign country across the world, and she had no idea where I was.
Consuelo: What a blessing.
Ana: But you know what I find funny is that I wasn’t allowed to do something like that. Right. That was unheard of. But my sister, she got to spend Spain and, and yes, she was going with family, but she got, went out there for three, four, almost five months, and it was okay. I’m like, wait a minute.
Consuelo: Oh, did your, you think your parents saw you as their ally? Like something cannot happen to you because what will happen to me?
Ana: I never thought about it, but. Uh, you know, I wonder because I was it. I did everything, maybe because I did it all. I mean, like Sandy said, I was writing mortgage checks at nine years old. What did I know about balancing checkbooks or, or get a piece of paper from the bank and say, What does it say?
And now it, it’s on me and it’s just this little kid.
I would look at them like, “I don’t know, Okay”. And before you know it, we were translating and that was legal because, that’s all we had. But, you know, I laugh now with my sister because they say, you know, you’re the one that broke the wall. And my brother and my sister just went right through it because I had this brick wall that I had to just keep pushing.
I’m glad that they got to do that, but I’ve always wondered like, okay, if I would’ve had a different,way of looking at things, would I have been the student that went on to trips or to do something different? I don’t know.
Consuelo: Maybe different birth order. It’s birth order then, or whoever the parents trust, but the parents tend to trust the daughters. And it’s going to be the first daughter.
And in, them they place all the burden of their wellbeing with you, because if something happens to you, one, they’ve already developed the trust, they may not trust the other siblings. And two, they also place their, their personal trust. Like, who’s going to take care of me the way that I want tp be taken care of.
Sandy: Wow, that is a apprentice. It’s like you’re an apprentice and you’re being trained to take care, right, of everything. I never really thought about it that way.
Consuelo: Yeah, yeah. And so they’re very cautious. If something were to happen to you, what would happen to them? And that’s too scary because they’ve already felt like, “Oh, okay, I’m going be okay now. I finally made it. I have someone else who can read the papers,who can write the checks”.
Ana: Yeah. They never had to worry about that, ever. And, I’m sure it was Sandy, the same thing. I am the family 411.
Consuelo: Do you ever consider if you had met when you were 15, 16, when everything was more like, “Oh my gosh, there’s no one like me?” Do you think you would have the same, amazing, kind of sisterhood of friendship? Would it have been the same?
Ana: You know, it’s funny because I think we’ve had this conversation, um, and we’ve done the parallel story. So, at 15 I met my husband and at 15 she was going to France.Ddifferent,
Consuelo: Oh!
Ana: Yeah, two different paths. Yeah. She was an exchange student. Complete opposite.
What we realize is like you will eventually connect with, with who you’re supposed to connect with.
Um, but to answer your question, I think we would. Maybe I wouldn’t have gotten married, you know, because she had a different way of thinking. For me it was, you’re gonna stay home.
It was never even thought of that I would go away out of the house unless I was going to get married. It was in that frame of mind. Right.
So, for me to go to overseas is to go, um, explore and learn a different language. It was just to go visit cousins and aunts in Spain.
She had a different, you know, mindset. Same age, but totally different paths.
Consuelo: Is that from the cultural heritage? Is that parenting of of your parents or is that just personalities or a little of both?
Sandy: We are all feminists in my family, the whole thing of getting married, you’re not leaving here until you get married. That was not a thing for me. My family was, no, no way. Like that’s not traditional family.
Ana: Most definitely.
Consuelo: Oh, okay. So you were adopting the parental influence. I had that same influence. I wasn’t allowed to go out and be alone. Even in my thirties.
Ana: Yes.
Sandy: My, my family. Education, Education, education, education, education. That was it. Like there’s no.
Consuelo: Yeah.
Ana: My dad said education, right? He wanted me to be educated. He wanted me to, to go and do the big things, but he didn’t want me to explore too much outside, like it wasn’t even an idea. I would’ve never thought in a wild dream that I would go to a foreign country , on my own; that was not going to happen.
So for me, the education component came after I got married . Then I went really hard on, “okay, I need to do something”. And it wasn’t so much because that’s what was instilled in me, but it was more because now I had a little human that was looking up to me. And so I, I’m like, I gotta hurry up and get my education.
So, that’s when I went full force. But, by then I wasn’t gonna be able to go to a foreign country to learn a different language or, you know, be a, an exchange student. I was now had responsibility. So yes, it was a very different frame of mind. I like to say I took the scenic route.
And, as we’re developing these, these trips, I said we have a very specific mission for the women.
For us, it’s also, we’ve met a lot of our friends that haven’t traveled outside of the states because they don’t know where to even begin. And being that Sandy and I have our background with what we’ve done and the fact that we will figure it out, we may not know everything, but we will figure it out.
And that we can bounce off of each other wherever I’m short, she’ll come in. And vice versa. It’s that we want to be able to put these trips together where women can go and have a transformational journey.
I don’t like to call us as tourists. We’re all travelers, we’re all on a journey at different stages, but nonetheless, we’re traveling and when we travel, we experience and if we can just have an opportunity to remove the many hats that we all wear, just to be you, that in itself is transformational.
And so, we’re putting together, we’re creating things that we know that we enjoy, that we want to share with other women is how we put our, our packages together. They’re very detailed, they’re very specific. Um, but we always know that the core of it is that each of those trips is going to be able to sponsor a young Latina to go, and have that experience at a much younger age, 40 years, you know, younger than what I did.
To me, it’s very fulfilling and serves my, passion, my purpose, and I know Sandy feels the same way.
Sandy: You know, the thing about the women trips is that through our voyage through womanhood, Ana and I have bonded with other women. We used to work out together in a group of women. They were Latina women and you know, we used to go work out, not so much because we wanted to work out, but it was that Saturday to have cafecito, talk at “Hey girl”, and then somebody would, you know, bust down crying because her husband was cheating on them and we’re like, “Girl, it’s going be okay.
The bonding and the being able to release whatever you have inside you because you can’t share it with your sisters or you can’t share it with your mom or your comadre, whatever the reason is. Sometimes you just need some type of bonding with women outside of your circle, and for someone to say, “Girl, we hear you”.
I went through the same thing. I know what exactly how that feels. And it has some kind of validation that what you’re feeling and this moment in your life is okay.
This is about you we’re mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, bosses.
We have so many roles, but, when you really think about it, when do you really get a time to take care of yourself? It’s rare. No one stops and says, “Ana, how are you feeling today?” No, you know.
Consuelo: Let me do that so you don’t have to.
Ana: Exactly, exactly.
Sandy: Our trips are going to be, not hop on, hop off the bus, you know, try to get in eight things and one day, check it off the list.
We want to make sure that we see things that are gonna be important, life changing, transformational, immerse inside the culture, talk to the neighbors, talk to the people.
Just feel, and then it really does help you put things into perspective that, “Hey, my life is not that bad.
Consuelo: You’re talking about different groups of women. Some are in their teens.You’re wanting to sponsor the Latinas to go sooner than later because you can really expand and take these life skills that they’re learning at a really young age to a bigger place if you have that kind of exposure. And then, you’re talking about women who have maybe already had families and are finally able to be free and take off.
How do you see those different experiences in joining your travel groups? Or, are they different?
Ana: I think they’re going be different, but there’s going be a lot of similarities because, like me, when I see my daughter, and I think of the 18 year old Ana, how was she? How would you talk to her?
My message is very different now because I didn’t have someone that I could look up to that could tell me it’s going to be okay.You’re going to get through, you’re going to… you’re going to go on to become whatever you decide to become. Just because of what you’re going through at this moment does not define the rest of your life. I wish someone would’ve said that.
So within this group that’s traveling altogether, the young Latinas have mentors, supporters in the women joining in the travel group. And the women then, what should they expect in the travel?
Ana: We have the older women that, you know, sometimes there’s just that imposter syndrome that they hold onto and they doubt everything. I always say everybody needs a Sandy. Everybody needs a Sandy no matter what.
Consuelo: Be careful, Sandy.
Ana: Be careful.
Consuelo: We’re all showing up for Thanksgiving.
Ana: But that’s the thing it’s like, and Sandy will say, you know, she’s like,
Sandy: I have imposter syndrome too.
Ana:But when she’s feeling it, then I’m there to tell her like, “No, no, no”. You know, what I want to just make sure is that they all have impact. That they all feel that they’re of value. That their life has meaning there.
Doesn’t matter where you’re starting. And so it’s never too late. That’s the message. It’s not too late. Take off your hat, the million hats that you wear, for just a moment in time and experience who you are.
How many titles can we have? We have a lot. Right? But, when you take off that hat and then you think about who is Ana? You can’t do that. When you’re surrounded by doing all the other things you have to do. You have to do it in a place where it’s quiet and that you can just really take everything out and just be you in your own comfortable place.
So that’s the message for both. That’s why I don’t think that there’s, there’s big of difference. It’s just in how we deliver.
We’re building our own table. And this is what two peacocks travel is. There’s no room at that table. We’re going to build our own table.
Consuelo: Mm. Okay. Okay. I feel like that we have three utopias.
And that first one is, easy and hard because in one regard, you know exactly what to do. You go to second grade, third grade, 10th grade, you just do. And yeah, there’s a lot to learn along the way, but you know where you’re supposed to go.
And, in the second one, you know, when you’re coming into that adulting and you’re crafting, “Okay, what is my life going to look like?”
Even if that life you thought you were going have, Like, uh, me and Sandy gets totally like blown up
You still are learning, learning, learning, but it, you know, it’s, it’s on your own terms, but it’s still within a parameter of, “I’m taking care of my parents, I’m taking care of my children, I’m doing my career”. And, it’s still in this sense of this is where you have to be.
But it’s only in the third utopia when you move away from having to be anything for family and there are no parameters. There is nothing saying you have to be anywhere. And the joy of women to see that you have this to offer them a place to go be them,the freedom to be them without anybody related or anybody they may know saying, “What are you doing? Why are you acting like that? Why do you have to be that way?”
Ana: Right.
Consuelo: Oh, that, that’s exciting. That is really exciting for, for having to wait a lifetime to go do that, and then being told at the same time, when you’re 15 or 16, this is what you should always be doing life.
Sandy: Yeah. This, you should always be able to be you.
So let’s take a minute just to remind our listeners, and for the new listeners to let you know what we typically do. We’re going to have all the information mentioned here on the.
Of how to contact our guest and their website and their social media. So in this case, two peacocks travel. All this information will be linked in our show notes on whatever streaming platform you use to listen to this podcast. And also they will be on our website@thelinks.com. That’s l n. And there you’ll also find the transcript of this episode as well as the article that we provide to really consolidate what Two Peacocks Travel is all about and who Sandy and Ana are, and the importance of having a travel company specifically, for Latinas and all women of color.
This is where to immerse yourself in your culture rather than just being another tourist in that country. So just wanted to put that in there.
It’s beautiful that you are providing this opportunity for the young Latina women to just like, You know what? Let’s, let’s go renew hope, renew faith, Immerse yourself in a culture, um, that has that same core of, a heartbeat.
Where we, we love people. We want to take care of people. We enjoy living life large. Let’s listen to music. Let’s make the food, let’s just break in a dancing in a public place. If they are in a place where that happens, they are renewed. Renewed again in the life that can be and that they need to tap into because they don’t know if they were born here. They don’t know it’s in their blood, but, they need to see it living out loud in a culture.
Sandy:: We are straddling, right? We’re straddling on these two cultures. We’re American. You know, we’re Latin American. I love the food, but I want, I love my cheeseburgers. It’s hard. It’s hard to juggle.
You go to Mexico, they’re like, “You’re American. You could tell”. You come to the United States, they’re like, “Okay, where are you from?” because you’re not, you know, Caucasian. You know, you’re not filling in the norm, I guess, of what American is.
So, we’re struggling identity every single day. But it’s okay to be you because as we see, Bad Bunny is telling everybody that, you know, you wish you were Latino so you can have some sazon.
But for me, I, I, love the fact that now being like Latino is definitely more accepted.
When we were growing up, being Latino was not something that people were trying to tell the world. I mean, it’s not that we could hide it. Ana, she couldn’t take her food to school because she was going be ostracized. She was going be talked about because she was taking, you know, yucca or platanos, or whatever her food was.
Consuelo: Did you take tripe? I took it. I love it.
Sandy: Tripe! Right? El taco de tripa.
Ana: No, that that food we ate at home.
Sandy: Yeah. And now it’s definitely more acceptable. You know, I see somebody walking with the shirt that says, ‘Proud to be Salve. I’m like, Damn. It’s proud to be Salve! Right?
I love the fact that now it’s so open. You can be yourself. And if you don’t like it, then don’t listen to bad. That’s it, that’s the, that’s the cutoff right there. You know, I, I love it. And, and this generation is definitely more free to be who they want to be and be successful at the same time.
Consuelo: Yeah, yeah. There’s a lot more accessibility and opportunity an an increase in the population, for sure. That’s why in the podcast it really emphasize for all the first gen, second gen, you know, have come for hundreds of years that they keep the culture.
Okay. You may not understand why you personally would be living the culture, like taking your foods to lunch or, you know, doing certain traditions or whatever it, and it may not resonate with you in a comfort level for whatever age you’re at, but, if there’s some aspect of you that you’re living the culture out loud and recognizably, think about the comfort you’re providing for another first generation person coming and they can say, “Oh my gosh, I can relate to you.I, I understand like there’s something from my home. There’s something from home that makes me feel good that you’re here”.
Ana: You know, Consuelo. I always took care of everything. There’s a problem? Ana, takes care of it to this day.
And I’ve been doing that since I was little. And to see that I found somebody else that does the same thing, I’m like, “Wow, there’s another person just like me”. But what I’m realizing in first gen, collectively, the more the stories I hear, I’m like, “Oh, there’s more of me. Like there’s, it’s not just me”.
Like we have these responsibilities and our next generation does not.
Sandy: We’ve traveled together. Our families are very close. Her, her daughter, my son are very close in age. Every party. Um, we’ve done a lot of self-development together. We’ve done workouts together, we’ve grown together. You know, I wanna say that the people that we were when we met are not the same women we are today.
Ana:Like she says, her mom lives with her. My mom lives with me. It’s having various generations in one household, as you can imagine. It’s not always the easiest things, you know, to get up and go to dinner, to get up, to go to vacation, you have to plan these things. And guess who does that? We do.
Consuelo: Yeah.
Sandy: Yes. And, my grandmother actually lived here also with me until she passed away. So, I was responsible for two generations, my grandmother, my mother, and my son. So, I had three at one point. So, but you know, it comes with a territory, right? People are like, Oh, but that’s normal. Does anybody ask, How the hell do you do it?
Consuelo: Right?
Sandy: Oh, I don’t know. But she makes it happen. That’s, that’s, that’s it, you know, And I had told my son a story, so at one point I used to live by UCLA. My mom lived in East LA. My grandmother lived in West LA . My grandmother would call me and say, “Puedes venir? El remote no sirve.” “Can you come over? The remote control doesn’t work.”
I had to get in my car drive.
Consuelo: Oh!
Sandy: So, I had to up tape her remote control in a way where she wouldn’t touch the other buttons because it was just like… And my son’s like, “You go?” Like, absolutely!
But these other responsibilities were first gen, right? We have to do these things because they look to us. And, of course, it comes with all the factors of, “I’ve given up so much”, “I left my home”, “I’m here”, “I provided”.
I could not leave my home, which is the United States. Go live in a foreign country. Well, I can’t say I couldn’t do it. I’m sure I figured it out because I figured everything else out. But when it comes to it. Right? How hard it is. The transition would be, you know, very, very hard.
So yes, I’m very sympathetic to all that. Um, my role in my life and my career has always been to help people anywhere
Consuelo: This is more than a friendship. Your relationship validates all you’ve gone through as First Gen Latinas, and continue to do as you become mothers and grandmothers.
That’s a powerful cultural presence for generations.
Ana: Absolutely. You, Consuelo, we have to say thank you to you for providing this platform because we’ve never had, or we’ve never seen, where you can actually describe and, and people understand what we’re talking about. Right? So even though my dad, you know, I think he did the assimulation to kind of protect us because back when he came it was frowned upon really bad.
So, Spanish was at home, English was at school. But I appreciate what they did. My parents came here for a better life. And so, for me, I am determined to show them their sacrifice was not in vain. But now, how do we pass it over to the next generation,?
Like, what you were saying right now, my children to understand, you know. And, one of the things that I want to do for them is I have one of my dad’s first pay stubs where he was making a dollar, I wanna say a dollar 92 an hour.
If that doesn’t show them the sacrifice. And, you know, things were different, but I, I appreciate what they taught us.
Right. And, you know, I can laugh now that I, I ate, you know, Ham and cheese sandwiches for eight years and a Tang juice and Fritos because I wouldn’t eat anything else at school. Right. But now for my kids to know that they can eat whatever they want, whenever they want, and the beauty that they have, both the Spanish and the Mexican, you know, I’m on the look for someone that has the same background because I’ve never met anyone.
But it’s being able to intertwine too. The both. And like Sandy said, you know, you go to Mexico, “You’re American”, you go to Spain, they’re like, “You’re Mexican”. I go to to Mexico and they’re like, “You’re, you’re American”. I’m like, “So what am I?”
So, for you to provide this platform to be able to say like, you are who you are and the freedom to just speak and not be criticized or, you know, frowned upon.
So, thank you. This is a huge, huge effort on your part to be able to give the voice and, and spread the voice. And so we, we really do appreciate that.
Consuelo: Oh, thank you. Thank you. I really, I’m grateful for that because sometimes I sit there and I, I doubt myself, just like any, anything else we do, especially as women.
Ana: Don’t worry, call us.
Consuelo: (Laughter) I think my husband is going to block your numbers from my phone. He knows. He knows. I’ll just tell you, I am like you both.
I am like Sandy in that, I just say, “Hey, we’re gonna go do this”. And my husband’s like, “How?” It’s like, “I don’t know. I’ll figure out when we get there. Let’s just go”.
And, but then I’m also like Anna, where it’s like, okay, this is how it’s done, Da da da da da. And if we do that, that means this happens, dah, dah. And then when we…
Ana: Yeah,
Consuelo: I just really hope that women, want to share their story and I just wanted to provide, not only the platform for it to be heard, but to feel validated.
Validated that yes, what you thought you went through. Yes you did.
Ana: Yes, you did.
Consuelo: And it was that hard and it was that wicked. And you are beautiful
and you are the goddess.
Sandy: And, you can cry.
Consuelo: And yeah, and, and you can know that it takes this lifetime of really trying to understand not only your own personality, but all the ancients that are pulsing within you.
And then trying to capture the culture that was disconnected by coming here to the U.S. All of it. It’s, it’s huge and it’s a lifelong learning. And having, again, the opportunity to travel with you two, to a place where that might light that fire up, if it was ever put on hold or just add the gasoline now, while it’s firing fully for the young Latinas. That’s so exciting. That’s so exciting.
So how would people find to join you on these trips?
Ana: Well, we’re on social media. Um, we’re on Instagram. It’s at Two Peacocks Travel, but it’s two underscore peacocks underscore travel. We also have our website, www.twopeacockstravel.com.
Sandy: Oh on Instagram, we have a link to our Link Tree, and it has the links to our upcoming trips, the one to Spain, the one to Cuba, um, and then some other stuff that’s coming up. You know, we’re thinking about putting together also a blog of our travels and the newsletter so people can be up to date on what’s happening.
Ana: We’re all part of the, We All Grow Amiga Networks.
Consuelo: Oh, That’s true.
Ana: That’s how I found you.
Consuelo: That we all grow. I give a shoutout for, for that and Ana Flores and like, oh my Lord, for understanding the power of connection.
Ana: Yes. Huge power. And I think about like how many other women that we can all be in the same circle and understand each other. We’re speaking the same language. We, we can validate each other.
So it’s really important, platforms like this. So, Consuelo, big shout out to you. You know, because you’re putting it into action. We can talk about it. No, no, but you, you know, that’s one thing. That’s what we talk about. We can do a lot of talking, but we have to do massive action. And you’re doing that.
Sandy: Yes.
Consuelo: Thank you. I get emotional. Yeah. I do want to cry.
AnaL But, that’s okay. That’s because it’s coming from your heart.
Sandy: It’s not easy.
Conseulo: But, this is also the joy.
It’s just something that if you use your brain, everything about what I’m doing right now with the podcast and the time of everything going on in my life, the brain would say, “You cannot do this. Wait until X, Y, Z happens. You have to have this, you have to have that”.
And I, and just teaching that to again, the Latina women, like it’s never going to be the perfect time. It’s never, you just have to do what comes from your soul. Like you two. You have to do what comes from your soul because your brain, we have been trained for the brain to talk us out of it.
Sandy: Oh, yes.
Consuelo: With all the fear that we have been raised in the brain is like warning, warning, warning rather than, rather than, the soul saying, “Oh, I want to go travel by myself”. And the brain’s like, “Oh, tick, tick. Oh, this is how we’re going to do it”, you know? Instead, we’ve been raised in an environment where it says, “No, it’s dangerous. No, you can’t”.
Sandy: So, when you’re having doubts, Consuelo, you just have to call us.
Ana: Just call us.
Consuelo: Seriously. This is where the, the phone number’s going to flash across the bottom of the screen on the podcast, like 1, 8, 8, 8, … (immense laughter)
Let’s get into the cafecito places. We love our small businesses. We love our Latino small businesses, and we love our cafecito. So, we focus on giving a shout out to our favorite cafecito places, regardless of where it is. So, we like to give a shout out. We include them in our show notes, in our, in our website.
Does anyone have a favorite cafecito place?
Ana: Well, you know, you said anywhere in the world. When you go somewhere, the first thing is where do we have cafectio? And so, one of the things that we were doing in Cordova is, Sandy and I, would leave, everybody would stay home, and we’d go to the corner and there was Bar Miguelito and you sit down and you have your cafe.
Every afternoon. That’s what we did. Having cafecito is one thing, right? But when you’re having it at a whole other level of a different country and you’re just people watching, that’s a whole other ballgame.
Um, but, you know, to, to really want to give, shout out to someone who’s local here. Sandy and I, we normally, we, do our work from anywhere. So , we went to Cafe Soñé and it’s in Huntington Beach, right Sandy?
Sandy: Yes, yes.
Ana: Huntington Beach. Um, and she’s also from, We All Grow Amigas. We found her on there and it’s this really cute coffee shop, the setup. I love it because you don’t expect it.
We were walking around looking for like your regular storefront. It’s a little garage that they opened up, but they made the home into a storefront. And so you have, and it’s like nostalgic, you go back into time because they have all these records. The old school records from 1960, 1950, 1970, and you can just browse through there and they make, um, their coffee.
It’s, um, I believe, if I’m not mistaken, comes from Oaxaca and all their syrups are homemade. So we sat there and we did business there. We were chit chatting with, with the owner, and we were meeting other people.
So Cafe Soñé, Huntington Beach, for us was, you know, our recent find that is, it’s a great gem that we definitely will be going back.
Consuelo: Oh, that sounds amazing. Amazing.
Oh ladies, oh my Lord, what a blessing to really get to know you as real people, individual, true to yourselves, women and your journeys and the journeys of your families.
Because, that is so important to understanding each other; understanding how we all got here and, and like you say, Ana and, and Sandy, honoring the struggles that our parents went through, giving up everything they knew to come here and doing right by that. But, doing it with joy and adding that joy into the next generation.
So, thank you very, very much. Congratulations on all of your life, especially this new endeavor together with a beautiful blessing to have that friendship.
You couldn’t have planned this younger in your life to know that you would’ve met someone that would be your sister, and that you were going to do this amazing adventure that you have as a business.
Like, that’s is everybody’s hope and joy, But, oh, so proud of you. So thank you very much for being on the podcast. Thank you for sharing both your stories and your expression of joy to embrace the young generation and give them that platform to explore the world.
Ana: Thank you, It was a, it was an honor. Thank you.
Sandy: Thank you. It was such a pleasure. We look forward to seeing you soon.
Ana: Yeah, we have to meet at some point in person.
Consuelo: Oh, I am, I am trying to figure out how I’m going to be in southern California sooner than later. Let me tell you.
Sandy: Yeah!
Step into your truth, ladies. Ciao.
[Outro]
