WASHINGTON, DC - April 19, 2022 – (NOTICIAS NEWSWIRE) - The time for the Latino and Black communities to tell their origin stories and histories with compelling content, documentaries, and cultural initiatives has arrived.

Today, in Washington DC’s National Press Building, the award-winning founders of Brilla Media and JOY Collective announced that they are joining forces to launch the Latino and Black digital media, documentaries and cultural history platforms, Nuestro Stories (NuestroStories.com) and Our Black Origins (OurBlackOrigins.com). At the press event, Nuestro Stories also announced a wide ranging partnership in support of the Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino (FRIENDS), represented by Board Chair Lili Gil Valletta at the event earlier today.

“Our platforms have assembled an expert cross-cultural team that excels in authentic storytelling, creativity, integrity, and digital media,” said Angela Sustaita-Ruiz, CEO of Brilla Media, partner of Our Black Origins, and co-founder of Hispanicize. “I’m especially excited that our purpose-driven platforms are not only Latina and Black-women owned but will model Black and Brown unity among our cultures.”

“We are beyond thrilled about this new JOY venture with Brilla Media,” said Kelli Richardson Lawson and Orlena Nwokah Blanchard, co-founders, JOY Collective. “This new platform is intended to inspire, motivate and uplift the Black and Latino / Hispanic communities to know and celebrate their cultural origins. It’s incredibly important to preserve these stories for generations to come so they can understand the influence of the Black culture."

The veteran teams of Nuestro Stories and Our Black Origins will be led by Manny Ruiz and Tamika Blockett. Ruiz, co-founder of Brilla Media and previously Hispanicize, will serve as president, publisher and creative producer of Nuestro Stories. Blockett, is the Editor in Chief of Our Black Origins.

Platform Overviews

Fiercely nonpartisan, both platforms individually target multicultural multi-generational audiences of 18+ and will publish and distribute short form premium documentaries, daily feature stories, fun facts, a weekly newsletter, and more.

The two mini documentaries debuting today include Nuestro Stories’ The Origins of Telenovela, and Our Black Origins’ Origins and the Love of Black Music.

Even though the platforms are new, both guarantee digital media buys against brand KPIs through social amplification, and digital media partnerships, including Adsmovil, which is an investor in Brilla, and O&O influencer platforms.

Landmarks Initiatives

Both platforms also announced the creation of two legacy-making projects that will define them for years to come: the Latino Landmarks and Black Landmarks Initiatives.

These initiatives will establish the first ever digital map of stories with geographic coordinates of all the locations and landmarks across the nation (including Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Alaska) that relate to someone or something that may not even be part of the official National Register of Historic Places but that should be deemed culturally or historically noteworthy for Latinos or Black Americans.

The Latino Landmarks Initiative will live within NuestroStories.com while the Black Landmarks Initiative will be on OurBlackOrigins.com.

FRIENDS Partnership

Today’s news also featured a partnership announcement between Nuestro Stories and FRIENDS designed to lift up the Latino Landmarks Initiative, as well as lend content and marketing support for the FRIENDS advocacy efforts to secure a future home for the museum on the National Mall.

“The Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino was formed to drive the creation of a home for the centuries of untold stories of the U.S. Latino experience. While we await the opening of the doors to a museum on our National Mall, platforms like Nuestro Stories are important to educate and inspire generations,” said Gil Valletta, at the press conference. “We celebrate Brilla Media with this launch and thank them for lending their voice to our campaign.”

About Nuestro Stories
The flagship media platform brand of Brilla Media Ventures, Nuestro Stories (www.NuestroStories.com) is an innovative, digital media, and documentaries platform that tells THE “Origin Stories” of the cultural traditions, songs, sayings, places, foods, people, sports, nuances, notable achievements, and much more that collectively comprise Latino history and pop culture.

Nuestro Stories is led by Angela Sustaita-Ruiz and Manny Ruiz, creators of Hispanicize and the founders of the Hispanic social media marketing, and influencer industries, the Latino press release wire industry, and the first network of Hispanic media companies online. For more information, please visit www.BrillaMedia.com.

About Our Black Origins (OBO)
Our Black Origins (OBO) is a new digital platform from multi-award winning agency JOY Collective, co-created by Kelli Richardson Lawson and Orlena Nwokah Blanchard. OBO will be executive produced by Tamika LaShay Blockett in partnership with Brilla Media.

OBO is a lighthearted entertainment hub for Black Gen Z and Millennials who are curious to discover interesting stories about Black culture, Our Black Origins is an entertaining video-focused media platform where audiences will feel inspired because OBO is a fresh new narrative the tells the human side of our stories in an engaging way.

OBO is where we serve Black JOY daily.

About FRIENDS
The Friends of the National Museum of the American Latino organization strives to create a museum in our nation’s capital to educate, inspire and encourage respect and understanding of the richness and diversity of the American Latino experience within the U.S. and its territories by highlighting the contributions made by Latino leaders, pioneers and communities to the American way of life.

The FRIENDS organization is not affiliated in any way with the Smithsonian Institution.

Visit us @ www.nuestrostories.com + www.ourblackorigins.com