June 16, 2022 • 35 mins
The children of 86 face new challenges in a post-IRCA world. A look at how immigration status and assimilation impact our mental health.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the
shadows tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes
violent environments. The greatest gift Alfonso alsco Ever gave his
daughter Marlene was a mantra that she still lives by today.
(00:20):
Alfonso is an immigrant from Mexico who was only able
to finish the sixth grade, but he vowed to do
everything in his power to make sure Marlene got the
education he couldn't. Okay, it's let's say the early nineties,
a Monday, parent teacher knights always seem to fall on Mondays.
It's a long one too. Alfonso rushes off the construction
(00:42):
site where he's building the driveway of a house some
rich family is going to live in. He's on his
way to Marline's elementary school. He's running just a few
minutes late to a conference with their third grade teacher.
His rough hands are still covered in cement, his clothes too.
He's tired, like always, but he always finds the energy
(01:05):
to show up to his kids school functions, and it's
worth it. The teacher praises Marlene. She's smart, a model student,
even as an eight year old. She's got out phones
those work ethic, and he's filled with pride. Marlene feels
a special pleasure in seeing the smile on her dad's
(01:25):
face as he receives the glowing report. Then out Fonda
looks at her and then at his stained hands. I
want her to do well in school, he tells the teacher,
because it's easier to push a pencil than a shovel.
Those powerful words become her mantra, the one she repeats
(01:47):
as she studies for her say t s as she
writes her college applications. When she gets into Stanford. They
are her inspiration. Anytime things feel too hard, she thinks
about the back breaking work her dad did. Finally, the
day of her graduation comes. As a ritual of appreciation,
(02:08):
Marlene asked him to put on her cap and gown
and flip the script on the traditional father daughter graduation photo.
Alfonso's beaming, radiating pride. He looks like an esteemed scholar
and a gray guilty draped in his daughter's cap and gown,
and he kind of is That Monday night when she
(02:30):
was eight years old, Alfonso gave his daughter the wisdom
she needed to transform her life. More than a decade later,
Marlene pays him back by sharing her academic regalia. I'm
Patti Rodriguez and I'm Mary Glendo, and this is out
(02:51):
of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their
children have long lived in the shadows of America. Their
destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from, but
the particular place in history in the lives of millions
of immigrants and their children were changed by one lucky
stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Reagan.
(03:12):
This podcast will examine the ripple effects that Bill had
on first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational
mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold
story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course
I hope My mom and dad are the hardest working
(03:46):
people I have ever met, and the smartest too. My
mom wanted to be a teacher, but had to drop
out of school when she was fourteen years old to
earn money full time for her family. When she came
to the US, she worked on an assembly line making
large planting pots. My dad graduated from college with a
degree in engineering, but it didn't matter in the US.
(04:09):
He sold mufflers door to door and did other odd jobs.
My parents did their best. We bounced around Southeast l
a Lynnwood, Compton Paramount. But after Urka, my mom and
dad got green cards. She became a stay at home mom,
He got a job as the foreman of a large
produced warehouse, and my parents bought their first home. We
(04:33):
moved from the Compton Paramount border to this place known
as the Mexican Beverly Hills. Downey, California, is just eighteen
miles southeast of Rodell Drive in the rial Beverly Hills,
but it earned that nickname because of its affluent Latino population.
For my parents, getting a house in Downey brought them
(04:54):
closer to their American dream. The next step was becoming
a US citizen to see them we wanted to. Moving
to places like Downey or Beverly Hills is an aspirational
(05:16):
goal for many immigrant families, but the culture shock can
be hard on the kids. For me, a first gen
child of eighty six, sitting in those classrooms and Downey
High feeling like a fish out of water, even in
a place that was supposed to be a Mexican Shangra
law was sometimes more traumatic than some of the stuff
(05:37):
I saw in the streets in my old neighborhood. Don't
get me wrong, Erica was such a blessing because real talk,
having undocumented parents wears you down. So in terms of
physical effects, this often leads to eating and sweeping disturbances
for children. That's Professor Regina laying out from UC Santa
(05:59):
cru Is breaking down some of the ways it impacts children.
It can increase pretty drastically anxiety, anger, aggression, withdraw, fear,
a sense of abandon mint, and depression. And then also
what leads to attachment issues for children as well, because
(06:19):
all of a sudden, you know, at the blink of
an eye, a parent can be removed from their children
without any preparation, um notice, and that is that is
incredibly traumatizing for the entire family unit and especially for children.
So this is a severed relationship with a parent um
(06:41):
and that is very, very traumatic. And in terms of
the academic outcomes, um this often leads to academic withdraw
and lower persistence and retention for children as well. Despite
all that opened up for the children of immigrants, are
could didn't change things overnight. Yeah, we got new homes, cars,
(07:02):
ship like that. Mobility is at the heart of the
American promise. But that promise can come with a price,
shedding community connection and cultural signifiers to fit into new
places and realities, costs that aren't reflected in real estate.
We grew up in Huntington Park and we moved to
(07:23):
Diamond Bar when I was eleven. Jessica Carral moved to
a new city, way out in the suburbs of eastern
Los Angeles County at an impressionable age, and that was
a big jump because we lived in an apartment, and
then my dad started making a little bit more money,
(07:43):
and then we were we lived here in the present
place where we're at right now, and that was a
big jump. So I think we always had what we needed. Well.
She was glad to have the extra space. She felt
like an outsider in a city where no one spoke Spanish.
(08:04):
I came from a classroom where every single kids spoke Spanish,
every single kid was Hispanic. Um, we always had the tall, white,
blonde teachers and all the kids look different. But then
when we moved to Diamond Bar, it's crazy. For the
first time ever, when I was eleven, I saw in
(08:25):
a person, an Asian person, one of my really good
Friends was Indian. Her family was from India, and that
I had never seen that. So that was a big,
big culture shock seeing the food they are, neighbors were
all different and part of that culture shock was a
whole new universe of pop culture. Yeah, at school I
(08:48):
had to learn who the Backstreet Boys were and in
sync and even just my cousin like, you don't know
who the Backstreet Boys are? And I was like, no,
but I know who Ricky Martinez, Like that's who we
That's what you listen to at home. And that was hard.
That was really hard growing up because not I didn't
(09:11):
go to one king because in Diamond Bar, no one
had a king. Senea. I can relate to this duality
to being misunderstood growing up. My mom didn't understand what
I wanted to do for a living. When I was
getting my start in radio. She would say things like
(09:32):
that's not work or is this When she got how
could creative work make me a living, make me any
real money. Her world view was informed by everything she
had to overcome, so something like doing radio, even a podcast,
seemed unrealistic. The world felt a little more dangerous to her,
(09:56):
and she wanted me to pursue something with more security,
something that can guarantee my future. I don't hold any
grudges against my mom for not understanding what I wanted
to do. If my mom didn't get amnesty, I probably
would have paid more attention to her words because I
(10:17):
would have been conditioned to live with the fear of
the I n S taking her from me. I would
have lived more cautiously. But that's not what happened my
mom getting amnesty. Believe it or not, it was probably
part of the reason I grew up believing in myself,
daring to be proud of who I am, having the
(10:40):
audacity to dream the dreams I dream. But still no
amount of confidence could release me from the pain of
being misunderstood. Out of the shadows, will be right back now,
(11:06):
back to the show. Every experience that we go through
lives in our body. That's the founder of Latin X therapy,
Adrian Aere. And if we do not process that, it's
gonna come out in some way in some capacity, whether
that's verbal or physical. Um So our our body holds
(11:28):
that memory. Part of the reason why Latinos don't tend
to resolve that trauma is cultural. I think in our community.
People tend to also protect themselves um by creating this
more so mentality that if you if you look back
to the past, that it's a sign of weakness. And
so I think that a little bit of that plays
(11:48):
out and that's why people would rather they tell you like,
don't even look back, look forward. And so I feel
like a lot of the older generation adopts that um
for self preservation. Immigrants who come to this country not
only more the loss of their place of origin, but
have to adapt to a foreign country that can be
very hostile. Often that means suppressing those feelings of loss
(12:11):
to protect themselves, not looking back, not dwelling on what
they've overcome, because of the reception that it makes you weak.
The reason why some folks don't tend to go back
and and storytell you know what their journey was like
is because it's it is revisiting for some people a trauma,
(12:32):
and people don't have those skills. And people when they're
revisiting and have probably talked about in the past, maybe
by accidents, they experience all of these somatic, these these
experience that they went through years ago back in their body,
like as if they're reliving it again that embodied pain
impacts everything. One legacy of trauma is constant vigilance. Being
(12:58):
always on the lookout for danger. Any threat, real or
imagine feels heightened. It's a kind of hyper sensitive state
that makes relating to others difficult for survivors of trauma,
even with their own kids, and don't also know how
to be empathic and compassionate towards a child that is struggling,
(13:21):
because that parent also wishes that they had this opportunity
that they are giving to this child. The tension between
immigrants and you know, American raised kids is so intense
in many households. You know, of course, there there are
some children that suppress their needs and you know, don't
(13:44):
don't speak out about them, and then there's others that
can even show up as rebellious, but really that's like
how they're trying to communicate all of these differences and
changes language place. You nique psychological role in the lives
of first generation immigrant children who become mediators between two cultures.
(14:07):
There are so many unique nuances within our community being
first gen as in I think people don't understand that
from a very young age, we had so many responsibilities
writing checks, translating work conversations, or legal or doctor's appointments,
(14:28):
um just from a super young age. That burden and
mediating two cultures forced many of those kids to have
to grow up fast, sacrificing parts of their childhood. Like
Marcella Sanchez who wrote that letter to Reagan, I wanted
to make sure that my dad was taking care of
because he took care of us. Or like Raina Solis
(14:49):
from a few episodes ago, there was just a line
of people and I was just asked to come to
the front of the line and translate for somebody who
did not speak English. And while growing up fast or
grentification can have detrimental effects, it's born out of a
finally a tune radar for vulnerability and a desire to help.
(15:10):
They could be the helper in many different scenarios. They're
always maybe just like sacrificing themselves for the sake of
helping others. For CC go miss her traumas directly tied
to language and Urka. Cci was born in Durango, Mexico,
and came to the States when she was only eleven.
(15:31):
Soon after she started prepping for her amnesty interview, she
basically went through questions kind of mathematically drilling me as
far as like dates and how I got there, and
so that interview relied heavily on that coaching. Essentially, what
(15:53):
she didn't plan was the fact that the interview was
just gonna be for me, by my self. And that's
when things started to turn. Anxiety started to creep in
and she panicked. So I'm standing in front of the woman,
and sure thing, she goes by um, question by question,
(16:16):
kind of like what my mom had drilled me for
many months before. And the lady stops in the middle
of the questions and she she goes, you know, if
you're lying about anything, you can get in bigger trouble,
and your mom can get in bigger trouble. And that
(16:40):
right there just kind of shook me. And so the
following questions I just buckled and I couldn't answer. I
didn't know how to answer, and I just kind of,
you know, splurred out whatever what was happening with home?
You know, I just said, you know, I got here
(17:02):
not too long and I wanted to see my mom
and I wanted to stay with my mom, and my
mom had been here for all these years, and I
just wanted to stay with my mom, and immediately she
looks at me and she's like, okay, denied and shoves
(17:24):
my paperwork to the side. In her young mind, it
was the worst possible outcome, but it was multiplied by
fear or what her mom would say. And I remember
walking out sobbing, because not only was I sad about
what just had happened, but I was really scared about
(17:48):
how my mom was going to respond after her drilling
me to stick to the um questions. The weight of
that responsibility weighed heavy on her, costing her to develop
a speech disability at home. I'm constantly in fear, constantly
in fear. I was actually a selective mute up until
(18:11):
the age of fifteen. Selective mutism kind of falls within
the language disorder, and it's often triggered by anxiety. It's
often cost or brought on by a traumatic event of sorts,
and you wherever it is that those triggers might be
(18:33):
at the peak um that is where your voice just
kind of shuts down. When I had the interview, the
initial interview for the amnesty process, um being asked or
actually being told to not lie. At that age, of course,
(18:54):
it triggered um a sense of anxiety. Out of the
shadows will be right back now, back to the show.
(19:16):
One of the biggest issues kids of immigrants often endure
is navigating the dual cultures that their parents can't help with.
And it's a weird dichotomy because for many of us
children of eighty six, we've grown up embracing our families, culture, traditions,
and identity at us on the weekends, Selena Cruz. We
(19:38):
even grow up loving our parents country national soccer team
over Team USA. But then you turn on the TV
or the radio and life is completely different. So for
many kids, you begin wondering if something is wrong with
your life. You grew up asking why is it if
the holess every night for dinner and not McDonald's. It
felt like we were kind of guess that, Cindy Rown
(20:01):
says after RCA, her family moved to Laguna Beach, an
upper class neighborhood depicted in the hit Fox TV show
v oc Growing up in an affluent area was isolating
for Cindy, one of the few Latinas in the city. No, no,
I never felt like a belonged there. I still don't
really feel like I belong here. I feel like that
(20:22):
whole imposter syndrome thing right, like we're just pretending. But
I know now that, like I worked really hard and
I belong here and I've earned my spot here. But
I think growing up it didn't really feel that way.
We always had to be good and do good and
do good in school, like we had to do our
best to just not stand out in any bad ways
and reflect really positively about our family. But Cindy didn't
(20:46):
want to fit in. I had this idea in my
mind from my young age that I needed to get
out of here, like I needed to leave. That opportunity
to leave the o C finally came in the form
of a piece of mail. I remember sitting on my
mom's bed and I remember opening the letter just thinking
it was some other like acceptance letter, and I remember
(21:08):
reading through it and them just saying the full academic scholarship.
And I remember I just like froze because I couldn't
believe it. And I remember being scared. Remember I got
goose bumps that I wanted to cry, And then I
turned around. I looked at my mom and she had
like tears in her eyes too, and she just kind
of nodded, because I think she understood in that moment too,
like this is it Cynthe now recognizes that being able
(21:29):
to go to college on a full ride was just
one of the benefits from her time in like Guna Beach,
one of the lasting impacts of Urica. There's so many
things that because of the amnesty, we were able to do,
like you know, as a family, were able to travel
back and forth in New Mexico. I was able to
have this incredible relationship with not just my grandparents, my
(21:51):
great grandparents, my great uncle's, my cousins, like so much,
so much family, so much love that I got to
feel being able to connect with our family's roots was
one of the unexpected bonuses of IRKA. According to the
Helio sans A, professor at University of Texas at San Antonio,
it also provided uh individuals the opportunity to maintain their
(22:14):
roots in Mexico, to return freely and to be able
to come back here. So there's that that that duality
also in terms of keeping the language, that people could
take their children, but to visit family and so forth.
In the long tradition of people going back during the
summers for the holidays, and so for the maintaining those ties,
(22:39):
that fluentity was important to so many of the people
we talked to. Curio I used to take him too
a sable to celebrate his birthday with barrios and everything.
According to Professor laying out, IRCA rattled other gates that
had been close to immigrants from around the world, opening
(23:01):
up new possibilities. There were definite benefits in terms of
the psychological, social, and material impacts for young people. It
made college in the career seemed possible, and so with
that also comes in increased sense of self confidence, self determination,
and hope in this reduced vigilance and possibility that every
(23:25):
single person in the world deserves to have. That possibility
was enough enough to create a Latino middle class. Here's
Professor Francisco Riverabattis, who teaches economics and education at Columbia University.
You're talking that about of ease on documented immigrant who
(23:45):
applied for legalization were for Mexico, so it's a big
chunk of the community. It's certainly pushed the middle class
among the Latino population to grow more and them without it.
A big part of that growth was seen through education.
In thirteen Glena cor Tess wrote a paper rescifically about
(24:09):
these about these children, and she found that these um
original dreamers in a sense that they actually received legalization
uh sixteen percentage points greater college enrollment. The children often
documented immigrants in general, those who had not been legalized.
(24:30):
Martin A. Rolsco was one of those children. But I
remember my dad in third grade. Marline is the young
graduate from the photo at the top of the show,
and it was her father's words of wisdom that bear repeating.
He came in his construction clothes with cement, you know,
cement chips on his hands and his clothing, and you know,
(24:50):
he told my teacher that he wants me to do
well in school because it's much easier to push a
pencil than it is a shovel. It may sound like
heavy stuff for a kid learning her timetables, but it landed.
And I think that that that framing really resonated with me.
I recalled, I mean I would this was in third grade.
(25:11):
I was like, what eight nine years old, and that
really resonated with me. I mean, I would see my
dad worked long hours. My dad is incredibly smart, and
again with a sixth grade education, I think about what
could have been for him had he been provided the
opportunity to go to college. And so I've made it
my life's mission to go to college and get additional
(25:32):
degrees as well. Their mission becomes hers, her fulfillment becomes
her parents. Children of eighty six find themselves swapping rolls
on and off like her cap and gown. And I,
you know, I credit my my parents, but I just
I know what what that meant for them. My mom,
(25:53):
if you go to our house, she has a full wall.
She talks about how it's like her multimillion dollar wall
of all of my siblings um uh diplomas. So she
has my Stanford one, my Heart one Harvard one. I
just graduated from Stanford UM with my PhD. So she
newly minted has that one on the wall. All of
my siblings went to UM college. My brother became a lawyer,
(26:18):
my sister is a news anchor on a English news
station uh TV news station, and and my brother is
just like a business guru. Well, the resilience of the
immigrants whose stories we've heard this season is undeniable. It
extends to their children as well. Cindy and CC made
(26:40):
the best of their parents newfound liberties. They were able
to make their parents proud with their accomplishments. But it
is important to note that these mental scars that we've
outlined still persist in our communities. The pressure to excel
the weight of unfulfilled dream can feel like dragging around
(27:03):
an invisible plow. But there's one cultural difference that might
inspire hope for the future that generation of kids, those
children of eighties six, have a better understanding of the
role mental health place. Those stigma surrounding therapy and resolving
trauma still exists, but at least now there's a concerned
(27:25):
effort to address them, to acknowledge the vicious cycle that
trauma can create in both direct and indirect ways. Here
CC again, I had many years of therapy, and I
still have therapy. Um. Ironically, I'm a psychologist, right, so um,
But therapy and also coming to terms that maybe my
(27:47):
mom Obviously obviously my mom had mental health issues, so
understanding that and having a conversation with her, she never
apologized for her behavior towards me at all, so I
see it from a different angle to maybe rationalize a
little bit of her choices, not to dismiss her behavior
(28:09):
but just to understand a little bit more on the
angle of being a woman, being brown, having to face
all these um issues on your own right because she
was also by herself. Um, I mean I was by myself,
but she was by herself for a while and having
to kind of battle all of these issues here in
(28:33):
this in this country as well. So I'm very proud
that she made the choices that she did. Obviously I'm
here because of her choices. So just kind of having
some understanding and some empathy a little bit about that.
But for some people like Erica L. Sanchez, New York
Times bestselling author of I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,
(28:56):
working through those mental wounds in her work and therapy
be it's essential. I mean, I think when your society
hates your people, you kind of learned to internalize that.
And it makes me really sad. And and that's exactly
why I wrote Mexican Daughter, because I wanted kids to
(29:17):
feel good about being Mexican, uh and girls in particular,
and so and to also show them that it's that
I understand that there's circumstances are not are not good
in many ways, and that it's unfair and so yeah,
(29:39):
I guess that was my whole journey. I went through
like loving being Mexican, then like high school, just feeling
some kind of way about it, and then eventually becoming
this person that I am now where I just rapped
hart from my peeps. I relate to eric Uh in
(30:01):
her search for creative outlets like writing, storytelling, which aren't
always the norm in our communities, especially for our parents
who don't really understand it. They didn't know what the
hell was going on for me, so all of a sudden,
be like, I'm a writer, I'm an intellectual, I'm a feminist.
(30:23):
I think everybody was so perplexed, and then eventually they
got on board and now they're extremely proud. But yeah,
it's not something that we do. It took a lot
of work for her to cope with that clash with
her family, finally getting into a place where I don't
(30:43):
feel bad about everything. And it's been constant work, through therapy,
through writing, through talking to friends, to talking to my husband,
to meditation. So yeah, it's just so hard. So now
I look back and I'm like, yeah, she hurt me.
He hurt me, But they were doing their best, and
(31:06):
I have to just let it go because otherwise it's
just going to hurt for the rest of my life,
and I don't want that, and I want to heal
for my daughter, So then my daughter doesn't have to
carry that ship with her. That's not fair. So it's
my job to do the work in order for her
to be unencumbered. Erica is closing that cycle of hurt
(31:32):
in order to make sure that our kids don't suffer
the same emotional wounds. We have to understand where our
parents were coming from. As a teenager, I blame my
mom for my family's difficult upbringing. I blame my parents
for being poor, but that psychle ends with me. I've
(31:52):
started to forgive myself for being a bad daughter. I
forgive my mom for not understanding me. YEA. Thinking back
to my childhood, man, I used to resent my parents
from moving us to Downey. I was around wealthy kids,
and I felt out of place and way behind. The
(32:12):
schools that I went to before in my old neighborhood
had outdated textbooks, so I was away behind my age group.
I did so poorly on the entrance exams at Downey
that I was put in special ad. I had to
rush to catch up I hated it. I had to
start all over again. But as I grew up, I
(32:35):
started to understand that my parents were playing the long game.
Our house in the Mexican Beverly Hills wasn't some very tale.
It took a lot of elbow grease, time and sacrifice
to make it at home. Now I see and appreciate
that sacrifice. I see the roots my parents were planting.
Like the monarch butterflies who migrate to survive the cold winters.
(32:58):
They may not get to the promised and themselves, but
they fly far enough for their kids to get there.
And that is why it is so important for us
to carry this legacy forward for a whole new generation.
There are more than eleven million undocumented people in the
US today. Senator Alan Simpson said it best we had
(33:21):
to do something there after thirty decus of doing nothing
for some eleven million undocumented families. Simpson's words are more
true than ever. Something needs to be done. What's coming
(33:41):
That's on the next episode of Out of the Shadows,
Children of eighty six. If you love this podcast, please
help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing,
and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows
(34:03):
is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted,
an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Glendo. It's
produced by Bettic Cardanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. Its
sound design mixed and mastered by Jesse Nice Longer. Our
studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is
(34:27):
our announcer. Out of the Shadows is a production of
Seeing Me Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership
with I Hearts Michael Dura Podcast Network. The podcast has
also executive produced by Giselle Bantes, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Chad Crowley. Our marketing and our team is led
(34:48):
by Jasmine Mehea. Original music by a Arenas and if
you loved his cover of Los Caminos La Viva this
podcast theme song, you can listen to it on all
music platforms. Historical audio for Out of the Shadows comes
from the Reagan Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special
(35:09):
thanks to Ian Vargas, Alex and Alie, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran,
Daisy Church, Angel Lopez Glendo, Julianna Camiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson,
Claudia Marti Corina, Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval,
(35:35):
Eric Sclar, Tony Sorrentino, and Megan Tans
Hi listeners, just a quick heads up out of the
shadows tell stories of people fleeing and living in sometimes
violent environments. The greatest gift Alfonso alsco Ever gave his
daughter Marlene was a mantra that she still lives by today.
(00:20):
Alfonso is an immigrant from Mexico who was only able
to finish the sixth grade, but he vowed to do
everything in his power to make sure Marlene got the
education he couldn't. Okay, it's let's say the early nineties,
a Monday, parent teacher knights always seem to fall on Mondays.
It's a long one too. Alfonso rushes off the construction
(00:42):
site where he's building the driveway of a house some
rich family is going to live in. He's on his
way to Marline's elementary school. He's running just a few
minutes late to a conference with their third grade teacher.
His rough hands are still covered in cement, his clothes too.
He's tired, like always, but he always finds the energy
(01:05):
to show up to his kids school functions, and it's
worth it. The teacher praises Marlene. She's smart, a model student,
even as an eight year old. She's got out phones
those work ethic, and he's filled with pride. Marlene feels
a special pleasure in seeing the smile on her dad's
(01:25):
face as he receives the glowing report. Then out Fonda
looks at her and then at his stained hands. I
want her to do well in school, he tells the teacher,
because it's easier to push a pencil than a shovel.
Those powerful words become her mantra, the one she repeats
(01:47):
as she studies for her say t s as she
writes her college applications. When she gets into Stanford. They
are her inspiration. Anytime things feel too hard, she thinks
about the back breaking work her dad did. Finally, the
day of her graduation comes. As a ritual of appreciation,
(02:08):
Marlene asked him to put on her cap and gown
and flip the script on the traditional father daughter graduation photo.
Alfonso's beaming, radiating pride. He looks like an esteemed scholar
and a gray guilty draped in his daughter's cap and gown,
and he kind of is That Monday night when she
(02:30):
was eight years old, Alfonso gave his daughter the wisdom
she needed to transform her life. More than a decade later,
Marlene pays him back by sharing her academic regalia. I'm
Patti Rodriguez and I'm Mary Glendo, and this is out
(02:51):
of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their
children have long lived in the shadows of America. Their
destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from, but
the particular place in history in the lives of millions
of immigrants and their children were changed by one lucky
stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Reagan.
(03:12):
This podcast will examine the ripple effects that Bill had
on first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational
mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold
story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course
I hope My mom and dad are the hardest working
(03:46):
people I have ever met, and the smartest too. My
mom wanted to be a teacher, but had to drop
out of school when she was fourteen years old to
earn money full time for her family. When she came
to the US, she worked on an assembly line making
large planting pots. My dad graduated from college with a
degree in engineering, but it didn't matter in the US.
(04:09):
He sold mufflers door to door and did other odd jobs.
My parents did their best. We bounced around Southeast l
a Lynnwood, Compton Paramount. But after Urka, my mom and
dad got green cards. She became a stay at home mom,
He got a job as the foreman of a large
produced warehouse, and my parents bought their first home. We
(04:33):
moved from the Compton Paramount border to this place known
as the Mexican Beverly Hills. Downey, California, is just eighteen
miles southeast of Rodell Drive in the rial Beverly Hills,
but it earned that nickname because of its affluent Latino population.
For my parents, getting a house in Downey brought them
(04:54):
closer to their American dream. The next step was becoming
a US citizen to see them we wanted to. Moving
to places like Downey or Beverly Hills is an aspirational
(05:16):
goal for many immigrant families, but the culture shock can
be hard on the kids. For me, a first gen
child of eighty six, sitting in those classrooms and Downey
High feeling like a fish out of water, even in
a place that was supposed to be a Mexican Shangra
law was sometimes more traumatic than some of the stuff
(05:37):
I saw in the streets in my old neighborhood. Don't
get me wrong, Erica was such a blessing because real talk,
having undocumented parents wears you down. So in terms of
physical effects, this often leads to eating and sweeping disturbances
for children. That's Professor Regina laying out from UC Santa
(05:59):
cru Is breaking down some of the ways it impacts children.
It can increase pretty drastically anxiety, anger, aggression, withdraw, fear,
a sense of abandon mint, and depression. And then also
what leads to attachment issues for children as well, because
(06:19):
all of a sudden, you know, at the blink of
an eye, a parent can be removed from their children
without any preparation, um notice, and that is that is
incredibly traumatizing for the entire family unit and especially for children.
So this is a severed relationship with a parent um
(06:41):
and that is very, very traumatic. And in terms of
the academic outcomes, um this often leads to academic withdraw
and lower persistence and retention for children as well. Despite
all that opened up for the children of immigrants, are
could didn't change things overnight. Yeah, we got new homes, cars,
(07:02):
ship like that. Mobility is at the heart of the
American promise. But that promise can come with a price,
shedding community connection and cultural signifiers to fit into new
places and realities, costs that aren't reflected in real estate.
We grew up in Huntington Park and we moved to
(07:23):
Diamond Bar when I was eleven. Jessica Carral moved to
a new city, way out in the suburbs of eastern
Los Angeles County at an impressionable age, and that was
a big jump because we lived in an apartment, and
then my dad started making a little bit more money,
(07:43):
and then we were we lived here in the present
place where we're at right now, and that was a
big jump. So I think we always had what we needed. Well.
She was glad to have the extra space. She felt
like an outsider in a city where no one spoke Spanish.
(08:04):
I came from a classroom where every single kids spoke Spanish,
every single kid was Hispanic. Um, we always had the tall, white,
blonde teachers and all the kids look different. But then
when we moved to Diamond Bar, it's crazy. For the
first time ever, when I was eleven, I saw in
(08:25):
a person, an Asian person, one of my really good
Friends was Indian. Her family was from India, and that
I had never seen that. So that was a big,
big culture shock seeing the food they are, neighbors were
all different and part of that culture shock was a
whole new universe of pop culture. Yeah, at school I
(08:48):
had to learn who the Backstreet Boys were and in
sync and even just my cousin like, you don't know
who the Backstreet Boys are? And I was like, no,
but I know who Ricky Martinez, Like that's who we
That's what you listen to at home. And that was hard.
That was really hard growing up because not I didn't
(09:11):
go to one king because in Diamond Bar, no one
had a king. Senea. I can relate to this duality
to being misunderstood growing up. My mom didn't understand what
I wanted to do for a living. When I was
getting my start in radio. She would say things like
(09:32):
that's not work or is this When she got how
could creative work make me a living, make me any
real money. Her world view was informed by everything she
had to overcome, so something like doing radio, even a podcast,
seemed unrealistic. The world felt a little more dangerous to her,
(09:56):
and she wanted me to pursue something with more security,
something that can guarantee my future. I don't hold any
grudges against my mom for not understanding what I wanted
to do. If my mom didn't get amnesty, I probably
would have paid more attention to her words because I
(10:17):
would have been conditioned to live with the fear of
the I n S taking her from me. I would
have lived more cautiously. But that's not what happened my
mom getting amnesty. Believe it or not, it was probably
part of the reason I grew up believing in myself,
daring to be proud of who I am, having the
(10:40):
audacity to dream the dreams I dream. But still no
amount of confidence could release me from the pain of
being misunderstood. Out of the shadows, will be right back now,
(11:06):
back to the show. Every experience that we go through
lives in our body. That's the founder of Latin X therapy,
Adrian Aere. And if we do not process that, it's
gonna come out in some way in some capacity, whether
that's verbal or physical. Um So our our body holds
(11:28):
that memory. Part of the reason why Latinos don't tend
to resolve that trauma is cultural. I think in our community.
People tend to also protect themselves um by creating this
more so mentality that if you if you look back
to the past, that it's a sign of weakness. And
so I think that a little bit of that plays
(11:48):
out and that's why people would rather they tell you like,
don't even look back, look forward. And so I feel
like a lot of the older generation adopts that um
for self preservation. Immigrants who come to this country not
only more the loss of their place of origin, but
have to adapt to a foreign country that can be
very hostile. Often that means suppressing those feelings of loss
(12:11):
to protect themselves, not looking back, not dwelling on what
they've overcome, because of the reception that it makes you weak.
The reason why some folks don't tend to go back
and and storytell you know what their journey was like
is because it's it is revisiting for some people a trauma,
(12:32):
and people don't have those skills. And people when they're
revisiting and have probably talked about in the past, maybe
by accidents, they experience all of these somatic, these these
experience that they went through years ago back in their body,
like as if they're reliving it again that embodied pain
impacts everything. One legacy of trauma is constant vigilance. Being
(12:58):
always on the lookout for danger. Any threat, real or
imagine feels heightened. It's a kind of hyper sensitive state
that makes relating to others difficult for survivors of trauma,
even with their own kids, and don't also know how
to be empathic and compassionate towards a child that is struggling,
(13:21):
because that parent also wishes that they had this opportunity
that they are giving to this child. The tension between
immigrants and you know, American raised kids is so intense
in many households. You know, of course, there there are
some children that suppress their needs and you know, don't
(13:44):
don't speak out about them, and then there's others that
can even show up as rebellious, but really that's like
how they're trying to communicate all of these differences and
changes language place. You nique psychological role in the lives
of first generation immigrant children who become mediators between two cultures.
(14:07):
There are so many unique nuances within our community being
first gen as in I think people don't understand that
from a very young age, we had so many responsibilities
writing checks, translating work conversations, or legal or doctor's appointments,
(14:28):
um just from a super young age. That burden and
mediating two cultures forced many of those kids to have
to grow up fast, sacrificing parts of their childhood. Like
Marcella Sanchez who wrote that letter to Reagan, I wanted
to make sure that my dad was taking care of
because he took care of us. Or like Raina Solis
(14:49):
from a few episodes ago, there was just a line
of people and I was just asked to come to
the front of the line and translate for somebody who
did not speak English. And while growing up fast or
grentification can have detrimental effects, it's born out of a
finally a tune radar for vulnerability and a desire to help.
(15:10):
They could be the helper in many different scenarios. They're
always maybe just like sacrificing themselves for the sake of
helping others. For CC go miss her traumas directly tied
to language and Urka. Cci was born in Durango, Mexico,
and came to the States when she was only eleven.
(15:31):
Soon after she started prepping for her amnesty interview, she
basically went through questions kind of mathematically drilling me as
far as like dates and how I got there, and
so that interview relied heavily on that coaching. Essentially, what
(15:53):
she didn't plan was the fact that the interview was
just gonna be for me, by my self. And that's
when things started to turn. Anxiety started to creep in
and she panicked. So I'm standing in front of the woman,
and sure thing, she goes by um, question by question,
(16:16):
kind of like what my mom had drilled me for
many months before. And the lady stops in the middle
of the questions and she she goes, you know, if
you're lying about anything, you can get in bigger trouble,
and your mom can get in bigger trouble. And that
(16:40):
right there just kind of shook me. And so the
following questions I just buckled and I couldn't answer. I
didn't know how to answer, and I just kind of,
you know, splurred out whatever what was happening with home?
You know, I just said, you know, I got here
(17:02):
not too long and I wanted to see my mom
and I wanted to stay with my mom, and my
mom had been here for all these years, and I
just wanted to stay with my mom, and immediately she
looks at me and she's like, okay, denied and shoves
(17:24):
my paperwork to the side. In her young mind, it
was the worst possible outcome, but it was multiplied by
fear or what her mom would say. And I remember
walking out sobbing, because not only was I sad about
what just had happened, but I was really scared about
(17:48):
how my mom was going to respond after her drilling
me to stick to the um questions. The weight of
that responsibility weighed heavy on her, costing her to develop
a speech disability at home. I'm constantly in fear, constantly
in fear. I was actually a selective mute up until
(18:11):
the age of fifteen. Selective mutism kind of falls within
the language disorder, and it's often triggered by anxiety. It's
often cost or brought on by a traumatic event of sorts,
and you wherever it is that those triggers might be
(18:33):
at the peak um that is where your voice just
kind of shuts down. When I had the interview, the
initial interview for the amnesty process, um being asked or
actually being told to not lie. At that age, of course,
(18:54):
it triggered um a sense of anxiety. Out of the
shadows will be right back now, back to the show.
(19:16):
One of the biggest issues kids of immigrants often endure
is navigating the dual cultures that their parents can't help with.
And it's a weird dichotomy because for many of us
children of eighty six, we've grown up embracing our families, culture, traditions,
and identity at us on the weekends, Selena Cruz. We
(19:38):
even grow up loving our parents country national soccer team
over Team USA. But then you turn on the TV
or the radio and life is completely different. So for
many kids, you begin wondering if something is wrong with
your life. You grew up asking why is it if
the holess every night for dinner and not McDonald's. It
felt like we were kind of guess that, Cindy Rown
(20:01):
says after RCA, her family moved to Laguna Beach, an
upper class neighborhood depicted in the hit Fox TV show
v oc Growing up in an affluent area was isolating
for Cindy, one of the few Latinas in the city. No, no,
I never felt like a belonged there. I still don't
really feel like I belong here. I feel like that
(20:22):
whole imposter syndrome thing right, like we're just pretending. But
I know now that, like I worked really hard and
I belong here and I've earned my spot here. But
I think growing up it didn't really feel that way.
We always had to be good and do good and
do good in school, like we had to do our
best to just not stand out in any bad ways
and reflect really positively about our family. But Cindy didn't
(20:46):
want to fit in. I had this idea in my
mind from my young age that I needed to get
out of here, like I needed to leave. That opportunity
to leave the o C finally came in the form
of a piece of mail. I remember sitting on my
mom's bed and I remember opening the letter just thinking
it was some other like acceptance letter, and I remember
(21:08):
reading through it and them just saying the full academic scholarship.
And I remember I just like froze because I couldn't
believe it. And I remember being scared. Remember I got
goose bumps that I wanted to cry, And then I
turned around. I looked at my mom and she had
like tears in her eyes too, and she just kind
of nodded, because I think she understood in that moment too,
like this is it Cynthe now recognizes that being able
(21:29):
to go to college on a full ride was just
one of the benefits from her time in like Guna Beach,
one of the lasting impacts of Urica. There's so many
things that because of the amnesty, we were able to do,
like you know, as a family, were able to travel
back and forth in New Mexico. I was able to
have this incredible relationship with not just my grandparents, my
(21:51):
great grandparents, my great uncle's, my cousins, like so much,
so much family, so much love that I got to
feel being able to connect with our family's roots was
one of the unexpected bonuses of IRKA. According to the
Helio sans A, professor at University of Texas at San Antonio,
it also provided uh individuals the opportunity to maintain their
(22:14):
roots in Mexico, to return freely and to be able
to come back here. So there's that that that duality
also in terms of keeping the language, that people could
take their children, but to visit family and so forth.
In the long tradition of people going back during the
summers for the holidays, and so for the maintaining those ties,
(22:39):
that fluentity was important to so many of the people
we talked to. Curio I used to take him too
a sable to celebrate his birthday with barrios and everything.
According to Professor laying out, IRCA rattled other gates that
had been close to immigrants from around the world, opening
(23:01):
up new possibilities. There were definite benefits in terms of
the psychological, social, and material impacts for young people. It
made college in the career seemed possible, and so with
that also comes in increased sense of self confidence, self determination,
and hope in this reduced vigilance and possibility that every
(23:25):
single person in the world deserves to have. That possibility
was enough enough to create a Latino middle class. Here's
Professor Francisco Riverabattis, who teaches economics and education at Columbia University.
You're talking that about of ease on documented immigrant who
(23:45):
applied for legalization were for Mexico, so it's a big
chunk of the community. It's certainly pushed the middle class
among the Latino population to grow more and them without it.
A big part of that growth was seen through education.
In thirteen Glena cor Tess wrote a paper rescifically about
(24:09):
these about these children, and she found that these um
original dreamers in a sense that they actually received legalization
uh sixteen percentage points greater college enrollment. The children often
documented immigrants in general, those who had not been legalized.
(24:30):
Martin A. Rolsco was one of those children. But I
remember my dad in third grade. Marline is the young
graduate from the photo at the top of the show,
and it was her father's words of wisdom that bear repeating.
He came in his construction clothes with cement, you know,
cement chips on his hands and his clothing, and you know,
(24:50):
he told my teacher that he wants me to do
well in school because it's much easier to push a
pencil than it is a shovel. It may sound like
heavy stuff for a kid learning her timetables, but it landed.
And I think that that that framing really resonated with me.
I recalled, I mean I would this was in third grade.
(25:11):
I was like, what eight nine years old, and that
really resonated with me. I mean, I would see my
dad worked long hours. My dad is incredibly smart, and
again with a sixth grade education, I think about what
could have been for him had he been provided the
opportunity to go to college. And so I've made it
my life's mission to go to college and get additional
(25:32):
degrees as well. Their mission becomes hers, her fulfillment becomes
her parents. Children of eighty six find themselves swapping rolls
on and off like her cap and gown. And I,
you know, I credit my my parents, but I just
I know what what that meant for them. My mom,
(25:53):
if you go to our house, she has a full wall.
She talks about how it's like her multimillion dollar wall
of all of my siblings um uh diplomas. So she
has my Stanford one, my Heart one Harvard one. I
just graduated from Stanford UM with my PhD. So she
newly minted has that one on the wall. All of
my siblings went to UM college. My brother became a lawyer,
(26:18):
my sister is a news anchor on a English news
station uh TV news station, and and my brother is
just like a business guru. Well, the resilience of the
immigrants whose stories we've heard this season is undeniable. It
extends to their children as well. Cindy and CC made
(26:40):
the best of their parents newfound liberties. They were able
to make their parents proud with their accomplishments. But it
is important to note that these mental scars that we've
outlined still persist in our communities. The pressure to excel
the weight of unfulfilled dream can feel like dragging around
(27:03):
an invisible plow. But there's one cultural difference that might
inspire hope for the future that generation of kids, those
children of eighties six, have a better understanding of the
role mental health place. Those stigma surrounding therapy and resolving
trauma still exists, but at least now there's a concerned
(27:25):
effort to address them, to acknowledge the vicious cycle that
trauma can create in both direct and indirect ways. Here
CC again, I had many years of therapy, and I
still have therapy. Um. Ironically, I'm a psychologist, right, so um,
But therapy and also coming to terms that maybe my
(27:47):
mom Obviously obviously my mom had mental health issues, so
understanding that and having a conversation with her, she never
apologized for her behavior towards me at all, so I
see it from a different angle to maybe rationalize a
little bit of her choices, not to dismiss her behavior
(28:09):
but just to understand a little bit more on the
angle of being a woman, being brown, having to face
all these um issues on your own right because she
was also by herself. Um, I mean I was by myself,
but she was by herself for a while and having
to kind of battle all of these issues here in
(28:33):
this in this country as well. So I'm very proud
that she made the choices that she did. Obviously I'm
here because of her choices. So just kind of having
some understanding and some empathy a little bit about that.
But for some people like Erica L. Sanchez, New York
Times bestselling author of I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter,
(28:56):
working through those mental wounds in her work and therapy
be it's essential. I mean, I think when your society
hates your people, you kind of learned to internalize that.
And it makes me really sad. And and that's exactly
why I wrote Mexican Daughter, because I wanted kids to
(29:17):
feel good about being Mexican, uh and girls in particular,
and so and to also show them that it's that
I understand that there's circumstances are not are not good
in many ways, and that it's unfair and so yeah,
(29:39):
I guess that was my whole journey. I went through
like loving being Mexican, then like high school, just feeling
some kind of way about it, and then eventually becoming
this person that I am now where I just rapped
hart from my peeps. I relate to eric Uh in
(30:01):
her search for creative outlets like writing, storytelling, which aren't
always the norm in our communities, especially for our parents
who don't really understand it. They didn't know what the
hell was going on for me, so all of a sudden,
be like, I'm a writer, I'm an intellectual, I'm a feminist.
(30:23):
I think everybody was so perplexed, and then eventually they
got on board and now they're extremely proud. But yeah,
it's not something that we do. It took a lot
of work for her to cope with that clash with
her family, finally getting into a place where I don't
(30:43):
feel bad about everything. And it's been constant work, through therapy,
through writing, through talking to friends, to talking to my husband,
to meditation. So yeah, it's just so hard. So now
I look back and I'm like, yeah, she hurt me.
He hurt me, But they were doing their best, and
(31:06):
I have to just let it go because otherwise it's
just going to hurt for the rest of my life,
and I don't want that, and I want to heal
for my daughter, So then my daughter doesn't have to
carry that ship with her. That's not fair. So it's
my job to do the work in order for her
to be unencumbered. Erica is closing that cycle of hurt
(31:32):
in order to make sure that our kids don't suffer
the same emotional wounds. We have to understand where our
parents were coming from. As a teenager, I blame my
mom for my family's difficult upbringing. I blame my parents
for being poor, but that psychle ends with me. I've
(31:52):
started to forgive myself for being a bad daughter. I
forgive my mom for not understanding me. YEA. Thinking back
to my childhood, man, I used to resent my parents
from moving us to Downey. I was around wealthy kids,
and I felt out of place and way behind. The
(32:12):
schools that I went to before in my old neighborhood
had outdated textbooks, so I was away behind my age group.
I did so poorly on the entrance exams at Downey
that I was put in special ad. I had to
rush to catch up I hated it. I had to
start all over again. But as I grew up, I
(32:35):
started to understand that my parents were playing the long game.
Our house in the Mexican Beverly Hills wasn't some very tale.
It took a lot of elbow grease, time and sacrifice
to make it at home. Now I see and appreciate
that sacrifice. I see the roots my parents were planting.
Like the monarch butterflies who migrate to survive the cold winters.
(32:58):
They may not get to the promised and themselves, but
they fly far enough for their kids to get there.
And that is why it is so important for us
to carry this legacy forward for a whole new generation.
There are more than eleven million undocumented people in the
US today. Senator Alan Simpson said it best we had
(33:21):
to do something there after thirty decus of doing nothing
for some eleven million undocumented families. Simpson's words are more
true than ever. Something needs to be done. What's coming
(33:41):
That's on the next episode of Out of the Shadows,
Children of eighty six. If you love this podcast, please
help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing,
and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows
(34:03):
is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted,
an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Glendo. It's
produced by Bettic Cardanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. Its
sound design mixed and mastered by Jesse Nice Longer. Our
studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is
(34:27):
our announcer. Out of the Shadows is a production of
Seeing Me Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership
with I Hearts Michael Dura Podcast Network. The podcast has
also executive produced by Giselle Bantes, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr,
and Chad Crowley. Our marketing and our team is led
(34:48):
by Jasmine Mehea. Original music by a Arenas and if
you loved his cover of Los Caminos La Viva this
podcast theme song, you can listen to it on all
music platforms. Historical audio for Out of the Shadows comes
from the Reagan Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special
(35:09):
thanks to Ian Vargas, Alex and Alie, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran,
Daisy Church, Angel Lopez Glendo, Julianna Camiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson,
Claudia Marti Corina, Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval,
(35:35):
Eric Sclar, Tony Sorrentino, and Megan Tans
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