Have you ever wanted a safe space where you can just exist?

Where for a moment in time you can be you with all the intricacies and parts of you that people don't always understand.

Welcome to In The Deep, stories that shape us.

I'm your host, Zach Stafford, and each episode we create a space to be you, all of you,

in all your messy and complicated glory.

Every story shares what it means to be a black and Latinx man living with different

hardships, whether it's the struggle of identity, discrimination, or health, and how they've managed to push forward despite the circumstance.

We hope to get closer, even if it's just a little, to a road of healing and understanding. Hi everyone, welcome back. Today's episode is all about the community I think most of us have, and that's the chosen family.

Sometimes life throws us in directions that we don't foresee,

and in some cases it leaves us in situations where we don't have our family unit,

either because circumstance has forced us to keep our distance,

or they've chosen not to stay.

But somewhere along the way, we start to create our own chosen tribe, hand-picked and

selected through shared experiences.

It's those friends that come up in the unexpected times, that first day of college,

that stressful day at work, or even a fun night out that are so special and crucial in the shaping of who we are.

Like some of us, our guest Anthony Delgado has a loving family, but along his own

journey to self-love and redemption, he had to rely on an unlikely chosen family,

one that helped him get through some tough times riddled with homelessness and addiction.

Anthony was born in Worcester, Massachusetts and remembers the good old days, the ones where people helped each other, took care of each other.

This original community is the one that shaped his formidable years, the one where he learned discipline before joining the military, and before things to the people. for and 12 of us in our family. I just appreciate it my brothers and sisters and the people

my neighborhood. It was a very back in those days the neighborhood was a neighborhood.

...