Today we’d like to introduce you to Miguel & Lucy Capuchino.
Hi Miguel & Lucy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
My name is Miguel Capuchino and Lucy is my beautiful wife of 31 years. We are known in social media as Capuchino Cosplay and in case you were wondering, yes, Capuchino is my birth last name. We both immigrated to the United States from Mexico and grew up in the same San Diego neighborhood, Barrio Logan. We met at a very young age through mutual acquaintances. However, it wasn’t until our late teens when we started dating. What brought us together was our common passion for community service and the hobby of creating and dressing up in costumes. One of our favorite quotes is by William Shakespeare. “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.”
In 2004, we were introduced to the world known as Cosplay. Wikipedia defines Cosplay as “an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character:” At first, our community volunteering was separate from our Cosplaying at the various comic conventions but then we found out about the various fandom clubs that participate in charity events throughout the year, such as the Science Fiction Coalition, Kids Can Cosplay, Healing Little Heroes Foundation and San Diego Star Wars Society just to name a few. Though we enjoy attending and cosplaying at the different conventions throughout the year, we realized that our real passion is participating in charity events with our local fandom clubs. Some of these charity events include; The Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, Ronald McDonald’s House Charities and The American Cancer Society, St. Judes and Toys for Joy to name a few. Seeing a child’s face light up when they see their favorite character is priceless to us. As of 2021, together we have volunteered over 3,000 hours.
Volunteerism is one of the most selfless acts that one can become involved in. Nonprofits around the world need more volunteers to carry out their missions and make the biggest difference possible. So to quote the late Martin Luther King, Jr. “Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It is interesting that you ask if we have faced any challenges along the way with what we do. The fact is that we have, both in our volunteering and in our Cosplaying. The interesting thing is that the challenges have come at different stages of our lives, but for the same reason, our age. When we would volunteer as teenagers, adults would not take us seriously and most of the time, we were assigned odd jobs. As adults, we keep getting criticized by the younger generation that we are too old to be Cosplaying. The wonderful thing is that the families we visit as Cosplayers at hospitals and/or facilities do not care how old the person is in the costume. They are just excited and truly appreciative that we are there visiting as their child’s favorite character, spending time and interacting with them.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
People think that Cosplaying is our full-time job and that is how we are able to volunteer with so many charity organizations, but this couldn’t be further from the truth. We both have regular jobs and along with that, the usual busy schedule. However, our faith, our passion for serving others and belief that the greatest gift you can give to someone is your time are the primary reasons we enjoy volunteering as cosplayers.
What most people don’t realize is that we design and make most of our costumes. We’ve created over 50 costumes together. Besides your usual superheroes or science fiction characters, we also enjoy creating mashups. A mashup cosplay is when you take two totally different fandoms and put them together into a costume. A few examples of our mashup costumes are a Genderbend Jack and Sally from The Nightmare Before Christmas. A Rockabilly Han Solo and Princess Leia from Star Wars. Grown up and married Charlie Brown and Lucy from the Peanuts comics and a Masquerade Captain America and Iron Lady.
Contact Info:
- Email: capuchinocosplay@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/capuchinocosplay
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CapuchinoCosplay
Image Credits
Dr. Justin Wu
