How Cartel de Amor Was Born

Cartel de Amor began with a random YouTube video.

One night I was listening in the background when the creator mentioned bell hooks and her concept of a love ethic. I was curious enough to go find her work and ended up with a copy of All About Love. That book changed the way I understood the love from romance or a feeling between partners to including a a set of actions, a daily practice that could be applied to myself and to every person I meet. What bell hooks calls a love ethic.

bell hooks names six elements of this love ethic: care, commitment, trust, responsibility, respect, and knowledge. I started using those as a checklist in my day. Am I showing care. Am I honoring commitment. Am I building trust. Am I taking responsibility. Am I acting with respect. Am I seeking real knowledge of this person in front of me. I tried to bring that into my words and my choices, even with strangers, and the results were undeniable. My interactions became warmer, more human, and I felt less guarded and less alone.

Around the same time I owned a tee shirt that simply said “BE A NICE HUMAN” and whenever I wore it, something interesting happened. People would smile. Someone would stop me to say, “I love your shirt!,” and a conversation would follow. That simple line of text was opening doors between people who might otherwise pass each other without a word.

I went looking for research and learned that what we wear does not just change how we feel, it also influences how people around us feel and behave. Clothing carries signals. Words on our chest carry even more.

I experienced that so many powerful words from great minds live and die in textbooks, they're quotes on social media, or feel-good memes that make us nod for a second and then vanish. What if those same words moved out of books and off the screen and onto the bodies of real people? What if the language of liberation became something you could literally carry into the street?

I began to imagine apparel that could act like a small force field of loving kindness, in the very practical sense bell hooks describes. Not soft sentimentality, but the steady refusal to treat anyone as less than fully human, even inside systems that are built on domination and oppression. I wanted shirts and hoodies that would spark questions, create pause, start conversations, and remind the wearer to return to that love ethic again and again.

So I tested it in my own life, and it worked. I wore designs with strong quotes in public "wearable philosophy" and people would comment, asked what the words meant, sometimes offering their own interpretation. I watched how a few words on cotton could shift the energy between strangers. In a world that often tells us that the only things that matter are protests, elections, and massive campaigns, I saw how small daily acts could also push back. These conversations were amazing and continue to amaze and inspire me, today and every day

A lot of us feel helpless, powerless even; most of us are not going to canvas a neighborhood or lead a march but almost everyone already owns a tee shirt.

In its simpler root, "Cartel" mean "a written declaration or placard." Cartel de Amor is a declaration of love. Not love as a romantic fantasy, but love as action, as daily practice. These are messages for anyone who feels the weight of oppressive systems and is tired of feeling powerless. The clothing is an answer to the question, “What can I do right now” in a way that fits into everyday life.

Cartel de Amor exists because I saw what happened when a simple line of text invited people into connection, and because bell hooks taught me that a love ethic is the most radical tool we have in dismantling systems of domination and oppression. This brand is my way of taking that lesson out of books and into the world, one body and one conversation at a time.