For Hector Flores, blending art, activism and political education on the Eastside and beyond is nothing new. He’s done it as a founding member of East LA-based band Las Cafeteras and as an organizer with InnerCity Struggle.
Now, Flores is taking on a new role as host of the National Immigration Law Center’s (NILC) podcast Freedom to Thrive. With this new platform, Flores said he’s been thinking about what it means to push himself beyond familiar spaces.
“I work in a bubble. I play in a bubble. I live in a bubble,” Flores told Boyle Heights Beat. “And so one of the things for me is how to, in these next four years, be intentional about growing outside of my comfort zone and really having conversations with different folks, different artists from different places and spaces.”
NILC, a leading organization dedicated to defending and advancing the rights of low-income immigrants, sees Flores as the right voice to help broaden conversations around immigration on the podcast.
Now in its second season, the show highlights Flores’s natural transition from community organizing to music to activism, establishing him as an authoritative voice with guests such as longtime organizer Dolores Huerta, comedian Mo Amer and author Efrén Olivares.
We spoke to Flores about his journey and what to expect this season. New episodes of Freedom to Thrive drop every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts.
This conversation has been edited for clarity and brevity.
You’ve been a longtime organizer, activist and artist. How does your background inform these conversations on the podcast and your activism today?
I’ve been involved with many different organizations over the last 20 years, around immigrant rights, gender justice, educational justice, both on the Eastside with InnerCity Struggle, but also just on the national level. And I feel like once I made the transition to music, I still had a lot of those relationships.
There’s such a potential and opportunity for music to have really positive social impacts. I’m really interested in that intersection of music, culture, politics and policy, because music and poetry and songs have a way to move the soul that just words don’t always get to do.
When they had approached me about [hosting] season two, I said, ‘Let’s do it. Let’s take it to the next level, and let’s continue to bring on artists who are not, quote, unquote, political, but are storytellers.’ And this time, what we want to do, is really elevate the idea of storytelling and the fact that we’re more similar than different.
How have your roots on the Eastside shaped your perspective on immigration and social justice issues?
I was born in East LA, grew up in the San Gabriel Valley, but I’m politically raised and trained in the Eastside and really understand the power of movements and organizing.
I volunteered with InnerCity Struggle in Boyle Heights for three years, fighting for new schools on the Eastside and learned about political education and culture. At the end, what I learned by knocking door-to-door and getting people involved is that folks just want to feel connected. We all want safe communities. We all want access to health care. Nobody wants to live in anxiety, paycheck to paycheck. Everybody wants a house. So those things are common whether you’re on the Eastside or anywhere else in the country.
Organizing is nothing but relationships— talking to people one-on-one, getting to know their hopes, their fears, and then finding where we connect more than where we disconnect. And that’s kind of been my mantra as an artist and now as a storyteller.
How do you see art and storytelling playing a role in immigration advocacy today?
Music has always been part of every movement and every cultural struggle. Whether you look at the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the Civil Rights Movement in the South or the pro-immigrant rallies in the last 10 years.
Politics, many times, can divide people. Music and art bring folks together. If you can bring people together and have people who come from different backgrounds, different socio-economic standings, different citizenship [status], it doesn’t matter.
Everybody on the dance floor is coming together to have a good time. And if we could do it on the dance floor, then we could do it in the neighborhood, state and country.
Who do you hope listens to this podcast, and what community impact do you expect to see?
I hope that people who listen to this are everyday folks who are trying to make sense of the times we’re living in now.
We’re trying to have conversations to figure out how to survive. How to laugh and fight back in these times. Because no matter where you are, you see that housing is unaffordable. You’re seeing grocery prices go up, you’re seeing gas go up. You’re seeing homelessness on the rise.
And we all know that this country has the potential to be an amazing, incredible space and place for everybody to live and thrive and have access to housing, health care and we’re not there and why. These conversations with folks, hopefully, are going to uncover that. So I’m really hoping that people just listen with an open mind and open heart. You’re going to laugh, sometimes you might get mad, you might cry, you might not agree with everything we say, and that’s okay.