Meet My “Sisters”

Wait, can we pour up our glasses? It's been a minute since I did your makeup, huh? I know. Long days from our South Beach days. You too. Okay, I think we're good. Alright. Bye. Literally. Oh no. Is it in the mango? Cheers. It's me, Julissa, and my primas. Oh my gosh, I can barely stretch in this. I'm like, my primas. I am still in Atlanta and these are my cousins. We grew up pretty much like sisters because there's not a lot of girls in our family. They are really from my mom's side because my mom is their father's sister. Yes. Their mom is my favorite cook, Tia Carmen. These are my primas, my cousins, Raquel and Christina. Raquel, let me say your name right before your mom comes for me. Raquel and I were first around and then she popped up. No, I'm kidding. We literally were there when she was born, which is the craziest thing to even be sitting here all together and sharing stories. We were just a couple years apart and I remember whenever I would go over to my aunt's house, that's who I was looking for. I was looking for Julie. Where's Julie? I want to play with Julie. Christina is exactly what, 10 years younger than you? Nine. Nine years. Oh, sorry. Whoops. Nine years. You're actually old enough to drink with us. You have a whole grown job. I do. She's done so many things. It's crazy. Raquel is a doctor. I'm not a doctor. I'm a radiation therapist. See, she's a doctor. I actually work with cancer patients, but I am not a doctor. Okay, fine. So maybe she's not a doctor, but one thing that she is, is a new mom. You recently adopted. Yes. Which is the craziest thing because we just celebrated Raquel's 40th birthday in Vegas. Yes. Legit. Celebrated her birthday and then two weeks later she became a mom. Yep. Well, it was a month and a half later. Okay, a month and a half later. But we did get the call about two weeks later. They just asked like, you know, are you interested in this potential situation? I was like, yes. I was so ready. We've been on in this journey for like about a year. And now we have a little extra person in our family and she's precious. And then someone that keeps getting pressure about when they're going to get married, besides me, and have a baby is... Me. Christina. I am not getting married anytime soon. Hopefully soon, soon. But that is definitely the number one question in the family with anybody. So when Jaleesa is not in the room, I get the pressure too. Any female that's over 25, you're getting the question, when are you getting married? Exactly. When are you going to settle down? It's like... Yep. No pressure. They are the best with always having photos and memories. I don't know what happened. I'm the youngest and the only girl in my family. And for some reason, no one wanted to document that. You guys brought some pictures today so we could reminisce. And I have no idea what they brought. All right. Oh my God. The first picture that I have is... I think he just came from Dominican Republic and I was celebrating my eighth birthday. And here you are. Right next to me. Clearly, I'm not that excited because I'm like, can I get a piece of cake? Or can the attention be on me? Yeah. And Jaleesa at that age, she always wore her hair like that. It was always a little tiny bun and her hair was just like all over the place. Fly away central. Yeah. It's really cute. Oh my God. That's Abe, but you can see... Wait, and that's my brother. Yeah. That's Oche. Oh my God. A lot of people think that the only time I ever lived in Miami was when I first booked my first hosting job. It actually was not the case. When my dad was working the ice cream business in New York, so since it was a seasonal business, basically my parents got tired of the hustle and bustle of New York. They decided they want to move to Miami. And their mom is really convincing. So my parents decided to move to Miami. My mom hated it because she doesn't drive like a true New Yorker. She literally never got her license. And I always wore my hair in this bun. They used to tease me because they would call me olive oil. Speaking of hair, honestly, let's tap into hair really quickly. Because yes, I used to get made fun of. I would always have my hair in a bun, but it was never sleek like this. It was always frizzy. It was because our parents really didn't know what to do with our hair. You see how beautiful and luscious my cousin's curls are? Growing up, our parents used to send us to Dominican hair salons where they would give us what's called a derisado, which is basically a relaxer on your hair. All the curls would just be dead. The goal was to come out with your hair as straight as possible. It was such a culture thing because you basically aren't all the way done up unless your hair was done or straight. Yeah. So if you go to an event like a wedding or you're going to a job interview, you have to get your hair done and have your hair straight because that's more acceptable, more appropriate. Because where am I going to go with this bajon? When we were younger, there wasn't products for curly hair. Now you go anywhere and there's always products that can accommodate your hair and kind of work with the frizz. Until I saw someone on television that had curly hair, I was like, oh, she can wear her hair curly on TV. I can wear my hair curly every day. So I literally stopped from that day forward. Do you remember who that was? Who was the first person you thought of? Christina Milian. Oh, Christina Milian! I think it was a movie with Nick Cannon. She had curly hair and I was like, oh, she looks great. I think my hair's like that, but I had never actually seen it without straightener, so I started letting it grow out. And yeah, that's my curly hair story. When they say representation matters, it matters. It really does. Yes. How many hours do you think, in our upbringing combined, we have spent at a Dominican hair salon? Oh, my God. Years. I don't know. When you go to a Dominican hair salon, it doesn't matter. They drop you off at 9 a.m. All day. And then they pick you up at about 3 p.m. It's like... It's like going to daycare. Yes. Okay, moving on. What's the next picture? What's the next picture? We were on vacation. We were in Fort Myers. Oh, my God. I think it was probably like a spring break. We might have been about seven. This picture. I love my family. They never took us on vacation. I always went on vacation with them. And it was great because we had a friend and, you know, a cousin, and we had someone to play with. We just talked about hair, Christina. This is like the typical... This was a struggle. ...Spanish baby, Latin baby haircut. We all had... Paula, you know I had this same haircut in that photo in my house. He's cracking up because he knows it's true. But you were so cute. We were obsessed with Christina. Remember how obsessed we were with her? Yes, yes. And I loved it because I would follow them around all the time, even like when they didn't want me to hang out. I'd be like, wait. Look how excited she is. Look at her big toes. They're like, yeah! So this is one of our cousin's weddings. And we were both flower girls. And you were so excited. I was ready for the party. Your eyes are... I was ready. Are closed. Do you remember that we were wearing white tights under these dresses? I think so. And then do you remember how they dyed the shoes that blue? Yes. And then when we took off the tights, our feet were blue for like three months. Yes. It was horrible. So this is our wonderful Halloween homemade costumes. We lived in Miami Lakes at that time. My mom used to work really far. You happened to be with us to go trick-or-treating. My mom probably came home like at 6 or 7 p.m. at night. It was dark. We were always like the last kids to go trick-or-treating. It was so sad. So we had our homemade costumes. And I'm pretty sure I used my mom's concealer to like make myself extra white like a vampire. And then Julissa just crossed her eyes. She's a nerd. I just did freckles. I think I was supposed to be Urkel. Sure. Yeah, right? Oh, the hair. Christina was the chubbiest, chunkiest. Look at her. She was also the only one that had a real costume. The only one. My mom says she has no favorites, but come on. Wait, do you think you're the favorite? I mean, probably. I say no because my sister's my favorite. But my mom has like a really embarrassing like art gallery style photo of me holding a flute. It was one of my senior pictures. I swear to you, it's like this big. And it's hanging in the house right now. And so whenever anybody comes over, they see it, they laugh. But it's all glamour shots. It's like blurry. Like, I'll appreciate it when I'm like 70 plus for sure. Like, I used to look like that. But right now, I'm just like, it's just so extra. I don't have pictures like that in the house. But I mean, it's fine. Not that there's a favorite, right? No. I do not want to be in the middle of this. So I think this is just a picture of you with Katrina and Christina. Oh my gosh. Look at Christina. Pretty sure. You're probably showing them how to swim. Because Julissa's a natural teacher. She actually taught me how to ride a bike. I did? Yeah, you and Raquel. It was like. And you would teach her how to read. Like, you would read books to Christina. I would? Oh my gosh. I was obsessed with Christina. You were definitely. I felt the love. We were in Amalia's apartment. It was New Year's. We had lived in New York, and then we moved back to Florida. But we went for the holidays to go visit. I think by then, we already had moved back to New York. Yeah, you guys were in New York. Yeah, you guys were there. We didn't really last in Miami that long. My mom was so over it, and so was I. Because I would have to take the bus with my mom. It was like hours waiting for the bus. Wow. I'm pretty sure. What the heck was that? It's like a palette with stuff on it. Oh my gosh, the eyebrows. But our hair was popping. See, in New York, our hair was popping. Because we would go to the Dominican hair salon, and since it was cold, our hair would actually stay. Yeah. And then this is the first Memorial Day weekend. I think I was 20, and you were 18. And... Hype. We were so excited because South Beach is actually very fun during Memorial Day weekend. And so we saved our little pennies and got a room together. We couldn't get into not one club. Like, we weren't of age. Definitely remember thinking I was so cool because back then, those big belts were in style. And I used to still stuff my bra at this time. They had just came out with water bras. Well, she always had boobs, so she can't relate. But I would buy water bras, which were basically water in them, like a waterbed, but in a bra. This weekend, I remember I not only wore my water bra, but I stuffed it as well. So I had socks and my water bra popping. I mean, look at that. I think this is when you first moved to... This is when you moved. This is when you first moved to Pembroke Mines. Wow, clearly just coming from New York. Look how pale I was. I definitely was not in South Florida long enough. I would wear glasses, and I still need glasses, but I wear contacts now. I would either lose them or break them. And the last pair that I had, my oldest brother Tito stepped on them, and that was a wrap. My parents were like, well, figure it out. But I can't see. They're like, well, figure it out. I already was working. This is when I was working with my dad on his ice cream truck. And then I finally got my first job that paid me commission when I worked at Bebe. I would make sometimes more money than my parents. And I will never forget, I splurged on this Return to Tiffany necklace. This was a big deal back then. Yeah, those were super popular. Pretty sure I put that on my Christmas list because you were wearing it. We have the Hawaii trip and then the last two pics. We went to Hawaii? This is 2006. Oh my gosh, yes, I do remember this. February 2006. Yes. This was a Hawaii... Wow, 2006. ...trip. You were so tiny. This is me? So young. I actually had... Oh my gosh. It's like a double take because I wasn't sure. And how about you using a sidekick? Oh. And you had, didn't you have like two sidekicks at one point? This is the Juicy Katara sidekick. I remember getting this. Oh my gosh. Was I engaged already? No. We were dating. This was... So skinny. Can't tell me nothing. We was in Hawaii. We were in Hawaii and it was such a great trip. So back then when I was dating this guy that I ended up getting engaged to, he played football and we went to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl. This guy. Like they can't Google him. We went to Houston. I think this was at a club and... Why am I like clink, clink, clink, clink? Take a look at you. Look at my finger here. Because you love her so much. Yes, yes. Because I'm clink, clink, clink. Clearly I was trying to match your hair. Curly and all the highlights. So a lot of my makeup skills I honestly learned from watching them like getting ready to go out. And she would be the one in charge of making sure everybody's eyeshadows looked on point, that it matched their outfit. She still does it to this day. Like when we're out and about, she's like, let me make sure you're right. I mean, we were all so close and I admire you guys so much. Aww. You're so sweet. So sweet. When she was living with us down there and she was working at that TV show, on Fridays she'd actually pick me up from school and I would ride with her down to the studio. I remember meeting Pitbull in the green room. I was like 12. It was like, it was just so freaking cool. Remember you used to come to my cheerleading practices? I was a cheerleader. Oh my gosh. Dang, I wish we had pictures of this. I know. There's like no pictures of that. No evidence. No evidence Larry actually could do a split. I swear. I swear it happened. She would think I'm the coolest and then I would think she's the coolest. So she became a cheerleader, which was really cool. Hello. So I would go with her to her practices. Oh my goodness. I remember being like, yeah, I can do a split. That was my thing. I would just go into a split like it was nothing. Can you do one now? Heck no. Girl, you want to hear these pants rip? But I remember when we first started seeing you on television, I just thought it was surreal. It was like, wow, her dreams are actually coming true because she was always the entertainer in the family and she would always put on a show, even if it was by herself for herself. But she just, that was her. She loved performing. And then when she got to 106 and Park, it was like, oh my God, she made it. Oh, I was so cool at school because my cousin was on 106 and Park to actually turn on the TV and like, oh, there's Julissa. Remember when she did that takeover? There's Julissa with Tom Cruise. There's Julissa with Mariah Carey. There's Julissa with all these celebrities that we grew up watching and she's just talking to them. And I'm like, it's cool. I'd be like, girl, how was it? Yeah, I know. I would come back and be like, no, but honestly, she wasn't really that on it. I remember you had to get ready for like a red carpet or something. You knew exactly what store you wanted to go to and you turned around and you're like, okay, Christine, I'm going to go in there and wait like maybe five minutes. I'm just going to look around and then I need you to come up to me like you recognize me. Ask to take a photo with me. And then that way, maybe I can get like this for a discount. Oh my God. I really did that. And I actually do think that you got a little discount. I can't remember what store it was. That is so funny. It was like a little boutique, but I was thinking about it. It was probably Henry Mix. Yes, it was. I used to be obsessed with the store Henry Mix. But that store was so expensive. And I was like, okay, it's still expensive. But basically I was trying to like, you know that scene in the Selena movie when she's like, we won't take the dress. By the way, I've always said it, just because you're on TV does not mean you're rich. Because what was my first car? It was the Silver Bullet. A Honda Accord. How was I on TV with a Honda Accord? That you locked your keys in all the time without fail. So thank you guys for always holding me down. You've always been the star, but now you're really the star. Now you're no longer the star now. You know why? Because it's me, Julissa. Sorry, I couldn't help it. That was too easy. We sent it up on a platter. Don't forget to subscribe. I hope you guys enjoyed reminiscing a little bit with us. And until the next one. Cheers. Sorry.