WEBVTT - Alzheimer’s In Color 0:00:00.640 --> 0:00:03.760 This is Latino USA, the radio journal of News and 0:00:03.880 --> 0:00:05.320 Kurturre Latino USA. 0:00:05.480 --> 0:00:08.600 Latin Latino USA. I'm Maria Inojosa. 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.280 We bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered 0:00:12.320 --> 0:00:14.480 to you, overlooked by the rest of the media, and 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.640 while the country is struggling to deal with these, we 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:19.720 listen to the stories of Black and Latino Studios United, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:24.639 Latino Front, a cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of 0:00:24.720 --> 0:00:34.480 the movement. I'm Maria Inojosa, ge Paso Latino USA. Listener Gostas. 0:00:34.520 --> 0:00:37.400 Today we continue our look at thirty years of impactful 0:00:37.479 --> 0:00:42.120 journalism made right here on Latino USA. This time it's 0:00:42.159 --> 0:00:46.800 an award winning episode from our archives. Here's Alzheimer's in color. 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:55.160 Hello, So this is my life. Every week I have 0:00:55.200 --> 0:00:58.840 a skype call into my mom's nursing home in the Bronx. Hi, Mommy, 0:00:58.920 --> 0:01:06.839 it's Yvonne ybond Eha. Each call starts more or less 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:11.000 the same. I reintroduced myself to my mother and remind 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.440 her that this is her daughter, Yvonne speaking. How are 0:01:14.440 --> 0:01:20.759 you feeling? This is Margo. 0:01:21.880 --> 0:01:30.600 Margita Dunieta, my younger daughter Margot is on this call 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:33.840 and we are trying to get my mom to recognize us. 0:01:34.319 --> 0:01:38.000 She's got Alzheimer's disease and it's been hell, and COVID 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:41.080 nineteen has made it worse. The last time I saw 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:44.320 her in person was in March. She knew who I was. 0:01:44.400 --> 0:01:47.680 Then it was a week before the coronavirus shut down 0:01:47.720 --> 0:01:49.320 in New York City, where she lives. 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:51.520 We wants to inform you that we have the senior 0:01:51.640 --> 0:01:56.160 confirmation that an individual at Best Abraham's Center has been 0:01:56.240 --> 0:01:58.240 diagnosed with COVID nineteen. 0:01:58.600 --> 0:02:01.200 And now I get endless robo calls telling me that 0:02:01.280 --> 0:02:05.000 the virus is in her nursing home. People are dying there. 0:02:05.680 --> 0:02:08.079 I know I am losing her every second of every 0:02:08.160 --> 0:02:12.080 day if COVID doesn't take her Alzheimer's will. 0:02:12.520 --> 0:02:16.200 While we understand the inconvenience this may cause, it is 0:02:16.280 --> 0:02:20.160 crucial that we restrict visitations to reduce the spread of 0:02:20.200 --> 0:02:20.800 this virus. 0:02:21.160 --> 0:02:27.920 And it sucks, and the sky calls her hard. She 0:02:28.080 --> 0:02:32.560 is distant, unfocused. She can barely speak a few words 0:02:32.560 --> 0:02:35.720 and they rarely make sense. I was told to use 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:39.920 music to reach her, Mama. She loves Latin music, she 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:50.639 loves to dance, and so I try my Mom's name 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.919 is Ramona Laddie or Ramanita Mota Laddie or Ramona Novelli 0:02:55.000 --> 0:02:57.919 Amota Haemo send Laddie if I want to tease. 0:02:57.720 --> 0:03:01.680 Her, noamnt. 0:03:02.080 --> 0:03:11.239 Nova Nova Nova Oi Oi, Novelia Oi a very ugly name. 0:03:11.360 --> 0:03:12.880 You used to tell me when I was a kid. 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:17.600 You hated your middle name. She's eighty seven and it's 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.720 been four years now since she was diagnosed. Four years 0:03:22.160 --> 0:03:25.680 of the lonely journey, which in the end, I walk 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:29.919 alone because my mom has no idea what day it is, 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:33.519 what year it is, how old she is, or where 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:33.959 she is. 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:35.160 You don't know who I am. 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.800 You promised me you were never gonna forget me, and 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:40.160 look at you not forgetting me. Thanks a lot. 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.640 From Fudro Media and PRX. It's Latino USA. I'm Maria 0:03:48.760 --> 0:03:53.960 Nojosa Today. An intimate an intergenerational portrait of one woman's 0:03:54.040 --> 0:03:58.480 journey with Alzheimer's and her family's commitment to remembering her life. 0:04:06.520 --> 0:04:11.920 For many aging Latinos, Latinas and African Americans, Alzheimer's disease 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:15.920 has become one of the leading health crises. Access to healthcare, 0:04:16.160 --> 0:04:20.359 pre existing conditions, the quality of institutions that help aging 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:24.720 people of color. All of these disparities become amplified by 0:04:24.760 --> 0:04:28.800 a diagnosis of Alzheimer's. As more people live longer, the 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:33.560 challenges around Alzheimer's keep growing. Experts predict that by twenty 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.480 sixty there could be an over eight hundred percent growth 0:04:37.560 --> 0:04:42.760 of Latinos with this incurable degenerative form of dementia. For 0:04:42.920 --> 0:04:48.200 journalist Ivon Latin, this story is personal. Her mother, Ramona Latti, 0:04:48.600 --> 0:04:52.600 was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in twenty sixteen. Yvonne has been 0:04:52.680 --> 0:04:56.080 documenting her mother's illness and brings us this intimate portrait 0:04:56.200 --> 0:04:59.880 of her mom's life before and after Alzheimer's. 0:05:04.279 --> 0:05:12.960 Hello, Ola, I love my mom, I really really do. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.919 I can't say I have understood her or the decisions 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.880 she's made. I can't say she understood me either. I 0:05:21.000 --> 0:05:25.080 can't say we belong on a latinx American experienced Hallmark card, 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.480 or that our mother daughter bond is unique. She pissed 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:31.880 me off and could be a pain in the ass. 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.200 I know she would say that about me too. You know, 0:05:35.320 --> 0:05:37.599 the teen that likes to wear black and locks herself 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:39.640 in her messy room with her headphones on. All the 0:05:39.760 --> 0:05:44.160 time that was me. We had some epic battles, for sure. 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.640 In some ways, I think we were the same person, 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:52.120 living different extremes, each wanting so much more than what 0:05:52.279 --> 0:06:01.040 is expected of women like us. My mom faced dirt, 0:06:01.080 --> 0:06:04.200 poor poverty in the Dominican Republic where she was born. 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:07.920 She joined a wave of immigration to the US at nineteen, 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.880 and she surpassed every challenge thrown her way. I'm not 0:06:12.960 --> 0:06:15.480 ashamed to say I am desperate to connect with her, 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:19.640 to understand her story and make it mine. Until the 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:32.520 world Ramona Laddie, my mom matters. My name is, said 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:39.679 Ramona Latti. That was just four years ago, whilst going happens, 0:06:39.720 --> 0:06:44.520 going to happen. I'm mad. I watch you though, might 0:06:44.720 --> 0:06:50.000 sort of thing any see, don't worry, don't march. This 0:06:50.200 --> 0:06:53.200 was right after her diagnosis, when we could still talk 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:56.120 to each other, and we were going on endless doctors 0:06:56.279 --> 0:07:00.839 visits looking for some hope, a treatment, way to slow 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:05.960 the disease down. Some before scared of bit, but you're 0:07:06.000 --> 0:07:07.200 not scared now. 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:11.560 I'm how scared of that I've Paiduto's society. 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.640 Since my mother said those words, her life went on 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.960 a rapid decline. The threat that holds us together gets thinner, 0:07:23.680 --> 0:07:28.760 The conversation's more difficult, and my profound sadness over losing 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:30.560 her harder to manage. 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:37.440 My first impressions were that she she was able to 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:40.560 propel her wheelchair with her feet, not her hands. 0:07:41.200 --> 0:07:43.560 These days, my lifeline is the staff at the Beth 0:07:43.640 --> 0:07:46.320 Abraham Nursing Home in the Bronx where my mom lives. 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:50.640 This is her nurse practitioner, Iris Nagan. She has supported 0:07:50.680 --> 0:07:54.400 me on countless occasions. Iris started working with my mom 0:07:54.480 --> 0:07:56.440 in January of twenty nineteen. 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:00.200 She seemed to communicate a little better in Spanish than 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:06.120 in English. The impoverishment of speech and often the inability 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:11.480 to walk are connected to having had dementia for a while. 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:20.600 Theever that's a song that I wrote that don't. 0:08:23.360 --> 0:08:27.720 Alzheimer's is a brain disease. It slowly destroys your memories, 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:34.240 Your ability to think, speak, walk, talk, Even the simplest 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:39.199 tasks become impossible. It's a wicked form of dementia and 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:42.959 it will slowly kill you. The type of Alzheimer's my 0:08:43.080 --> 0:08:46.400 mom has is not genetic, but my odds of getting 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:51.440 the disease are slightly higher because she has it. Visiting 0:08:51.520 --> 0:08:54.280 my mom is always hard, and when I don't see her, 0:08:54.760 --> 0:08:57.719 I worry and feel guilty, and I don't even know 0:08:57.800 --> 0:08:59.400 if my skype calls help her at all. 0:08:59.480 --> 0:09:02.439 At this point, I guess really is one of the 0:09:02.559 --> 0:09:05.679 things that happens with dementia is the world gets very, 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:07.040 very small. 0:09:07.160 --> 0:09:09.840 And always tells me that these visits and calls are 0:09:09.960 --> 0:09:11.240 hard on my mother as well. 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:20.079 Hi, and I think when people come from the outside world, 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:26.480 they bring with them expectations, and I think the expectations 0:09:26.600 --> 0:09:27.760 can be hard. 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:33.440 On someone who has advanced dementia. But that has been 0:09:33.520 --> 0:09:38.040 the challenge of the disease, understanding it and holding on 0:09:38.240 --> 0:09:41.880 to Ramona Laddie. I find myself thinking about where she 0:09:42.040 --> 0:09:47.280 came from, who she was, her story pre Alzheimer's, because 0:09:47.320 --> 0:09:50.720 Alzheimer's is not who she is. It's not her story, 0:09:51.960 --> 0:10:01.120 It's just how her story ends. My mom dropped out 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:02.920 of school in the eighth grade to take care of 0:10:02.960 --> 0:10:06.160 her little brother so her mom could work. Her father 0:10:06.320 --> 0:10:10.760 died when she was twelve. She barely knew him. In 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:13.360 the late nineteen forties, her mother and aunt came to 0:10:13.480 --> 0:10:17.199 New York City. It was the first wave of Dominican immigration, 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:21.920 and although many were fleeing the brutal dictator Raphael Ruhedro. 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:31.000 Picturesque Trujlio City, capital of the Dominican Republic, turns out 0:10:31.080 --> 0:10:33.240 for the inauguration of a president, for whom the city 0:10:33.360 --> 0:10:37.920 is named. General Trugulio is the strong man of the Republic. 0:10:39.679 --> 0:10:43.720 Many were just looking for work and an escape from poverty. 0:10:44.520 --> 0:10:46.480 My then teen mom was left to take care of 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.920 everything at home, which now included her aunt's children. 0:10:50.600 --> 0:10:53.920 But then immigration has brought in many people from the 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:57.319 Caribbean area. Most of the immigrants went into the factories 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.360 and found their homes in the tenements of America's growing city. 0:11:02.080 --> 0:11:04.280 In nineteen fifty, she got a chance to come to 0:11:04.360 --> 0:11:07.199 New York City. She was nineteen, and she got a 0:11:07.280 --> 0:11:09.840 job in a pocketbook factory and went to beauty school. 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.520 It's such a New York City story. She met Albert, 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.920 my dad, in a beauty parlor in Spanish Harlem run 0:11:20.040 --> 0:11:22.880 by a Cuban woman who was married to a Jamaican 0:11:23.000 --> 0:11:26.840 man and as a result, had Jamaican customers, which included 0:11:26.880 --> 0:11:30.160 my grandmother. My dad went to pick her up one day, 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:32.800 saw my mom in the beauty parlor and it was 0:11:32.960 --> 0:11:36.120 love at first sight, even though she spoke no English 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:37.800 and he spoke no Spanish. 0:11:41.720 --> 0:11:46.000 Hello, Hello, Hi on Grace, aw you Okay, hold on 0:11:46.120 --> 0:11:49.679 a minute. Social distancing needs creating more crystal place. 0:11:49.559 --> 0:11:50.560 Between yourself and others. 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:52.760 So I wanted to start a few years into my 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:55.439 mom's journey in New York City, and to do that, 0:11:55.720 --> 0:11:58.640 I reached out to Grace Lawrence, or Aunt Grace, who 0:11:58.679 --> 0:12:01.280 has been very close to my mom for over sixty. 0:12:01.000 --> 0:12:04.240 Years, and we became fast friends. 0:12:04.800 --> 0:12:08.800 On Grace's ninety four lives in Queen's and her memory, 0:12:09.200 --> 0:12:11.679 unlike my mom's, is sharp as attack. 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.319 Okay, I might as well say, okay, when my age 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:19.600 things happened up and down, but I'm okay, so. 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:20.839 To sleave it at that. 0:12:21.520 --> 0:12:23.679 And Grace told me that she met my mom in 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.040 the late nineteen fifties through my dad. 0:12:26.360 --> 0:12:32.599 Well, I know that he became very close and he 0:12:32.760 --> 0:12:38.480 wanted to meet his girlfriend. His girlfriend at that time 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.200 it was grand Mama, So he didn't say that much 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.400 about her except that she was Spanish. 0:12:47.040 --> 0:12:50.960 That's what they called latinos back then, Spanish. 0:12:51.400 --> 0:12:54.559 And of course that didn't bother me at all. 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.360 When you first met my mother, what did you what 0:12:57.480 --> 0:12:58.800 did you think of about her? 0:12:58.920 --> 0:13:00.760 Like your mother up to dance. 0:13:01.520 --> 0:13:12.840 She was so pretty and vivacious, and. 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:15.719 That's how I remember her dancing with us in the 0:13:15.800 --> 0:13:22.840 kitchen to disco, salsa, meringe. Everything was hips, hips, hips, 0:13:23.520 --> 0:13:24.640 didn't matter the music. 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:35.040 She really was a beautiful young lady. And of course 0:13:35.520 --> 0:13:39.320 you know your mama was very stylish. She was always stylish. 0:13:39.920 --> 0:13:43.600 Greece's parents were from Barbados and immigrants, so and Grace 0:13:43.720 --> 0:13:47.320 knew about the prejudice that existed between some Caribbean blacks 0:13:47.360 --> 0:13:51.559 towards Latino's, which my mom walked right into by loving 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:52.040 my dad. 0:13:52.480 --> 0:13:58.720 Albert's mother was Jamaican and she was a very strict lady, 0:13:59.679 --> 0:14:05.720 very flapa, and unfortunately she did not want to come 0:14:05.840 --> 0:14:08.520 to the wedding because her mona was Spanish. 0:14:09.280 --> 0:14:12.760 So what was happening was this My grandmother was raised 0:14:12.800 --> 0:14:15.520 by a well off family in Jamaica, and although she 0:14:15.679 --> 0:14:18.160 was a maid in New York, she felt her son 0:14:18.320 --> 0:14:19.480 was too good for my mom. 0:14:20.000 --> 0:14:24.040 She was very disappointed she didn't come to the wedding, 0:14:24.720 --> 0:14:27.440 but that did not stop the wedding. 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:29.560 Unt Grace was the matron of honor. 0:14:29.840 --> 0:14:31.360 The wind went on and. 0:14:32.000 --> 0:14:35.040 Your father kissed his wife. She was so proud of her. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:39.600 But my grandmother, Nana did not accept the marriage. Nana 0:14:39.760 --> 0:14:42.160 was a dark skinned woman who would not accept the 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:45.760 light skinned Latina in her family. My mom came from 0:14:45.800 --> 0:14:50.280 the Dominican Republic, a country with extremely negative attitudes towards 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.680 black skin, but she didn't care that my father was black. 0:14:54.560 --> 0:14:57.160 The story on my father's side of the family was different. 0:14:58.160 --> 0:15:02.280 My mom was Spanish and that was enough to be rejected. 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:10.280 Ramona really worked established a relationship with her mother in. 0:15:10.360 --> 0:15:13.480 Law, and this is something I really admire about my mother. 0:15:14.080 --> 0:15:18.040 She did not give up picture this. My mom lived 0:15:18.080 --> 0:15:20.600 on one hundred and h Street near Central Park West, 0:15:21.240 --> 0:15:24.680 and my grandmother was just about six blocks away. My 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.840 father would visit Nana every week without my mom. So 0:15:28.000 --> 0:15:30.480 she worked on being the best version of herself to 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:34.080 figure this out. She worked on her English, she worked 0:15:34.080 --> 0:15:37.520 on being a good wife, and she had hope no 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.080 matter how much she was ignored and rejected. But it 0:15:41.160 --> 0:15:43.920 took the birth of my older sister, Margie in nineteen 0:15:44.040 --> 0:15:50.800 sixty to finally warm my grandmother's heart. On my next 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:53.320 Skype call to my mother, I try to bring up 0:15:53.320 --> 0:15:56.200 our old address fifteen was one hundred and h Street. 0:15:56.480 --> 0:15:59.280 Remember one hundred and h Street. Maybe that a dress 0:16:00.040 --> 0:16:04.000 the names of her family would trigger a memory Margie. 0:16:04.880 --> 0:16:05.840 Remember Margie? 0:16:07.640 --> 0:16:08.960 Do iha Margie? 0:16:09.840 --> 0:16:13.200 But I came up empty. My talk with Aunt Grace 0:16:13.280 --> 0:16:16.360 and April left me wanting more. The mom I have 0:16:16.480 --> 0:16:19.480 had for years now is a shadow of who she was, 0:16:20.360 --> 0:16:31.640 and I want that mother back so badly. Coming up 0:16:31.680 --> 0:16:33.360 on Latino, USA, she. 0:16:33.520 --> 0:16:37.600 Was seeing this boy in her apartment, this like evil boy, 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:41.040 and at one point it got so bad that she 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:43.920 was hiding knives so that she could stab the boy. 0:16:45.560 --> 0:17:33.560 Stay with us, Yes, hey, we're back. And before the break, 0:17:33.680 --> 0:17:37.240 journalist yvon Latti had introduced us to her mother's world 0:17:37.880 --> 0:17:41.240 and what it's like to have advanced Alzheimer's disease in 0:17:41.320 --> 0:17:45.280 the middle of a COVID nineteen crisis. We return now 0:17:45.320 --> 0:17:49.480 to Yvonne's intimate portrait of her life with Ramona, and 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.159 just a warning, there's some offensive language in. 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:59.680 This part of the story. In mid April, about a 0:17:59.760 --> 0:18:03.080 month after the COVID lockdown started in New York, I 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:06.440 recruited Nola, my oldest daughter, to help me dig through 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.840 some old photos I keep in a big plastic bin 0:18:08.960 --> 0:18:12.399 in our home in Philadelphia. I took these photos out 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:14.800 of my mom's photo albums when I cleaned out her 0:18:14.840 --> 0:18:21.000 apartment after she was placed in the nursing home. The 0:18:21.119 --> 0:18:25.960 day I packed them three years ago, I was crying, confused, 0:18:26.200 --> 0:18:29.720 and disappointed in myself for not being able to slow 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:34.920 down the inevitable. I have not looked at the photos since. Nola, 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:36.520 this is my mom's wedding picture. 0:18:37.240 --> 0:18:39.240 I've seen this one. It's really pretty. 0:18:39.920 --> 0:18:43.920 Nola is twenty one and studies acting and directing at NYU. 0:18:44.640 --> 0:18:47.240 We're sitting on an old yellow sofa in the basement 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:50.119 and the first photo we pull out is an eleven 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:53.440 x fourteen black and white wedding picture. What do you 0:18:53.480 --> 0:18:54.240 think of her dress? 0:18:54.440 --> 0:18:55.399 I love her dress. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.560 I love all the lace in the photo. My mom 0:18:59.680 --> 0:19:02.919 is where a beautiful white lace dress and in her 0:19:03.119 --> 0:19:06.520 arms a bouquet of white flowers. My dad is in 0:19:06.600 --> 0:19:09.920 a dark suit behind her, holding her. She has a 0:19:10.040 --> 0:19:13.960 slight smile on her face. She's twenty six, and she 0:19:14.119 --> 0:19:18.359 looks almost regal and ready for what's next. She looks 0:19:18.440 --> 0:19:20.760 like you, Yeah, do you see yourself in her? 0:19:20.920 --> 0:19:21.159 M H? 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:22.280 I think you've. 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:26.960 Always Nola looking like my mom has always given me comfort. 0:19:27.920 --> 0:19:31.480 Nola and my mom were always close. She was her Nolita, 0:19:32.040 --> 0:19:35.680 her oldest grandchild, and she loved to cook Dominican food 0:19:35.760 --> 0:19:39.399 for her and buy her clothes. But these photos reveal 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.040 an Albuerlita Nola had never seen. 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:44.160 Waita wait, what's this one? 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:47.040 Nola pulls out a black and white photo booth image 0:19:47.080 --> 0:19:50.480 of my mom taken in the early nineteen fifties, that's 0:19:50.760 --> 0:19:52.760 when she first came to this country. She looks so 0:19:52.960 --> 0:19:56.119 good in this picture. She's looking away from the camera 0:19:56.320 --> 0:20:00.480 in a playful way. She's wearing hoop earrings and dark lipstick. 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:05.720 The photo seems timeless. She's like working it. Can I 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:06.080 have this? 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:06.840 Yeah? 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:09.560 I really like this picture. She looks like you and 0:20:09.680 --> 0:20:11.800 this really yeah, she looks like you. 0:20:12.320 --> 0:20:14.600 When people tell me I look like my mom, I 0:20:14.680 --> 0:20:17.680 don't believe it. Oh my god, what a compliment. She 0:20:17.760 --> 0:20:22.720 looks so pretty. We are different colors. She's light skinned 0:20:23.040 --> 0:20:26.080 and I am dark skinned. I think she's way prettier 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:30.440 than me. She's petite while I'm five eight. And when 0:20:30.480 --> 0:20:33.440 I was growing up, there was this idea that the 0:20:33.560 --> 0:20:37.159 lighter skins you are, the prettier I tried to explain 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:39.879 this to Nola, and I was in light skin that 0:20:40.000 --> 0:20:44.280 I wasn't even my mother's complexion or Margie's complexion. I 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.600 was darker than my dad, and my darker skin led 0:20:47.640 --> 0:20:52.160 to bullying. I was called ugly and mocked. The first 0:20:52.240 --> 0:20:54.600 time I was called a nigger, I was in third 0:20:54.720 --> 0:20:58.880 grade and it was by light skinned Latino classmates. We were, 0:20:59.359 --> 0:21:02.399 you know, the ugly ones, and there was nothing I 0:21:02.480 --> 0:21:05.920 could do to change the color of my skin. My 0:21:06.080 --> 0:21:10.879 mom indirectly reinforced in negativity by constantly commenting on my 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:15.159 hair and forcing me into painful, smaller shoes because she 0:21:15.200 --> 0:21:18.520 didn't want me to have big feet. Although she was 0:21:18.600 --> 0:21:22.080 rejected by my grandmother for being Spanish, she held some 0:21:22.320 --> 0:21:25.760 form of internalized racism which was directed in me and 0:21:25.880 --> 0:21:30.520 my hair. Black hair is bad. Straight hair is good, 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:32.920 you know, like the hair had to be relaxed, it 0:21:33.080 --> 0:21:36.359 had to be pressed. I couldn't sweat. Everything had to 0:21:36.440 --> 0:21:39.879 be about my appearance, and I was a tomboy. I 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.200 wanted to play sports and wanted to run around. My 0:21:43.320 --> 0:21:47.040 hair didn't really go natural until you were born. And 0:21:47.240 --> 0:21:49.879 when you were born and she saw you, one of 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:51.840 the first things she said to me, was how old 0:21:51.880 --> 0:21:55.120 does she have to be before we can strain her hair? 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:59.879 That was the game changer. I never relaxed my hair again, 0:22:00.440 --> 0:22:04.240 and my mom had to live with both my daughter's curls. 0:22:14.680 --> 0:22:17.760 Growing up with my mom could be frustrating. There were 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:20.800 a lot of extremes. I grew up on one hundred 0:22:20.840 --> 0:22:24.240 and h Street between Manhattan Avenue and Central Park West. 0:22:24.840 --> 0:22:27.639 It was rough back then, and my mom would not 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:31.040 let us out of the house. My outside space was 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.960 the fire escape. I wanted to share what that was 0:22:34.119 --> 0:22:37.560 like with my daughter Nola. There were murders and people 0:22:37.640 --> 0:22:41.399 got raped, and it's a lot of robberies. One of 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.080 my early memories is one afternoon when my mom went 0:22:45.160 --> 0:22:48.280 shopping and came home with a red welt across her face. 0:22:49.280 --> 0:22:52.560 She had been robbed. She had a man's handprint on 0:22:52.760 --> 0:22:54.840 her face because he slapped her so hard when he 0:22:54.960 --> 0:22:58.399 robbed her, and she was crying and she was really upset, 0:22:58.480 --> 0:23:01.240 and she called my dad. This was not a one off. 0:23:01.760 --> 0:23:04.280 My mom was robbed a lot. But the next week 0:23:04.640 --> 0:23:06.720 my mother got a shopping cart out again and she 0:23:06.840 --> 0:23:11.040 went right back to the grocery store. I admired her 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:15.000 for it, but it made me angry. The neighborhood was 0:23:15.119 --> 0:23:19.720 filled with abandoned buildings and so much neglect. Our building 0:23:19.880 --> 0:23:22.200 was abandoned by the landlord when I was a kid, 0:23:22.640 --> 0:23:26.600 and the city took it over. Fires were set aimed 0:23:26.600 --> 0:23:30.800 at forcing us to move. Most winters, we went weeks 0:23:30.840 --> 0:23:34.520 without heat or hot water. Sometimes it was so cold 0:23:34.960 --> 0:23:36.760 we all had to sleep in the living room with 0:23:36.800 --> 0:23:39.760 a space heater and close off the rest of the apartment. 0:23:40.160 --> 0:23:43.240 But my mom was happy. I think she would say 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:46.200 those were the best years of her life. We were 0:23:46.280 --> 0:23:46.919 all together. 0:23:47.440 --> 0:23:48.840 I feel there's a lot of her that I know, 0:23:49.240 --> 0:23:51.920 you know, and that I've experienced, and a lot of 0:23:52.000 --> 0:23:54.600 her that I don't like. I can see a lot 0:23:54.640 --> 0:23:55.800 of vibrants in her. 0:23:56.560 --> 0:23:59.919 My mother's world was the pocketbook factory, the beauty parlor, 0:24:00.280 --> 0:24:03.480 and then finally the insurance company she worked for in 0:24:03.560 --> 0:24:06.800 their mailroom. She felt like a big success coming to 0:24:06.920 --> 0:24:10.000 this country, and she always raised me to believe how 0:24:10.080 --> 0:24:13.119 lucky I was to be here. But that wasn't how 0:24:13.200 --> 0:24:17.200 I felt. So like my mom in the Dominican Republic, 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:20.280 I dreamed of a way out, and that was something 0:24:20.359 --> 0:24:24.800 that really drove me in my life was figuring out 0:24:25.359 --> 0:24:26.640 how to get the heck out of there. 0:24:27.040 --> 0:24:29.440 I mean, I think they were both driven, you know, 0:24:31.040 --> 0:24:32.639 like you talk about wanting to leave one hundred and 0:24:32.760 --> 0:24:35.760 h Street, but like they were there because I believe 0:24:35.840 --> 0:24:40.879 to leftr like, so there's definitely like just a wanting 0:24:41.000 --> 0:24:44.160 to move up and out. I mean, did you guys 0:24:44.320 --> 0:24:44.960 not get along? 0:24:45.600 --> 0:24:49.760 I really didn't understand her. By the time I was sixteen, 0:24:50.359 --> 0:24:53.040 I felt that had grown past her in so many ways. 0:24:54.119 --> 0:24:57.720 I struggled to understand the lucky sprays, the candle lighting 0:24:57.840 --> 0:25:10.639 for saints, the hoarding, the confusion. The next photo we 0:25:10.720 --> 0:25:14.240 pull out of the bin is of my dad, my mom, 0:25:14.920 --> 0:25:17.680 and my sister. And this is a photo of their 0:25:18.160 --> 0:25:22.359 first Christmas with my sister Margie. It's an eight x 0:25:22.480 --> 0:25:25.200 ten black and white photo. There in front of the tree, 0:25:25.520 --> 0:25:28.840 all dressed up. My sister is sitting on my dad's 0:25:28.920 --> 0:25:33.240 lap and my mom is crouched behind them smiling. Margie 0:25:33.280 --> 0:25:34.480 has a smirk on her face. 0:25:34.840 --> 0:25:36.719 Oh, Margie's such a smash. 0:25:41.480 --> 0:25:52.719 Mommy, do you remember it was Margie's birthday last week? Mommy, Mommy, 0:25:55.920 --> 0:25:58.320 My big sister, Marjorie was killed in a car accident 0:25:58.400 --> 0:26:01.800 in nineteen eighty eight, when she was twenty seven. She 0:26:02.000 --> 0:26:04.399 was engaged and on her way back from respeech in 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:07.360 Brooklyn when a driver high on pill struck the car 0:26:07.840 --> 0:26:11.959 her fiance was driving. Margie and my mom were real close. 0:26:12.720 --> 0:26:15.560 She spent endless hours in the kitchen cooking with her, 0:26:16.040 --> 0:26:19.720 talking to her. They looked so much alike and seemed 0:26:19.760 --> 0:26:22.800 to have so much in common. I fell close to 0:26:22.920 --> 0:26:28.280 Margie too. She was my playmate, my friend, and always 0:26:28.320 --> 0:26:31.399 looked out for me. This is a really hard picture 0:26:31.480 --> 0:26:34.920 for me, Nola, because when Margie died, this was the 0:26:35.080 --> 0:26:38.520 photo that my mother was holding and running up and 0:26:38.560 --> 0:26:43.160 down the house screaming. If there was anything that changed 0:26:43.240 --> 0:26:55.680 my relationship with my mom, it was Margie's death. A 0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:58.320 few months after Margie died, I booked my mom and 0:26:58.400 --> 0:27:01.280 I a flight to Paris with a stop in Rome. 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:05.440 I did it on a whim. It was a magical trip. 0:27:06.160 --> 0:27:09.680 We scratched Margie's name on every surface we could, saw 0:27:09.880 --> 0:27:13.040 every tourist site, walk too much, ate too much, and 0:27:13.240 --> 0:27:16.920 drank too much. At one point, we were climbing to 0:27:17.000 --> 0:27:19.639