Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Puerto Rico: The U.S. Territory Stuck in Statehood Limbo with Jeena Wilder

Episode Date: April 4, 2022

In today’s episode, Jeena Wilder joins Sharon to hear about the history of Puerto Rico. Sharon walks listeners through how the U.S. acquired Puerto Rico through the Treaty of Paris, and how the island’s people are split on the issue of statehood. While many would like to see Puerto Rico become the 51st state of the U.S., others are hoping to see the island become its own independent nation. Sharon and Jeena also talk about Puerto Rico’s blue cobblestone streets, the many iguana species, and the brain-tingling fact that coconuts are not indigenous to the Caribbean island. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Buy from dysoncanada.ca. With ANC on, performance may vary based on environmental conditions and usage. Accessories sold separately. Hey friends, welcome. I'm chatting today with my friend Gina Wilder, who has just a delightful Instagram account that will make you smile on a daily basis. She talks a lot about multicultural parenting and she has five absolutely adorable children. But today we are talking about Puerto Rico. And I have some fun facts that are definitely going to give you a bunch of brain tangles. Brain tangles coming up. So let's dive in. I'm Sharon McMahon. And welcome to the Sharon Says So podcast. I'm so excited to finally be able to chat Gina. Yay. We have been planning this since before your baby was born seven months ago. Yeah. I mean, I had a difficult pregnancy,

so it was rough trying to plan stuff. And I'm, I was determined to do this with you. I'm excited. If you have not been following Gina Wilder on Instagram, Gina, tell everybody what you do. Cause you just are so, you just bring a smile to my face on a daily basis. Thank you, Sharon. Well, I'm a mom of five. We talk about on my page, just about multicultural families, adoption, transracial adoption, and just like raising a multicultural family.

Cause my husband and I are interracial couple. And then we have four biracial children and then one little daughter she's white and then so it's the five children and then two of us and we talk about it all and we just talk about just how some of the things that we do that are just like normal families and some of the things that we might have to deal with that maybe other families don't have to deal with because they may not be a multicultural family and so we talk about it all on my Instagram and And so, yeah, that's about all about me. I'm also a Haitian second generation Haitian immigrant. So I speak Creole and French,

and I feel like I talk about being a mom a lot, but I do other things, I guess, too. But that's one of the main things that are running my life right now. Totally. Well, your children are beautiful. And I really like a lot of the sort of education that you really, really kindly provide people where you just show every, you know, aspects of your life that maybe people who are not in a multicultural family don't understand. They don't understand what it's like to be a black mother of a white child or what it means to like, have to get your hair rebraided. Like what, like I was just watching your stories earlier today where, you know, like it's a very long process. And so I think I just love how you take us behind the scenes in so many

of those aspects of your family's life. Yeah. I mean, I love just the fact that like I've had people DM me, there was a teacher who talked about how she has this one student who would take a whole day out of school and just not be there. And she's she and her mom explained to the teacher, like it's for her hair. And she's like, I couldn't understand it. I didn't understand why this mom would just take her daughter out of school. It's so important. And then she's like, and then I watch your stories and how you like how long it takes for you to just take out your braids and wash your hair and then we get it rebraided.

It's this whole process. It's not even like a couple of hours. It's over days. And that made me really happy. I'm grateful that I could just showing what I do. Nothing. I'm not doing anything extraordinary because I'm not anything crazy. I'm not anything special.

I really don't feel like I'm just doing what other moms do. And this teacher was able to learn from that. And it makes me happy. I love that. I also love what you have to say about doing your children's hair that you tell them, like when I am doing your hair, cause children, Hey, having their hair done, that doing this is one of the ways that I show my love for you. And that this is having your hair done appropriately is a sign that your family cares for you and loves you and takes care of you. And just sort of reframing that for your own children who I'm sure they're still like, I don't want to get my hair done. They do. But every single time, even my daughter, who's white, like when I do her hair because I make sure

not just like it's not just one kid get all of them and she hates it she cries sometimes and mostly it's just because no kid wants to spend like 30 minutes or 20 minutes taking out of their time to get their hair brushed and braided and all that jazz and afterwards when she's done when it's all said and done she's like I really love really love it. And I really like, love it, mom. Thank you. Like I said, it doesn't make it where all of a sudden they're just willing to come get their hair done every single day. They know it's my way of showing how I love them. And so it is. And someday your children will be like, my mom always made time to make sure that my hair looked nice before we went anywhere. And I, you know, they will probably have very fond memories of you doing

their hair for them. I hope so. I hope so. I love that. That's just one example of one of the things that you've taught me. And one of the things that I enjoy watching on your Instagram. So thanks for doing that. So have you been to Puerto Rico? I have. You have went. Tell me about that. Tell me about it. So we went on a cruise in one of the stops of Puerto Rico. We were there for two days and I absolutely love it. My husband's a museum and like history junkie where he just loves learning about. And so we visit the fort that they have down there. And then we of course ate all the food and our new favorite food, at least for me, it's mofongo. And yeah, we visited there about three or four years ago. We love it. It is a really cool place. And I want to talk a little bit more about Puerto Rico today, how Puerto Rico got to be a U.S.

territory, a little bit more about its history. Drew will probably, hopefully I'll teach Drew something new. Hopefully you won't know all these things, but one of the things that when I was learning more about Puerto Rico that I did not realize is, you know, of course, Puerto Rico famous for, and many, most Caribbean islands famous for their beaches, famous for those coconut palm trees and the sandy beach on the water. I did not realize that coconuts are not indigenous to the Caribbean. What? Do you know that? Coconuts, not indigenous to the Caribbean, have only been in the Caribbean for a couple hundred years. You lying. I feel like as a Haitian American, I should know something like this. And I didn't know it either. I, you know, I just thought like, well, that those are the climates that coconuts grow in. No coconuts

came from India and Asia. And there are two different genes, you know, like gene pools of coconuts. One are very round coconuts and one are like the more longer, more oval shaped coconuts. They came from different places, but they were brought to the Caribbean, brought to the Americas by traders, people, you know, on trade routes from Asia, from India, brought to Puerto Rico, brought to Haiti, brought to Florida, all the places you see coconuts in the United States and in the surrounding areas, they did not start here. Which blows my mind because you, so many of these countries, we think of coconuts. We think of these palm trees. I learn something new every day. They were introduced to Puerto Rico and planted along, you know, sort of the edge of the sea because they were people who owned different plantations.

They're particularly like sugar plantations believed that they would be good sources of food and water. Cause of course there's liquid inside the coconuts, good sources of food and water for many of the people that they enslaved that worked on their plantations. So they were planted there as a way to be like, this is cheap and easy food for people. Isn't that fascinating? That is fascinating to me. So obviously there have been indigenous people who have lived on Puerto Rico for thousands of years. And Christopher Columbus famously made contact with many of the indigenous people. In fact, he was on Puerto Rico for a total of two days in 1493. And, you know, landed on Puerto Rico, was like, this belongs to Spain now.

And then, of course, as he left many of his people there and then sailed off into the sunset himself, the people that he left behind subjected the indigenous people to incredible levels of repression, enslavement, death, taxation, et cetera. This was, he did not come to Puerto Rico and be like, nice to meet you and leave. And in fact, Christopher Columbus did not name the island Puerto Rico. He named the island San Juan Bautista. That was the name that was like a name of after a Spanish saint that he named it after.

And it did not become called Puerto Rico for a period of time after that. And it was some of the people who landed there as traders referred to this, the sort of the main city on the Island as Ciudad de Puerto Rico, which means rich port city. And then that just sort of evolved to being Puerto Rico. And then that just sort of evolved to being Puerto Rico. It had lots of gold and lots of fresh water and rivers and streams and things that people would have wanted like fresh water after sailing across the Atlantic, like that in and of itself was highly, highly valuable. Yes. So it just eventually got shortened to Puerto Rico.

And that's what, obviously what we call it now. So how then did Puerto Rico get to be a United States territory? That is the question, right? Like it's not a state. No, it's not. People who live there are U.S. citizens, however, but they're not U.S. citizens in the same way that a citizen who is born in South Carolina is a citizen. They are not allowed to vote for president. They can vote

in primary elections, so they can help narrow down the field of candidates, but they can't actually vote in the final general election. And that's because of the way the electoral college is set up in the constitution. Many Puerto Ricans don't care for that. They feel like they are second-class citizens in some way. And around half of them want to be a state and have full right of statehood. And around half of them want to be independent and to not be an American colony anymore. Puerto Rico is one of the oldest colonies in the world. It has been a colony consistently since Columbus landed on it in the 1400s. And they also don't

have any voting representation in Congress. They have a delegate to Congress who doesn't actually get to vote on anything. They act in an advisory capacity, but their delegate doesn't get to vote on whether or not a bill passes, but yet are they subjected to federal taxation. Yes. Can they be drafted? Yes. And so it is this sort of like in-between state that many Puerto Ricans find challenging. And another interesting thing is that there are more Puerto Ricans living in mainland United States than there are living in Puerto Rico. There are something like 5 million, roughly 5 million Puerto Ricans living in mainland United States and around three and a half living on Puerto Rico. And people who live on the mainland United States do get to vote

for president. Wow. Isn't that interesting? Because you're a citizen. And so it has to do with the fact that Puerto Rico is not a state, but as a citizen, if you move to a state, then you do get to vote. Like, I understand. As you're saying, I understand it. I just don't agree with it. I don't. I feel it makes me like to live in a country that you're basically you're in the middle. Like it doesn't it sucks, especially with this last election. Like whether or not who you voted for, it doesn't really matter to feel like you didn't

have a voice in it. That would be extremely hard to see someone, whoever it was to not agree with them and want to vote and want changes for your family, for your country. And you don't even have the ability. That would be horrible. Yeah. I can absolutely empathize with people who live there who feel in many ways, like this is taxation without representation. This is, I don't have a voice in my, in my own government. I can absolutely understand that perspective for sure. So here's the reason why Puerto Rico is a United States territory. Spain obviously had ruled Puerto Rico for hundreds of years, hundreds. And then towards the latter half of the 1800s, the United States got into a conflict with Spain and began the Spanish-American War.

And the conflict with Spain was actually about Cuban independence. The United States had invested tens of millions of dollars into Cuba and had a lot of interest in its natural resources. Then Cuba wanted to be independent and Spain didn't want it to be independent. And so the United States actually fought Spain in the Spanish American war. And one of the places that the United States landed as part of its like sort of strategic fight with Spain was on Puerto Rico. So the United States actually landed in Puerto Rico in 1898 when they sort of declared war on Spain. And they invaded, they occupied it for months. Again, not because it necessarily was like, we need to make this a territory, but because it wanted to get back at Spain.

And when the Spanish-American War ended, they signed a treaty called the Treaty of Paris with Spain. And when the Spanish American war ended, they signed a treaty called the Treaty of Paris with Spain. And one of the things that Spain had to do was give the United States some of its land. And it had to give the United States Guam. It had to give the United States the Philippines, which we don't have anymore. And it had to give the United States Puerto Rico. And the United States had actually thought about trying to buy Puerto Rico in the past, still in the late 1800s, but prior to it occupying Puerto Rico. And it actually offered Spain a lot of money. And they were like, we'll give you a ton of money. We'll give you $160 million in 1890. That's a lot. That is a lot. And Spain was like, Oh heck no, we're not selling this to you. But then when Spain lost the Spanish

American war, it, it made an agreement with the United States. We will sell you Puerto Rico for 20 million. I mean, if, if I have one, I want that for free. I try to give you more, but now you got to give this to me for free. You lost the war. Now it sucks to be you. So then the United States is like, well, now what are we supposed to do? Are we just supposed to militarily occupy Puerto Rico indefinitely? Well, it didn't do that indefinitely, but for a number of years, there was just sort of a military occupation of Puerto Rico. But then at the turn of the century, they decided, okay, we are going to create a civilian government, a non-military government of Puerto Rico. Congress passed a law and it granted Puerto Rico the ability to have a governor and to have a legislature that made rules for Puerto

Rico specifically. There's one political science professor who has studied Puerto Rico extensively. She teaches at Columbia Law School. And she has come to the conclusion that one of the big reasons that the United States did not want to admit Puerto Rico as a state is because of the racial issues. They feared that there would be too much mixing of the races if Puerto Rico was allowed to become a state. That don't surprise me one bit. No, this is not surprising. That happened even in New Mexico. New Mexico was one of the last states to become a state. And one of the reasons it did not become a state for a long time is because it was a majority minority state. Most of the people spoke Spanish or they spoke Navajo or other indigenous languages.

Most people that lived there were not white. And it took a very long time for New Mexico to get admitted. I'm Jenna Fisher and I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends. And together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests and lots of laughs. Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! In the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from the office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday.

Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. Eventually, over the next decade, 15 years or so, there became this stronger, stronger movement for Puerto Rican autonomy from the people who lived there of like, we're not, listen,

we don't want this in between. Like, are you going to make us a state or can we just go ahead and be independent? And the United States Congress then passed another law called the Jones-Shafroth Act that granted Puerto Ricans U.S. citizenship with limitations. So that 1917 law is what set up the current system that Puerto Rico has now, where you are a citizen, but you can't vote unless you move to the mainland. You can vote, but you can't vote unless you move to the mainland. You can vote, but not for president. You can vote in other elections. But you do have to register for the selective service so you can be drafted. And some people have said that one of the reasons that law was passed then in 1917 was

that was the height of World War I. 1917 was that was the height of World War I. And 1918 was that massive worldwide flu pandemic that was sort of getting started in 1917. And so some people have hypothesized that one of the reasons they wanted to grant them citizenship was so that they could have more people to draft into the military. And in fact, 20,000 Puerto Ricans then immediately after that law was passed, went on to fight in World War I on behalf of the United States. And since then, that has happened many times. Puerto Ricans have fought in all of the world wars and all of the other conflicts we've had around the world. So then zooming ahead a little bit to 1950, the United States finally said to Puerto Rico,

okay, go ahead and draft your own constitution. If you guys want to have more say over how Puerto Rico is run, go ahead and draft your constitution, but a few caveats. You cannot alter your status as a territory. You cannot draft a constitution to declare independence. And you have to have a bill of rights and you have to have the type of government that we say you have to have. You have to have a republic, essentially. Finally, Puerto Rico had its own constitutional convention in 1952. And then that constitution

had to then go be approved by the United States Congress and by the president. Who was the president at that time? In 1952, Dwight Eisenhower was elected in 1952. Prior to the 1952 election was Truman. So it changed the status of Puerto Rico. They decided they wanted to be called the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. And they thought that this might give them a slightly different interface, so to speak, with the United States. If we're a commonwealth, what that means is that we are more independent, but we freely associate with the United States. We're not a colony in the same way where we're subjected to your rule. We freely associate with you. And so that was the perspective of many Puerto Ricans when they passed this new constitution in the 1950s. But that was not the perspective of the United States government,

right? Of course, the United States government was like, nothing has changed, y'all. You could call yourself a commonwealth all day long, but the U.S. constitution is still the same, and you're still not a state, and you're still just a territory, and nothing has changed. And you're still just a territory and nothing has changed. So since then, over the years, Puerto Rico has had many referendums, many, at least five referendums where they have asked the citizens of Puerto Rico, do you want to be a state or do you want to be independent? And so many times people just don't show up to vote in those things because they feel like, why does it matter?

What will happen? We say we want to be a state. Are they going to make us a state? No. Do you know what I mean? So they feel like there's no point in voting in these referendums. Most recent referendum was in November of 2020. They voted on this referendum instead of being able to vote for president. And they no one came up, don't shut up, I guess. Well, about half of Puerto Ricans showed up, frankly, about half of Americans voted presidential elections. Right. Which is a much better percentage than it had been in the past where only like 25 percent of eligible Puerto Ricans had voted. And 53 percent of Puerto Ricans in November of 2020 said they wanted to be a state. And 47 percent rejected becoming a state because they favor Puerto Rican independence. But it is pretty clear that most Puerto Ricans are not super happy with the current arrangement, right? Like they want independence or they want to be a state. They don't want to just remain in this state of limbo indefinitely. Of course, I'm not speaking for all Puerto Ricans, but the

statistics show that most people do favor one of those two other scenarios. By the way, that is the current status of Puerto Rico. It has been the current status of Puerto Rico since 1917. In 2017, the Puerto Rico had its 100th anniversary of being just a territory of the United States. And it could change. I mean, it's legally possible to change it in either way. If Puerto Rico wanted to become independent and the United States Congress wanted to approve it, they would just need to pass a bill approving it. When was the last time we set a territory free? Shortly after World War II with the Philippines. Okay. Okay.

And then it could also just make it a state because what would happen in the 1950s both alaska and hawaii became states i think it would be amazing for it to be a state because i mean think about it think how many things have happened in the last two three years all the big changes that i feel like our children or at least our grandchildren will be reading in the social studies books when they oh my gosh yes school in elementary school it'd be amazing for them like yeah we had 50 states and all of a sudden we have our 51st state you telling me that the idea of like half of them showed up and some of them wanted or half of them wanted to become states

and half of them wanted to become their own independent country. To see that kind of reminds me of like how a lot of Haitian Americans think, like become an American citizen is, it's the best thing that, and, and here I am thinking, yeah, it is awesome. There are a lot of great things that come with becoming an American citizen, but a lot of cons as well. You know, people might vote differently if they thought that the U.S. Congress was serious. If U.S. Congress was like, listen, we're willing to make you a state if that's really what you guys want. Let's have a vote and let's see what you think. impossible to say just with these non-binding referendums, what people would actually vote for if they felt like Congress might actually be willing to make them a state. So that I think that's interesting. I just want to give you a few other little fun facts about Puerto Rico that you can take back to Drew and be like, first of all, did you know coconuts are not indigenous to the Caribbean? I was told that.

I'll be home in a couple hours. Secondly, so I already told you about how Spain ruled Puerto Rico for so many centuries. And for many, many hundreds of years, beginning in the 1700s, Puerto Rico was paved with blue cobblestone streets. Did you see any of the blue cobblestone streets when you were there? Yes, we did learn about those. We did see those. I love it. Yes. So for people who've not been there, trading ships would leave Puerto Rico filled with gold and natural resources and all this stuff that they wanted to carry back to Europe and other places that they were leaving Puerto Rico with. And so the ships would be very heavy laden and more stable.

But then when they would return and they were going to return empty, that made them less stable and more unsafe. And so they started loading up the cargo holds with cobblestones. And the cobblestones were blue because they were made from rocks that had iron smelting waste in them. Like it's called iron slag. And they were that, you know, iron was used to make all kinds of interesting things, fences and tool, et cetera, in Europe. And then these stones had sort of this by-product of iron and they had a blue cast. And so then they put them into the, to the cargo holds of the ships, sailed them across the ocean so that they would be more stable. And then they

paved the streets, these blue pavers. And a lot of them have been removed and, you know, paved over with different materials, but there are still some in Puerto Rico that you can see. That actually also happened in Charleston, South Carolina. The original cobblestone streets are paved with cobblestones from European trading ships where they did not want to come to the Americas empty because it's not safe. So they would fill them with stones and then they would pave streets with them. And I've been to Charleston and I didn't know that. So that's interesting. So there you go. I got something. Yeah. A couple of things now to tell Drew. Here's another thing that a lot of

people don't realize about Puerto Rico is it's not one Island. It's multiple Islands. There's the main Island, which is where most people visit, which is where the main cities are. There are two smaller islands that are off the coast of the main island. And then there are dozens and dozens and dozens of other little, little islands in this archipelago. Some of them are, most of them I should say are uninhabited, but there is one uninhabited island that is called the Galapagos of the Caribbean. And the Galapagos Islands are famous for, you know, like the big Galapagos tortoises. There's, you know, very, very unique ecosystem. And this island off the coast of Puerto Rico is very famous for its thousands of iguanas.

Thousands of iguanas, thousands of iguanas. In fact, there are subspecies of iguanas on this Island that exists nowhere else in the world. Wow. Which I thought was like, dang, I don't, first of all, I don't care for lizards that much. So I probably wouldn't visit, but it's cool to learn about. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm not a type of, if you got more than two legs and two arms or four paws, you're not for me. So I totally get that. But like you said, it is very cool to learn about the whole aspect of it's only found on this Island. And it's even more interesting to me. Totally. Totally. I bet some of your older kids would like to look that up. Look up the Mona iguana. Also, there is a super fascinating history of an extinct type of dog that used to live

on Puerto Rico called an Alcos, A-L-C-O-S. They were small, barkless dogs. So they were, the historians, Europeans that were visiting referred to them as mute dogs. They were dogs that were used by the indigenous people who lived there. And they were designed to help them hunt guinea pigs. to help them hunt guinea pigs. So huge colonies of guinea pigs, very, very prevalent and a very common type and source of food for the indigenous people. You having us pets in our home? Bigger than that, bigger than that. Yes. They have been domesticated and to live in cages. So they've been domesticated to be small and docile, but in the wild, they can grow the size of a chicken and they live in huge colonies of many thousands of guinea pigs. And so they use the specific type of little dog who is very short-legged, who is kind of the size of a

guinea pig to be able to run into these guinea pig colonies and help them hunt guinea pigs. They lived there before the Europeans made contact with the indigenous people. So these were not dogs brought by Europeans. They were living there with the indigenous people before Columbus landed in the 1400s. So do they know what caused the extinction? I don't know if there was one catastrophic event, but I'm sure that contact with the Europeans, the enslavement of the indigenous people, et cetera, I'm sure that had something to do with it. But you can look up in a book that I found called The Natural History of dogs, which was actually written in the 1800s. So it talks a lot about dogs from long ago, not the labradoodles, you know, not the dogs that we have as pets now,

but dogs from long, long ago. And it's described in that book. They're called Alcos, A-L-C-O-S. And they were also popular pets for like, let's say women of means, women of status within that indigenous culture, because they were small and they keep them as lap pets. So you're saying that they were back then, they already knew like people of status all love small dogs. Small dogs, small dogs, keep them in your house. They will kill things for you. And you can pet them when you want to. Here's my last fun fact for you to share with Drew. Puerto Rico has the largest network of caves in the Western hemisphere and the caves run the gamut from like, we got electric lights in here and just like walk on through this paved path. They run from that all the way to deep underwater at the bottom of this waterfall

is a cave and you can dive down to it. And the amount of caving opportunities for people who are interested in things like spelunking is incredible. I mean, there's like elaborate series of sinkholes and this is the caving in Puerto Rico. First of all, that's another no from me. I'm not interested in your underwater caves. I'm not sliding down here on a rope. I'm not squeezing through any crevices. You know what I mean? Like I'm doing water and darkness and cave. that's not my thing. Absolutely not. Absolutely not. I love sea creatures like whales and things like that, but they need to come to the surface. You know what I mean? Like you got to come to me. I'm not going to you.

You need to like leap out of the water where I can be like, that's cool. I am not going to get, I'm not going to dive down in deep water in a cave. Absolutely not. You could not pay me enough money. Nope. Absolutely not. In fact, experts have estimated that there are 800 caves in Puerto Rico that have not even been explored yet. Like that is how many caves there are like under the surface of Puerto Rico. I feel like that makes scientists like super giddy. Like, Ooh, I'll bet you. What can we find? What can we find down here? We haven't seen nowhere else. That's right. Yeah, exactly. That's not for me though. I have a, I have a good friend that I like to talk about stuff like this with sometimes. And she's,

we have the same opinion, which is like all the good stuff has been found. I'm sorry. There's nothing down there that is useful, delicious. Like there's nothing I need to find down there. You don't want them to bring up here anyways. Cause I feel like we've already dealt with enough for the last couple of years too. That's right. There is nothing down there. That's going to benefit me. Like we just got, we had enough stuff here on the surface to contend with. We're not bringing up secret cave creatures. No, we've already found all the delicious things, Gina. There's nothing down there that I need to bring to the surface. It's living in the dark for a reason. It's not like we're going to find a new

species of gushers. Like the gushers we got here, right up here. Yeah. I'm fine with the selection of food. We've, we already have. I'm fine with the selection of food. We've, we already have. I'm fine with it. I'm good with it. I'm glad you agree with me. Somebody needs to be sane in this, in this world. My husband can do all that crazy stuff. I'm going to stay home with my kids. I'm good. I don't need to do any of that stuff. Just, I don't know why people want to do that stuff. No, absolutely not. I am not rappelling into your canyons. I am not lowering myself with a rope on scuba gear into a canyon under a waterfall. I'm not doing any of those things. I will, I will.

Canyons. I know canyons are no go for you. That's right. I'm just like, I will stay here with my, you know, like my running water and my wifi. No more. Well, this was really fun. Gina, tell everybody where they can find you so they can follow you and have all the smiles on a daily basis. Like I do. Well, you can find me on Instagram, but just my name, Gina Wilder.

You can also find me on Tik TOK. Hey there Wilders, where you could just see us do all our crazy, funny mom and dad jokes and parenting jokes and just learn more about growing and being a multicultural family. And your name is J-E-E-N-A. It's not Gina like G-I-N-A. No, no. It's not like Gina from Martin. It's J-E-E-N-A Wilder. Thank you for doing this. This was really fun. Interesting. I'm so excited. I love learning about, like, I just love history.

And so I'm so glad that I got to do this. Yes. And now you get to one-up Drew. Oh, I love that. Do you know? I need to know more than my husband. That's right. I'm here.

I got you. We'll take him down one peg a very nicely. Oh, all right. We'll talk soon, Gina. All right. Later. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Sharon says so podcast.

I am truly grateful for you. And I'm wondering if you could do me a quick favor. Would you be willing to follow or subscribe to this podcast or maybe leave me a rating or a review? Or if you're feeling extra generous, would you share this episode on your Instagram stories or with a friend? All of those things help podcasters out so much. This podcast was written and researched by Sharon McMahon and Heather Jackson. It was produced by Heather Jackson, edited and mixed by our audio producer, Jenny Snyder, and hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. I'll see you next time.