Speaker 1: Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the
Speaker 1: shadows tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes
Speaker 1: violent environments. The greatest gift Alfonso alsco Ever gave his
Speaker 1: daughter Marlene was a mantra that she still lives by today.
Speaker 1: Alfonso is an immigrant from Mexico who was only able
Speaker 1: to finish the sixth grade, but he vowed to do
Speaker 1: everything in his power to make sure Marlene got the
Speaker 1: education he couldn't. Okay, it's let's say the early nineties,
Speaker 1: a Monday, parent teacher knights always seem to fall on Mondays.
Speaker 1: It's a long one too. Alfonso rushes off the construction
Speaker 1: site where he's building the driveway of a house some
Speaker 1: rich family is going to live in. He's on his
Speaker 1: way to Marline's elementary school. He's running just a few
Speaker 1: minutes late to a conference with their third grade teacher.
Speaker 1: His rough hands are still covered in cement, his clothes too.
Speaker 1: He's tired, like always, but he always finds the energy
Speaker 1: to show up to his kids school functions, and it's
Speaker 1: worth it. The teacher praises Marlene. She's smart, a model student,
Speaker 1: even as an eight year old. She's got out phones
Speaker 1: those work ethic, and he's filled with pride. Marlene feels
Speaker 1: a special pleasure in seeing the smile on her dad's
Speaker 1: face as he receives the glowing report. Then out Fonda
Speaker 1: looks at her and then at his stained hands. I
Speaker 1: want her to do well in school, he tells the teacher,
Speaker 1: because it's easier to push a pencil than a shovel.
Speaker 1: Those powerful words become her mantra, the one she repeats
Speaker 1: as she studies for her say t s as she
Speaker 1: writes her college applications. When she gets into Stanford. They
Speaker 1: are her inspiration. Anytime things feel too hard, she thinks
Speaker 1: about the back breaking work her dad did. Finally, the
Speaker 1: day of her graduation comes. As a ritual of appreciation,
Speaker 1: Marlene asked him to put on her cap and gown
Speaker 1: and flip the script on the traditional father daughter graduation photo.
Speaker 1: Alfonso's beaming, radiating pride. He looks like an esteemed scholar
Speaker 1: and a gray guilty draped in his daughter's cap and gown,
Speaker 1: and he kind of is That Monday night when she
Speaker 1: was eight years old, Alfonso gave his daughter the wisdom
Speaker 1: she needed to transform her life. More than a decade later,
Speaker 1: Marlene pays him back by sharing her academic regalia. I'm
Speaker 1: Patti Rodriguez and I'm Mary Glendo, and this is out
Speaker 1: of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their
Speaker 1: children have long lived in the shadows of America. Their
Speaker 1: destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from, but
Speaker 1: the particular place in history in the lives of millions
Speaker 1: of immigrants and their children were changed by one lucky
Speaker 1: stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Reagan.
Speaker 1: This podcast will examine the ripple effects that Bill had
Speaker 1: on first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational
Speaker 1: mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold
Speaker 1: story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course
Speaker 1: I hope My mom and dad are the hardest working
Speaker 1: people I have ever met, and the smartest too. My
Speaker 1: mom wanted to be a teacher, but had to drop
Speaker 1: out of school when she was fourteen years old to
Speaker 1: earn money full time for her family. When she came
Speaker 1: to the US, she worked on an assembly line making
Speaker 1: large planting pots. My dad graduated from college with a
Speaker 1: degree in engineering, but it didn't matter in the US.
Speaker 1: He sold mufflers door to door and did other odd jobs.
Speaker 1: My parents did their best. We bounced around Southeast l
Speaker 1: a Lynnwood, Compton Paramount. But after Urka, my mom and
Speaker 1: dad got green cards. She became a stay at home mom,
Speaker 1: He got a job as the foreman of a large
Speaker 1: produced warehouse, and my parents bought their first home. We
Speaker 1: moved from the Compton Paramount border to this place known
Speaker 1: as the Mexican Beverly Hills. Downey, California, is just eighteen
Speaker 1: miles southeast of Rodell Drive in the rial Beverly Hills,
Speaker 1: but it earned that nickname because of its affluent Latino population.
Speaker 1: For my parents, getting a house in Downey brought them
Speaker 1: closer to their American dream. The next step was becoming
Speaker 1: a US citizen to see them we wanted to. Moving
Speaker 1: to places like Downey or Beverly Hills is an aspirational
Speaker 1: goal for many immigrant families, but the culture shock can
Speaker 1: be hard on the kids. For me, a first gen
Speaker 1: child of eighty six, sitting in those classrooms and Downey
Speaker 1: High feeling like a fish out of water, even in
Speaker 1: a place that was supposed to be a Mexican Shangra
Speaker 1: law was sometimes more traumatic than some of the stuff
Speaker 1: I saw in the streets in my old neighborhood. Don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, Erica was such a blessing because real talk,
Speaker 1: having undocumented parents wears you down. So in terms of
Speaker 1: physical effects, this often leads to eating and sweeping disturbances
Speaker 1: for children. That's Professor Regina laying out from UC Santa
Speaker 1: cru Is breaking down some of the ways it impacts children.
Speaker 1: It can increase pretty drastically anxiety, anger, aggression, withdraw, fear,
Speaker 1: a sense of abandon mint, and depression. And then also
Speaker 1: what leads to attachment issues for children as well, because
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you know, at the blink of
Speaker 1: an eye, a parent can be removed from their children
Speaker 1: without any preparation, um notice, and that is that is
Speaker 1: incredibly traumatizing for the entire family unit and especially for children.
Speaker 1: So this is a severed relationship with a parent um
Speaker 1: and that is very, very traumatic. And in terms of
Speaker 1: the academic outcomes, um this often leads to academic withdraw
Speaker 1: and lower persistence and retention for children as well. Despite
Speaker 1: all that opened up for the children of immigrants, are
Speaker 1: could didn't change things overnight. Yeah, we got new homes, cars,
Speaker 1: ship like that. Mobility is at the heart of the
Speaker 1: American promise. But that promise can come with a price,
Speaker 1: shedding community connection and cultural signifiers to fit into new
Speaker 1: places and realities, costs that aren't reflected in real estate.
Speaker 1: We grew up in Huntington Park and we moved to
Speaker 1: Diamond Bar when I was eleven. Jessica Carral moved to
Speaker 1: a new city, way out in the suburbs of eastern
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County at an impressionable age, and that was
Speaker 1: a big jump because we lived in an apartment, and
Speaker 1: then my dad started making a little bit more money,
Speaker 1: and then we were we lived here in the present
Speaker 1: place where we're at right now, and that was a
Speaker 1: big jump. So I think we always had what we needed. Well.
Speaker 1: She was glad to have the extra space. She felt
Speaker 1: like an outsider in a city where no one spoke Spanish.
Speaker 1: I came from a classroom where every single kids spoke Spanish,
Speaker 1: every single kid was Hispanic. Um, we always had the tall, white,
Speaker 1: blonde teachers and all the kids look different. But then
Speaker 1: when we moved to Diamond Bar, it's crazy. For the
Speaker 1: first time ever, when I was eleven, I saw in
Speaker 1: a person, an Asian person, one of my really good
Speaker 1: Friends was Indian. Her family was from India, and that
Speaker 1: I had never seen that. So that was a big,
Speaker 1: big culture shock seeing the food they are, neighbors were
Speaker 1: all different and part of that culture shock was a
Speaker 1: whole new universe of pop culture. Yeah, at school I
Speaker 1: had to learn who the Backstreet Boys were and in
Speaker 1: sync and even just my cousin like, you don't know
Speaker 1: who the Backstreet Boys are? And I was like, no,
Speaker 1: but I know who Ricky Martinez, Like that's who we
Speaker 1: That's what you listen to at home. And that was hard.
Speaker 1: That was really hard growing up because not I didn't
Speaker 1: go to one king because in Diamond Bar, no one
Speaker 1: had a king. Senea. I can relate to this duality
Speaker 1: to being misunderstood growing up. My mom didn't understand what
Speaker 1: I wanted to do for a living. When I was
Speaker 1: getting my start in radio. She would say things like
Speaker 1: that's not work or is this When she got how
Speaker 1: could creative work make me a living, make me any
Speaker 1: real money. Her world view was informed by everything she
Speaker 1: had to overcome, so something like doing radio, even a podcast,
Speaker 1: seemed unrealistic. The world felt a little more dangerous to her,
Speaker 1: and she wanted me to pursue something with more security,
Speaker 1: something that can guarantee my future. I don't hold any
Speaker 1: grudges against my mom for not understanding what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do. If my mom didn't get amnesty, I probably
Speaker 1: would have paid more attention to her words because I
Speaker 1: would have been conditioned to live with the fear of
Speaker 1: the I n S taking her from me. I would
Speaker 1: have lived more cautiously. But that's not what happened my
Speaker 1: mom getting amnesty. Believe it or not, it was probably
Speaker 1: part of the reason I grew up believing in myself,
Speaker 1: daring to be proud of who I am, having the
Speaker 1: audacity to dream the dreams I dream. But still no
Speaker 1: amount of confidence could release me from the pain of
Speaker 1: being misunderstood. Out of the shadows, will be right back now,
Speaker 1: back to the show. Every experience that we go through
Speaker 1: lives in our body. That's the founder of Latin X therapy,
Speaker 1: Adrian Aere. And if we do not process that, it's
Speaker 1: gonna come out in some way in some capacity, whether
Speaker 1: that's verbal or physical. Um So our our body holds
Speaker 1: that memory. Part of the reason why Latinos don't tend
Speaker 1: to resolve that trauma is cultural. I think in our community.
Speaker 1: People tend to also protect themselves um by creating this
Speaker 1: more so mentality that if you if you look back
Speaker 1: to the past, that it's a sign of weakness. And
Speaker 1: so I think that a little bit of that plays
Speaker 1: out and that's why people would rather they tell you like,
Speaker 1: don't even look back, look forward. And so I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of the older generation adopts that um
Speaker 1: for self preservation. Immigrants who come to this country not
Speaker 1: only more the loss of their place of origin, but
Speaker 1: have to adapt to a foreign country that can be
Speaker 1: very hostile. Often that means suppressing those feelings of loss
Speaker 1: to protect themselves, not looking back, not dwelling on what
Speaker 1: they've overcome, because of the reception that it makes you weak.
Speaker 1: The reason why some folks don't tend to go back
Speaker 1: and and storytell you know what their journey was like
Speaker 1: is because it's it is revisiting for some people a trauma,
Speaker 1: and people don't have those skills. And people when they're
Speaker 1: revisiting and have probably talked about in the past, maybe
Speaker 1: by accidents, they experience all of these somatic, these these
Speaker 1: experience that they went through years ago back in their body,
Speaker 1: like as if they're reliving it again that embodied pain
Speaker 1: impacts everything. One legacy of trauma is constant vigilance. Being
Speaker 1: always on the lookout for danger. Any threat, real or
Speaker 1: imagine feels heightened. It's a kind of hyper sensitive state
Speaker 1: that makes relating to others difficult for survivors of trauma,
Speaker 1: even with their own kids, and don't also know how
Speaker 1: to be empathic and compassionate towards a child that is struggling,
Speaker 1: because that parent also wishes that they had this opportunity
Speaker 1: that they are giving to this child. The tension between
Speaker 1: immigrants and you know, American raised kids is so intense
Speaker 1: in many households. You know, of course, there there are
Speaker 1: some children that suppress their needs and you know, don't
Speaker 1: don't speak out about them, and then there's others that
Speaker 1: can even show up as rebellious, but really that's like
Speaker 1: how they're trying to communicate all of these differences and
Speaker 1: changes language place. You nique psychological role in the lives
Speaker 1: of first generation immigrant children who become mediators between two cultures.
Speaker 1: There are so many unique nuances within our community being
Speaker 1: first gen as in I think people don't understand that
Speaker 1: from a very young age, we had so many responsibilities
Speaker 1: writing checks, translating work conversations, or legal or doctor's appointments,
Speaker 1: um just from a super young age. That burden and
Speaker 1: mediating two cultures forced many of those kids to have
Speaker 1: to grow up fast, sacrificing parts of their childhood. Like
Speaker 1: Marcella Sanchez who wrote that letter to Reagan, I wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that my dad was taking care of
Speaker 1: because he took care of us. Or like Raina Solis
Speaker 1: from a few episodes ago, there was just a line
Speaker 1: of people and I was just asked to come to
Speaker 1: the front of the line and translate for somebody who
Speaker 1: did not speak English. And while growing up fast or
Speaker 1: grentification can have detrimental effects, it's born out of a
Speaker 1: finally a tune radar for vulnerability and a desire to help.
Speaker 1: They could be the helper in many different scenarios. They're
Speaker 1: always maybe just like sacrificing themselves for the sake of
Speaker 1: helping others. For CC go miss her traumas directly tied
Speaker 1: to language and Urka. Cci was born in Durango, Mexico,
Speaker 1: and came to the States when she was only eleven.
Speaker 1: Soon after she started prepping for her amnesty interview, she
Speaker 1: basically went through questions kind of mathematically drilling me as
Speaker 1: far as like dates and how I got there, and
Speaker 1: so that interview relied heavily on that coaching. Essentially, what
Speaker 1: she didn't plan was the fact that the interview was
Speaker 1: just gonna be for me, by my self. And that's
Speaker 1: when things started to turn. Anxiety started to creep in
Speaker 1: and she panicked. So I'm standing in front of the woman,
Speaker 1: and sure thing, she goes by um, question by question,
Speaker 1: kind of like what my mom had drilled me for
Speaker 1: many months before. And the lady stops in the middle
Speaker 1: of the questions and she she goes, you know, if
Speaker 1: you're lying about anything, you can get in bigger trouble,
Speaker 1: and your mom can get in bigger trouble. And that
Speaker 1: right there just kind of shook me. And so the
Speaker 1: following questions I just buckled and I couldn't answer. I
Speaker 1: didn't know how to answer, and I just kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, splurred out whatever what was happening with home?
Speaker 1: You know, I just said, you know, I got here
Speaker 1: not too long and I wanted to see my mom
Speaker 1: and I wanted to stay with my mom, and my
Speaker 1: mom had been here for all these years, and I
Speaker 1: just wanted to stay with my mom, and immediately she
Speaker 1: looks at me and she's like, okay, denied and shoves
Speaker 1: my paperwork to the side. In her young mind, it
Speaker 1: was the worst possible outcome, but it was multiplied by
Speaker 1: fear or what her mom would say. And I remember
Speaker 1: walking out sobbing, because not only was I sad about
Speaker 1: what just had happened, but I was really scared about
Speaker 1: how my mom was going to respond after her drilling
Speaker 1: me to stick to the um questions. The weight of
Speaker 1: that responsibility weighed heavy on her, costing her to develop
Speaker 1: a speech disability at home. I'm constantly in fear, constantly
Speaker 1: in fear. I was actually a selective mute up until
Speaker 1: the age of fifteen. Selective mutism kind of falls within
Speaker 1: the language disorder, and it's often triggered by anxiety. It's
Speaker 1: often cost or brought on by a traumatic event of sorts,
Speaker 1: and you wherever it is that those triggers might be
Speaker 1: at the peak um that is where your voice just
Speaker 1: kind of shuts down. When I had the interview, the
Speaker 1: initial interview for the amnesty process, um being asked or
Speaker 1: actually being told to not lie. At that age, of course,
Speaker 1: it triggered um a sense of anxiety. Out of the
Speaker 1: shadows will be right back now, back to the show.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest issues kids of immigrants often endure
Speaker 1: is navigating the dual cultures that their parents can't help with.
Speaker 1: And it's a weird dichotomy because for many of us
Speaker 1: children of eighty six, we've grown up embracing our families, culture, traditions,
Speaker 1: and identity at us on the weekends, Selena Cruz. We
Speaker 1: even grow up loving our parents country national soccer team
Speaker 1: over Team USA. But then you turn on the TV
Speaker 1: or the radio and life is completely different. So for
Speaker 1: many kids, you begin wondering if something is wrong with
Speaker 1: your life. You grew up asking why is it if
Speaker 1: the holess every night for dinner and not McDonald's. It
Speaker 1: felt like we were kind of guess that, Cindy Rown
Speaker 1: says after RCA, her family moved to Laguna Beach, an
Speaker 1: upper class neighborhood depicted in the hit Fox TV show
Speaker 1: v oc Growing up in an affluent area was isolating
Speaker 1: for Cindy, one of the few Latinas in the city. No, no,
Speaker 1: I never felt like a belonged there. I still don't
Speaker 1: really feel like I belong here. I feel like that
Speaker 1: whole imposter syndrome thing right, like we're just pretending. But
Speaker 1: I know now that, like I worked really hard and
Speaker 1: I belong here and I've earned my spot here. But
Speaker 1: I think growing up it didn't really feel that way.
Speaker 1: We always had to be good and do good and
Speaker 1: do good in school, like we had to do our
Speaker 1: best to just not stand out in any bad ways
Speaker 1: and reflect really positively about our family. But Cindy didn't
Speaker 1: want to fit in. I had this idea in my
Speaker 1: mind from my young age that I needed to get
Speaker 1: out of here, like I needed to leave. That opportunity
Speaker 1: to leave the o C finally came in the form
Speaker 1: of a piece of mail. I remember sitting on my
Speaker 1: mom's bed and I remember opening the letter just thinking
Speaker 1: it was some other like acceptance letter, and I remember
Speaker 1: reading through it and them just saying the full academic scholarship.
Speaker 1: And I remember I just like froze because I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe it. And I remember being scared. Remember I got
Speaker 1: goose bumps that I wanted to cry, And then I
Speaker 1: turned around. I looked at my mom and she had
Speaker 1: like tears in her eyes too, and she just kind
Speaker 1: of nodded, because I think she understood in that moment too,
Speaker 1: like this is it Cynthe now recognizes that being able
Speaker 1: to go to college on a full ride was just
Speaker 1: one of the benefits from her time in like Guna Beach,
Speaker 1: one of the lasting impacts of Urica. There's so many
Speaker 1: things that because of the amnesty, we were able to do,
Speaker 1: like you know, as a family, were able to travel
Speaker 1: back and forth in New Mexico. I was able to
Speaker 1: have this incredible relationship with not just my grandparents, my
Speaker 1: great grandparents, my great uncle's, my cousins, like so much,
Speaker 1: so much family, so much love that I got to
Speaker 1: feel being able to connect with our family's roots was
Speaker 1: one of the unexpected bonuses of IRKA. According to the
Speaker 1: Helio sans A, professor at University of Texas at San Antonio,
Speaker 1: it also provided uh individuals the opportunity to maintain their
Speaker 1: roots in Mexico, to return freely and to be able
Speaker 1: to come back here. So there's that that that duality
Speaker 1: also in terms of keeping the language, that people could
Speaker 1: take their children, but to visit family and so forth.
Speaker 1: In the long tradition of people going back during the
Speaker 1: summers for the holidays, and so for the maintaining those ties,
Speaker 1: that fluentity was important to so many of the people
Speaker 1: we talked to. Curio I used to take him too
Speaker 1: a sable to celebrate his birthday with barrios and everything.
Speaker 1: According to Professor laying out, IRCA rattled other gates that
Speaker 1: had been close to immigrants from around the world, opening
Speaker 1: up new possibilities. There were definite benefits in terms of
Speaker 1: the psychological, social, and material impacts for young people. It
Speaker 1: made college in the career seemed possible, and so with
Speaker 1: that also comes in increased sense of self confidence, self determination,
Speaker 1: and hope in this reduced vigilance and possibility that every
Speaker 1: single person in the world deserves to have. That possibility
Speaker 1: was enough enough to create a Latino middle class. Here's
Speaker 1: Professor Francisco Riverabattis, who teaches economics and education at Columbia University.
Speaker 1: You're talking that about of ease on documented immigrant who
Speaker 1: applied for legalization were for Mexico, so it's a big
Speaker 1: chunk of the community. It's certainly pushed the middle class
Speaker 1: among the Latino population to grow more and them without it.
Speaker 1: A big part of that growth was seen through education.
Speaker 1: In thirteen Glena cor Tess wrote a paper rescifically about
Speaker 1: these about these children, and she found that these um
Speaker 1: original dreamers in a sense that they actually received legalization
Speaker 1: uh sixteen percentage points greater college enrollment. The children often
Speaker 1: documented immigrants in general, those who had not been legalized.
Speaker 1: Martin A. Rolsco was one of those children. But I
Speaker 1: remember my dad in third grade. Marline is the young
Speaker 1: graduate from the photo at the top of the show,
Speaker 1: and it was her father's words of wisdom that bear repeating.
Speaker 1: He came in his construction clothes with cement, you know,
Speaker 1: cement chips on his hands and his clothing, and you know,
Speaker 1: he told my teacher that he wants me to do
Speaker 1: well in school because it's much easier to push a
Speaker 1: pencil than it is a shovel. It may sound like
Speaker 1: heavy stuff for a kid learning her timetables, but it landed.
Speaker 1: And I think that that that framing really resonated with me.
Speaker 1: I recalled, I mean I would this was in third grade.
Speaker 1: I was like, what eight nine years old, and that
Speaker 1: really resonated with me. I mean, I would see my
Speaker 1: dad worked long hours. My dad is incredibly smart, and
Speaker 1: again with a sixth grade education, I think about what
Speaker 1: could have been for him had he been provided the
Speaker 1: opportunity to go to college. And so I've made it
Speaker 1: my life's mission to go to college and get additional
Speaker 1: degrees as well. Their mission becomes hers, her fulfillment becomes
Speaker 1: her parents. Children of eighty six find themselves swapping rolls
Speaker 1: on and off like her cap and gown. And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I credit my my parents, but I just
Speaker 1: I know what what that meant for them. My mom,
Speaker 1: if you go to our house, she has a full wall.
Speaker 1: She talks about how it's like her multimillion dollar wall
Speaker 1: of all of my siblings um uh diplomas. So she
Speaker 1: has my Stanford one, my Heart one Harvard one. I
Speaker 1: just graduated from Stanford UM with my PhD. So she
Speaker 1: newly minted has that one on the wall. All of
Speaker 1: my siblings went to UM college. My brother became a lawyer,
Speaker 1: my sister is a news anchor on a English news
Speaker 1: station uh TV news station, and and my brother is
Speaker 1: just like a business guru. Well, the resilience of the
Speaker 1: immigrants whose stories we've heard this season is undeniable. It
Speaker 1: extends to their children as well. Cindy and CC made
Speaker 1: the best of their parents newfound liberties. They were able
Speaker 1: to make their parents proud with their accomplishments. But it
Speaker 1: is important to note that these mental scars that we've
Speaker 1: outlined still persist in our communities. The pressure to excel
Speaker 1: the weight of unfulfilled dream can feel like dragging around
Speaker 1: an invisible plow. But there's one cultural difference that might
Speaker 1: inspire hope for the future that generation of kids, those
Speaker 1: children of eighties six, have a better understanding of the
Speaker 1: role mental health place. Those stigma surrounding therapy and resolving
Speaker 1: trauma still exists, but at least now there's a concerned
Speaker 1: effort to address them, to acknowledge the vicious cycle that
Speaker 1: trauma can create in both direct and indirect ways. Here
Speaker 1: CC again, I had many years of therapy, and I
Speaker 1: still have therapy. Um. Ironically, I'm a psychologist, right, so um,
Speaker 1: But therapy and also coming to terms that maybe my
Speaker 1: mom Obviously obviously my mom had mental health issues, so
Speaker 1: understanding that and having a conversation with her, she never
Speaker 1: apologized for her behavior towards me at all, so I
Speaker 1: see it from a different angle to maybe rationalize a
Speaker 1: little bit of her choices, not to dismiss her behavior
Speaker 1: but just to understand a little bit more on the
Speaker 1: angle of being a woman, being brown, having to face
Speaker 1: all these um issues on your own right because she
Speaker 1: was also by herself. Um, I mean I was by myself,
Speaker 1: but she was by herself for a while and having
Speaker 1: to kind of battle all of these issues here in
Speaker 1: this in this country as well. So I'm very proud
Speaker 1: that she made the choices that she did. Obviously I'm
Speaker 1: here because of her choices. So just kind of having
Speaker 1: some understanding and some empathy a little bit about that.
Speaker 1: But for some people like Erica L. Sanchez, New York
Speaker 1: Times bestselling author of I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,
Speaker 1: working through those mental wounds in her work and therapy
Speaker 1: be it's essential. I mean, I think when your society
Speaker 1: hates your people, you kind of learned to internalize that.
Speaker 1: And it makes me really sad. And and that's exactly
Speaker 1: why I wrote Mexican Daughter, because I wanted kids to
Speaker 1: feel good about being Mexican, uh and girls in particular,
Speaker 1: and so and to also show them that it's that
Speaker 1: I understand that there's circumstances are not are not good
Speaker 1: in many ways, and that it's unfair and so yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess that was my whole journey. I went through
Speaker 1: like loving being Mexican, then like high school, just feeling
Speaker 1: some kind of way about it, and then eventually becoming
Speaker 1: this person that I am now where I just rapped
Speaker 1: hart from my peeps. I relate to eric Uh in
Speaker 1: her search for creative outlets like writing, storytelling, which aren't
Speaker 1: always the norm in our communities, especially for our parents
Speaker 1: who don't really understand it. They didn't know what the
Speaker 1: hell was going on for me, so all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: be like, I'm a writer, I'm an intellectual, I'm a feminist.
Speaker 1: I think everybody was so perplexed, and then eventually they
Speaker 1: got on board and now they're extremely proud. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not something that we do. It took a lot
Speaker 1: of work for her to cope with that clash with
Speaker 1: her family, finally getting into a place where I don't
Speaker 1: feel bad about everything. And it's been constant work, through therapy,
Speaker 1: through writing, through talking to friends, to talking to my husband,
Speaker 1: to meditation. So yeah, it's just so hard. So now
Speaker 1: I look back and I'm like, yeah, she hurt me.
Speaker 1: He hurt me, But they were doing their best, and
Speaker 1: I have to just let it go because otherwise it's
Speaker 1: just going to hurt for the rest of my life,
Speaker 1: and I don't want that, and I want to heal
Speaker 1: for my daughter, So then my daughter doesn't have to
Speaker 1: carry that ship with her. That's not fair. So it's
Speaker 1: my job to do the work in order for her
Speaker 1: to be unencumbered. Erica is closing that cycle of hurt
Speaker 1: in order to make sure that our kids don't suffer
Speaker 1: the same emotional wounds. We have to understand where our
Speaker 1: parents were coming from. As a teenager, I blame my
Speaker 1: mom for my family's difficult upbringing. I blame my parents
Speaker 1: for being poor, but that psychle ends with me. I've
Speaker 1: started to forgive myself for being a bad daughter. I
Speaker 1: forgive my mom for not understanding me. YEA. Thinking back
Speaker 1: to my childhood, man, I used to resent my parents
Speaker 1: from moving us to Downey. I was around wealthy kids,
Speaker 1: and I felt out of place and way behind. The
Speaker 1: schools that I went to before in my old neighborhood
Speaker 1: had outdated textbooks, so I was away behind my age group.
Speaker 1: I did so poorly on the entrance exams at Downey
Speaker 1: that I was put in special ad. I had to
Speaker 1: rush to catch up I hated it. I had to
Speaker 1: start all over again. But as I grew up, I
Speaker 1: started to understand that my parents were playing the long game.
Speaker 1: Our house in the Mexican Beverly Hills wasn't some very tale.
Speaker 1: It took a lot of elbow grease, time and sacrifice
Speaker 1: to make it at home. Now I see and appreciate
Speaker 1: that sacrifice. I see the roots my parents were planting.
Speaker 1: Like the monarch butterflies who migrate to survive the cold winters.
Speaker 1: They may not get to the promised and themselves, but
Speaker 1: they fly far enough for their kids to get there.
Speaker 1: And that is why it is so important for us
Speaker 1: to carry this legacy forward for a whole new generation.
Speaker 1: There are more than eleven million undocumented people in the
Speaker 1: US today. Senator Alan Simpson said it best we had
Speaker 1: to do something there after thirty decus of doing nothing
Speaker 1: for some eleven million undocumented families. Simpson's words are more
Speaker 1: true than ever. Something needs to be done. What's coming
Speaker 1: That's on the next episode of Out of the Shadows,
Speaker 1: Children of eighty six. If you love this podcast, please
Speaker 1: help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing,
Speaker 1: and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows
Speaker 1: is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted,
Speaker 1: an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Glendo. It's
Speaker 1: produced by Bettic Cardanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. Its
Speaker 1: sound design mixed and mastered by Jesse Nice Longer. Our
Speaker 1: studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is
Speaker 1: our announcer. Out of the Shadows is a production of
Speaker 1: Seeing Me Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership
Speaker 1: with I Hearts Michael Dura Podcast Network. The podcast has
Speaker 1: also executive produced by Giselle Bantes, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr,
Speaker 1: and Chad Crowley. Our marketing and our team is led
Speaker 1: by Jasmine Mehea. Original music by a Arenas and if
Speaker 1: you loved his cover of Los Caminos La Viva this
Speaker 1: podcast theme song, you can listen to it on all
Speaker 1: music platforms. Historical audio for Out of the Shadows comes
Speaker 1: from the Reagan Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Ian Vargas, Alex and Alie, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran,
Speaker 1: Daisy Church, Angel Lopez Glendo, Julianna Camiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson,
Speaker 1: Claudia Marti Corina, Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval,
Speaker 1: Eric Sclar, Tony Sorrentino, and Megan Tans