Connecting with different ethnicities
Los Angeles is a melting pot. You have communities filled with natives, transplants, and immigrants from across the world sharing their customs and cultures, essentially becoming family. A group of people incorporated this concept and experience to create a clothing brand to represent everybody’s walk of life.
Kids of Immigrants (KOI) is a collective of friends who came together to create clothes that connect with their different ethnicities.
“It started 10 years ago when I moved to Los Angeles and met Weleh, the co-founder of the brand, and we recognized how different our cultures were but how similar our upbringing is as both our parents were immigrants,” said Daniel Buezo, CEO of KOI. “With his parents being from Liberia and my parents being from Honduras, we both had this dual upbringing where at home we grow up in our culture, but in society, we grew up as Americans, which gave us two different perspectives compared to other American kids.”
KOI is composed of either immigrants or first-generation Americans as they all share the sentiment of being ‘visitors’ here because of their different upbringings and cultures. Buezo pointed out that the clothing aspect came into play because the group felt like they rarely saw their culture and heritage represented in clothing brands, especially street clothing brands, and decided to be the ones to honor and represent by creating their own.
“ We wanted to empower the immigrant community with our clothes because we felt there wasn’t much representation for our different cultures in streetwear,” Buezo said. “It is our mission to create something that people could relate to and connect with.”
KOI’s mission, while ongoing, has seen great strides as they celebrated their eighth anniversary with the launch of their ‘Together’ collection with Buchanan’s Whisky with a Pop-Up on Saturday, May 4, and a Love Day Brunch on Sunday, May 5. This event also featured local vendors, DJs, and community members as KOI strives to build a 200% community(100% Hispanic and 100% American).
“We always want to be intently about our campaigns and what they represent and how they inspire the community, whether it’s through the clothes, education, or validation of cultural identity,” Buezo said as he spoke about the event. “One of the great things we’ve done with Buchanan's over the years is, every year, we pick an organization that we donate 100% of the profits to support them and their cause.”
You can support KOI and its endeavor by visiting their site at www.kidsofimmirgants.us and purchasing some of their clothes.
