'Millennial Loteria' creator's new children's books help bridge the bilingual divide at home

The traditional Mexican Lotería game features iconic cards like La Sirena, or The Mermaid El Sol, The Sun and La Dama, The Lady.

But Mike Alfaro made a name for himself with a version that went viral a few years ago: "Millennial Lotería." In his version, La Sirena is La Selfie. La Dama is La Feminist. El Sol is El Global Warming.

Mike Alfaro

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Mike Alfaro is the creative director and writer behind the popular game. Now he’s out today with a new children’s book called "The Unbreakable Piñata" — book 10 of 12 books in a series of bilingual kids books he’s writing called "Si Sabo Kids."

The Show spoke with Alfaro more about writing children’s books, Millennial Lotería, and the importance of bilingual education.

Full conversation

MIKE ALFARO: I grew up in a household that spoke Spanish growing up in Guatemala, because I'm not from the United States. So, I learned English from books and TV shows and school. My parents really wanted me to have that bilingual education, but they did not have that.

And so for me, now that I'm here in the United States, it's about maybe mirroring that process again but with Spanish instead of English, which in our household, we do speak English because my wife only speaks English. She has learned a little bit of Spanish with dating me for so long. She can carry a little conversation, but it's not something that's like fluent.

And so I think creating these books were also a way of me of uh reminding me that I need to be speaking Spanish with her and also giving my wife tools so that she can also help my daughter learn Spanish as she's growing up. And I know a lot of families are in the same situation that we are.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, yeah, like this sort of bilingual divide in the household but you're trying to bridge that gap, which is so important. What was the inspiration going from something like the success of “Millennial Loteria” and switching to kids' books? Like, this was because you became a dad?

MIKE ALFARO: Yeah, I mean, it was because of — I think so many parents, you know, want to write children's books is that one thing when you become a parent and you have these ideas and you start telling your kids stories, and all of a sudden, you find yourself telling stories that you were like, "Wow, this might could actually be a good book." Or finding ways to teach Spanish.

And I think that's kind of how this whole process evolved. I also have to say my publisher who I work with, Blue Star Press, and they are huge with children's books. That's their bread and butter. So, we did “Millennial Loteria” together, and then they were like, "You know, we do children's books. You got any ideas?"

And I was like, "Do I?" Here's all these different things that I've been I've been doing with my daughter, and uh they saw the vision and uh, you know, there's there's a big market opportunity right now to teach kids Spanish because it's a—it's a language that is just huge in the United States and continues to grow.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, and it's so useful for kids to be able to speak it, exactly. How hard is it, Mike, to write a children's book? Like, I have had that exact experience you described with my kids where I'm like, "Oh, this would make a great kids' book." But also, I can imagine it would be way harder to put together and actually make interactive and interesting and sort of visually dynamic for kids once you start doing it.

MIKE ALFARO: I think for me, I worked in advertising for a long time. I worked as an advertising creative, I was a copywriter. My art director who I work with at agencies, he also illustrates our books as well. So, we kind of have this partnership going on, and he also has children and also wants to raise them bilingual.

And so for us it was a little bit of a team effort in how we did it. So I got to really focus on the words and obviously him the images.

And we collaborate, go back and forth obviously, in everything that we do. Like, I'll say something about images, he'll say something about copy. And I think because it was a team effort in how we did it, it felt fun and easy.

And I also have trained my brain to write very short when I'm creating something because if I works in social media, I usually, you know, everything's around like, for me, 7-15 seconds to get that information. Same with commercials, when I worked, I had to get so much information into like 30 seconds, 15 seconds, or even those 5-second tag spots.

And so, I think that also helped train my brain in a format like a children's book which is getting the information out, having a message and having something entertaining that is an entertaining story that also educates you along the way was something that I pulled from advertising as well, where you have to be entertaining first, and then you hit them with a message. And I think trying to make sure that message sticks, and I applied that same idea to my children's books.

LAUREN GILGER: That's a great use of advertising knowledge. I love that. OK, so we have to talk about “Millennial Loteria” before I let you go because this sort of began all of this for you. It became such a hit. It hit such a cultural nerve. Tell us about where this idea came from for you. It seems sort of like organic, almost an accident.

MIKE ALFARO: It was. Like I said, I worked in advertising, and I had quit my job uh when I got my green card because I'm like, "I'm free! I can do whatever I want right now."

And so I just I wanted to update my portfolio, and I wanted to create a project or something that represented Latino identity or how what I was feeling at the time about latinidad being so modern, but also being represented in ways that are outdated, I think, in a lot of media.

And so, I wanted to represent our generation as modern and cool and funny and technologically savvy. That's why La Sirena became La Selfie, El Catrín became El Hipster, El Sol became El Global Warming.

We talked about issues that were affecting our communities, millennials, and it was just an art project that I put on on Instagram, but it connected instantly with so many people who were feeling the same way and hadn't seen that representation. And it was funny that it took a Loteria game for people to see themselves represented, and it had a huge impact on people.

And I think that's why I know that there's a big market out there for people, Latinos here living in the United States that want products made by us, for us, but that also help other people from the community, like for my wife or for other people who don't speak Spanish that want to teach it to their kids, I want to make sure that these products connect with that large audience out there that I think sometimes goes underappreciated by businesses.

LAUREN GILGER: And it really did hit this cultural nerve, I think partly because like you said, it was bilingual. It was hitting this Latino community that's not spoken to that often. But also because Loteria has this really long history and has been sort of relevant for generations, right?

MIKE ALFARO: I mean, it started in the 17th century in Italy actually, that's where the first Loteria game came about. And some of the images, too, like the mermaid and the world and the star that people really recognize from from when you think about a Loteria game, you see them in those old games because a lot of it comes from inspiration of tarot.

And it's a huge, huge history of what Loteria has been through. I mean, people here in the United States, you guys play bingo, and people usually call bingo, it's like Mexican bingo.

But in reality bingo is like American Loteria. It's like that's where it sort of comes from. And um, you realize that there's a huge connection between the story of how this game began and how it came to America and how it became part of a a richer texture of Latinos trying to tell their own story. And I think I've just done the same thing that's been done for generations and generations. It was just my turn this time to do it.

LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. Mike Alfaro, writer and creative director, content creator on social media as well, obviously, and author of the new kids' book, “The Unbreakable Piñata,” joining us. Mike, thank you so much for coming on The Show. I really appreciate it.

MIKE ALFARO: Thank you.