"It's a place where Latino comedians can practice a routine in their native tongue," she says. "When you do comedy in your own language, we're all in on the joke together. It kind of feels like we're laughing together and serving as a mirror for the immigrant experience in the United States."
¡Me Meo! takes its name from a common Latin American phrase that translates to "I'm pissing myself." Trejo has hosted two installations of the series so far, and she hopes to keep it going as a way to create "a local Spanish comedy circuit for Denver," she says.
"All of the standup comedy that's being consumed by Latinos here, it's coming from acts that are traveling across the United States," Trejo notes. "It's nothing local, because there's not a local scene. That's basically what I'm trying to create."
"All of the standup comedy that's being consumed by Latinos here, it's coming from acts that are traveling across the United States," Trejo notes. "It's nothing local, because there's not a local scene. That's basically what I'm trying to create."
The third installment of ¡Me Meo! is slated for Thursday, August 8, at the Denver Comedy Lounge, with local comedians Daniel Martinez, Miriam Moreno, G Joe McKenna and Israel Avila, who all have connections to Spanish-speaking countries such as Mexico, Puerto Rico and Venezuela. While they each have a different style, they can all joke about their experience coming to the United States, learning English and looking for work here.
"It's people from all over Latin America who have moved here in hopes of pursuing a better life," Trejo says. "It's a growing market. Standup in Spanish is going to be a monster in a couple of years in the United States because there's such a huge migration of Hispanics, of Latinos into the United States right now. We're beginning to sell out comedy clubs. We're beginning to headline iconic places."
Trejo will also perform. In May, she was one of eight Latinas on the bill at the Netflix Is a Joke festival, and she's done gigs at local venues like the Denver Improv and Comedy Works. She says her jokes relate to her experience of being a mom and an immigrant.
"I have two children, so my style of comedy is relating to immigrant moms who are raising kids in the United States, the reality of being a Latino parent in America," she says. "And grappling with the fact that I'm taking care of children and paying bills on a flying rock, that's my style."
The first ¡Me Meo! show was in April, in the basement of Hooked on Colfax. It was followed by a second show in May at the same venue, and both sold out. "The day of the show, we had to turn ten people away because we could only fit 45 people in the basement," Trejo says. "It was an incredible show of support."
She's now moving the series to the Denver Comedy Lounge, which has more room. While the third show will have fewer comedians, each will have a longer set. "In the beginning, we didn't have the routines made up, so it was, 'Everybody do five [minutes],'" she recalls. "So we needed more and more people. But I don't make much off these shows, and I had to pay all these comics."
Trejo is from Merida, in the mountainous western part of Venezuela; she moved with her family to Puerto Rico in 2000, shortly after former president Hugo Chavez took office. Her mother made the choice to leave Venezuela because under Chavez, the country's residents were losing access to a good education, health care and even grocery stores, according to Trejo, who adds that her future as a comedian wouldn't have been possible, either.
"I come from Venezuela, from Communism, from a third-world country. This is nonexistent there," she says. "If you say your opinion about something that goes against the government, you literally go to prison."
When she performs in Spanish, she opens her set by explaining her "very thick Puerto Rican accent," she says.
"I arrived as a young girl, speaking like I was from the mountains," Trejo explains. "Then I was bullied so much I began talking more Puerto Rican than all the Puerto Ricans. After that, I make it less about race and more about observational comedy."
She moved to Denver three years ago from New Orleans, where she'd worked as a journalist and started her standup career. During her time in Denver, "I have never gone to a show completely in Spanish until I started doing these shows," she notes.
She got the idea while opening for other Spanish-speaking comedians who came to Denver, including Francisco Ramos, Angelo Colina and Antonio Sanint. Whenever she performed on her own in Denver, the audience was mostly white, she says, but as an opener, she started seeing large crowds of Latinos.
"That's when I started to see that all the time, the audiences filled the place completely," she says. "If you asked me a year and half ago, I didn't think this would be possible, to do a show completely in Spanish."
During her performances, Trejo often addresses the crisis in Venezuela and migration from that country. Since the last show, the Venezuela elections created tension not only in that country, but here in Colorado, too.
"When there's an overwhelming influx of Venezuelans coming into Denver specifically, it almost feels like a responsibility to address that for everybody in the room," she says. "There's even a responsibility to communicate to [Venezuelans] who are out here that 'we're out here and we're all together, and hopefully we're going to be free soon.'"
Trejo still has family in Venezuela, including dozens of cousins that she worries about every day, she says. Most Latin American immigrants to the United States have left relatives behind, and she hopes that ¡Me Meo! brings them together in a new kind of family.
"I feel incredibly lucky to create this space for all these people who have been displaced," she says. "We feel human to be able to create this space to come together and hopefully laugh."
¡Me Meo!, 7 p.m. Thursday, August 8, at the Denver Comedy Lounge, 3559 Larimer Street. Tickets are $20; get them here.
