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. They had big muscles, supermodel good looks, and phenomenal cosmic powers. And me? I kind of looked like this, except shorter and with frizzier hair, and I never felt powerful. 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. So I stayed away. And besides, who needs superheroes when you're surrounded by Puerto Rican women from the Bronx?
Nikad nisam pomislila da će superjunaci postati tako velikim dijelom mog života. Kao dijete sam ih gledala i vidjela sve ono što ja nisam. Oni su imali velike mišiće, izgled kao u supermodela i fenomenalne svemirske moći. A ja? Izgledala sam ovako, samo sam bila niža i kovrčastije kose te se nikad nisam osjećala moćnom. Uvijek sam bila samo klupko nervozne i nježne energije, a superjunaci, baš kao školski nasilnici, naizgled nisu imali mjesta za mene. Tako da sam ostala podalje. Osim toga, tko treba superjunake kad ste okruženi Portorikankama iz Bronxa?
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
My tías were cops and paramedics, my abuelas were seamstresses and sold jewelry up the street, and my mom got her master's degree in education and taught kindergarten in New York City public schools for over 30 years. So my superheroes were sitting around the dinner table with me.
Moje su tete bile policajke i bolničarke, moje bake krojačice i prodavačice nakita na ulici, a moja je mama diplomirala odgoj i obrazovanje te je podučavala u njujorškim javnim školama preko 30 godina. Tako da su moje superjunakinje sjedile za kuhinjskim stolom sa mnom.
And I don't know how much time 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 and I'd listen to the women in my family tell these wild, rambunctious tales about navigating their lives in the Bronx. And I wanted to be them so bad. But I wasn't tough like them either. So mostly, I listened, and I soaked it in, and I found myself gravitating to the soft threads in their stories, and I wrote those down. The funny, the goofy, the gentle -- those were my in to storytelling, so much so that I wrote a young-adult novel called "Juliet Takes a Breath," about a chubby, queer Puerto Rican girl from the Bronx navigating sexuality, family and identity. And on the strength of "Juliet," Marvel Comics tapped me to write the solo series for their first-ever Latina lesbian superhero, America Chavez.
Ne znam koliko ste vremena proveli s Portorikankama iz Bronxa, ali mi smo također među najboljim pripovjedačicama na svijetu. Sjedila bih tamo za bakinim kuhinjskim stolom i slušala bih žene iz svoje obitelji kako pričaju razuzdane priče o svojim životima u Bronxu. Jako sam htjela biti poput njih. No, nisam bila čvrsta poput njih. Tako da sam uglavnom slušala i upijala te sam se pronašla kako gravitiram prema mekim nitima njihovih priča, pa sam ih zapisala. Smiješno, budalasto, nježno - bili su moj ulazak u pripovijedanje i to toliko da sam napisala roman za mlade Juliet uzima predah, o bucmastoj lezbijki, Portorikanki iz Bronxa, koja istražuje seksualnost, obitelj i identitet. Zahvaljujući Juliet, Marvel Comics me izabrao da napišem solo seriju za njihovu prvu latinoameričku lezbijsku superjunakinju, Americu Chavez.
Yeah!
To!
(Cheers)
(Klicanje)
(Laughter) Listen, OK. Created by Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta for the Marvel miniseries "Vengeance," America Chavez has been in the Marvel Universe for over seven years. She's tough, Latina, and she's so strong that she can punch portals into other dimensions.
(Smijeh) Slušajte. Kreirali su je Joe Casey i Nick Dragotta za Marvelovu miniseriju Osveta pa America Chavez postoji u Marvelovom svemiru već više od sedam godina. Ona je čvrsta Latinoamerikanka i toliko je jaka da može odbaciti portale u druge dimenzije.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
I know, right?
Znam.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And people were so excited, because finally, someone who shared her identities -- queer and Latina -- would be writing her story. And I saw that, right? And also, when I looked at America, I saw a young Latina in survival mode. See, because her moms had sacrificed themselves to the universe when she was a kid, and she'd been on her own ever since. No wonder she had to be tough. And that link, that link of having to be tough, that rested heavy with me. 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. Don't cry. Don't let it get to you." And my mom and my tías and my abuelas, I never saw them take a moment to rest or to invest in self-care. And their soft? It never left the house.
Ljudi su bili uzbuđeni jer će konačno netko tko je dijelio njene identitete - lezbijke i Latinoamerikanke, pisati njenu priču. Uočila sam to. Također, kad sam pogledala Americu, vidjela sam mladu Latinoamerikanku kako preživljava. Jer njene mame su se žrtvovale svemiru kad je bila dijete pa je otad bila sama. Nije čudo da je morala biti čvrsta. A ta mi je povezanost preko potrebe da se bude čvrst ostala dugo na umu. Kao što rekoh, iz Bronxa sam, a Bronx je težak, kao prolaženje pokraj spomenika na pločniku i izbjegavanje policijskih tornjeva na putu prema vlaku. Kad se dogodi nešto loše, ljudi vam govore: "Moraš nastaviti, moraš se nastaviti kretati. Ne plači. Ne daj da te to dotuče." Moja mama, moje tete i bake, nikad ih nisam vidjela da uzimaju predah ili da ulažu u brigu o samima sebi. A njihove slabosti? Nikad nisu napustile kuću.
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: permission to be soft. Like, it's OK to sit in silence 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's OK, and that being vulnerable is good for us.
To sam prvo htjela dati Americi, ono što bih voljela da sam mogla dati svojim bakama i tetama, ono što pokušavam dati svojoj mami sad: dopuštenje da bude slaba. Da je u redu sjediti u tišini i otići na putovanje samo da biste otkrili sami sebe, da ćete se zbog boli raspasti i pasti pa ćete trebati zamoliti ljude za pomoć, i to je u redu, da je ranjivost dobra za nas.
But see, I didn't come to all this compassion and healing stuff like, you know, out of nowhere, and so when it came to America's story, I wanted to give her the space to be human, to mess up, and to find soft on her own.
No, nisam došla do svog tog suosjećanja i iscjelivanja niotkud, tako da, kad se radi o Americinoj priči, htjela sam joj dati prostora da bude ljudska, da pogriješi i da sama nađe svoje slabosti.
So she kind of had to quit her day job. You know what I'm saying? I had to give her a superhero sabbatical,
Tako da je morala dati otkaz na svom dnevnom poslu. Kužite? Morala sam joj dati superjunačku stanku
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
and the first thing I did was enroll her in Justice Sonia Sotomayor University.
pa sam je prvo upisala na Sveučilište sutkinje Sonije Sotomayor.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
Because where else would she feel safe and represented and liberated but a university dedicated to the first Puerto Rican woman nominated to the Supreme Court of the United States? And her first class is "Intergalactic Revolutionaries and You," and America is so excited, she's ready to show off her strength, she's ready to show off her portal-punching skills,
Gdje bi se drugdje osjećala sigurno, zastupljeno i oslobođeno, nego na sveučilištu posvećenom prvoj Portorikanki nominiranoj za Vrhovni sud Sjedinjenih Država? Njezin je prvi kolegij Intergalaktički revolucionari i vi, America je jako uzbuđena, spremna je pokazati svoju snagu, spremna je pokazati svoje vještine odbacivanja portala.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
and I stripped that safety net from her right away. And I limited her powers, and I changed up her location and shook up her world, because that is what college is like,
Odmah sam od nje uklonila tu sigurnosnu mrežu. Ograničila sam joj moći, promijenila sam joj lokaciju i prodrmala njen svijet jer takav je fakultet.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
especially if you're alone. But I didn't want America to be alone for long, and so in a homework assignment gone totally wrong, she lands on a battlefield with the X-Men.
Pogotovo ako ste sami. No, nisam htjela da America bude dugo sama pa je u zadatku koji je pošao krivo završila na bojištu s X-Menima.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Because, when I was in college, the Reverend Kelly Brown Douglas was my mentor, and I knew that America Chavez needed one, too. And who better to mentor America Chavez than Storm, the first black female superhero and one of the most powerful members of the X-Men? Nobody, that's who.
Jer kad sam ja bila na fakultetu, Velečasni Kelly Brown Douglas mi je bio mentor, a znala sam da ga i America treba. A tko bi bio bolji mentor Americi Chavez od Storm, prve crne superjunakinje i jedne od najmoćnijih članica X-Mena? Nitko.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And Storm teaches America how to quiet her mind inside of a star portal, and when America quiets her mind, she opens up the dimensions, and in that silence, she can listen for anything and anyone. And no one has ever offered her silence and deep reflection as a way to be powerful. And at first, she rejects it, but with Storm's encouragement, it clicks, and America quiets the world around her, and she leans into a deep vulnerability. I mean, her and Storm even hug. I know. And that's because my mentors loved me enough to encourage me to investigate myself and my ancestors, and when you're 19, how do you even know what that means? I didn't learn about the history of my people in college. I learned about the history of my people sitting on my grandmother's lap when she pulled out the photo album and she named everyone that was here and everyone still left on the island.
Storm uči Americu kako utišati um unutar zvjezdanog portala, a kad America utiša svoj um, otvara razne dimenzije i u toj tišini može slušati bilo što i bilo koga. Nitko joj nikad nije ponudio tišinu i duboko promišljanje kao način da bude moćna. Prvo to odbacuje, ali uz Stormino ohrabrenje to klikne pa America utiša svijet oko sebe i utone duboko u ranjivost. Ona i Storm se čak i zagrle. Znam. I sve to jer su me moji mentori voljeli dovoljno da me ohrabre da istražim samu sebe i svoje pretke, a kad imate 19, kako uopće znate što to znači? Nisam naučila o povijesti svojih predaka na fakultetu. Naučila sam o povijesti svojih predaka u bakinom krilu kad je izvadila fotoalbum i imenovala svakog tko je bio u njemu te svakog tko je još na otoku.
So obviously, I had to crash-land a grandma on America Chavez, and not just any grandma -- a big, strong, luchador grandma, one that loved her enough to take her to the ancestral plain, where America Chavez could see the history of her people play out in the skies above.
Dakle, očito sam morala prizemljiti baku Americe Chavez, i to ne bilo kakvu - veliku, snažnu i borbenu baku, koja je voli dovoljno da bi je odvela na ravnicu predaka, gdje America Chavez može vidjeti kako se povijest njenih predaka odigrava na nebesima iznad njih.
And America gets to see Planeta Fuertona, the birth planet of her grandmother, and she sees it get invaded, and she sees her grandmother and her mom flee. And she also sees the joy that they experience when their new homeland accepts them openly and offers them tremendous care. She gets to see great pain met with even greater compassion, and that's right alongside the tremendous strength of her family. And so everywhere that I could, right, I wrote her little love notes for her and for all the other queer kids of color trying to be magnificent. Like, when you lose yourself, dig deep into your ancestry, because you will find the pieces there.
America vidi planet Fuertona, matični planet njene bake, vidi invaziju na njega, vidi kako njena baka i mama bježe. Također vidi radost koju osjećaju kad ih nova domovina otvoreno prihvati i pokaže im veliku brigu. Vidi veliku bol uz još veće suosjećanje, odmah uz iznimnu snagu svoje obitelji. Tako da sam joj, svugdje gdje sam mogla, pisala male poruke ljubavi, njoj i svoj drugoj homoseksualno obojenoj djeci koja pokušavaju biti veličanstvena. Kad izgubite sami sebe, zavirite duboko u svoje pretke jer tamo ćete naći tragove.
And also, reminders that soft is not a pass to duck, to hide, to be silent, to cower. Soft is also a push to hold ourselves accountable. Kind of like when America lands in World War II and comes face-to-face with Hitler, and she knocks him the hell out ...
I također podsjetnike da slabost nije dopuštenje da izbjegavamo, da se skrivamo, da budemo tihi i da se povlačimo. Slabost je također poticaj da budemo odgovorni. Kao kad America završi u Drugom svjetskom ratu, suočava se s Hitlerom i nokautira ga sve u šesnaest...
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
just like Captain America did in 1941, and who knew we'd need America Chavez to punch Nazis in 2018.
Baš kao što je Kapetan Amerika napravio 1941. godine i tko je znao da ćemo trebati Americu Chavez da porazi naciste 2018. godine?
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
(Applause)
(Pljesak)
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And even that, that justified act kind of wrecks her a little bit, so I made sure that she linked up with her best friend, and they talk feelings and they go on a road trip and they sing "Just a Girl" by No Doubt at the top of their lungs.
Čak joj i taj opravdani čin pomalo našteti pa sam je spojila s njenom najboljom prijateljicom. Razgovaraju o osjećajima, idu na izlet i pjevaju "Just a Girl" No Doubta iz sveg grla.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
And when Midas, a sinister corporation, takes control of Sotomayor, threatens to ban portals and almost kills America ... her ancestors reach for her ... because they know that she needs to heal. And it is that burst of care, that healing, that gives her the fuel to defeat Midas and reclaim herself.
A kad Mida, zlokobna korporacija, preuzima kontrolu nad Sveučilištem, prijeti da će zabraniti portale i zamalo ubija Americu... njeni preci posežu za njom... jer znaju da treba zacijeliti. Ta joj nalet brige daje snagu da porazi Midu i da povrati samu sebe.
See, because that myth of having to go it alone and having to be tough ... doesn't serve us. America Chavez is a whole superhero, and she still needed a team of support to help her find herself. And she needed that gentleness, the type of gentleness that is rooted in compassion and still very much invested in justice and liberation. Because it's in that space where softness and vulnerability meet strength that we transcend our everyday selves, that we become something greater, something majestic, maybe even something super.
Taj nam mit, da moramo sve prolaziti sami i biti čvrsti, ne služi. America Chavez je cjelovita superjunakinja, a ipak je trebala podršku da pronađe samu sebe. Trebala je tu nježnost, tu vrstu nježnosti koja je ukorijenjena u suosjećanju, a ipak itekako posvećena pravdi i slobodi. Jer upravo tamo gdje slabost i ranjivost upoznaju snagu svakodnevno nadmašujemo sami sebe, postajemo nešto veće, nešto veličanstvenije, možda čak i nešto moćnije.
Thank you.
Hvala vam.
(Applause)
(Pljesak)