Identity, Language and Community Through Video Games

Latino USA

My Cultura, Futuro and iHeartPodcasts

Society & Culture

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 13 December 2022

⏱️ 21 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

After a challenging experience as a computer science major, Samantha fell in love with making video games. But more than the technical aspects of video games, she is interested in storytelling. Now, Samantha works as a game writer and narrative designer to develop the ways a player experiences the story of the game. And she’s bringing her Mexican and Puerto Rican heritage to the video games she creates. Because, for the most part, the stories of people like Samantha have not been told in video games.

In this episode of Latino USA, Samantha shares her journey of finding her way into the video game industry and the joys of bringing her whole self to the games she creates.

Transcript

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0:00.0	I'm Maria Inojosa, and I am Penileira Mides.
0:03.0	And on this new series, we're going to get to know the most powerful Mexican government
0:08.6	official ever to face trial in the US for his alleged ties to the infamous drug lord, El
0:15.4	Chappo.
0:16.4	But this is not your regular narco story.
0:19.3	It's like true crime, myths, telenovela.
0:22.6	This is our new series, USA versus García Luna.
0:27.1	Find it whatever you get your podcasts and at futuroinvestigates.org.
0:34.1	Being a woman in STEM, being Latina, it felt really isolating.
0:46.2	I was one of a handful of women in my year, and it felt like every year the women were
0:52.6	put against each other in comparison, and it was hard to find connections with people
0:58.4	when you're constantly being pushed to compete.
1:02.6	From futuro media and PRX, it's Latino USA, I'm Maria Inojosa.
1:10.8	Today Samantha Ortiz, Untelling Personal Stories Through Video Games.
1:22.9	Samantha Ortiz thinks about her childhood often.
1:27.0	It's the everyday smells around her that triggers certain memories, especially those at her
1:32.9	grandparents' houses.
1:34.6	Do you ever smell a perfume or a certain scent and it just takes you back?
1:41.4	I have that with a specific perfume, and I'll smell that perfume, and it'll just take
1:46.1	me back to visiting my grandma and my grandpa.
1:51.4	You remember making tamales on the brown dining room table?
1:55.8	They set up in the backyard next to the kitchen, grabbing a piece of bandulce from the cake
	...

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