The Brand Giving First-Gen Stories a Voice

Daniel Buezo has always rolled deep.

Even his father would make fun of him. How many people are you bringing? he’d ask. It’s part of who he is—a man of the people. And he’s found the perfect platform to do what he does best; as CEO of emblematic fashion label Kids of Immigrants, Buezo brings people together.

The brand now approaching its tenth anniversary, LatiNation’s docu-series team caught up with him in the fashion district east of Downtown Los Angeles. 

“We always wanted to do something around Kids of Immigrants—we loved that name,” Buezo says on Latino Alternative Storytellers. “We knew that’s who we are, who we were yesterday, today, and tomorrow.” 

At its core, Kids of Immigrants is more than a brand. Like the name alludes to, it’s a community that fosters diversity, style, and thought. The more stories Buezo hears, the more he can imagine—and he hopes customers and admirers of the brand share that sentiment when they wear his clothes. It’s not just one culture, but a collection of backgrounds, a mosaic of stories from old homelands and lost traditions that live on through the children of America anew.

Buezo, a Hondureño from New York, partnered up with Weleh Dennis, a Liberian-American, and together they launched Kids of Immigrants in May of 2016.

“People would see the word immigrant [and] this word is a triggering word for some. It’s a word that can ignite a lot of different feelings,” Buezo says. “We told that story with love. We were celebrating our roots. We were celebrating our differences and our similarities. For us, this was a moment of pride—not running away from the word but running towards it.”

Immigration is the bedrock of America. From the very beginning, waves of immigrants arrived on the shores of a new land in search of a better life. Their children would be raised first-generation children—born on the soil of this country with roots and customs from another country, a country they may never see, but a country they do certainly feel. This in-between, this dual-belonging, this not-quite-fitting-into-either, is a shared experience for all kids of immigrants.

The latest and most influential wave of immigrants has come from the Spanish-speaking world south of the US border.

In some ways, the story of Latinos in America is different than past immigrant narratives. Latinos immigrate from lands on this side of the world. They don’t cross oceans or seas. Most are people of color with indigenous roots to the land.

In most ways, the story is the same. Latino families make the bold choice to come to the United States for a better life, adapting to the customs they can while preserving the traditions that make them who they are. They raise first-generation children who grapple with the meaning of home, legally American, but emotionally cross-faded between cultures and nation-states and histories. Xenophobia is part of the story, too.

It’s not an easy time to be Latino in America.

“What’s happening today is a cycle that continues to repeat itself. It hurts more today because it feels like we’ve done so much work, and how are we still here?” Buezo says. “Our message this year is Build to Last and Here to Stay. We are very resilient, strong, amazing, beautiful people … and it’s been really tough to have hope nowadays. It’s always going to be our responsibility to continue to celebrate us.”

Is it possible to drape oneself in both the American flag and the flag of your parents or grandparents? Is it possible to be members of two or three countries at the same time? Must we forfeit our cultures at home to mold to the culture outside? Where is the line between citizen and human being?

Wearing Kids of Immigrants is to embody these questions, to celebrate the stories of our ancestors and honor the story we’re living right now.

Check out the full segment to learn more about Daniel Buezo and his iconic label.