I refused to watch the inauguration this afternoon,” Ricardo Gamboa said in the monologue of the very first episode of The Hoodoisie back on January 20, 2017. “Not to protest, but fear of lack of self-control. Donald Trump talks so much shit out of his puckered lips that look like a rectum, I was afraid I’d charge the television and try to fuck it.”
Gamboa and their team took a break from the show this summer to reassess what topics to focus on in the future and to apply for funding to continue growing their vision. The Hoodoisie comes out of hiatus on August 18 with a show focusing on technology and autonomy (the location of that show has yet to be announced), a $25,000 grant from the Voqal Foundation to support future shows, and plans for a one-day anti-gentrification summit in September.
“I’m Mexican-American in a country where Mexican-Americans account for less than 2 percent of all PhD holders,” Gamboa says. “I’m finishing my doctorate right now, and it is unfair. I could cry right now thinking of all the smart people in my life who are just never going to get there. The obstacles for them to get there are so unfair. When I think about that stuff it’s like, because I got access to this specific knowledge in this course, it’s not like I got smarter. Part of what I do know is, if I’m one of the 2 percent, it’s my job to generalize that knowledge as much as possible.”
Soon after, Kisslinger approached Gamboa to ask how he could get involved. He now serves as a producer on the show. Each of the 16 or so members of the collective who make up the rotating panel has a similar story: many started out as audience members or guests on the show and wanted to become even more involved. For some, that meant being given, perhaps for the first time, an opportunity to speak on issues that are important to them, For others, like frequent social justice speaker Xavier Ramey, it meant being given a platform to be more candid.
The “tea time” panels in particular provide an opportunity for people to discuss things beyond their formal area of expertise. Hoodoisie collective member Hilda Franco works with the Chicago Public Schools and other education programs. But she’s also been directly affected by gentrification. Franco was born and raised in Pilsen. As an adult, she saw her parents forced out of the neighborhood; they now live in Florida. Meanwhile Franco is still in Chicago doing her best to stay in Pilsen and maintain the culture of the neighborhood. She struggles with trying to figure out the best way to address the issue from the front lines.
“We’re working on creating alternative ecologies that don’t just allow us to survive but to really flourish, and we don’t know what they could look like,” Gamboa says. “People cry during the episodes, [but] we also get drunk during the episodes. We need to be experimental and playful with what they look like. Forcing each other to play also forces us to remind us of our own humanity. [When] you have a Puerto Rican political prisoner being able to make jokes, it changes the conversation.”
