Erik Rivera on Comedy as a Healing Process

For Psychological Fitness Consciousness Life, we requested Latine comedians and creators we respect how comedy has supported them in overcoming shock and confronting moment’s most important demanding situations. Learn the items right here.

Erik Rivera’s moment is just right. Becoming a member of our Zoom consultation from his Los Angeles house, the editor, actor, and comic is all smiles underneath a old baseball cap. Possibly it’s that shiny climate Angelinos are at all times bragging about. Or possibly it’s the truth that he’s labored crisp to succeed in what he has now: a good occupation, a strong marriage, and two superb boys. Both approach, the distinction between the place he as soon as used to be and his flow situation isn’t misplaced on him, even though it’s misplaced on his children.

“My kids have no idea how good they have it,” the comedian says with amusing.

Rising up as the kid of a Puerto Rican father and Guatemalan mom in Pristine Rochelle, NY, Rivera is aware of the price of a greenback all too neatly. He spent his more youthful years navigating between his oldsters’ immigrant sensibilities and the pressures of American moment. Unsurprisingly, that dichotomy is one thing that Rivera has been ready to mine for comedic gold, incorporating it into his stand-up at the side of alternative facets of his moment, like his interracial marriage and what it’s in point of fact like elevating two boys. However, regardless of a lifelong love for stand-up, comedy as a occupation wasn’t one thing that Rivera noticed within the playing cards.

“When you come from immigrant parents, you don’t know that that’s a career. You’re hammered into the usual, like doctor, lawyer, and told, ‘Do something that’s consistent and brings in consistent money,'” Rivera says. So Rivera deliberate to wait Occasion College to pursue a point in communications. Later 9/11 took place.

“[After 9/11], they reopened [the school] because they had been using the campus as a triage center. And I remember going back, and it was just this eerie feeling. There was soot everywhere. We’re watching trucks bring debris out daily. Kids were just not feeling comfortable,” Rivera remembers.

In an aim to departure the morbid condition, Rivera and a chum going to a comedy membership, which they had been stunned to search out packed.

“People wanted to forget,” the comic says evidently. Later, the speculation got here to him to prepare a comedy evening on campus and provides his fellow scholars the chance to come back in combination and heal thru laughter.

“Stand-up comedy is such a pure art form . . . no matter what you’re going through in your day, you come out to a show, and for an hour and a half, those problems you have, you leave them at the door, and you have a good time,” Rivera says. “Yeah, they’ll still be there [when you leave], but you get to relax and release.”

However moment serving to others thru their shock via organizing comedy displays used to be splendid, part of Rivera sought after extra. As a child, he’d visible John Leguizamo’s “Mambo Mouth,” which straight away sparked one thing in him. Right here used to be anyone from his tradition, speaking about issues he may just relate to. Now, as an grownup, organizing stand-up nights and rubbing elbows with comedians, he has had the anticipation to inform his personal tale and usefulness it to aid crowd come to phrases with theirs.

“I remember there was one night sitting [at a comedy show], and it was the first time I saw how the rabbit was pulled out of the hat. Like, I saw the setup, I saw the punchline, I saw how the guy was leading the audience one way and playing with their emotions of feeling frustrated, of anger, and releasing it with laughter,” he says.”I was like, ‘I think I can do this.'”

A hour next, he used to be onstage at a membership referred to as Hamburger Harry’s in Instances Sq.. For many people, the considered simply leaping into the deep finish like that will be unfathomable. However for Rivera, it’s what makes stand-up particular. It’s no longer near to telling jokes, however about placing your self available in the market — exposing your ache and hardships in provider of the target market.

“Look, you can get up there and write jokes; there are amazing joke writers out there,” Rivera says. “But [the real connection comes] from the vulnerability. Yeah, we find it through stereotypes, but there’s also that vulnerability of ‘hey, this is happening to me,’ and people can relate to that.”

For him, comedy is an outlet, a strategy to discover positive facets of his moment that aren’t at all times neat or nice-looking, whether or not it’s his better half’s mother suggesting having a Mexican mariachi band for Rivera’s practice session dinner or making some degree to book the refrigerator stocked with guacamole only for him. Exploring those problems on level lets in him no longer most effective to procedure them in a wholesome approach, but additionally pull the target market at the progress with him.

That is why stand-up comedy has historically been such a route to success for oppressed or marginalized communities. Our hardships can form for a just right chuckle that is helping whiten the burden we stock. However channeling that ache will also be tough. Rivera admits he’s made the error of seeking to discover positive injuries sooner than the injuries have totally healed — particularly, his father’s passing from Parkinson’s illness.

“I’m not gonna lie to you, when I first started doing that story on stage, it was dicey. I wasn’t ready to start talking about it,” he says.

However next one thing stunning took place. The extra Rivera labored at the subject material, the extra he subtle the tale about his father, and the extra crowd began coming as much as him next his displays to thank him and inform him they had been going thru one thing alike.

“Anytime you’re going through something, you feel like, ‘I’m the only one going through this.’ We’re all going through it; it’s just that nobody talks about it,” he says.

Because of this, writing has grow to be part of Rivera’s recovery procedure. Even supposing he hasn’t gotten the space from what he’s going thru, even though he can’t see the humorous simply but or isn’t in a position in order it to the level, his thoughts is at all times running it over at the anticipation that one day he’ll be capable of proportion it. He journals regularly, optical it as one of those “map” of the way he will get thru tough occasions. The comic additionally mentions the noteceable function working performs in serving to him procedure his ideas.

“Everybody should have some kind of quiet time or meditation or something to get you out of your own head and your own space,” Rivera says.

Whether or not it’s running thru subject material on level or working within the truthful climate of Los Angeles, Rivera has his. All through our dialog, he exudes one of those self-assuredness that comes from running on his bits, which is in truth him running on himself. Now, he’s in a position for what comes nearest, even though it’s no longer essentially comedy.

“You always have to evolve, man,” he says.”You have to do everything, you have to write, you have to direct. The more tools you have in your toolbox, the harder it is for them to say no to you.”

Rivera does all of that. Right through the pandemic, he wrote an animated display he’s having a look to buy round going forward. And moment he nonetheless loves comedy and stocks that it’s going to at all times be how he heals and is helping others heal, he additionally admits that there are extra techniques to inform the tales that subject.

“Having kids changed my perspective on everything,” he says. “Watching television and not seeing the representation there, where my kids aren’t even seeing themselves . . . now I’ve sort of pivoted to, let’s write these next TV projects so we can see ourselves there.”

Rivera desires to peer extra than simply the stereotypical Latine narratives about “border crossing trauma” or “we gotta save the taco shop.” He simply desires to peer usual displays about Latines as usual crowd with usual issues, running thru the ones issues the similar approach he has and continues to do.

“That’s my next goal in life, to make these shows that people can laugh at and watch together and vibe with and just happen to have Latinos in them,” he concludes.

Miguel Machado is a journalist with experience within the intersection of Latine id and tradition. He does the whole thing from unique interviews with Latin song artists to opinion items on problems which are related to the population, private essays join to his Latinidad, and concept items and contours on the subject of Puerto Rico and Puerto Rican tradition.