Bianca Kia originally envisioned Yo Soo-Latina as a sorority, a group bound together by the experience of being Afro-Latina, something that alluded

her as a kid growing up outside Detroit.

Since she launched Josoi in 2017, the vision has evolved, and we talk about what Bianca's

learned from her audience, how the experience of exploring her queer identity informed her

experience of building community around Afro Latina.

And how she's going to know when it is time for her passion project to become her full-time focus. Bianca, thank you so much for doing this.

Yes, thank you for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

Take me back to the MySpace poll that you put up as a kid growing up in Detroit.

What was the poll and what was the impetus for the poll?

Okay, so I had to be like seventh or eighth grade on my space, early Y2K days. And I guess I was just

curious how people perceived me. At that time, a lot of kids in my school were having

bachshvahs and bar mitzvahs.

So they were like celebrating their culture. And I had talked with my mom about having a kinsay,

but I was 12 or 13 at the time. So it was like years away, you know. And obviously my close friends

knew I was mixed or I didn't claim Afro-Latinaida at the time, but I just said I was mixed.

So they, I thought they were aware that I was both black and Mexican. So I put up this poll and I

was like, it had five options. I think I said, what do you think I am? What do you think I'm mixed

with or something like that? And I put white, Jewish, black,

Latina. And then I chose something really random. I think I put like Asian or something.

And the poll was up for, I think, 24 hours, not even. And I came back and I saw the majority of

people have voted that they just thought I was black.

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