“Once I started speaking out against white supremacy … I was pushed out hard.”
Che Guerrero on the cost of his undocumented dreams. PLUS scroll to the end so we can send you (free) Know Your Rights stickers
For the past few months, Che Guerrero’s online posts have been responses to some of the most horrendous, racist content on the internet. It was wondering how Che balances his own mental health while still keeping viewers informed that drove us to schedule this interview. In our final portion of this conversation, Che describes how he prioritizes his mental health and the literal cost of his unfulfilled, undocumented dreams.
PLUS: Scroll to the bottom to get free Know Your Rights stickers:
ANTERO GARCIA: For the last several months, your Instagram and TikTok content has focused on explaining and analyzing really awful news articles and clips. I’m curious about where you find the sources that you end up sharing. And, more importantly, isn't it tiring and traumatizing to just constantatch violent, racist shit all the time as part of your job? Do you worry about that impact that this stuff has on you?
CHE GUERRERO: When I open up my TikTok or IG, I have probably 100 people who send me messages tagging me on things and being like, "Hey, check this out. Check this new story out."
So I spend about an hour looking through everything that people have sent me, and finding my pitch. Whenever I find something that I know I can talk about it in a way that is insightful, it is educational and it's also something that draws me in. I find something that’s important to me. I don't know what's going to be important to other people, but I find something that is important to me.
Then I spend the next hour researching. I look to see if major publications have actually talked about this. I then see who was the original poster. Can I contact them? What happened?
I do as much research as I can and I could keep going forever, but there’s a certain point where I have my sources. I also have an idea of what the story is because I don't like to just talk about, "Oh, a white person burned down a Puerto Rican restaurant and took out the whole neighborhood." It is also about white supremacy and the way they feel so emboldened to do this. I look at the macro instead of the micro, because if you get lost every day in the little things, you lose track of the big picture.
Now, I used to wake up and just go straight to my phone. I cannot do that anymore. What I have started to do is in the mornings, I wake up and I read. I read every morning. I read 10 to 20 pages a day of a book. Right now, I'm reading Freedom to the South about Texas and how it was stolen from Mexico and how that happened. I just finished Defectors.
AG: Defectors can't be good for your mental health either, but I hear you!
CG: Yeah, but it was still good to learn and read. So I start with that and this is going to sound arrogant to say, but I don't trust anybody who doesn't read. These TikTokers who put out stuff every day, I'm like, "I know you don't read and that's why I don't trust you."
And I'm not just talking about reading news articles. You need to read history, learn how things got here. So I read every day to make sure that I stay on top of what's happening globally in a more historical context. Then I journal. I put five pages down every day in my journal. So I have my feelings out. Then I meditate. I meditate anywhere from five minutes some mornings to 20 minutes to really get my mind right. Then after doing one TikTok, I put the phone down and I get to other work. I'm lucky. I'm fortunate enough that I can write standup jokes. I'm trying to do a one-person show. I'll branch out to other things. I have a day job. I'll get to working on that.
Then at lunch, I'll do it again, where I'll look through the media, see what people have tagged me in, redo that. I started playing basketball after Trump won. I never picked up a basketball in my life, and now I can make three pointers like there's no tomorrow. I'm like, "Man, I'm pretty good at this." Then I'll go shoot around a little bit or whatever, come back and I make a third video. I do not make more than three videos a day because there are people like Carlos Espina who made 20 videos in one day and at the end of the day, he made a video crying. He was like, "I'm mentally worn out."
AG: Yeah, of course he’s worn out.
CG: Bro, don't do that. You were all day making videos. That's not healthy. I am not the only news source out there. I will make three, and then I will walk away. I urge people to take time off. I shut my phone down at 8:00 PM. And then I watch a goofy-ass comedy because I'm like, "I need to just unplug.” You have to take your mental health break. It's going to be a long four years."
You have to take your mental health break. It's going to be a long four years.
Antero Garcia: It's going to be a very long four years. My last question for you relates to the name of this publication. La Cuenta refers to the invisible costs incurred by the undocumented community. If you could reflect your life experiences in the U.S. from coming here at six to the present day, could you name something you could put on a bill to United States related what it cost you to be undocumented?
CG: I hope this isn't arrogant. It is the bill of my dreams. You’ve got to realize, when I was undocumented, nobody knew. I was brought into MTV. They wanted me on GEICO. I was brought into Viacom to create TV shows. I know Pete Davidson and I know Michael Che, I -
AG: I assume that’s who you’re named after, Michael Che.
CG: Yeah, Michael Che. I was like, "He's famous. I’ll take 50% of what he has. He owes me something." [laughs]
There are so many celebrities that I started careers with and I saw how much when I was playing the game, my career was moving in the direction of everything I wanted. But once I started speaking out against white supremacy and the way right-wingers had taken over comedy, I was pushed out hard. So I think they owe me $10 million for the Netflix special that they never gave me.
I had somebody go, "That's why they'll never give it to you, because they know that if they gave you that money, you're just going to use it to actually help people and they're never going to give it to someone who's selfless."
Once I started speaking out against white supremacy and the way right-wingers had taken over comedy, I was pushed out hard. So I think they owe me $10 million for the Netflix special that they never gave me.
Propina
We want to thank Che for sharing his time with us. If you missed the first two parts of this interview, you can find them here:
We have printed a new batch of Know Your Rights stickers.
This is the same info as the red cards being circulated but printed as a sticker so they can be placed next to a door, on a laptop, on a water bottle, or wherever you can have it rapidly accessible. We made these bigger than the last batch and if you want some mailed to you (for free), let us know using this form.
Related, we’re re-sharing the digital versions of this information, in case you’d like to use it as a wallpaper for your phone:
We’ll see you next week.