Name: 【TED】Gabby Rivera: The story of Marvel's first queer Latina superhero (The story of Marvel's first queer Latina superhero | Gabby Rivera)
Uploaded: 2018-12-20T17:39:50.000Z
Duration: 11 min 17 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

At no point did I think superheroes would become such a huge part of my life.

As a kid, I looked at them, and I saw everything I wasn't.

I was always just one big ball of nervous, soft energy,

and superheroes, much like the bullies at school,

didn't seem to have a lot of room for that, for me.

when you're surrounded by Puerto Rican women from the Bronx?

my abuelas were seamstresses and sold jewelry up the street,

in education and taught kindergarten in New York City public schools

So my superheroes were sitting around the dinner table with me.

you've spent with Puerto Rican women from the Bronx,

but we're also some of the world's greatest storytellers.

And I'd sit there at my grandmother's dining room table

tell these wild, rambunctious tales about navigating their lives in the Bronx.

and I found myself gravitating to the soft threads in their stories,

so much so that I wrote a young-adult novel

about a chubby, queer Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx

navigating sexuality, family and identity.

Marvel Comics tapped me to write the solo series

for their first-ever Latina lesbian superhero,

Created by Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta for the Marvel miniseries "Vengeance,"

America Chavez has been in the Marvel Universe

and she's so strong that she can punch portals into other dimensions.

because finally, someone who shared her identities -- queer and Latina --

See, because her moms had sacrificed themselves to the universe

And that link, that link of having to be tough,

Like I said, I'm from the Bronx, and the Bronx is tough,

tough like walking past sidewalk memorials

and dodging cop towers on your way to the train type of tough.

When stuff happens that's bad, people are like,

"Yo, you gotta keep it moving. You gotta keep trucking.

I never saw them take a moment to rest or to invest in self-care.

And so that was the first thing that I wanted to give to America,

the thing that I wished I'd been able to give to my abuelas and my tías,

the thing that I'm trying to give to my mom now:

and go on a journey just to discover yourself,

and your pain will make you crumble and you will fall

and you will need to ask people for help,

and that being vulnerable is good for us.

But see, I didn't come to all this compassion and healing stuff

I wanted to give her the space to be human, to mess up,

So she kind of had to quit her day job. You know what I'm saying?

I had to give her a superhero sabbatical,

and the first thing I did was enroll her in Justice Sonia Sotomayor University.

Because where else would she feel safe and represented and liberated

but a university dedicated to the first Puerto Rican woman

Subtitles ListPlay Video

【TED】Gabby Rivera: The story of Marvel's first queer Latina superhero (The story of Marvel's first queer Latina superhero | Gabby Rivera)

tough

vulnerability

tremendous

compassion