Taboo, author of A Kids Book About Identity and member of Black Eyed Peas, talks about how we can honor and embrace every facet of our identities, even when they change.
Taboo, author of A Kids Book About Identity and member of Black Eyed Peas, talks about how we can honor and embrace every facet of our identities, even when they change.
A Kids Book About Identity (view book)
Full Book Description:
Your identity can be a lot of things: your heritage, gender, hometown, school, faith, or even what you’ve been through. The awesome thing is nobody is just one thing! Your identity can grow and change as you do! This book explores all the different parts of identity: who you are, what you love, and what’s true about you.
About the Author:
Jimmy Gomez—or better known as Taboo Nawasha—is a husband, father, cancer survivor, MC, performer, writer, creator, and Indigenous activist. He also has an amazing day job as one of the founding members of the award-winning music group, the Black Eyed Peas. While Tab loves making music, his goal is to leave a legacy his kids will be proud of.
*If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you’d like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidspodcastabout.com and we’ll send you the details.
A Kids Book About: The Podcast
S1 EP33, Taboo Talks About Identity
[INTRODUCTION]
Matthew: What is your identity?
Taboo: Identity can be many things. It can be your, your race, your ethnic background, your faith, your spirituality, you know, how you identify amongst your friends. That's something that I learned growing up is really being comfortable with my own identity, being a biracial kid, growing up with my native culture and my Mexican ancestry, really understanding how I can embrace and celebrate and honor both cultures.
Matthew: Welcome to A Kids Book About: The Podcast! I’m Matthew. I’m a teacher, a librarian, and I’m your host. The voice you heard at the top of our show was Taboo of Black-Eyed Peas.
Each week we talk about the big things going on in your world with a different author from our A Kids Book About series.
Taboo: Hi, my name is Taboo Nawasha, also known as Jimmy Gomez, government name, but most of all, I'm proud to be Jamie's husband, Jet, Journey, and Jalen, and Josh's dad. And I'm so proud to be representing not only for my family, but also for indigenous voices across the world. I'm a proud Native American and Mexican, and I'm so proud to share this amazing book with the world.
I am the author of A Kids Book About Identity.
[TOPIC FOUNDATION]
Matthew: We’ve talked a lot about identity on this podcast, but we’ve never devoted an entire episode to it. As Taboo mentioned at the beginning, your identity is how you fit into or stand out from different groups of people.
And how you identify today might not be how you identify always. In fact, the more we get to know ourselves and the more experiences that we have in life, the more our identity might change or become more clear to you and to others.
Taboo: I think it's a process of growth and understanding, you know? A lot of mixed kids,like myself, we are confused, which is a natural situation that, you know, as time goes by, you start really connecting with the roots and your ancestry.
Sometimes you start connecting with people that may educate or inform you about other things that you embrace as your identity. Like for example, um, when I met my bandmates, Will I Am and Apl.de.ap, we were like-minded, kids at 17 years old and together, as a group called Black Eyed Peas, we found our identity in the music world, in the music space, as dancers, as music producers, as songwriters, as creatives.
Matthew: Listeners, I’ve gotta take you back before we continue forward to a time when I myself was around the age of 17. I was in high school. My hair was bleached blond and my ears were pierced. I would skateboard from time to time with my friends. And I played bass guitar and sang in a punk rock band.
I had great friends who shared lots of the same interests and we would go together to see bands play. And because I lived right outside of Baltimore and Washington, D.C., there were always really great bands coming through.
Of all of the shows and festivals, I loved going to the Warp Tour. That was a music and skate festival with all sorts of different people and different interests, but we all came together around skateboarding and music. And that is when I first saw Black Eyed Peas.
I mentioned that to Taboo before getting into talking about whether or not we control our identity or if it’s a mix of how we’re born, how we’re raised, our community, and other factors.
Taboo: I think you learn how to embrace, I wouldn't say control. Controlling is such a harsh word for me. I'm just like, I don't say diversity. I say a mosaic of culture, you know? Cause a lot of corporations will say, “Oh, we need diversity.” I'd rather say “I want a mosaic of culture” because it's more beautiful.
And when I think about control, it's like you're controlling somebody. I think control can be let go. And you can say you embrace and you understand, and as you go along, you're able to learn and inform and educate yourself.
Man, I'm still educating myself at 46 years old. I'm still trying to learn information and be a student of the world of life. I learned from my kids. I learned from you just speaking to you right now, I learned that you're a skater that, you know, was part of the whole culture of the Warp Tour experience.
You know, that's when I met some of my iconic figures, like Caballero and you know, Hosoi and, and Tony Hawk, and those guys that were putting it down back to the date, Lance Mountain, you know, the Powell-Peralta guys. Like, that's what the community was about, was embracing. And that's why I like to use the word “embrace” your identity, or, or, you know, grab a hold of understanding who you are because it's beautiful.
It's beautiful when you're, when you're able to have a cultural exchange, just like we have right now. You talked about skating and hip hop and how the 411 videos were a huge asset for us to be able to have our music, you know, our first album be played in the skater community and embraced by the school.
Matthew: You contain multitudes. That means, you are not just any one thing. You’re the combination of many, many experiences and thoughts and ideas and accomplishments and yet-to-be named things.
And you don’t ever need to be everything or anything all at once. You’ve probably already started discovering this (as did that grown-up near you… and they’re probably still discovering), but there are different times and different spaces where you lean more heavily into certain parts of your identity.
Being a podcaster who makes shows for kids like you, I am constantly tapping into my identity as a teacher and as a school librarian.
As for Taboo?
Taboo: For me being a kid of Mexican descent, not really knowing that part of my life because I, I didn't really connect with my grandfather...
My grandfather was not part of my life. My biological father was not part of my life. So the only connection I had was to my, my grandmother, who was a strong Native woman from Jerome, Arizona. And so a lot of time I was trying to figure out, am I, you know, what's the identity of, or what's the representation of that part of me, you know?
I will always embody it and, and I knew that, the culture was so beautiful because I was born in east Los Angeles and it was a predominantly Mexican-American community. But then you also had immigrants coming from Mexico who really didn't speak English or, you know, I guess you can say culture shock sometimes to understand that part of me.
But as I, I, I became a little older, my mom, she met a man from Mexico, and I started learning more about the Mexican culture.
And so I leaned heavy on my Native culture cause that's what my grandmother was about, she was about empowerment. She was about, you know, pride for Jerome, Arizona and her roots. And then when I, when my mom got with Julio, which is my mom's boyfriend, I started learning more about Mexican culture from, from Mexico.
Matthew: Before we go to break, I want to ask you to think about your identity. What are the first 5 words that come to mind when you think about how you describe yourself to others? Those first 5 words might turn into 15 or 25 words, and that is awesome. Go with it.
And if you feel comfortable sharing, share some of your words with a grownup or a friend that’s listening with you.
Let them know that these words represent parts of your identity. Then listen as they share. No judgment. Only discovery and validation and gratitude for sharing.
Pause the show if you need to. That’s always okay to do. These discussions are some of the most important things you can make time for in your life.
When you’re ready, let’s think about how you feel about your identity or parts of your identity. Here’s Taboo.
Taboo: It makes me feel proud, man. I can honestly say any time, you know, like for example, I posted about the book on my Instagram and to see, you know, relatives from Indian Country, a lot of Native people that may be their living, uh, you know, res life on Indian reservation, the Indian reservation communities. And they're looking to be able to inspire the kids, to hold onto dreams and aspirations and have heroes that can be solid role models, um, that are representing for Native people, Indigenous people around the world.
And our book is that conduit our book, A Kids Book About Iidentity gives people a sense of hope. It gives people a sense of purpose because they're like, “yo, that's one of us. That's a native guy. Inspiring our youth to hold onto dreams and aspirations through the vehicle of embracing and loving your identity and being proud of where you come from. No matter what your situation is.”
You know, in a lot of times we have, you know, a lack of hope and we have a disconnect and something that I'm very keen on. How do I connect with the youth? How can I empower the youth?
Because it's important. I'm a father. I want my kids to be inspired.
Just like I want millions of kids to be inspired.
Matthew: We’ll be back in a minute with more from Taboo, including the song he wrote and recorded exclusively for this book. Right after this quick break.
[BREAK]
Matthew: Welcome back to A Kids Book About: The Podcast. On today’s episode we’re talking about identity with A Kids Book About author Taboo.
And making this book with Taboo? That special person, his hero, his grandmother… she could have nearly been listed as a co-author, so great was her influence on him.
Taboo: Yeah. We you know, we really tapped into very descriptive and detailed inspiration from the time that I was in my grandmother's living room to, you know, growing up, meeting my, my crew, finding my identity within my crew, but then ultimately, you know, meeting my, the love of my life, my wife, and having these amazing kids.
You know, finding my love and my passion as a writer, as a creative, through their eyes and their inspiration. And that's why, that's why A Kids Book About, and A Kids Company About is so personal to me because it's not just me writing a book. It's like, yo, I'm leaving a legacy for my kids to be inspired by that's the reality, bro.
Matthew: And you did such a beautiful job in that book of going "This is me as a child. Let me go back to being with you in that age, in this space and walk through that time together." So that’s, I feel like, when our books land really well. It's always that we're just meeting those kids right where they are. So I appreciate you being able to step into that space.
It was great.
Taboo: Yeah, man, I mean, I live my life through nostalgia and through, uh, through memories, um, as far as like tapping into those frequencies of the past, especially with my grandmother because she was such an integral part to, to my every, I mean, every aspect of me from as a performer, as a, as a, a person that loves to give back to my indigenous community,
To me as respectful to the matriarch system because my grandmother was the matriarch of my family, like that type of influence was so, I mean, it dictated my upbringing and the way that I was to become an adult and, uh, that's why just talking about my grandmother, I was lit up man.
And you know, I always love to talk about my grandmother because of the impact. She was my superhero, like yeah, Bruce Lee. Yes, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, freaking you know, all the movie stars at the time didn't have anything on my grandmother.
My grandmother was the ultimate superhero, even Marvel heroes. And I'm writing for Marvel. They don't have anything on my grandmother. That's just how I felt. She was the ultimate superhero without a cape.
Matthew: I promised you a song, but first I want to give you the context and the inspiration.
In A Kids Book About Identity, Taboo writes “But identity isn’t just formed by easy or fun things—part of what shapes you is the challenges you’ve faced. These challenges are like big, scary giants, towering over you, trying to take you down. I like to call it “Fighting Giants” because even though they may seem impossible to beat, we do have the strength to fight back and not give in to them.”
Let’s talk about those giants for a minute.
Taboo: Yeah, so I had, you know, I could speak on two different times where one of them being as a kid, you know, uh, an obstacle of not being able to, um, you know, feeling a certain way, cause I didn't have my father in my life and his, and his, uh, as a boy, you want to be able to share those moments with your father. But the reality was that was an obstacle that I felt, um, but my grandmother lifted me up. My mom lifted me up, um, to the point where, you know, it was an obstacle at first, but I, I found strength within the matriarch system, as I told you earlier.
And so these women, these powerful women were leading my tribe, and I overcame fighting that giant of not having my dad in my life by a super human, like metaphorically superhuman giant, which is my grandmother. And she was stomping through, you know, through good times and bad times to lead the way for us.
So that was one obstacle. And then another obstacle in 2014, I got sick. I got, uh, diagnosed with cancer. So, you know, I, I physically had to fight this horrible disease. Um, I had to do chemotherapy and I do that for 12 weeks. Um, there was moments where I wanted to give up and the giant was trying to win the battle.
Um, but as, as I always do, I went into warrior spirit and I overcame and I beat this horrible disease. And I'm proud to say that I'm seven years removed from that time period. So that was another physical giant that I had, you know, I had to overcome. So that's why I was fighting that giant, but I beat it.
That's why I'm here brother here.
Matthew: The song “Fighting Giants” is available exclusively on Spotify and I’ll add a link to it in our show notes for this episode. The song lyrics are included in the back of the book and I’m so excited that I get to play an excerpt for you as we close the episode.
But first, I want to end in a space that leaves you ready not only to advocate for yourself and for your identity, but also to work for the protection and respect and visibility of the identities of others.
Taboo: A lot of times people have a misconception (and I'm speaking about my personal identity). A lot of people have a misconception about Native people.
Whether it's, oh, it's a stereotype, um, monolithic, we're not monolithic. You know, there's a, there's a misconception, especially in Hollywood and on television, about what a certain way, community, if not all communities are supposed to be. Fortunately, we have amazing storytellers that are starting to change the narrative, whether it's Marvel, whether we have a animated series called Spirit Rangers, we have Res dogs, uh, on Hulu.
And we also have, uh, Rutherford Falls on peacock, which is an amazing way to change the narrative, but also to exchange culture and really learn. Because a lot of times it's about being misinformed, especially about appropriation and not knowing, you know exactly how to go about informing yourself so that you are not, um, naive or ignorant to the fact that, you know, native people are still here.
We have a term invisible no more. And I'm glad that you said about invisible because a lot of times we are. You know, as this CNN once said, you know, um, something else, the, the, the, uh, put a classes like Latino, Asian, uh African-American then they're like something else is 6%. So, you know, it's, it's, it's funny, but it's real.
Uh, it's, it's about self-awareness and empathy and respect and understanding, but you won't understand unless you share information and educate yourself. And that's something I never get offended. I like to inform and educate and, and learn from each other. Um, because. A lot of times, like I said, it's ignorance, not knowing it's just not knowing.
And whether it's people wearing headdresses and wearing and warping at a football game and thinking that that's like, you know, it's just mascot, which is a horrible term. We're not mascots. So these are the type of conversations and whether it's uncomfortable or not, these are the conversations that need to be had just so that we can move forward and really respect.
And it's about empathy. As I mentioned to you earlier.
Matthew: Before we go, one last shout out to Taboo’s grandmother. I’m glad we got to learn more about her through this conversation.
Taboo: Man, it's a beautiful thing. And once again, it goes back to my hero. She was that the give back the ultimate give back every opportunity she had sometimes to her own detriment of putting others before herself and always wanting to be a beacon of light and hope and inspiration.
That's something that, a value that I took, you know, I learned how to, uh, fall into it because for awhile, I was kinda trying to figure myself out. Um, but by her grace, by her leadership and her guidance, I was able to, um, to embrace that idea of how I can be a once again, a bridge and connect inspiration and motivation for the youth.
[CLOSING]
Matthew: Thank you to Taboo, author of A Kids Book About Identity, for joining us today. You can learn more about this book and others like it by visiting akidsco.com. And don’t forget to check out “Fighting Giants.” Check out the show notes for a link.
Let’s have a quick a listen!
[play excerpt from “Fighting Giants”]
Matthew: If you want to be on a future episode of A Kids Book About: The Podcast or if you have a question you’d like us to consider, have a grownup email us at listen@akidspodcastabout.com and we’ll send you the details.
A Kids Book About: the Podcast is written, edited, and produced by me, Matthew Winner, with help from Chad Michael Snavely and the team at Sound On Studios. Our executive producer is Jelani Memory. And this show was brought to you by A Kids Podcast About.
Follow the show on Apple Podcasts or wherever podcasts are found and check out other podcasts made for kids just like you by visiting akidsco.com.
Join us next week for a conversation about creativity with A Kids Book About authors Sara and Stewart Scott-Curran.