Eileen Ivette is an Afro-Colombian award-winning video producer, digital storyteller, and travel influencer dedicated to illuminating the rich tapestry of Afro-Latin history and culture. As the founder of Black Latin History, her acclaimed travel series, which won Best Travel Series at the Black Travel Film Festival. Blends immersive storytelling with historical narratives, spotlighting Black communities across Latin America and the Caribbean. A Howard University alumna, Eileen leverages her journalism and media background to create content that educates, empowers, and connects audiences to the often-overlooked stories of the African diaspora.

You earned your B.A. in Journalism, Media, and Film from Howard University. Coming out of college, what were your initial career aspirations, and which experiences or opportunities during your time at Howard helped shape or guide those goals?

EI: The experience that really gave me the opportunity to graduate in my field out of college was Howard. I think it's an annual trip now, but the School of Communications has a New York media trip, they'll go to all these media companies in New York that have Howard alum and we'll go speak with them. We'll learn about what it's like working there. And so my year it was Essence, Complex and all these heavy NBC Universal and media production companies. I didn't know what was happening, but my professor, Professor Lamb, she was in charge of the trip and when I was in class one day she was like, “Oh Eileen, I included you in my org so you can come on this trip. It's 40 bucks and you're coming on this trip,” you don't have a choice basically. So we're meeting all these people and up to this point, this is my junior year in college. I was feeling really down about it because you have to intern and I didn't have any big name internship at that point. I told myself if I'm going on this trip, this means I have to get an internship because I'm about to graduate next year and I need connections. And so I saw Complex was on there and I was like. I love sneakers, I love streetwear, I love hip hop, I feel like this is where I want to intern. We had a meeting with three people. One was Speedy Mormon, which like everyone knows now, Jinx, which is like an OG journalist and then Mia. She was a production coordinator and the coordinator for the internship program. And so while everyone else is trying to talk to Speedy and Jinx, I'm like, let me talk to the person who can actually hire me.

I went to her and I'm telling her my story, “I'm Afro-Columbian, I do this, this and that.” She's reading my stuff and she says, “Okay, I don't know what your personality is from your cover letter or from what you've written as your work experience.” She asked me to tweak it, so on the bus back, I'm rewriting my stuff and I sent it to her. That's pretty much how my Howard experiences led me to what I do now to my first internship, to being able to approach journalism from a video first way instead of like just a written way. Visual storytelling is a different skill set that you have to nurture. And I give a lot of credit to Complex for helping me know the ins and out of video production, how to set up a camera, how to do budget sheets to how to do a call sheet for a shoot.

Can you walk us through your journey, graduating from Howard to landing a role as a Production Assistant at Complex post college?

EI: The first time I interned at Complex, I was offered a job. But I had to go back to finish my senior year at Howard, however I was told I had a job when I came back. By the time my senior year is ending, that department, that team, those people no longer worked there. And nobody knew what the heck I was talking about, so I was back to square one. I'm going through my entire senior year thinking, “I got a job, I'm good, let me just graduate, let me enjoy my senior year.” But now I'm starting over from square one.

I had to host this digital media conference at Howard my senior year, I was reaching out to people in the industry and I knew people wanted to hear from Complex. So I reached out to Mia, the one who hired me the first time. She came to speak and she was asking me, “Hey, where are you going post-graduation? We're opening up the internship again, it’s more pay this time if you want to come back, you're more than welcome. You can be a team lead and we’ll figure it out from there.” I was like, “Well, I don't really have an option.” So I graduated in three weeks and that's how I interned a second time there. That internship ended and I still didn't have a job offer. And I thought I for sure was going to have one because they had me doing a million and one things.

They had hired the team I ended up being the production assistant on, they had hired a production assistant and she ended up just not working out. And so they needed to find someone quickly and I happen to be there. That's how I landed it.

“I'm just a true believer that you got to do it, like you just have to do it. Do it scared, do it uncertain, do it while not having all your ducks in a row because if you're really passionate about something, if you really want something, you have to do it. No one's going to do it for you.”

- Eileen Ivette

Putting your creative work out into the digital world can be daunting, what gave you the confidence to share your craft and personal interests with such a wide audience?

EI: I'm just a true believer that you got to do it, like you just have to do it. Do it scared, do it uncertain, do it while not having all your ducks in a row because if you're really passionate about something, if you really want something, you have to do it. No one's going to do it for you. And so my big goal right now is I want to work on a full length documentary. I really want to do a travel series throughout Latin America highlighting Black communities. I understand that in order to get those opportunities, I have to show up. I have to have proof of concept because it's not a subject material that people think people care about. My Instagram, my pages are proof of concept that this is a topic a lot of people care about.

I think the desire and the passion to succeed and do that big project overpowered the fear or the insecurity of people not liking it. I know my ideas are good, I'm very clear on my vision and whether people don't get it or not, I still get it. I still understand who I'm serving, the audience I'm trying to get, because I'm the audience. You just have to stop listening to people.

How has your relationship with travel evolved now that it’s also part of your business and brand? How do you want to challenge yourself to evolve as your brand continues to grow?

EI: Travel used to be a vacation, a very fun thing and it still is. But I have two types of travel now, over 80% of the travel I do is in some way, shape or form work. It’s going to be turned into content, it is me doing research, it's me trying to make connections in that country. And so it sucks sometimes, but ultimately I love what I do so much. I've always been someone who loves documenting things. That hasn't changed my relationship with travel too much. I can disconnect if I'm on vacation with my boyfriend and we're on a disconnecting trip. We're not recording any content, nothing…I can do that. I'm still going to record clips because there are momentums and memories that I want to look back on 20 years from now. And I may make that content later or I may not, but I know how to disconnect the two. It's a love-hate relationship, but like I said, I love what I do.

What role does representation play in helping the next generation believe that their dreams and aspirations are truly possible?

EI: There's the space to say that being able to see someone who looks like you doing something that you really want to do is inspirational, and it lets you know that it’s possible. My biggest piece of advice to people is to always dream bigger, because you don't realize how attainable your dreams can be if you really just lock in. My dream as a kid was to move to New York and work at a fashion magazine. I don't have any connections in the industry, I'm from Houston, I'm first-gen American, I had no direct path or lineage to get to that, right? But that was my first job post-graduation. I was 22–23; that was my biggest dream, and I had already attained it. So what is next? Yes, representation matters, but also be okay not having the representation and still going after it, because sometimes the thing you want to do, the thing you want to create, doesn't exist yet. You have to also be okay paving your own way and kind of approaching things unorthodoxly.

Want to hear more amazing stories like this? Check out our “More of Us” series! If you want to connect with Eileen and support the work she is doing, follow her on social at @eileen_ivette and @blacklatinhistory, support her blog.