Ep. 11 – Djali Brown-Cepeda, Founder & Curator of Nueva Yorkinos
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Scrolling through Instagram you see hundreds of pictures showing everyday life; some fabricated for an illusion of real life and some just documenting that person’s time/travel/experience in history. This is how I stumbled upon an amazing page and was lucky to be able to interview the founder for the podcast.
Djali has taken the timeless family activity of thumbing through family photos and fused it with 21st century social media with the creation of Nueva Yorkinos. This page is a time-capsule of stories, family secrets, and forgotten histories of nuestra gente. Djali being a New Yorker to the core has focused on the storied history of the Latino community here in the gran manzana and portrayed it on a global platform to share our community’s contribution to everyday life that is commonly forgotten.
Nueva Yorkinos has grown to a massive scale reaching close to 20k followers and she receives countless pictures submitted with stories to post on the page. She doesnt take this lightly and beautifully curates which one she posts and when but also taking into consideration that people shared this special and close picture with her. (she promises to post as many of the pictures she receives as she can). It has gained immense attention, allowing her to be featured as a special exhibit at El Museo de Barrio, here in East Harlem, NY.
She was able to tell a personal side of her history as well as how the idea to start the page was conceived. Every ounce of her beautiful soul is filled with passion and she pours this out in her endeavors. We bonded on how we have been able to cope with the current quarantine we are facing during the coronavirus pandemic and she offers her advice on how to maintain sanity.
This is not an episode you should miss and there is no doubt you will love and enjoy it. Stay blessed and my prayers go out to everyone during this time and into the future!