Aisha Zabayos Crump spent nearly 15 years working in the skin care and hair industry before launching two lines of her own, Honey Baby Naturals and Botanica

Beauty. You have seen Aisha's products on the shelves at Walmart at Target. This is the story

behind them. It's also an incredibly candid conversation, though in directions I was not expecting,

including a reality TV show appearance and dramatic financial decisions. You will

notice me gasp a few times in response to Aisha's many leaps of faith.

I want to start with you being born and raised in Gary, Indiana.

How did the Puerto Ricans end up in the Midwest?

The Midwest, Gary, Indiana in particular, was a booming steel industry.

At that time, we had inland steel, U.S. steel, and they were jobs.

And everyone on the island talked about going to the mainland to create a better

life of their family. My father side of the family, they came over first. And then my mom's side of

the family at that time, usually the fathers could only come. So he left my grandmother on the

island with the kids, but he came here and all of them got jobs in the steel industry and it was like new money. It was a new

world, a new life. So there was a huge Puerto Rican population growing up in Gary, Indiana when I was a

child. But when the still industry collapsed, basically it busted. A lot of people lost their jobs.

People were laid off. A lot of people left Gary. And Gary at that point started to go downhill. And that's when

the crime increased. That's when just everything started to change. It felt like my dad was always

out of a job. He tried to work in the still industry. He was always getting laid off. My mom ran a

domestic women's shelter. So when I say we grew up exposed to so many different things and it just built tough skin, it was the Gary that I knew, but it was the Gary that I loved.

How did that instability affect the way that you saw your own career and your own ambitions for yourself?

I wanted to change. My parents, my parents actually were born and raised in Geer, Indiana, and they met in high

school.

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