I originally started following Jen Ziano because of her colorful t-shirts and life-affirming

mantras, specifically her bright pink Latina power shirt, which kept popping up in my

Instagram feed.

We also recently collaborated on a product together, a Latina to Latina t-shirt.

We're going to have more on that a little later in the episode.

And the process of working with Jen gave me an inside look into how much care and thought she puts into each product, how she is constantly keeping her consumer

and her community front of mind. And so I wanted to talk with her about how she has built

her small business by betting on herself, the place she comes from, and the community she loves.

Hi, Jen. Thank you so much for doing this. Thank you so much for having me.

Jen, you have built and run a brand that is very proudly Latina and very proudly queer.

If I had told Teenage Jen that that was going to be the case, she was going to run a company that was very associated with celebrating those two identities, what would she have said to me?

That you were crazy.

I was a completely different person and I was struggling with both of those

identities, I think. I mean, I went through a phase where I didn't want, like I hated the first day

of school, for example, because, you know, they always ask you,

tell us where you were born and what you did this summer. And I was always the one that I was born

in Mexico and I didn't go anywhere this summer. And it's funny because when I was a kid, we moved

from Matamoros to Brownsville and I went into first grade here, and I hated it.

I hated school.

I didn't speak English, and I hated it, and I would cry every single morning, and I would scream

at my mom,

Me I want to go back with my grandma in Matamoros.

...