[Si] TV

Caridad "La Bruja" De La Luz wears her name well. Not the alias that has made her one of spoken word's luminaries but the name her parents gave her. Caridad in Español means charity and that's exactly La Bruja's focus with her Latinas 4 Life initiative. L4L is a culmination of all the community-driven work the [Sí] talent has done in the past 11 years with a specific focus on young Latinas. We caught up with the Puerto Rock Jane of all of trades AKA "Hip-Hop Mother Theresa" to talk about what she does best: giving back.                                  

[Sí] Ent.: When and why did you start Latinas 4 Life?
La Bruja: Latinas 4 Life became official in 2007 but I've been doing workshops for over 11 years. It was in different forms, but finally in 2007 we put a new initiative, gave it a new direction, and focus when I learned about the statistics of young Latinas having the highest suicide rate, highest teen pregnancy and the highest drop-out. When I saw just how much it's the Latinas that are suffering, I decided to make it a focus.

[Sí] Ent. : What's the ultimate goal with the program?
La Bruja: To help the youth find a voice and also how to face the issues that they are statistically bound to face. It's just an empowerment program. I do an open mic at the end where they get a chance to speak and a lot of the time it's their first time speaking on a microphone and they find a voice. I also have a booklet called "links for life" that each student gets during the program and it's basically a yellow pages of organizations that exist that can help them through suicide prevention, teen pregnancy, STDS, culture programs.

[Sí] Ent. : What goes on a typical Latinas 4 Life event?
La Bruja: I show up at a high school [and] I'll have from 200-500 students and I get on the stage and just talk to them for about a half hour. I share some personal poetry with them. I have these mantras that I have them repeat, we do these community exercises and then after that I open the mic up. I try not to talk at them, I talk with them. It's a big difference when you show them that you care what they have to say to, it makes it a whole different energy. They line up like if I was Dr. Phil, I love it. I feel like a hip-hop Mother Theresa sometimes, I mean I'm no saint that's for sure, but it's beautiful

[Sí] Ent. : The PSAs on MySpace.com/LatinasParaLaVida are so powerful.
La Bruja: Well the PSAs got a lot of attention, a lot of organizations and high schools now know that the program exists and are reaching out so I can go to their schools. So in that way we are reaching out, we are connecting to the communities that really need it, so it's successful. This one girl, she went to [the] high school where I first did the Latinas 4 Life program, and she wasn't even going to go, but they made her sit in. She was a senior and wasn't going to go to college and after the program she was like, "you know let me go to the college office." She went and ends up applying to Syracuse and gets a full scholarship. That right there, it's like I succeeded, it's beautiful.

[Sí] Ent. : Now, you have recruited poets through L4L right?
La Bruja: [Yes]. I have this one girl her name is Melanie Torres and she's a poet and she was a fan of mine from when she was really young and someone told me she was a fan, [so] they gave me her number and I called her. We made a connection and last semester I went to [a] high school and it just happened to be her high school. So I would have met her one way or the other. From there she got on the microphone and she continued coming to my open mic and we've done a lot of things together.

[Sí] Ent. : What's the easiest way to get involved in your project?
La Bruja: The best way is through MySpace.com/labruja and you can see Latinas 4 Life is my number one friend and you can look at everything on that page. But if you really want to reach me the best way is through my MySpace page.

[Sí] Ent. : You're an actress/model/activist/poet/recording artist/[Si] blogger and a mother. Where do you find the time?
La Bruja: I don't know how I do it, I just do it. I'm a mother and that's a whole other part of my life that takes up a lot of my energy, but when you find something that you're passionate about and that you feel it's worth something for the future then you find the energy to do it.

To send your questions and feedback directly to La Bruja go to her forum now!