On this season finale episode of GITN2IT - We get very raw about how the deliberate kidnapping and disappearance of immigrants all across the United States is impacting us and our community. We are children of immigrants. We are also creatives with opinions, and from day 1 we vowed to use this platform to turn the volume UP for voices that need to be heard. We agreed that whatever happened in our world, we wouldn’t choose silence, we wouldn’t play the game of limiting how our stories land to make ourselves more digestible and easy to hear, it’s stand ten toes down with the truth or nothing. And this one might be a hard one to hear.
On June 6th 2025 we were enjoying an ordinary summer day in East LA, getting ready for a photoshoot by doing some thrift shopping with some friends. Traffic is a part of everyday life in LA, you just kinda know when and where to avoid driving during after school hours- but something was different today. The streets were lined with patrol cars, rows and rows of them headed to DTLA. I even thought to myself, did someone start a fire again? and thats when my friend got a text- “ ICE just hit Santee Alley get the f out of there come home.”
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided the DTLA garment district, detaining undocumented day laborers from their jobs and disappearing them into concentration camps. 40 days later, agents continue daily kidnappings all over Southern and Central California in what has now become one of the most violent attacks on human rights in American history.
This episode is about laughing through pain, embracing heartbreak, Latinx resilience, the LA community fighting back, and why it’s always a good time for you to pick up a camera/brush/keyboard etc to make art that documents your history!
We are dedicating this episode to THE goats of the creative world: immigrants and children of immigrants. This goes out to the indigenous baddies like us; to the future ancestors and all the new ones that sacrificed their lives for a chance at progress and a better life. It’s just a fact that immigrants are the cornerstone of entrepreneurship in every industry including ours. BUT their lives matter way more than just the labour they gift to keep this country alive and going.
I hope we don’t remember immigrants for simply being ‘hard-working folks’, but for being kind, brave, brilliant, complex, ambitious, deep-loving humans.
And you know what?
I would never be here if it wasn’t for immigrant love.
Kristel
Grab a tea , be brave, and let’s GITN2IT!
0:00 Justin Bieber is my subconscious talk 😶🌫️
1:30 at the gym, we elevate bro 🏋🏿♀️
4:00 Ally! let’s talk about 🧊 ice
5:45 Black and Brown u.n.i.t.y. 🤝🏽
7:10 Rodney King riot parallels 🪖
9:40 art is really important right now 📣
11:20 P and Kriz real talk ⚠️*trigger warning*⚠️ ❤️🩹❤️🩹
17:20 Willy Chavarria Paris fashion week 🥐
25:10 But remember Demna? ⚠️
27:45 the comments section: paying models 🫰🏽
30:40 being the first in spaces 🥇
33:20 Love Island: Latin sociology 101 🏝️
38:00 we all need to be like Amaya Papaya 🥭🍈
41:00 go live your own Love Island experience babe 🛫
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