Illustration by Jesse Zhang

Temperature Check is a podcast at the intersection of climate and justice. Season Two features climate leaders and their mentors in a series of intimate, insightful conversations about what it takes to find purpose, passion, and even enjoyment in the fight for a better planet. Listen to all the episodes now, right here (or wherever you get your podcasts).

Jess Stahl: Welcome to Temperature Check, a podcast from Fix. Fix is Grist’s solutions Lab. I’m Jess Stahl, editor for creative storytelling at Fix. And this season of Temperature Check, we’re doing something a little different. We’re turning over the reins to climate and justice leaders to talk about mentorship. For each episode, we asked one changemaker to tell us who inspires them, who supports them. And then, we brought them together.

Josué Rivas: There is like a blueprint for how things could be, right? Like, that’s what our ancestors did. And they dreamed about us.

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Teresa Baker: I’m about building legacy. I look towards people who have gone before me.

Eriel Tchekwie Deranger: Oh my God, I am the auntie now. It was a moment of realization.

Josué Rivas: I guess that’s what it comes down to: it’s just like, you are part of my community and I am part of your community.

Xiuhtezcatl: Absolutely.

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Jess Stahl: Our first conversation of the series is with Josué Rivas and Xiuhtezcatl. Josué is an Indigenous photographer working at the intersection of art, visual storytelling, and social justice. He’s also one of our 2020 Grist 50 Fixers, and the creative director and cofounder of Indígena, a storytelling ecosystem that fosters creativity as a vehicle for collective healing. Josué chose to speak with his friend, mentee, and Indígena cofounder Xiuhtezcatl. Xiuhtezcatl is a musician and environmental justice activist. Josué and Xiuhtezcatl are here to talk about how their past collaborations and future work are creating space for their communities. And now, I’ll hand it over to them.

Xiuhtezcatl: Josué is the GOAT. Artist, storyteller extraordinaire.

Josué Rivas: Xiuhtezcatl, to me he’s a really important person on our planet and also an amazing creative.

Xiuhtezcatl: A visual storyteller that channels things beyond the visual plane.

Josué Rivas: People in environmentalism, they were like, Yeah, this kid is the next big thing.”

Xiuhtezcatl: Josué Rivas … la cabrita, young torta AKA big bro like, mentor for sure. He’s el primo. 

Josué Rivas: My name is Josué Rivas. I’m an Indigenous futurist and a creative director and cofounder of Indígena.

Xiuhtezcatl: Good intro bro. That’s tight. It’s concise. I like it. My name is Xiuhtezcatl I’m Mexica, Xochimilca on my pop’s side. Mixed European on my mom’s side. Artist, storyteller. I’m deeply passionate about our peoples, our communities, Indigenous sovereignty, Indigenous storytelling and voices, and the power of shaping and shifting culture and elevating our communities through art.

Josué Rivas: When I first met you in person, it was at a concert. And I remember your mom coming up to me and being like, “Hey, can you make some photos of my kids?” And yeah, I just photographed y’all. And I’ve been photographing you since then.

Xiuhtezcatl: That’s crazy.

Josué Rivas: Our very first real photo session was in Chicago. You remember how–

Xiuhtezcatl: So cold. He made me get in the lake.

Josué Rivas: You got to get in the lake, bro.

Xiuhtezcatl: But it’s the thought too – that was one of the first photo sessions we did preparing for the first tour that I ever did, too.

Josué Rivas: You’re like, “Yo, can you make like a cool graphic out of this? A cool poster?”

Xiuhtezcatl: A tour poster.

Josué Rivas: We were just like trying to figure out … you were in the water.

Xiuhtezcatl: It was fire.

Josué Rivas: So describe a little bit of our relationship. Like, how would you describe our relationship?

Xiuhtezcatl: It’s funny. I think it’s emerging. Which is cool, because we’ve been building together, as you said, for so long, since I was like 16, 17. I think there’s two elements to it, right? It’s like … one of which is the creative. How do we tell stuff that is visually captivating and beautiful and, like, catches people’s attention? And at the same time, how do we do stuff that is really grounded and meaningful? You know, we are always challenging ourselves and pushing ourselves to ensure that we are honoring and working with people in the best way. So I think we really push each other in different projects, working with different corporations and brands, too. And doing some of this storytelling through some of these brand lenses. It’s a very challenging space to enter.

Xiuhtezcatl: And so we’re always kind of like keeping each other in check. And balancing each other out, too. Because we’re both hella visionaries, like, we’re always looking at, like, “What is possible? What can we create? What can we build and do in the world?” And so, sometimes it’s like, “OK, cool, those ideas are fire. How do we ground it? How do we make it real? How do we do it in a way that takes into account the stakeholders, the community, the peoples whose land we’re on, the people who we’re inviting on the set to help create this bigger picture?” We’ve grown so much, bro, like even just this latest photo session we did for this next album, XI:XI like that compared to the first thing we did in Chicago or when we walked around the Bay Area, just like looking for random spots where we could take some Polaroids. And the light is hitting just right. And it’s very playful. We’re always looking for, you know, the best spots to go eat after a long day on set. The best juice in L.A., shout out Wild Living Foods. Shout out Rich and Liz Miztli out there.

Josué Rivas: Yeah, I think our relationship is pretty much based on food. Like, which kind of vegan food we’re going to look for after.

Xiuhtezcatl: Totally, totally. It’s a pillar.

Josué Rivas: To me, you know, it’s really interesting because when people talk about, like, mentoring each other, especially when I think about you, it’s like, you could be an elder or you can be an old person. And it doesn’t matter what age you are. I remember when you were so much younger, you would just be like, “Yo, like, you know, you got to recycle that stuff, man.” Or like, “You gotta put it in the compost.” And I would just be like, “You’re right.” And then it was like you were mentoring me. Even now, we continue to like, learn from each other. So I think that it’s like a circular relationship. You know, it’s almost like, how do you– how do you not just look at your relationships in one dimension? You know, how can you have meaningful relationships that are multidimensional and that can have longevity, too. You know, like one day I want to see, like, your kids grow up, you know, with my kids and, like, have relationships, and have community. And I guess that’s what it comes down to. It’s just like, you are part of my community and I am part of your community.

Xiuhtezcatl: Absolutely. And I think in the last couple of years, I’ve seen you dive really deeply into incredibly intentional and meaningful community-oriented storytelling, uplifting the voices of so many different Indigenous peoples through a handful of different projects that you’ve done. And I know that a lot of that started — or you started to learn a lot of that — at Standing Rock.

Josué Rivas: Yeah. And I think it’s a really important thing to also notice that a lot of us that went there to support the opposition, not only to the Dakota Access Pipeline, but also, you know, an awakening of a lot of different Indigenous peoples throughout the world to come together, from all four directions, to not only oppose this pipeline, but I think to … to remember. I mean, that’s really what it feels like to me. When I think about being on camp, you know, for seven months and living in a tent … being out there, watching every day how people from South America will show up with people from New Zealand or people from the Sámi Nation in Europe … breaking bread and sharing songs and sharing knowledge with each other. To me, that was the important part of this whole thing of Standing Rock. And it gave us a blueprint of how to move forward, I think, too. 

The things that I do, especially, like, when it comes to movements, and when it comes to things that are more meaningful than, like, selling this shoot, you know, like on a commercial. To me, those things are … they literally are like these intentions and seeds so that people in the future could see that we tried. Yeah, I mean, we may have failed in many things, but there is like a blueprint for how things could be, right? Like, that’s what our ancestors did. And they dreamed about us being here, you know, living probably with these technologies that they probably never really comprehended.

Xiuhtezcatl: Mmm.

Josué Rivas: Here we are, like, making music videos and making images. You know, so, a lot of the work that I’m doing … it’s not just for me and it’s not just for us right now. But it’s something that I’ll never get to see a lot of the benefits of sacrificing a lot in my life to go do this work. I do think a lot about how a lot of these stories, and a lot of these images, videos, and now commercials … they’re literally like seeds of things that happened, things that could happen, almost like envisioning. So like knowing that when I’m gone, when I make these things that somebody in like 100 years from now is going to look at the work from Standing Rock and remember, “Oh, yeah, that’s what that taught us.”

Xiuhtezcatl: Why do you think it’s important to be intentional with the language we use around photography? Words like taking photos, capturing images? Photo shoot, obviously. I’ve learned a lot from you around that conversation. Can you share a little bit about that?

Josué Rivas: You know, I think that when you’re doing something, whether it is creating an image or making a song, language is vital in that process of bringing something into fruition. Because, when you, for example, normalize the words like taking or shooting or capturing, right? If you look into the way that we’ve been telling the stories of Indigenous peoples for the last 100-plus years, we start to realize that a lot of those things that were happening to Indigenous peoples — like being shot at or being captured or being taken from their homes — it was being used also in the field of photography. You know, also in the field of storytelling. And I think that, maybe unconsciously, we were already telling people what we were going to go do. So now that, you know, even when we have, like, major corporations like Apple, using the word, like, “Shot on iPhone.” And then you have like shootings, you know, like mass shootings, you know, in high schools around the country … We don’t really think about the fact that we are saying “we’re going to go shoot.” And that “we’re going to go forward. We’re going to go take.” You’re not saying, “I want to go give.” You’re saying, “I’m going to take from something.” “I’m going to go execute something.”

So I think that the language itself is really important because, if we reverse it, and we reprogram it and say, “Well, I’m going to go make something with someone. I’m going to collaborate with someone. I’m going to go listen. I’m going to go give something away.” Then you’re really telling people what you’re going to do. And I think that that’s really important, especially in our generations. These younger generations that are working with technology … Technology, inherently, it’s colonizing. And inherently it’s extractive. We are already in that world, and if we don’t have a protocol, and we don’t have, like, a foundation of how we’re going to be in those worlds then we’re probably going to be extracted from more than we are already extracted from, you know?

Xiuhtezcatl: Mm hmm.

Josué Rivas: So when did you decide that being a musician was how you could contribute to the movements that you care about? And even furthermore, like, how do you even separate yourself from being like an Indigenous artist and then just being an artist? I don’t think I’ve ever asked you that.

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah. I was introduced to music as a concept, or I was first exposed to listening to or being surrounded by music, as a form of ceremony. That was one of the ways that we just kept our culture … stayed close to our culture, in my family, in our household and our community, was through our songs. That’s how we learned and held pieces of our language. And when I turned like eight, I got my first hip hop record. And then I started being exposed to a whole different world, and just learning and studying and sitting with some of the OGs in my community … And really just absorbing the wealth of knowledge within hip hop culture, which is in a lot of ways, a very young culture that has manifested itself in the last few decades, but built upon many, many generations of Black art, honestly, and storytelling and resistance. You know, that’s I think where it really comes from, is from a space of resistance to– Black communities in the Bronx to violence, and to lack of access to resources, and many of the hardships that those communities were experiencing. That’s where hip hop was born from, as this really beautiful, diverse expression of culture, from the dance to the streetwear to the emceeing, to the DJing, to the graffiti, the artwork that was painted on walls. So it’s like that, I think, laid the foundation for so much of what we now experience in many Native communities and Mexican and Chicano communities, like, the brilliance and the beauty of hip hop culture, of expression of Black culture, just influencing and lifting up and empowering so many Black, brown, white, yellow faces. That, to me, is the foundation of my love for this art form, and bring my own story to it. I want my art to speak for itself. It does a disservice to us to be limited by the identity that we claim as that being kind of like the ceiling of … reflect that in our art because it’s who we are. But we don’t necessarily need to have that be a definitive factor of how we are seen or how our art is consumed is because of our Indigeneity. But at the end of the day, like, we’re telling stories that we want, and we know that a lot of people are going to connect with.

Josué Rivas: Especially with your work with music, it’s almost like you’re taking all that and you putting it through this personal lens, right? And almost joyful, too. I feel like you’re not just out here sitting and writing lyrics about how catastrophic this whole climate crisis is. You’re out here also talking about, like, “Yo, we just all gotta get up and dance together, because, like, we just gotta have joy in these hard times.”

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah, I mean, I think my views and my politics and how I see the world is woven into the art for sure. But yeah, I mean, just the art lives beyond all that at the same time. You know, I think it’s a more just raw reflection of who I am and it’s a space where I get to say the things that I’m not able to say on interviews or panel discussions or—

Josué Rivas: The U.N.—

Xiuhtezcatl: —or the U.N. Yes. The art is a vehicle for a lot of that energy and for a lot of that primary function, for me, for my music is just like catharsis and healing for myself. And outwardly is to uplift and empower our people. I speak about or I’m grounded in a lot of the organizing work that I’ve done in the past and that I continue to do alongside the art. But I think it stands on its own. And I think at the end of the day, yeah, it’s just deeper than just, you know, any one movement or political belief.

SONG: Canela by Xiuhtezcatl

Mami sube le

La calentura

Costa Rica en su vibra

Vida pura

Energía en un nivel que no he visto

Listo mi amor enséñame el ritmo

Piel de canela ooh she from la selva

Párate bust it down en la Mesa

En lo que el mundo de vuelta me

Y vuelve la luna

Bailando hasta que el sol se alumbra

Xiuhtezcatl: One of the projects that I’ve been most excited to kind of roll out this year was this secondhand project, this Levi’s secondhand project that we kind of rolled out with Anahuacalmecac in this beautiful school called Semillas in L.A. The assignment was to create something for Latinx Heritage Month. There was a sustainability angle to it, but more so for us it was looking at how community sustains us and the work we do. Yeah, I just was curious what your thoughts were on how we held that campaign, how the work went into it, and why, you know, why it was important for us to kind of take up space through this platform of Levi’s to tell a story that uplifted Indigenous community members?

Josué Rivas: Yeah, so I remember when we were talking about it and you’re like, “What are we going to do for this Levi’s thing?” When we started talking about school, it was perfect because we were pushing the lens towards them. Instead of the lens in the whole story being focused and centered on you as an individual, we were just like, “Well, let’s go this way, and let’s just amplify it. Let’s use a wide-angle lens and have everybody in there. Why do we need to have a, you know, a headshot of this person?” Headshot, that’s funny. Headshot. I didn’t think about that. Head– let’s call it a portrait … better.

Xiuhtezcatl: There you go.

Josué Rivas: And bringing in our people that we know into this relationship with this corporation … At the end of the night, Levi’s is going to move on to the next thing. But me and you have a relationship with the school and the people in the school, and the people we were co-creating with. So it was really interesting, too, to see how we needed to protect that relationship and not jeopardize it just because a corporation wanted to do something differently. So it was so cool how we went from, “Alright, we’re going to highlight Xiuhtezcatl, as a Latin Heritage Month, he’s Latino” — to like, “Hey, let’s look at how that whole umbrella erases these Indigenous communities and these Black communities in Mexico and throughout the whole south of the border.” And also the whole idea of, like, sustainability, right? Like this work that you’ve been doing with them around secondhand and, like, you know, reusing things and reusing denim. To me, it was really interesting that there were so many stories there, within our own community, whether it’s like the Mexican community or, like, communities that are workers, you know, that come here and they work. They use Levi’s. And people will pass down Levi’s from generation to generations, too. 

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah.

Josué Rivas: Sustainability doesn’t have to be this bougie, like, vintage Levi’s. 

Xiuhtezcatl: Hmm.

Josué Rivas: What about for you? Like, how was that for you? Because it’s the first time we’ve done this — heavily been involved in the creative. Usually they just give you creative. And they’re like, “OK, Xiuhtezcatl, we want you to do this.”

Xiuhtezcatl: “Go stand here.”

Josué Rivas: “Go stand here, look cool. Look stoic.”

Xiuhtezcatl: It was dope. My little brother was like, “Bro, this is, like, the dopest video I’ve seen all year.” And that meant a lot coming from him. He’s 18, very Gen-Z. But, nah, it was cool. It was cool to see how it was received and it was tight to just do something with the community that really centered … yeah, the people and the youth and uplifting the youth. And it felt holistic. The significance of shining a spotlight like that onto a community, and an organization that is, like, really invested in the nourishment, education of Indigenous youth. That is powerfully significant. Creating a sustainable future is how we create these spaces for our youth. And so when we talk about sustainability, even in context of the climate crisis, too, it’s so often thought of in a very kind of linear, scientific sense that is solely based on our source of energy, and fossil fuel extraction, and transitioning to a renewable energy grid. Indigenous lifeways are inherently tied to the wellbeing of the land, of the water, of the earth, of our climate. Looking at how a lot of the protests, from Standing Rock to the Keystone XL pipeline fight to Line 3 to Bayou Bridge to a lot of the Indigenous resistance that has happened on many of these projects has averted something like 25 percent of the U.S. and Canada’s annual emissions. When I heard that from Red Nation podcast … they were kind of talking about that study that came out, Indigenous people protecting and living in and having sovereignty over how we exist on our own lands, like, that—

Josué Rivas: That’s landback, bro.

Xiuhtezcatl: That’s landback, and that’s essential for the stability of our climate. And we have hella, you know, Indigenous voices and leaders and youth at COP26 at this big Conference of the Parties, you know, that I’ve been to in the past. And it’s just this bureaucratic kind of shit show. And it was, like, really well exemplified by this meme that’s been going around of these freaking world leaders flipping a coin for good luck in combating and averting like … the total catastrophe and destruction of our society.

Josué Rivas: Mm hmm.

Xiuhtezcatl: Making these, like, hollow promises about what we might do to combat the climate crisis when it’s like, nah bro, you just got to give land back to Indigenous peoples. Let frontline communities’ voices be heard. Keep fossil fuels in the ground. Stop burning fossil fuels. Not that it’s easy, but it’s like … there’s just so much bureaucracy and just, like, friction because of how everybody just really loves that bread. That money.

Josué Rivas: And you see the stories that come out of it, right? Either bureaucratic super-marketed sustainability. You know, like, “Oh, we’re going to have green airplanes, green this, green that.”

Xiuhtezcatl: Hmm.

Josué Rivas: But we haven’t seen the stories of, “What does it look like when you let Indigenous folks ride in the front seat and drive the car?”

Xiuhtezcatl: The conversation around Indigenous leadership to protect the climate is not even like, “Yo, like, let us have a chance, and we’ll protect the climate better than you are protecting the climate.” It’s like, Indigenous people are already doing it. Indigenous peoples make up 5 percent of the world’s population, but defend 80 percent of the world’s biodiversity. If you would be accomplices in that work, you know, to defend our lands, to defend our waterways, that’s what we need governments to do. And there are so many roadblocks for us to be able to defend our own communities and our own land because of how exploited we are by these nation states, whether it’s the United States or Canada or Mexico even, in the work that has been done to strip us of our sovereignty. But I think there is a fundamental flaw in how we communicate and talk about the climate crisis. And so I think storytelling in art and music are really powerful ways to be able to reframe some of that. And allow us to understand it as much more than just an environmental issue or an energy issue, but something that is really a human issue, that is a community responsibility. And to understand kind of the greater context of the implications of where we’re headed. And the reality, the truth of how dire and severe this crisis really is. And I think storytelling can help recenter the right voices that need to be lifted up and heard in these moments. I’m firmly kind of a believer that frontline peoples, Black, brown and Indigenous folks that have been and continue to be on the front lines are those that we need to be hearing, and basing our action off of frontline communities and science is what we need to be listening to and shaping our path forward.

Josué Rivas: So, why should you partner up with large platforms? They choose to come to you. Why is that important that you take those jobs, especially when it comes to representation?

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah, I think what the opportunity really is when we are approached with different partnerships with communities, or specifically with brands, is this question of, like, how do we really bring the whole community with us when we do that kind of work? Because it’s like, yeah, a lot of these brands want, you know, Black, brown, Indigenous faces so that they don’t seem racist. That they are checking the boxes and following along with this trend of “wokeness” or, you know … social justice all of a sudden being something people want to be a part of. What’s really dope about some of the different projects that we’ve been able to work on is these brands are actually really down to open up the space so that it’s not just about “How do we bring X in as a talent to represent all these people,” but, “How do we bring in the community to represent themselves?” Because at the end of the day, we don’t speak for anybody other than ourselves. And we’re a representation of our ancestors, but also don’t speak for all Indigenous people, or all people from our nation or our communities. How do we uplift as many people as we can through the process of creating art? Did we do the process in a good way? Because representation is really interesting, and the politics around representation in pop culture and in media, or in politics even, oftentimes make us think that seeing faces and people that look like us in places of power is enough. Or seeing faces and places in the mainstream media is enough. But in reality, it’s like, how are those people holding that space? How much does it actually affect and lift up the rest of our communities and the rest of our peoples? How does it actually help change dynamics and structures of power? More positive depictions of Indigenous peoples in media, in storytelling, in Hollywood, in books, in stock images, you know, that you look up on Google or whatever. That shifts the consciousness of people subtly.

Josué Rivas: Yeah, like not seeing Indigenous peoples as just, like, one thing, right? Like right now, I keep seeing every other attempt to amplify Indigenous voices, they go towards the regalia, towards the feathers, towards—

Xiuhtezcatl: —this kind of image.

Josué Rivas: Yeah. Like, what about, like, Afro-Indigenous women? Can we uplift that somehow? 

Xiuhtezcatl: Mm hmm.

Josué Rivas: But brands and corporations don’t really think of it that way. They think it’s like, “Oh, no, like, Native Americans.” Not even Indigenous peoples. How do we see ourselves beyond the construct and the limits of the colonizer? That’s really what it comes down to, you know?

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah. Facts. Because representation so oftentimes is pitched to us or is demonstrated really as just like, “Oh, how do we ensure that there are more brown faces shaping ourselves into the most palatable form for white people?” Or for the white gaze to consume, or for white media to be able to pluck and pick and choose certain pieces of our culture or certain people that they feel represent, you know, our culture, to bring them into the spaces. And it’s like, representation for who, I think is important. Like who is it really representing and what value is it contributing?

Josué Rivas: I just can’t wait to see the stuff you’re going to make in the next few years. What are you hopeful for next projects, for next things that are coming up for us? Especially when it comes to, like, mentoring each other, and supporting each other more than mentoring, I think.

Xiuhtezcatl: I think we both have so much growth to do in our own art form and our own creativity and our own creative vision. I think my hope is that we hold space for each other to grow in those ways and then those visions and those ideas to cross paths in the most powerful ways possible. And yeah, that we just are able to keep doing this work of lifting up other young creatives, because, like, the space that you held for me, like, man. I just imagine where other Indigenous youth would be in their journey if they had people like that riding for them. A big vision is for us to build and create and to foster and nourish spaces that can amplify the mentorship that we’ve given to each other and that we’ve received from one another. That’s part of the vision with this creative agency that we’ve been working on together, Indígena, is just to create a space not just for our own ideas, but for the ideas of other young people, young storytellers, you know, really holding space for Indigenous youths to come and have their voice heard, amplified.

Josué Rivas: Yeah.

Xiuhtezcatl: What about you, bro, what is the– what’s the vision for the future of us?

Josué Rivas: I mean, I think it’s just building something that makes the process so enjoyable and so nourishing that we’ll look back when we’re old people and be like, “Oh man, we did all those cool things.” But it wasn’t even about the final thing, it was about the journey. How did we make people feel when we did our projects? You know, who did we inspire? Who inspired us? I mean, I’ll be super honest. I have a son. He’s five and a half. And when I think about, “Who are the people in his community who he can look to as a reference for what an Indigenous young man should be or could be?” Your work, it means that there is this point of reference that my kiddos will one day be like, “We know people that are doing good stuff in the world.” You know? And I think that, like, looking back at this bank of memories as something that, like, you know, can be healing. I just want to heal, bro. I just want to be able to, like, get to be like an adult and a grown man and a father that is rooted, that is stable and has so much to offer to the next generations that come after me. 

Xiuhtezcatl: For sure.

Josué Rivas: Thank you, Xiuhtezcatl, for joining this podcast and for giving us your time.

Xiuhtezcatl: Yeah, no. I’m very appreciative of every time we get to chat, converse, share, and dream. Dream together about what we’re creating, what we’re building. Tlazocamati huelimiyac noyolicniuh. ’Preciate you.

Josué Rivas: Tlazocamati, primo. 

Jess Stahl: Thank you so much for listening. And thanks to Josué Rivas and Xiuhtezcatl for sharing your time with us. This episode is the first of six conversations we’ll be sharing this month as a part of our mentorship issue, which is more than just a podcast season, by the way. You can read more about mentorship at grist.org/fix, where we’re exploring the power of mentorship in climate work and how mentorship must change to make the space more inclusive and accessible. That’s at grist.org/fix.

Temperature Check is a podcast from Fix, Grist’s Solutions Lab, produced in association with Reasonable Volume. I’m Jess Stahl, Fix’s editor for creative storytelling. Fix’s Claire Thompson, Camille Williams, and Josh Kimelman all contributed to this podcast, with additional contributions from Fix managing editor Jaime Buerger and designer Mia Torres. This podcast is produced by Audrey Ngo with associate producer Dominique French and editing by Elise Hu and Rachel Swaby. Sound Engineering is by Mark Bush. 

If you’d like to support what we do, you can rate, review, and tell all your friends to follow Temperature Check, and go listen to all of our other conversations on mentorship right now in this podcast feed. See you there!