VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 21: “Reading My Blog Post: Demanding Respect Through Violence: The Fractured ‘Macho Mind’”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 21: “Reading My Blog Post: Demanding Respect Through Violence: The Fractured ‘Macho Mind’”
In this episode, I continue the audiobook-style series on the VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast by reading aloud another one of my blog posts: Demanding Respect Through Violence: The Fractured “Macho Mind.”
As we move through the month of mothers and reflect on Mother’s Day, this episode opens a deeper conversation about what it means to reimagine life, care, and community through new pedagogies and liberatory epistemologies. At the center of that reflection is a difficult but necessary question: what are the root causes of violence among men of color, and how do those harms continue to shape the lives of women, trans people, families, and entire communities?
Through this reading, I move through the blog as both reflection and analysis—unpacking the “macho mind” as a fractured condition shaped by colonialism, patriarchy, machismo, and blanquitud. I examine how rigid masculinity, emotional suppression, and the demand for respect through violence create cycles of mental health harm, misogyny, transphobia, and communal pain. 
This episode also explores pathways toward something else: transformative justice, collective healing, Black Trans Aliveness, and the reimagining of masculinity beyond domination. By grounding this conversation in Afro-Jotería Studies, I frame the episode as part study space, part social analysis, and part invitation to think more deeply about how we build futures where mothers, women, trans people, and entire Afro-Diasporic communities can live with greater dignity, safety, and humanity.
This episode is for anyone new to my podcast, new to my writing, or encountering Afro-Jotería as a living practice of critique, pedagogy, healing, and transformation. It is a chance to listen closely, reflect honestly, and move through this text with me from the source.
Presented by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no)Content note: This episode includes discussion of patriarchy, machismo, misogyny, transphobia, violence against women and trans people, colonialism, racism, and mental health harm.
Stay Connected:Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @lareinareinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 20: “Reading My Blog Post: The Ugly, Scary, Lonely Truth About Trans* Mental Health”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 20: “Reading My Blog Post: The Ugly, Scary, Lonely Truth About Trans* Mental Health”
In this episode, I continue the audiobook-style series on the VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast by reading aloud another one of my blog posts: The Ugly, Scary, Lonely Truth About Trans* Mental Health: Utilizing an “Afro-Jotx Consciousness.”
This episode holds space for one of the most urgent conversations of our time: the mental health realities of Trans* people, especially Black Trans women, and the systemic violence, dehumanization, and institutional failures that shape that crisis.
Through this reading, I move through the blog as both reflection and analysis—naming what I describe as the Global Trans* Mental Health Crisis and exploring how Afro-Jotería Studies and the Afro-Jotx Consciousness offer a framework for understanding, surviving, and resisting it. I also engage the work of Afro-Jotx thinkers and artists while grounding the conversation in questions of care, liberation, dignity, and humanity.
This episode is part study space, part witnessing, and part invitation—for anyone new to my podcast, new to my writing, or encountering Afro-Jotería as a living practice of critique, healing, and transformation. It is a chance to listen closely, reflect deeply, and move through this text with me from the source.
Presented by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no)Content note: This episode includes discussion of trans mental health, suicide, systemic oppression, anti-trans violence, sexual violence, trafficking, racism, colonialism, and other forms of structural harm.
Stay Connected:Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @lareinareinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 19: “Reading My First Afro-Jotería Studies Blog Post”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 19: “Reading My First Afro-Jotería Studies Blog Post”
In this episode, I return to the roots of VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS by reading my first-ever blog post on Afro-Jotería Studies in an audiobook-style format.
This is a special episode because Afro-Jotería has been part of this podcast since the very beginning, and now, nearly two years later, I wanted to dedicate an episode to slowing down and reading this foundational text together with my audience.
In this blog reading, I introduce Afro-Jotería Studies as the field I created to expand Jotería Studies by centering the lived experiences, cultural realities, and liberation of Queer and Trans Afro-Latinx, Afro-Caribbean, and Afro-Indigenous people. I also break down the meaning of Jotería, Afro-Jotería, Afro-Jotx identity, and Afro-Jotx consciousness, while naming the political, spiritual, and methodological practices that ground this work.
This episode is part reflection, part study space, and part invitation—for anyone who is new to this podcast, new to my work, or encountering Afro-Jotería Studies for the first time. It is a chance to listen, read along, and enter the framework with me from the source.
Presented by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no)Content note: This episode includes discussion of systemic oppression, violence, colonialism, transphobia, racism, and other forms of structural harm.
Stay Connected:Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @lareinareinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 18: “A Deep Dive into My Full Discography: The Sound of Afro-Jotería”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 18: “A Deep Dive into My Full Discography: The Sound of Afro-Jotería”
In this episode, I’m doing a deep dive into my full music discography—paying ode to the discipline, imagination, and self-determination it took to release more than 35 songs across all streaming platforms completely by myself, from concept to execution.
I move through each era of my work to reflect on what I was building sonically, visually, spiritually, and politically. This episode is about independent artistry, worldbuilding, and what it means to create a body of work that refuses to separate sound, self, theory, and survival.
More than a music retrospective, this episode re-grounds the VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast in Afro-Jotería. I’m naming this space for what it is: the #1 Afro-Jotería podcast, and a living foreground for the growth of Afro-Jotería Studies. Through my discography, I show how the music, the image, the thought, and the lived experience all move together as one practice.
Discography walkthrough:
LA REINA TAÍNA (EP, 3 tracks) — 2023
EL CUCO! — 2023
Amor Propio — 2024
PAYASO — 2024
TOCA CORAZÓN — 2024
IM ON AUX NOW — 2024
JUNGLE JUICE — 2024
LUIGI. — 2025
THE REDPRINT: LA PREMIÈRE RÉVOLUTION — 2025
Hosted by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no) Content note: This episode includes mature themes and explicit language.
Stay Connected: Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @lareinareinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 17: “A Look into THE REDPRINT: LA PREMIÈRE RÉVOLUTION”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 17: “A Look into THE REDPRINT: LA PREMIÈRE RÉVOLUTION”
In this episode, I’m taking you inside my album THE REDPRINT: LA PREMIÈRE RÉVOLUTION—not just how it sounds, but how it became.
I go song by song and tell the origin story of each track: what sparked it, what I was living through when it formed, what each title really means to me, and how the sound choices became part of the message.
This is a behind-the-scenes “liner notes” moment—where the concept of the album comes into focus as one full body of work, and each song starts to feel like a chapter in the same revolution.
Track-by-track walkthrough:
THE REDPRINT
ARTKINESIS.
COSMOLOGICAL GANG BANG.
DÉJAME EN PAZ.
A.E.I.O.U.
LUIGI.
IM DA ALPHA, Ü DA BETA!
Hosted by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Basquiat Cemi’no I)
Content note: This episode includes mature themes and explicit language.
Stay Connected:Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @lareinareinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 16: “Dear Future Me…”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 16: “Dear Future Me…”
In this episode, I share a deeply personal tradition I’ve kept since 2017: recording an annual audio letter to my future self. What began as a quiet act of reflection has now reached its 10th anniversary, and I’m still sitting with how surreal that feels.
Every year, before recording the new message, I listen back to all the previous audios—hearing past versions of myself speak from moments of hope, confusion, grief, growth, and becoming. This year’s “Dear Future Me” felt especially tender, knowing a full decade has passed.
After finishing this year’s recording, I created a truncated version to share with you—an offering from my past, present, and future selves, held together in one moment.
This episode is about memory, continuity, and the quiet power of returning to yourself year after year.
Becoming isn’t linear. Sometimes, it’s a letter you keep writing. 💛
Hosted by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Basquiat Cemi’no I)
Content note: This episode includes reflection on time, memory, identity, grief, and personal growth.
Stay Connected:Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art.” 🎨 
Support & ShareCashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @larealreinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 15: “One Year on Estrogen & 26 Years of Becoming”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 15: “One Year on Estrogen & 26 Years of Becoming”
In this November episode, I take a deep breath and reflect on a full year on estrogen—what shifted in my body, what shifted in my spirit, and what I didn’t expect to feel along the way. Since it’s also my birthday month, I zoom out even wider: 26 years of gender + sexuality—of searching, masking, surviving, experimenting, unlearning shame, and finally learning how to come home to myself.
I talk about the “second puberty” reality in a grounded way: the emotional waves, the softness, the patience it forces, the grief that can rise up, and the quiet joy of noticing yourself change in real time. I also break down the realistic first-year timeline: for many transfeminine people, some changes tend to begin within the first few months, while “full” results can take years—which is both frustrating and deeply affirming (because it means there’s still room to keep becoming).
I also bring in a few affirming stats, because I want listeners—especially Black trans women—to feel the bigger picture. One major survey found that 98% of people who accessed gender-affirming hormone therapy said it made them more satisfied with their lives. Another report found that access to gender-affirming care is associated with a lower prevalence of suicide attempts (which is one more reason community care and medical access matter so much). And in data focused on Black trans folks, so many of us are still choosing ourselves and moving forward in our transitions—even while navigating systems that were never built to hold us gently.
Becoming isn’t a finish line. It’s a practice.
Feliz cumpleaños to me. Feliz becoming to you. 💛
 
Hosted by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no)
 
Content note: This episode includes discussion of gender dysphoria, body image, sexuality, transphobia, racism, mental health, and navigating medical systems.
 
New here?
About the Host: Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no—professionally LA REINA TAÍNA—is a multidisciplinary artist, filmmaker-in-training, and cultural worker whose work blends storytelling, scholarship, and liberation practice through Afro-Jotería Studies.
Why Tune In: Monthly episodes rooted in truth-telling, tenderness, and liberation—where identity gets treated like something sacred, not something to “prove.”
What This Episode Is: A personal, grounded reflection on 1 year of estrogen + 26 years of gender/sexuality becoming, with practical context for what the first year can feel like.
HRT Year-One Snapshot (general timeline, varies by person): – Some changes often begin within 1–3 months (libido shifts / spontaneous erections may decrease for some). – Some changes often begin within 3–6 months (skin softness, fat redistribution starting, breast growth beginning for many). – Many effects continue evolving beyond year one; “maximum” changes commonly take 2–5 years. This is general education, not medical advice—always check in with a qualified clinician for your body + needs.
Stay Connected: Instagram: @vamoshablaringlespodcast
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art” 🍭
Support & Share
CashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @larealreinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 14: Wisdom Sharing and Becoming with Amaïs Alexander Perez

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 14: "Wisdom Sharing and Becoming with Amaïs Alexander Perez"
In this October episode, I sit down with Amaïs Alexander Perez for a genuine, grounded conversation about identity, liberation, and what happens when a movement goes mainstream. Amaïs introduces herself through the fullness of her lived experience—Afro-Indigenous, Asian, and Trans—and I ask her about the growing “Protect the Dolls / Fund the Dolls” trend: what it means, who it was meant to protect, and how quickly slogans can get reshaped by capitalism, whiteness, and respectability politics.
From there, the conversation moves into the realities Black trans women and Black femmes face in public: the pressure to be “passing,” the violence of being clocked, and the double standards that show up across communities. Amaïs breaks down how it isn’t only about physical features—voice, tone, and self-advocacy can become targets too—especially when Black women defend themselves and get read through a masculinizing, dehumanizing lens.
Amaïs also shares personal history across place: born and living in Puerto Rico, with formative years spent in Detroit and Memphis—and how racism felt sharper and more dangerous in the U.S. South and Midwest (especially in the early 2000s) than in Puerto Rico in the present day. The episode also delves into cultural preservation, exploring what it truly means to protect Puerto Rican culture within its full historical context—especially the African and revolutionary roots of Bomba—and why reclaiming culture is not merely an aesthetic endeavor. It’s survival.
I close with a powerful reflection on identity itself: how to research your history, hold your intersecting truths, and stay anchored in who you are—even if family, community, or society tries to narrate you into something smaller. Amaïs leaves listeners with practical, affirming guidance for trans youth navigating life on their own: stay curious, stay rooted, and stay true to you.
Hosted by: LA REINA TAÍNA (Ms. Reina CÁMO Cemi’no)
Content note: This episode includes discussion of racism, transmisogyny, anti-Blackness, and anti-trans violence.
New here?
• About the Host: Reina CÁMO Basquiat Cemi’no—professionally LA REINA TAÍNA—is a visionary multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur whose career spans music production, filmmaking, choreography, scholarship, nonprofit leadership, and more. As founder and CEO of LA REINA TAÍNA, LLC, I’m building a multimedia enterprise rooted in ancestral intelligence and narrative sovereignty.
• Why Tune In: Each episode delivers trauma-informed, anti-racist, and decolonial insights designed to spark personal healing and collective liberation.
• Why Follow My Journey: As a producer of 30+ original songs, multiple theatrical works, and brand campaigns—and the originator of the Afro-Jotería Studies framework—I combine creative innovation with measurable impact, turning art into community-driven market disruption.
• Stay Connected: Limited edition “LUIGI” laptop sticker available in my shop (search: LA REINA TAÍNA LUIGI sticker).
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art” 🎨
Support & Share
CashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @larealreinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 13: “Kika.”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 13: “Kika.”
In this new chapter of VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS, I step into September 2025—a month of firsts, transitions, and embodied healing. Episode 13: “Kika” chronicles my first full month as a film student in Kiskeya, balancing academic discipline with spiritual grounding while navigating the chaos of migration and rebuilding.
Throughout the month, I moved through four temporary living spaces before securing my own home. Even in moments of uncertainty, movement became my medicine. I began pole-dancing classes—four in total—that reconnected me with my body’s power, sensuality, and rhythm. For the first time in years, I felt myself return fully to the body that had carried me through so much.
When I wasn’t dancing, I was creating. I found inspiration in the Netflix show Beauty in Black, in the unapologetic energy of Grace Jones, and in the visionary designs of Jean Paul Gaultier. These influences reminded me that art, fashion, and identity are intertwined—that performance is not an act, but a way of reclaiming presence.
This episode also documents quieter milestones: completing two therapy sessions with a spiritually-inclined therapist who helped me define peace as permission, obtaining my Dominican phone number, and re-imagining my future business ventures through the lens of “embodied performance.”
Through Kika, I reflect on what it means to be grounded in a body that has experienced displacement yet still insists on movement. It’s about learning that every delay is divine, that every unanswered prayer might be a re-direction, and that home is both a place and a practice.
✨ “Kika” is dedicated to my September self—the one who kept dancing, kept creating, and kept believing that what’s meant for her will always find its way back.
New here?• About the Host: Reina CÁMO Basquiat Cemi’no—professionally LA REINA TAÍNA—is a visionary multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur whose long career spans music production, filmmaking, choreography, scholarship, nonprofit leadership, and more. As founder and CEO of LA REINA TAÍNA, LLC, she’s built a multimedia enterprise from the ground up, architecting a new creative economy rooted in ancestral intelligence and narrative sovereignty.
Why Tune In: Each episode delivers trauma-informed, anti-racist, and decolonial insights designed to spark personal healing and collective liberation.
Why Follow My Journey: As a producer of over 30 original songs, multiple theatrical works, and brand campaigns, plus originator of the Afro-Jotería Studies framework, I combine creative innovation with measurable impact, turning art into community-driven market disruption.
Stay Connected: Snag the limited edition “LUIGI” laptop sticker at www.lareinataina.com/store and explore all offerings at www.lareinataina.com.
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art” 🎨
Support & Share:
CashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @larealreinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14
#VHIPodcast #AfroJotería #555 #Oshun #CreativeHealing #Spanglish #TransVoices

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 12: “Boy, Why You So Speechless?”

VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS Podcast Episode 12: “Boy, Why You So Speechless?”
In this deeply reflective Episode 12 of VAMOS HABLAR INGLÉS, I return to my August 2025 archives—thirty-seven handwritten journal pages, photos, and songs that document a season of rebuilding, release, and radical self-parenting.
After the stillness of July, August erupted into motion: I entered film school, relocated across multiple homes, and restructured my creative and personal foundations from scratch. The Lion’s Gate Portal (8/8) became a spiritual mirror—a reminder that loyalty begins within. I wrote:
“You need to learn to let go of the things that bring you pain. Let go of it. It’s not yours to carry anymore. You did a great job.”
From there, music became my medicine. Cleo Sol’s “Know That You Are Loved” played just as I finished that journal entry, affirming that my healing was aligned with something larger than myself.
This episode also revisits my relationship with breath, voice, and ancestry. I reflect on my mother’s presence in my dreams—how she once told me that singing is breathing, and breathing is living. It’s through these inherited lessons that I continue to heal the silence I was born into.
Recorded in Kiskeya on October 12, 2025, exactly 532 years after the Taíno genocide, this episode transforms remembrance into reclamation. It’s both a love letter to my ancestors and an altar for every voice still learning how to breathe.
✨“Boy, Why You So Speechless?” invites listeners to confront what keeps them quiet, to release what they’ve been carrying, and to remember that their voice—no matter how trembling—is sacred.
 
New here?• About the Host: Reina CÁMO Basquiat Cemi’no—professionally LA REINA TAÍNA—is a visionary multidisciplinary artist and entrepreneur whose long career spans music production, filmmaking, choreography, scholarship, nonprofit leadership, and more. As founder and CEO of LA REINA TAÍNA, LLC, she’s built a multimedia enterprise from the ground up, architecting a new creative economy rooted in ancestral intelligence and narrative sovereignty.
Why Tune In: Each episode delivers trauma-informed, anti-racist, and decolonial insights designed to spark personal healing and collective liberation.
Why Follow My Journey: As a producer of over 30 original songs, multiple theatrical works, and brand campaigns, plus originator of the Afro-Jotería Studies framework, I combine creative innovation with measurable impact, turning art into community-driven market disruption.
Stay Connected: Snag the limited edition “LUIGI” laptop sticker at www.lareinataina.com/store and explore all offerings at www.lareinataina.com.
✨ Reina’s Life Motto: “To re-imagine and challenge the ‘self’ via art” 🎨
 
Support & Share:
CashApp: $camoisnotdeadVenmo: @larealreinatainaPayPal: @ReinaTaina14
#VHIPodcast #AfroJotería #555 #Oshun #CreativeHealing #Spanglish #TransVoices