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Are you sick too? I’m sick. My students are sick. Fall is falling!

Like my mini-docs, my newsletter explores the hyphen between various topics through the lens of Latino culture. In this newsletter, I’m exploring the hyphen between:

- Fernando

If you saw “The Devil Wears Prada 2," you saw Rose Meza Salazar’s work.

The 24-year-old Mexican American fashion student was one of the tailors responsible for altering many of the pieces you saw in the movie.

“It wasn't limited to tops or dresses or pants,” Meza Salazar said. “It was shoes, bags, belts, anything you can imagine.”

Meza Salazar was part of a four-person team charged with tailoring clothing that appeared in the background of the movie.

“It was in the thousands [of pieces] for sure,” she said. “At some point, there were new machines coming in because it was so much work. We were completely overwhelmed … But it was amazing.”

The work didn’t end there. Meza Salazar was also part of the press junket team, making alterations for clothes Meryl Streep and Anne Hathaway wore during interviews and on red carpets.

“It was my first time doing a press tour. Everything moves so much faster with a press tour,” she said. “You would expect everything to be planned months prior, but it's not. It’s [done] a week before, and it's crunch time.”

The tailor got to work with Streep mostly. Streep would come in for a fitting day and try on a bunch of different outfits for the press tour. The team would make alterations to make sure they all fit nicely. The goal was to have multiple options for each day once the press tour actually started.

“For example, if it's going to be in South Korea, they want her to look a certain way because their aesthetics are different from New York City,” she said. “So then they'll pick out outfits, and they'll have options.”

And here’s what you’re probably wondering: How does a student at the Fashion Institute of Technology land such a gig? By watching TV.

Meza Salazar was watching the news when she saw a story about a celebrity tailor in New York City. She had been wanting to get into tailoring for a while.

“I reached out to her and I was like, ‘Hey, you know, I saw you in this interview. I kind of wanted to see if I could help you out at some point.’ Time went by,” Meza Salazar remembers. “She eventually responded and she was like, ‘Hey, sorry, I just saw this. I would love to meet you someday.’”

Someday turned into months.

“One day she was like, ‘Hey, I actually would like to do a trial with you.’ And so I was like, ‘Yeah, of course.’ [She said], ‘I really want to see where your skill level is at … Can you come in tomorrow at 10 a.m.?’”

Meza Salazar showed up and did a trial run. The team liked her and hired her on the spot. She remembers them saying: “Great, yeah, you're perfect for the team. You start next week, and it's for The Devil Wears Prada.”

“I didn’t expect it at all,” said Meza Salazar.

Meza Salazar, who was born in New York City and spent a few years in Puebla, Mexico, before moving back to New York, credits her family with her passion for fashion and tailoring.

“I was originally studying economics, and then I realized it wasn't my calling,” she said. “I decided to try other things. I tried cooking. I tried doing nails, hair, pretty much everything. And I was just like, no, I can't really find what I'm passionate about. But I have aunts who grew up sewing. It's very normal in Mexico to learn how to sew. And so I was like, hmm, maybe I would also like it. So my sister had a little sewing machine. And I tried it out here and there, nothing too serious. And then I decided to sign up for like a three-month program. And I ended up loving it.”

Seeing “The Devil Wears Prada 2” in theaters was a full-circle moment for Meza Salazar but also for her mother, who accompanied Meza Salazar to the theater.

“It was such a big deal for her,” she said. “[My mom] told me that when she got to New York [from Mexico], she saw the first movie. And so she was like, I never imagined my daughter would have anything to do with the second one.”

Meza Salazar says she would like to have her own clothing brand one day.

“Once you see a piece that you created from a sketch, all the way to picking out fabrics, actually constructing it, it's very different,” she said.

But she’s not letting go of tailoring anytime soon. “I have a lot of projects coming up in tailoring, so I don't think I'll move from that very quickly.”

I was in Oahu, and I visited the only Latin American grocery store on the island.

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María Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos are joining forces. After decades anchoring Univision’s national newscast together, the journalists parted ways when Salinas left the network in 2017. Salinas and Ramos are finally reuniting—this time, to cover the midterms, but not under Univision. They’ll be working on special coverage for Ramos’ independent outfit, Así Veo Las Cosas.

Menudo is back. One of the most influential groups in Latin music history is reuniting for its 50th anniversary with a tour. Seven former members from different eras of the group will kick off their tour Oct. 10 in Los Angeles. The tour ends in December with a final stop in Puerto Rico, where the group was born. P.S. “Claridad” is my favorite Menudo song. It reminds me of my mom.

Inde Navarrette’s horror-loving tía. The “Obsession” breakout star talks to the Los Angeles Times about her Mexican American family’s obsession with horror movies, specifically her tattoo-loving aunt María. Navarrette also says she wonders about the history of Latinos loving horror so much. Someone send her this newsletter!

ICE is getting quieter. But that doesn’t mean arrests are down. The Guardian has a new investigation into how the Department of Homeland Security has changed its strategy in recent months. The new approach has ICE agents moving into more rural communities. In July, there was a record high of 50,000 arrests.

The Black Americans moving to Mexico. PBS has a fascinating documentary about the people moving to Mexico seeking a refuge from racism. One of these immigrants, says “I have to worry about police, just being a Black person in general in America.” Another, who is a Black Mexican, says integrating to Mexican society has been harder than she thought.

Stanford used AI to replace a Hispanic student with a Black student. That’s one way to increase diversity at a school. The California university is admitting it used AI to change the appearance and race of students in a promotional banner.

We now know who will sing the national anthems at the NFL Mexico City game on Nov. 22. And I say anthems because we’ll be hearing both the Mexican and the American one. Majo Aguilar of the Antonio Aguilar and Flor Silvestre dynasty will represent Mexico, while MXKA, who I actually profiled in a video, will represent the U.S. MXKA is also Mexican American.

Drake made an appearance at Karol G’s show in Houston. They, of course, performed “Ahí,” but Drake also performed two of his own songs. The real surprise was when they very briefly danced very close to each other, and fans lost it.

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This section is a random musing from the week that is not related to my work as a journalist, usually. 

This week’s musing:

I went to an entrepreneurship conference in L.A. Monday. It’s called the Hustle & Heart Entrepreneur Summit. On one of the panels, Patty Delgado, founder of Hija De Tu Madre, was asked about how she develops new products and how she goes about testing new ideas. She said something that was eye-opening. “I don’t ask for permission to make it; I just make it.” That’s not an exact quote. It was something to that effect. I resonated with that deeply because before I launched In The Hyphen, yes, I did market research and interviews with people to see if there was a market for journalism about U.S. Latinos. But how I go about doing that journalism or what stories I cover has been very instinctual.

And it’s a good reminder that we’re not all as unique as we think we are, and that’s a good thing. If you like something, chances are someone else will too.