Aida Rodriguez: Unpacking My Childhood Traumas Through Comedy Is Cathartic

Aida Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican and Dominican comedian, actor, and writer. In 2019, she had her own half-hour special on Netflix's hit comedy series "They Ready," executive-produced by Tiffany Haddish and Wanda Sykes. In November 2021, she released her first-hour stand-up special "Fighting Words," which premiered on Max, and in October 2023, Rodriguez released her memoir "Legitimate Kid." For Mental Health Awareness Month, we asked Latine comedians we admire how comedy has supported them in overcoming trauma and confronting life's most significant challenges. Read the pieces here. I've always viewed comedy as a coping mechanism for people who are in lower economic situations or just dealing with very hard circumstances. In the words of Kevin Hart: "Laugh at my pain." My upbringing was no different. I didn't really engage in comedy as much when I was younger because I was a very shy and timid kid. But humor was always around me, and I learned at a very young age the power of laughter. My grandmother was a very funny woman. She had this amazing ability to present heavy topics like poverty and even death in ways that were humorous. At first, I used to think it was insensitive, but I quickly learned that it was just a coping mechanism and a way to make things digestible because life was already hard enough. Growing up, I saw it all. There was poverty. There was violence. There were drugs, adultery, and misogyny. For some people, laughter was the only tool they had to navigate all that. It was at school that I really started to find my comedic voice. Comedy became my way of surviving bullies and mean people. It became my armor and way of protecting myself from the kids who were clearly going through stuff at home but needed to poke fun at others to feel better about themselves. Instead of being confrontational or volatile, I was just funny. My grandmother and mother heavily influenced my comedy and sense of humor. They were naturally funny women. My mom is a very confrontational woman. She would get into it with the other women in the building or in the neighborhood, and would always come out winning because she knew how to shut people down with her words - and oftentimes, the things she said were just straight-up funny. My grandmother was always so witty with it. It's funny when I hear people say that women aren't funny, or I'll occasionally hear Latino men say they don't really like women comedians, and then you hear them tell their stories. They're always talking about how hilarious their grandmothers or their mothers are. Latinas are really the comedians in the family. A lot of us are naturally funny - it's in our blood. I started watching stand-up comedy when I was little. My uncle used to listen to Richard Pryor. That was my first introduction to stand-up comedy. I loved Johnny Carson, and I loved "I Love Lucy." I used to watch El Chavo and La Chilindrina with my grandmother. In Miami, they had a show called "Qué Pasa USA." It was a show about a Cuban family, and the grandmother on the show was one of the funniest people I've ever seen. I started appreciating humor and experienced the relief it provided at a relatively young age. But it was not until later in my life that I realized I wanted to do this for a living. Comedy came after acting. I was a model for years, and I moved to LA in 2000 to become an actor. I started doing stand-up in 2008. I had gone out for brunch to celebrate a friend's birthday, and she asked us to roast her. I roasted her, and a friend there said, "Oh, you should be doing stand-up. You're naturally funny." He gave me the address and information to an open mic, and I went and did it, and I never stopped. Once I started performing at open mics, I started noticing how healing comedy was - not just for the audience but also for me. I didn't really start with observational humor. I went straight to the wound. My first jokes were about my modeling career and becoming anorexic. I addressed difficult things I had experienced in my own life, and it helped me heal from those experiences while also making folks who could relate feel seen. My work became cathartic when I started writing material about my childhood. People would approach me after my sets and say, "Oh my god. Thank you. I've never seen a version of myself or a reflection of myself." My childhood started to influence so much of my material that it became like therapy for me. I started unpacking and healing from many traumas I experienced growing up, eventually inspiring me to write my memoir, "Legitimate Kid." It made me realize how much our stories matter, and we shouldn't belittle them because white America is telling us they don't matter. That is what has kept the fuel going for me. Making jokes about my family, my neighborhood, and the hard things I experienced growing up has allowed others to see themselves in my stories. In terms of my own healing, that relatability was part of it. It was seeing that I wasn't alone and