January 16, 2023 • 53 mins
My parents often had to take risks in pursuit of change, whether emigrating from Mexico or taking a leap of faith on a job that moved our family across the country. They open up about their childhoods in Mexico, and their journey from food stamps to the middle class. Being away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in Mexico, our nuclear family has always been close and we unpack what we’ve learned from each other, be it American expressions or more complex conversations about race, sexuality, and Latinidad. Our season finale breaks down their lived experiences as in-betweeners and the ways in which belonging to more than one country, culture, and socioeconomic background has expanded their worldview.
“I cannot say that I ever had the American dream, to be honest. It's been an accident in my life. Let's put it that way.” –Francisco
“There is a story behind each person, and if we are able to embrace those people and just recognize them as a person, what a difference that will make.” –Claudia
Creator: Maria Fernanda Diez
Executive Producers: Gisselle Bances, Anna Stumpf, Nikki Ettore
Producer: Dylan Heuer
Associate Producer: Claudia Marticorena
Original Theme Music: Tony Bruno
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey y'all. This week on When You're Invisible, I'm so
excited to introduce to you my parents, Claudia and Francisco,
whose experiences with invisibility is super layered and fascinating and
often provides the origin of my own experiences. How did
you guys meet miky love story? How much time we have?
(00:23):
Like highlights played Biplane? Your father was working for an
American company in Monterrey. We met in a discotheq bar
a club like a club. Picture yourself in the eighties,
long before there was any internet, the MTV videos actually started. Yes,
a friend of mine. She didn't want to be alone,
(00:43):
so she will not How do you call it when
someone she wouldn't be a third wheel at their will? Yes,
she was meeting a guide friend. And at the end
of the evening, your father came into this place that
I didn't see him, he saw me, I think, did
you yep? The nod yes, I did to hear. The
(01:04):
girls said, have you seen that very blond guy over there?
He's been looking at you? Say yes, I say, we
will go to the ladies room to see if he
approached you, And in a loud voice, I say, okay, girls.
When you come back. We are leaving. Okay did you
hear her say that? Oh? Yea, So he approached me.
(01:26):
Do you remember what you guys talked about. I think
it was a small talk. I guess when you get
to know each other. The only thing that I told
him is that I really like change, that I am
very open to change. No, God, change came into my life.
Which is the perfect segue. Welcome to When You're Invisible.
(01:51):
My name is Maria Fernanda. Yes, but I know not
everyone can rather are, so it's also find a coming Maria.
In today's world, we love to tell stories about people
who have reached the top, like people who have achieved
positions of cloud wealth power. On this show, I won't
be doing that. When You're Invisible is my love letter
to the working class and others who are seemingly invisible
(02:15):
in our society. I hope to build a community here
that will inspire you to have generous conversations with others
that are different from you, conversations that might help you
see life in an entirely different way. My parents, they've
had to take risks in that pursuit of change. They've
(02:35):
more than one time had to sell everything they've more
than one time had to completely take a leap of
faith on a job. They burned all their ships, their
financial ships, their relationships to be here and to pursue
something better. They went from like food stamps when they
first got here and then slowly progressed to a comfortable
middle class, which they achieved by the time I was
(02:56):
about fifteen years old. When you belong to more than
one country, more than one culture, and more than one
like socioeconomic background, being in between expands your worldview. When
you can relate to people from different places, you just
start to see different perspectives. It adds to the stained
(03:17):
glass that you are. I think there is a flip
side if you're in between. One thing that happens is
people don't always know how to peg you. They don't
know what you are, so it's very foreign to them,
and then it's unsettling sometimes or they are like, how
are you here? And confused by your identity. In this
day and age, we have such polarizing media and such
(03:41):
strong convictions, but there's also a lack of acknowledgement towards
the layers of people and how we change and how
we grow as individuals. Sitting down with my parents was
an honor and also a little nerve racking. I kind
of thought that I would know what they would talk about,
(04:01):
but there were a lot of layers to their story
that I didn't even know, which I felt surprised by.
And also there were some healing moments. There are questions
I asked that I had never gotten to ask before.
Let's hoperat it. So question number one, would you guys
kind of know? Is coming up? How did you grow
up in Mexico? Growing up was very different of my
(04:27):
childhood friends. I was a daughter of a single moment
that became with of very young at thirty two, with
four children. It was interesting to say the list, and
so many times difficult because we had to move with
my grandparents that by then they had lost their money
(04:49):
in a bad business that my grandfather did, and so
we live in a very small apartment where we had
just two bedrooms. So we were the four girls sleeping,
my mother, my sisters, and I and my brother with
my grandparents. But I had fond memories with my first cousins.
(05:10):
With your memos, my fondest memories are with them away
from their home. They will take us everywhere you know
parks and recreations, So we're very thankful to them because
we were able to experience many little childhood moments with them.
(05:30):
Being in that apartment in a second floor in the
center of the city, where they were not grass areas
or anything. It was a little bit tough. And also
extra curricular activities were not for us because who will
take us, who will pick us up? It was no
way to do that. And I went to a school
(05:51):
very far away from where I live, always with scholarships
where my mother was an alumni to In this very
privileged school, I felt invisible, and my defending mood in
that wealthy environment was being the smart one, being on
top of my class always so I can be strong
(06:14):
in one way. Of course, it was defense mechanisms that
I had that back then, I didn't call it that
because I didn't know that. My parents always stressed the
importance of education, and my brother and I both used
education as a way forward, and it's really interesting to
see how that developed in their own lives as kids. Well,
(06:36):
my experience was somewhat different in terms of my childhood
and my case. I was the third of upper middle
class family in a smaller sitting in Mexico called Duranko,
And yeah, one of the funny things in our home
that was one of those small towns with a lot
of gossips that they said that we were very rich,
probably because my grandmother used to have a lot of money.
(06:58):
But the fame was that my father was just a
little that's the right term. Centric, eccentric, that's the right word,
because we lived very, very frugally. They never really traveled
to places, and my father, despite the fact of his
low education level, he was successful in almost every business
that he studied. Nothing really spectacular, but yeah, people you
(07:19):
hear rumors that we were felt the rich, which is
hilarious because it's like, I think about that and that's
not what I would have. Yeah, they had enough money
to give us a good living, and eventually the money
that my grandmother left paid for college for my brother
and for me in a private university in Mexico. And
(07:40):
our parents both were alive most of our lifetime, and
we lived next door to my grandmother, and we had
an upbringing that was fairly rigid in many ways. We
always grew up a expectation that we had to be
really good students, well behaved children, despite the fact that
my father didn't finished primary school until he was in
(08:02):
his twenties. His father died when he was six, something
similar to Claudia in this case, he was somewhat abandoned
in a horphanage at about six or seven years old,
so he had a really rough childhood and really rough
teenage time. So the reason he didn't complete school because
(08:22):
there was nobody behind him that supported him. But in reality,
what was remarkable and my father was that I'm an academic,
but probably he read more than I did. In his
adult life. He taught himself to read English and he
devoured all sorts of books about English. He was really
knowledgeable history, politics. He had a hunger for learning despite
(08:45):
the fact no education, so he had to work very
early in his years. He did so many different little
jobs in the farm and ran chair and even at
one time he was smuggling stuff across the Mexico US border.
We always ask you, please write your story. We got
to know more about it. We could write a book
about it. Limited series about the b s Family coming soon.
(09:10):
It's really sweet to think about these two kids growing
up in different parts of Mexico and how they met
at that bar and a year after the meeting they
got married, and two years after they moved to the States.
How did that come about? Whose dream was it? Whose
idea was it? And how did the other take it?
(09:31):
It was your idea? Well, yeah, but I convince you
I think the reason why we decided to come to
the US, Well, first I had a bachelor's in food
science food technology, and I wanted to explore the possibility
of conducting research. Commenced Claudia, that was our best for
our future. My career if we stayed in Mexico was
(09:54):
going to be only restricted to Mexico. If I go,
I'll get out the green the U S I would
expand or something abilities. So, as they were getting ready
to fully transition to their soon to be a new
home in the States, they stopped and worked at my
uncle's house in Maine, Claudia's great uncle o Hiro's for
the summer as managers of his property, workers in whatever
(10:17):
needed to be done, painting, cleaning, or cooking. And what
was it like when you moved here for the first time?
Do you remember some of the first thoughts you had
upon arrival. Well, we drove from Maine to upstate New York.
And when I saw Syracuse, I say, oh, this is awesome,
and you're doesn't. No, this is not the place yet,
we have to drive south. Syracuse is a bigger city
(10:40):
in upstate New York. And where they were about to
go was Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University and
Ithaca College, and a much smaller city. Can you imagine me,
a girl from a very large city in Mexico going
to Ithaca, New York and driving through these little back
(11:01):
roads and say, oh, my word, where am I going
to live? But when I arrived in Itaca and we
walk the little city, the city is just absolutely gorgeous
and the campus is just amazing. And as soon as
(11:23):
I arrived, I think a week later, I made a
friend from Peru in the Bos and from there, yeah,
we became friends, and another group of friends, and all
from Latin America, all of them. I love thinking about
my mom in her mid twenties, making all these friends
from around the world. And it's crazy to think that
(11:45):
this incredible adventure that would last the majority of their
life so far was started actually by the quiet one,
my father, because he was the one who had spurred
them to make this big change. His expectations and sense
of responsibility were a little different. My expectations were surrounding,
(12:05):
mostly about what was waiting for me. As I started
my master's degree, I was concerned that I was responsible
for Claudia. So the setting was always where it would
be a safe place for us to leave. We were
very strapped for money because the first year we did
not have any support from the university. We didn't have
any fellowships. We basically, like we said in Mexico, we
(12:28):
burned our ships. In Mexico, we've sold everything and we
save everything during a year to be able to come
to the US. We were relatively poor. At least for
the following four or five years. We were considered on
their the poverty level in the US. Stay tuned for
more from one year Invisible after this break and we
(12:51):
are back to this show with no clear future, but
navigating as best they could. They were feeling their way
day by day. I love you have all the perks
of living in the US as compared to Mexico, because
at least in our generation, there are many things that
it was so easy to do that in Mexico was
a pain in the neck. The moment that I discovered
(13:12):
you could pay bills by mail. Oh my goodness, that's
great because in Mexico was interesting physically physically to pay
office of feature. That's changed your intention was never to
stay in this country. First was a master's degree, and
then we decided to stay for a pH d at Cornell.
(13:33):
I got suppar from the Mexican government, which very grateful.
We tried to go back, but the economic situation in
Mexico was really bad. There were no jobs, and the
jobs that were really bad. So I was fortunately that
one of the professors offered me to stay for a
postdoctoral position, so we stayed a little longer. With each
(13:53):
choice my dad made came a slew of new logistics
and paperwork for what felt like pretty constantly changed visas.
We started my master's degree under an F one, which
is typically even to international students. When I got the
support from Mexican govern and Fulbright, I was asked to
move to a J one pisa, and that's when the
(14:15):
complications came. J one visas have a restriction that you
have to go back to your home country for two
years before you could apply for a work pisa or
a permanent residence. It was going to be almost impossible
to stay permanently in this country. The University of Minnesota,
when they wanted to hire me, they were willing to
(14:35):
support me to get an OH one visa, an Alien
of Extraordinary Abilities. That was the title of the visa.
Normally it's a visa that doesn't last more than three years.
After the first three years, we had to renew every
single year. The complications of having a visa that only
last one year while you have a permanent job in
(14:58):
the US provided not a lot of uncertainty for many years,
but also some of the complications whenever you crossed the border,
like your visa was so rare. I remember being at
borders and having immigration officers be like, what is this?
I have to go check. At one point, when my
parents really could not predict how long they would be
(15:19):
in this country, we started to have conversations about what
we were going to do if their visa got rejected,
If we would go to Mexico with them, if we
would stay in the States with guardians, or what. These
kinds of conversations started when I was eleven and continued
until I became an adult, and then I eventually went
(15:40):
to the forts visa that I we were had, which
is the h one that allowed the possibility for you
to then moved to a permanent arrist. My boss at
that time made the miracle of allowing a fulbright scholar
to stay in this country permanently. But yeah, I think
I cannot say that I ever had the American dream.
(16:02):
To be honest, it's been an accident in my life.
Let's put away all those mild American stone steps milestones.
We always arrived later. We've been catching up in terms
of the American dream. Eventually we kind of fulfill what
would be considered having a house, having a secure income,
(16:23):
and then we can clarify it is the reason why
I were not able to work. They were two decisions.
One because my visa status, I was not allowed to
work formally in the States. And another reason is because
what I was a mother, I wanted to be with
(16:44):
my children. Thinking on going to work in order to
pay for childcare didn't seem too clos to to me.
In that equation, my fulfillment as a professional will come
second to my motherhood. If I had two children, they
will be my priority. So I did lots of work
(17:09):
under the table in Ithaca I had a home childcare
at my home so I could wash over my children
after the daycare, and itaca my dad was done with
his education. With that came all the rejections of all
the jobs that he applied to. My dad literally has
a stack of over fifty rejection letters from this time.
(17:32):
One of the places that eventually accepted him was the
University of Minnesota. And when Minnesota became our home base,
that's when my family slowly started to see a transition
in our financial stability. We went from a two bedroom
small apartments taking buses because my parents were always working,
and had to split the same used car that we
(17:55):
had owned for many, many, many years. Then we got
to move into duplex and then from there got to
move into a beautiful house in the suburbs. That finally
happened when I was about fifteen years old. But even
at that comfortable middle class we still didn't see a
surplus of money because any extra funds that we ended
(18:18):
up having went to my family in Mexico. So while
we were physically more comfortable and we finally had a
brand new car for the first time during that time,
we were still doing what we'd always been doing. We traveled,
and we made it possible by staying with family, staying
with friends, always driving, and we would barter for every
(18:41):
single extracurricular activity. For example, to pay for the Minnesota Opera,
I sold point set as like a crazy person, hundreds
of points set as a year to be able to
do that after school activity. So any time we had
something what was happening behind the scenes was a lot
of hard work to make it happen, both on the
(19:02):
kids parts and my parents party. After about twelve years
of being in Minnesota, my parents moved to Georgia for
my dad's job. Again, I'm curious, as you have moved
from the East coast to the Midwest, then to the South,
are there any big differences between the three or were
(19:24):
you guys made aware of your immigrant status in a
way that you didn't expect it. Fact, probably is one
of the most liberal cities that I have been in,
where everybody from all walks of life is welcome and
no one is strange, no queer people, no black people,
(19:45):
not Asian people, like It's a very large community from everywhere.
Probably I was suspecting that experience when we moved to Minnesota,
and that was not the case. In many ways, we
really never made friends that were from Minnesota. They say,
(20:07):
Minnesota nice. Yes, it's true. People work an extra mile
to help you, to direct you. But that experience that
we had is that there are people that will not
open their houses to you if you are a foreigner,
if you are from somewhere else. And the reason is
more simple that I imagine at the beginning to be
(20:28):
is that people have lived in Minnesota for generations. Literally,
it's very rare to see a Minnesota going out and
not coming back or even not going out at all
from the state. Because they have great universities there. They
don't have the need and the family tides are very strong,
(20:48):
so there is not chance for you to be part
of any Minnesota family because they already have their niche
and it's a very large niche. So our friends were
from outside that the transplant that established in Minnesota, so
that was very interesting. And then Georgia, it has been
(21:11):
a little bit difficult for me. When we moved to Georgia,
were actually more in the rural area. You're very spread out,
and so we're like an hour drive to Atlanta versus Minneapolis.
Was just hop skipping and jump away so they were
two very different environments. People is more racist, and I
(21:32):
have seen even people holding pistols or firearms of any
type a couple of times. I I've seen men in
their big trucks with that air cape is fifteen on
the top of their like the truck in the States.
There's not just the culture shocks that they had to experience,
(21:54):
but also some discriminatory experiences as well. Being in their
home country of Mexico, they were white slash white passing right.
Mexico has its own problem and system of racism that
is still being unpacked to this day, and it wasn't
until they got to the States that they really felt discrimination.
When he moved to a different country like the US,
(22:17):
the connotation of race and ethnicity and language changes. I
remember kind of having to listen to my mom fight
to be taken seriously no matter where we were or
the context at times, just to clarify in terms of
racist what have you specifically experienced, Well, in me at
the supermarket, Oh yeah, well in the supermarket, I just
(22:40):
had an experience. A man was very upset with me.
I was talking to you on the phone in Spanish,
and I saw his reaction. He was very upset, and
then I hung up because I need to pay. When
I went out, he approached me and said, if you
are in America, you should be speaking in English. And
(23:04):
I say to you, I do speak English, and I'm
speaking to you in English. No over the phone, And
I say, why I am talking with my daughter. The
communication between my daughter and I isn't my tongue language
in Spanish and say, I don't know where your ancestors
came from, but can you imagine for them to be
(23:25):
treated the way you are treating me right now. My
mom is one of the most outspoken and strongest people
I know. She's the one who taught me to defend
myself when I was being bullied in grade school and
middle school. And my mom taught me about hitting someone
with a white glove is what she calls it. It's
a Claudi Ideas method where you don't have to be
(23:49):
mean in any way back you just shine a light
on what's happening and the ugliness that the other person
is presenting. We're gonna get deeper into a person, options
that my parents have faced and how they perceived themselves
in different situations and cultures. After this break welcome back
(24:15):
to when you're invisible. The more my parents were in
this country, the more there started to be an intermingling
of cultures. Not only did it impact them, but also
their kids when they eventually had them, and my brother
and all of this kind of becomes an interesting melting
(24:37):
pot of its own within our family dynamics. We tried
to go back to Mexico, but eventually, as you live
more here, you started to lose many of the ties,
and eventually you lose your culture in many ways, because
culture is not a static thing. But yeah, the fact
that we decided to leave in many Mexican line and
we're not exactly traders, but I guess our families resent
(25:01):
to the fact that we left. That's probably the price
that you pay when you decide to leave your roots
in In our case, we came here, not as a
survival like many other immigrants. In our case was because
we made the decision that it was the best for
our future. We could have stayed in Mexico because of
my education and Claudius skills and education, we probably would
(25:24):
have succeeded in Mexico. But speaking of like being away
from family, what was it like raising kids away from family.
Especially Mexican culture is very family oriented in many ways,
relief in many ways missing. Mexican families are very controlling, controlling,
(25:47):
and also they like to be involved. Yes me, Titches is,
let me put my opinion into it, and I can't
help you with it all the time, whether you want
it or not, whether you are at or not. So
your dad and I had the opportunity to raise our
children in the way we thought it was the best way.
(26:11):
So it's a duality on the feeling that I have
raising you far away. I think in this farness, we
think we raise two very strong individuals with a mindset
of their own. They have lived their life the way
they wanted and I don't know if that transition would
(26:34):
have been more difficult if you were surrounded with the
loving environment of my family, and we have seen it
in your own cousins. They don't detached from their families
yet and they are. You left home at eating and
(26:56):
it was very difficult for me to let you go,
but gave me peace of mind knowing that your dad
did the same when he left Durango to go to Monterey.
But I did exactly what your cousins are doing right now,
and I don't know if one is better than the
other one. Definitely they were going to be missing on
(27:18):
all that experience and the support system that sometimes takes place.
We were fortunate to have really good friends along the
way that in many ways they played the role of
a close sister or brother or uncle or aunt. But
I think that's surprised that you always paid. Because we
weren't able to be close to our extended family, our
(27:38):
nuclear family became really tight knit. My mom emphasized this
idea of home should be a safe space, and within
that safe space, we were teaching each other a lot.
What's the hilarious story where Francisco or I taught you
something with me? Is my pronunciation like what like bitch,
(28:07):
which is what words c shore. That's why I never
said the B word to nobody. I just by the
sea shore, the bedding chit. I just can't even contain yourself.
It's like I just gotta laugh. That is another one,
(28:33):
and they laugh and laugh and laugh at me and said,
I know, but I cannot say it any other way.
I do also love the memory of like teaching you
what badass means. Yeah, I used to teach quite a
bit in Minnesota. So I got some feedback from students.
Sometimes they praise you, sometimes they tell you that you're
(28:54):
the worst teacher ever, could be a roller crouster when
you read those reviews. But one day the statement said
the teacher wears really badass sweaters. So it wasn't sure
if it was a compliment or or here she was
(29:15):
insulting me or what. So I asked the children, I
have a question for Literally, we were at dinner and
he goes, I have a question for you. What does
badass mean? Why? And I was like why, what's the contact?
And I was like that's a good thing, and he's like, oh, okay.
In all seriousness, though, my family was really open to
(29:38):
new experiences and whatever we grew into and became. I
always tell this story about Maria. She was in preschool
and she had a wonderful best friend Jody, and she
will always say, Jody, this, Mommy, Jody, Dad, Jody, Jody, Jody,
say mom can Jody come home? And the evening before
(30:01):
mommy pink shorts and white shirts, and Pony tells Mommy,
why honey, because Jody will be dressed the same way
and said okay. I loved a good matching outfit. Yeah.
And I go to school and I see these two
little girls hand by hand running out to meeting me.
(30:21):
And this girl was a black girl from Ghana, and
Marian never mentioned the color of her skin. It was Jody, Jody, Jody.
And when I saw them, I just started crying, bowling
my eyes and I say, wow, I believe in a god,
(30:42):
no church, no religion, but I believe in a higher power.
And I just thank God that my child was teaching
me such an amazing lesson because you grew up well.
My grandparents were very wealthy until my mother got married.
Right after my mother got married, they lost everything. So
(31:05):
you can imagine their friendships in Monterrey. All of us
were white, right, So racism existed, even if it was
not spoken. Indigenous people people that come to Monterrey to
work from Michuaka and from the southern part of Mexico,
they were black. They had just brown skin. There's also
(31:26):
a decent size of Afro Mexicanos. Yeah, but but we
don't talk about it. We never saw in Mexico. Basically,
the air existence is often denied. Yes, the Mexican government
to this day still does not count the Afro Mexican
population as part of the official Yeah, but if you
ask an average Mexican is we're not racist here. Mexico
(31:50):
has so much to yet unpack that they don't even
fully realize, and they're getting there. And Maria was one
of the first people that taught me to see people
lesson equal. I remember having conversations with you guys about race,
Remember having conversations with you guys about LGBTQ communities, right,
(32:12):
Like I remember back in the day, I don't agree
with what they do, but you can do it in
your own home, right kind of thing, and like having
kind of like a fight in the car about it
and like of why And to watch you guys get
to the place where you're like people are people do
whatever you want, like cool, like no opinion whatsoever, and
(32:35):
like hi, nice to meet your partner and going to
weddings and like there is no longer that reservation, which
is incredible to watch. And I think that's a huge
testament to like you guys and just humanity. That's what's
so beautiful about people, Like you said, Mom, this interest
in change and how change can be so integral and
(32:55):
how we allow ourselves to grow is the only way right,
because that process is true change, and if only we
understand that change could bring us closer together instead of
pulling apart from each other. So while my family did
have to grapple with tough topics, we eventually work through
(33:19):
them all. And one of the things that was particularly
a point of contention between my mother and I was sex,
sexuality and the perception of femininity because Mexico is a
very Catholic country still, like I was dealing with a
more conservative viewpoint in our household that I have changed,
I know, but we have to say it for the podcast.
(33:44):
So living in this country definitely took a toll on me.
I give my mom a lot of appreciation and I'm
impressed by my mother's ability to grow. And something I
find curious is the ways that he's been protective over
our extended family and at times hesitant to push them
(34:04):
to change. I remember t M, my listeners, t M
my warning, like when a girl starts to wax, Like
when I started getting interesting and having waxes. I remember
you were like lie to your grandmother about it, Like
you're not getting a bikini wax, You're getting a leg wax.
Or the fact. I mean, I'm going to say this
and maybe the family will find out. Like I remember
(34:25):
when I told you I was by both of you
handled it while in the car the first time. You're like, okay, cool,
moving on. But I remember when we had a conversation,
You're like, don't tell our family when you're in Mexico.
Why is that? It's not about me being worried not
to be accepted, but it was me trying to protect
(34:49):
you from projection or from questioning, or even make them
feel uncomfortable. Changing conservative more religion Mexican mentality is more difficult,
and putting you in an uncomfortable situation is what I
didn't want to happen, because it is why does she
(35:12):
need to do that? For what type of bikinni she's
going to wear? And white four who she's going with?
You know, it's all this question is behind right, And
I don't disagree with hiding things out of protection or
simplicity sake, but it is interesting to think about because
you know, sometimes I have the attitude of like I'm
(35:33):
gonna knock the fucking door down right. Both me and
France have that, which I've had to learn how to
temper Oh yes, just chuckles, just chuckles. But it is
interesting to hear the full reasoning more when we return
to when yere invisible. Welcome back to when you're invisible.
(36:06):
Everybody today, the way we talk about identity and identity politics,
we want people to fit into one box, but in reality,
everyone is filled with layers that are influenced not just
by every aspect of an individual, but also their experiences
and the places that they live. Like I've said, my
(36:27):
parents they both identified as white in Mexico, but that's
despite having indigenous roots, which we're going to talk about.
Then they come to the US and suddenly they're not
just white, they're not just Mexican. They're immigrants. They're suddenly
being grouped with other Latinos in the census, and that
comes with a whole new set of assumptions that my
(36:50):
parents oscillated in and out of fitting into. And while
that's happening, they're constantly coming up not just against others perceptions,
but they're own. One side of the coin is how
my mom is perceived as white even among other Mexican immigrants.
Like when she wants to connect and fit in with
(37:11):
other Latinos, sometimes the first thing they see is her
white skin, her hazel eyes, and the fact that she
dyes her hair blonde. That is until she speaks Spanish. Yeah,
in the case of Claudia, when she used to teach
to the Spanic communities back in Minnesota, she had to
convince them that she was Mexican, even that I speak
the language perfectly. Right, Where did you learn to speak
(37:35):
Spanish like that? And I said, excuse me, in Mexico,
no way. What happened is that Latin American immigrants that
come in a different circumstances. They come in Mexico from
that southern part of the country most of the time,
you know, Soccatecas, Michoka, and Wachaca, and all of them
(37:59):
creates small communities where you can go to the Mexican
side of Saint Paul and to the Mexican side of
Minneapolis and you will see just Mexicans. They're right, but
I didn't fit the pattern of a Mexican person because
of the color of my skin and the color of
my hair and whatever, or my education or so. It
(38:22):
was really interesting to say the least, to see these
people saying, no way, you are not. We do have
indigenous roots and we do have a whole part of
us that often goes ignored because of the whitewashing part
of us. That's right, Yeah, just think about it. What
do we say, oh, yeah, you know in my French, English, Spanish,
(38:45):
but never we say and where the martinis andres are
coming from our most recent parents and the grandparents rejected
those roots, that's right, So what happens? So it was
a filter to get rid of our own identity, right,
and the expression of that identity. It's really beautiful to
hear my parents acknowledge the indigenous side of us. It's
(39:08):
closer to us than what my family has been allowed
to express. And it's crazy how such a prideful group
of people can hide such a large part of the self.
Seeing pictures my great grandfather is super dark and having
(39:28):
to acknowledge those moments too have not just the physical
but culturally we have traditions that are indigenous, but we
don't discuss it. And so it's like really heartbreaking and
also very beautiful to have this moment of realizing how
deeply ingrained like self hate and desire to be white
(39:49):
and perceived as white, and to carry the traditions of
white cultures can go. Getting to explore and be honest
about what my family was coming from allowed me to
open that door to appreciate my full self. One of
the first moments that I saw my dad a grapple
(40:12):
with not only his indigenous roots but his immigrant status
his Mexican status is Latino status, is when the University
of Minnesota labeled him a professor of color, and it
confused him for a minute, and so I wanted him
to speak on that experience. That's in itself was a
little bit of my own evolution with recognizing the different
(40:35):
shase of racism that we have. The reason I was
classified the blood label as well because probably I marked
the block of Hispanic because of my name. So I
think automatically the university started to send me invitations to
be part of the faculty of color, which initially interestingly
and now looking back, I felt uncomfortable because I said,
(40:57):
I'm not faculty of color, I'm white. But I think
I realized that actually was my own bias, my own racism,
the realization that I do have Native Mexican ancestors, and
it doesn't matter what the color of my skin is,
but the color of my origins that's what really matters.
The last few years, I changed my viewpoint and said, no,
(41:21):
I am a faculty of color. It's okay that I
consider myself faculty of color. The thing is, it's not
only up to you to decide all the time. And
I want to acknowledge that in some communities of color,
I'm automatically accepted as part of it, as a person
of color. Other times I'm told I'm white and I'm
rejected from certain spaces. But of course I don't always
(41:43):
pass for white. I'm off and asked what are you,
or told you look exotic. My blood, my culture, and
color can feel at odds in different spaces. Me and
my dad and many others are trying to navigate this.
But no matter where you are, there's this pressure to
meld and be a part of one group or another.
(42:04):
It can be hard to just hold onto your unique identity.
You can feel like you're never enough. And one of
the things that my parents dealt with is feeling the
pressure of melding into the fabric of American society, and
not only that, but the fabric of Latino community and
what that looks like. What do you think about the
term Latino or Latina with the Latino American community, we
(42:28):
are different people raising a different way, just like the
English speakers people from Australia are different from people from England,
and even in the United States, each region is completely different.
But the Latini that the embracing of the culture and
the language. I think it is beautiful. My reaction to
(42:51):
be in Latino. I think I'm fine with term Latino.
I think it's a good way to try to incorporate anyone. Yes,
if you ask me, probably would I identify myself ethnically,
I would say his Panic, But Latino is fine with me.
The temptation of putting everyone together under a single term
is the temptation that exists everywhere. For the most part,
(43:12):
they have a common language that helps, but at the
same time, the Argentina and culture is fairly different from
the Bolivian culture and from the Mexican culture. I gotta say,
since we're talking about term Latino or Latina, the Latins term,
it's confusing to me. Yeah, for me too, I don't
think it's necessary. If you want to say that gender neutral,
(43:33):
you just say Latin neutral. I think we forget that
was there a long time before Latino or Latino culture
like it was Latin culture. Luckily, because of where I
sit in my little New York City among many different
kinds of Latin people, I astal I'll be like Latino, Latino, Latin, Latino,
(43:53):
Latin X and to me, I'm like, it's all of it.
One of the things that it's interesting is that many
immigrants when they um to those countries, often times are
encouraged to renounce the original origin, and they themselves renounce
it because they are subjected to discrimination and they want
to melt as much as skin. That's something we never
(44:14):
did because neither Claudia or I rejector or nationality that
we still have to this a then we basically tall
our children. You make a decision. We're proud to be Mexican,
We're proud to be American to this country has treated
us really well. We have many things to think to
our time here in the US, the many friends that
(44:35):
we have in the US, and we're very happy that
you feel proud of both of them when we're another.
Becoming comfortable with myself is partially thanks to my parents
and my family and spending so much time in both
my countries and the Spanish language has been a big
part of this journey. Having been the first gen you
(44:58):
face discrimination, and not just with America, but you also
kind of face it a little bit when you talk
to home country people, like you're the good or goodingal
and do you understand me when I speak Spanish to you?
Or you have a slight accent. I was really good
at erasing my American accent in Spanish. If I got
(45:19):
re immersed, I was like, Bam, now I talk like
a native, and that was something to be proud of.
It is something to be proud of, but it's also
something to be proud of that my accent is going
to be different because I am not you. But it's like, yeah,
you kind of face it from both. So then you
choose to potentially reject the Latino part of you because
(45:41):
you're like, well, if they don't want me and they're
going to make fun of me for it, I'm going
to simplify in this way. And then you lose it,
and then as an adult it's hard. We looked out
where we had some really loving family in Mexico that
I wanted to talk to them and I wanted to
be connected, and I was prideful it was so important
(46:01):
for me. While I spoke Spanish conversationally with family members
in Mexico and Latinos here in New York, I also
learned it formally while I was at Columbia. It's funny
because my parents kept suggesting I should maybe take formal
Spanish for native speakers. There was moments of shame, of
like is my Spanish not enough? We thought that your
(46:23):
job oppor changes by having two languages would be much
greater if you get some formal Spanish in your education,
which I mean it has helped. I've taken translation jobs,
I have acted in Spanish, and getting to tutor in Spanish.
I never heard my parents mix the languages. I was
(46:44):
around a lot of people who only spoke one language
or the other. And so while I did eventually meet
that mix in New York, for a long time I
didn't fit in because I didn't know how to mix
the language is We tried to avoid exing the two
languages together. Oftentimes I get praise by some of my
peers in Mexico or family in Mexico because they said, oh,
(47:08):
you haven't picked up any of the English slangs or anything.
We really want to conserve the language. My parents desire
to preserve the language is very much a desire to
preserve the culture, Mexican culture. Back when Mexicans were considered
wet backs and beaners, and people liked the food, but
(47:29):
they didn't fully understand it. And now post Coco, Disney's
Coco and seeing the flourishment of dachim tequila and mescal right,
people are now shifting their perception about Mexicans and the
culture and have a lot more love and respect for it.
But I find it really impressive that my parents were
doing this in an era where it was so negative
(47:50):
to habit. Can I ask you our signature question, when
do you feel invisible? Invisible? If you go back to
our experience in Minnesota or even here in Georgia, the
fact that we are not the traditional Americans in traditional
American communities, I think you tend to be ignored. Minnesota,
(48:14):
for example, we had the experience that, as Claudia described
that we used to invite our neighbors to have dinner
to our place, but rarely any neighbors invites us back.
No one invited back, and we had several of those
cases for different reasons. I don't know exactly if it's
the definition of invisible, but at least is you're not
(48:35):
important enough to actually have you in their homes. You
feel invisible because you are not that knowledge, you know,
And many times during my life I have felt like
that sometimes, even to be honest with you, I have
felt invisible in my own family. But maybe it's my
(48:56):
making too, because you have accomplished some You are my
pride and my joy. Your dad went to Cornell, because
your brother came out of Yale and Princeton, because you
went to Columbia and went through a difficult time and
you were able to fulfill and say I will go
through it with your strong will, right, And I am not.
(49:23):
I am a mama who keep the house clean, or
kept the house clean and my children safe. But that's it, right.
I sometimes felt invisible with my own husband because he
did not acknowledge therefore that I put in my home.
(49:45):
He does believe me, he does very often, but many times, however,
did not right, like I am not enough because I
haven't done the professional part of it, and I'm probably
my own doing nothing to do with you guys. I
have been felt sometimes invisible in that way because my
(50:08):
work is simple, because my work is has nothing to
do with professional accomplishments, right, I sometimes live through you,
the three of you. What did I tell you? Go
and see the world? And the three of you have
done it, not me, and I feel invisible for that too.
(50:34):
I just wanted to be honest. You know, I'm glad
that you're sharing the story because I think you're not alone.
I think there are thousands and thousands of millions of
women that their role has been traditionally just at home,
and they feel that they are not accomplishing anything in
their cases worse than years, because there are women that
(50:55):
even get abused after not even being seen. Very torching
that you are willing to share that story because that's
a great opportunity that will reach out to people being
in similar roles as yours. That really reminds me of
why I do this podcast. My family and I have
come from roots where a lot of people go invisible,
(51:18):
and a lot of women, and honestly, this is like
for them, and it's for my mom, it's for my dad,
it's for my brother, it's for my best friends. It's
for people who have not been able to get to
the dreams or live a full life that they deserve
or that they live a beautiful life and no one
ever knows or appreciates it. And that's the thing is
(51:41):
the world that I've gotten to explore is one filled
with incredible people. There is a story behind each person,
and that we are able to embrace those people and
just recognize that much a person, what a difference that
will make. Thank you so much for coming on this
(52:04):
journey with me and giving me the grace in the
space to have these conversations and thoughts out loud on
the first season of When You're Invisible. Hope to see
you soon, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. You
(52:26):
can find this episode and future ones on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm your host and creator Maria Fern, with executive producers
Anna Stump, Nikki Ittour and bans producer Dylan Hoyer, with
associate producer Claudia Martha Corena and post production producer Daisy James.
(52:51):
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. When You're Invisible is
an i Heeart podcast network production in partnership with Michael Kura.
Cast Network
Hey y'all. This week on When You're Invisible, I'm so
excited to introduce to you my parents, Claudia and Francisco,
whose experiences with invisibility is super layered and fascinating and
often provides the origin of my own experiences. How did
you guys meet miky love story? How much time we have?
(00:23):
Like highlights played Biplane? Your father was working for an
American company in Monterrey. We met in a discotheq bar
a club like a club. Picture yourself in the eighties,
long before there was any internet, the MTV videos actually started. Yes,
a friend of mine. She didn't want to be alone,
(00:43):
so she will not How do you call it when
someone she wouldn't be a third wheel at their will? Yes,
she was meeting a guide friend. And at the end
of the evening, your father came into this place that
I didn't see him, he saw me, I think, did
you yep? The nod yes, I did to hear. The
(01:04):
girls said, have you seen that very blond guy over there?
He's been looking at you? Say yes, I say, we
will go to the ladies room to see if he
approached you, And in a loud voice, I say, okay, girls.
When you come back. We are leaving. Okay did you
hear her say that? Oh? Yea, So he approached me.
(01:26):
Do you remember what you guys talked about. I think
it was a small talk. I guess when you get
to know each other. The only thing that I told
him is that I really like change, that I am
very open to change. No, God, change came into my life.
Which is the perfect segue. Welcome to When You're Invisible.
(01:51):
My name is Maria Fernanda. Yes, but I know not
everyone can rather are, so it's also find a coming Maria.
In today's world, we love to tell stories about people
who have reached the top, like people who have achieved
positions of cloud wealth power. On this show, I won't
be doing that. When You're Invisible is my love letter
to the working class and others who are seemingly invisible
(02:15):
in our society. I hope to build a community here
that will inspire you to have generous conversations with others
that are different from you, conversations that might help you
see life in an entirely different way. My parents, they've
had to take risks in that pursuit of change. They've
(02:35):
more than one time had to sell everything they've more
than one time had to completely take a leap of
faith on a job. They burned all their ships, their
financial ships, their relationships to be here and to pursue
something better. They went from like food stamps when they
first got here and then slowly progressed to a comfortable
middle class, which they achieved by the time I was
(02:56):
about fifteen years old. When you belong to more than
one country, more than one culture, and more than one
like socioeconomic background, being in between expands your worldview. When
you can relate to people from different places, you just
start to see different perspectives. It adds to the stained
(03:17):
glass that you are. I think there is a flip
side if you're in between. One thing that happens is
people don't always know how to peg you. They don't
know what you are, so it's very foreign to them,
and then it's unsettling sometimes or they are like, how
are you here? And confused by your identity. In this
day and age, we have such polarizing media and such
(03:41):
strong convictions, but there's also a lack of acknowledgement towards
the layers of people and how we change and how
we grow as individuals. Sitting down with my parents was
an honor and also a little nerve racking. I kind
of thought that I would know what they would talk about,
(04:01):
but there were a lot of layers to their story
that I didn't even know, which I felt surprised by.
And also there were some healing moments. There are questions
I asked that I had never gotten to ask before.
Let's hoperat it. So question number one, would you guys
kind of know? Is coming up? How did you grow
up in Mexico? Growing up was very different of my
(04:27):
childhood friends. I was a daughter of a single moment
that became with of very young at thirty two, with
four children. It was interesting to say the list, and
so many times difficult because we had to move with
my grandparents that by then they had lost their money
(04:49):
in a bad business that my grandfather did, and so
we live in a very small apartment where we had
just two bedrooms. So we were the four girls sleeping,
my mother, my sisters, and I and my brother with
my grandparents. But I had fond memories with my first cousins.
(05:10):
With your memos, my fondest memories are with them away
from their home. They will take us everywhere you know
parks and recreations, So we're very thankful to them because
we were able to experience many little childhood moments with them.
(05:30):
Being in that apartment in a second floor in the
center of the city, where they were not grass areas
or anything. It was a little bit tough. And also
extra curricular activities were not for us because who will
take us, who will pick us up? It was no
way to do that. And I went to a school
(05:51):
very far away from where I live, always with scholarships
where my mother was an alumni to In this very
privileged school, I felt invisible, and my defending mood in
that wealthy environment was being the smart one, being on
top of my class always so I can be strong
(06:14):
in one way. Of course, it was defense mechanisms that
I had that back then, I didn't call it that
because I didn't know that. My parents always stressed the
importance of education, and my brother and I both used
education as a way forward, and it's really interesting to
see how that developed in their own lives as kids. Well,
(06:36):
my experience was somewhat different in terms of my childhood
and my case. I was the third of upper middle
class family in a smaller sitting in Mexico called Duranko,
And yeah, one of the funny things in our home
that was one of those small towns with a lot
of gossips that they said that we were very rich,
probably because my grandmother used to have a lot of money.
(06:58):
But the fame was that my father was just a
little that's the right term. Centric, eccentric, that's the right word,
because we lived very, very frugally. They never really traveled
to places, and my father, despite the fact of his
low education level, he was successful in almost every business
that he studied. Nothing really spectacular, but yeah, people you
(07:19):
hear rumors that we were felt the rich, which is
hilarious because it's like, I think about that and that's
not what I would have. Yeah, they had enough money
to give us a good living, and eventually the money
that my grandmother left paid for college for my brother
and for me in a private university in Mexico. And
(07:40):
our parents both were alive most of our lifetime, and
we lived next door to my grandmother, and we had
an upbringing that was fairly rigid in many ways. We
always grew up a expectation that we had to be
really good students, well behaved children, despite the fact that
my father didn't finished primary school until he was in
(08:02):
his twenties. His father died when he was six, something
similar to Claudia in this case, he was somewhat abandoned
in a horphanage at about six or seven years old,
so he had a really rough childhood and really rough
teenage time. So the reason he didn't complete school because
(08:22):
there was nobody behind him that supported him. But in reality,
what was remarkable and my father was that I'm an academic,
but probably he read more than I did. In his
adult life. He taught himself to read English and he
devoured all sorts of books about English. He was really
knowledgeable history, politics. He had a hunger for learning despite
(08:45):
the fact no education, so he had to work very
early in his years. He did so many different little
jobs in the farm and ran chair and even at
one time he was smuggling stuff across the Mexico US border.
We always ask you, please write your story. We got
to know more about it. We could write a book
about it. Limited series about the b s Family coming soon.
(09:10):
It's really sweet to think about these two kids growing
up in different parts of Mexico and how they met
at that bar and a year after the meeting they
got married, and two years after they moved to the States.
How did that come about? Whose dream was it? Whose
idea was it? And how did the other take it?
(09:31):
It was your idea? Well, yeah, but I convince you
I think the reason why we decided to come to
the US, Well, first I had a bachelor's in food
science food technology, and I wanted to explore the possibility
of conducting research. Commenced Claudia, that was our best for
our future. My career if we stayed in Mexico was
(09:54):
going to be only restricted to Mexico. If I go,
I'll get out the green the U S I would
expand or something abilities. So, as they were getting ready
to fully transition to their soon to be a new
home in the States, they stopped and worked at my
uncle's house in Maine, Claudia's great uncle o Hiro's for
the summer as managers of his property, workers in whatever
(10:17):
needed to be done, painting, cleaning, or cooking. And what
was it like when you moved here for the first time?
Do you remember some of the first thoughts you had
upon arrival. Well, we drove from Maine to upstate New York.
And when I saw Syracuse, I say, oh, this is awesome,
and you're doesn't. No, this is not the place yet,
we have to drive south. Syracuse is a bigger city
(10:40):
in upstate New York. And where they were about to
go was Ithaca, New York, home of Cornell University and
Ithaca College, and a much smaller city. Can you imagine me,
a girl from a very large city in Mexico going
to Ithaca, New York and driving through these little back
(11:01):
roads and say, oh, my word, where am I going
to live? But when I arrived in Itaca and we
walk the little city, the city is just absolutely gorgeous
and the campus is just amazing. And as soon as
(11:23):
I arrived, I think a week later, I made a
friend from Peru in the Bos and from there, yeah,
we became friends, and another group of friends, and all
from Latin America, all of them. I love thinking about
my mom in her mid twenties, making all these friends
from around the world. And it's crazy to think that
(11:45):
this incredible adventure that would last the majority of their
life so far was started actually by the quiet one,
my father, because he was the one who had spurred
them to make this big change. His expectations and sense
of responsibility were a little different. My expectations were surrounding,
(12:05):
mostly about what was waiting for me. As I started
my master's degree, I was concerned that I was responsible
for Claudia. So the setting was always where it would
be a safe place for us to leave. We were
very strapped for money because the first year we did
not have any support from the university. We didn't have
any fellowships. We basically, like we said in Mexico, we
(12:28):
burned our ships. In Mexico, we've sold everything and we
save everything during a year to be able to come
to the US. We were relatively poor. At least for
the following four or five years. We were considered on
their the poverty level in the US. Stay tuned for
more from one year Invisible after this break and we
(12:51):
are back to this show with no clear future, but
navigating as best they could. They were feeling their way
day by day. I love you have all the perks
of living in the US as compared to Mexico, because
at least in our generation, there are many things that
it was so easy to do that in Mexico was
a pain in the neck. The moment that I discovered
(13:12):
you could pay bills by mail. Oh my goodness, that's
great because in Mexico was interesting physically physically to pay
office of feature. That's changed your intention was never to
stay in this country. First was a master's degree, and
then we decided to stay for a pH d at Cornell.
(13:33):
I got suppar from the Mexican government, which very grateful.
We tried to go back, but the economic situation in
Mexico was really bad. There were no jobs, and the
jobs that were really bad. So I was fortunately that
one of the professors offered me to stay for a
postdoctoral position, so we stayed a little longer. With each
(13:53):
choice my dad made came a slew of new logistics
and paperwork for what felt like pretty constantly changed visas.
We started my master's degree under an F one, which
is typically even to international students. When I got the
support from Mexican govern and Fulbright, I was asked to
move to a J one pisa, and that's when the
(14:15):
complications came. J one visas have a restriction that you
have to go back to your home country for two
years before you could apply for a work pisa or
a permanent residence. It was going to be almost impossible
to stay permanently in this country. The University of Minnesota,
when they wanted to hire me, they were willing to
(14:35):
support me to get an OH one visa, an Alien
of Extraordinary Abilities. That was the title of the visa.
Normally it's a visa that doesn't last more than three years.
After the first three years, we had to renew every
single year. The complications of having a visa that only
last one year while you have a permanent job in
(14:58):
the US provided not a lot of uncertainty for many years,
but also some of the complications whenever you crossed the border,
like your visa was so rare. I remember being at
borders and having immigration officers be like, what is this?
I have to go check. At one point, when my
parents really could not predict how long they would be
(15:19):
in this country, we started to have conversations about what
we were going to do if their visa got rejected,
If we would go to Mexico with them, if we
would stay in the States with guardians, or what. These
kinds of conversations started when I was eleven and continued
until I became an adult, and then I eventually went
(15:40):
to the forts visa that I we were had, which
is the h one that allowed the possibility for you
to then moved to a permanent arrist. My boss at
that time made the miracle of allowing a fulbright scholar
to stay in this country permanently. But yeah, I think
I cannot say that I ever had the American dream.
(16:02):
To be honest, it's been an accident in my life.
Let's put away all those mild American stone steps milestones.
We always arrived later. We've been catching up in terms
of the American dream. Eventually we kind of fulfill what
would be considered having a house, having a secure income,
(16:23):
and then we can clarify it is the reason why
I were not able to work. They were two decisions.
One because my visa status, I was not allowed to
work formally in the States. And another reason is because
what I was a mother, I wanted to be with
(16:44):
my children. Thinking on going to work in order to
pay for childcare didn't seem too clos to to me.
In that equation, my fulfillment as a professional will come
second to my motherhood. If I had two children, they
will be my priority. So I did lots of work
(17:09):
under the table in Ithaca I had a home childcare
at my home so I could wash over my children
after the daycare, and itaca my dad was done with
his education. With that came all the rejections of all
the jobs that he applied to. My dad literally has
a stack of over fifty rejection letters from this time.
(17:32):
One of the places that eventually accepted him was the
University of Minnesota. And when Minnesota became our home base,
that's when my family slowly started to see a transition
in our financial stability. We went from a two bedroom
small apartments taking buses because my parents were always working,
and had to split the same used car that we
(17:55):
had owned for many, many, many years. Then we got
to move into duplex and then from there got to
move into a beautiful house in the suburbs. That finally
happened when I was about fifteen years old. But even
at that comfortable middle class we still didn't see a
surplus of money because any extra funds that we ended
(18:18):
up having went to my family in Mexico. So while
we were physically more comfortable and we finally had a
brand new car for the first time during that time,
we were still doing what we'd always been doing. We traveled,
and we made it possible by staying with family, staying
with friends, always driving, and we would barter for every
(18:41):
single extracurricular activity. For example, to pay for the Minnesota Opera,
I sold point set as like a crazy person, hundreds
of points set as a year to be able to
do that after school activity. So any time we had
something what was happening behind the scenes was a lot
of hard work to make it happen, both on the
(19:02):
kids parts and my parents party. After about twelve years
of being in Minnesota, my parents moved to Georgia for
my dad's job. Again, I'm curious, as you have moved
from the East coast to the Midwest, then to the South,
are there any big differences between the three or were
(19:24):
you guys made aware of your immigrant status in a
way that you didn't expect it. Fact, probably is one
of the most liberal cities that I have been in,
where everybody from all walks of life is welcome and
no one is strange, no queer people, no black people,
(19:45):
not Asian people, like It's a very large community from everywhere.
Probably I was suspecting that experience when we moved to Minnesota,
and that was not the case. In many ways, we
really never made friends that were from Minnesota. They say,
(20:07):
Minnesota nice. Yes, it's true. People work an extra mile
to help you, to direct you. But that experience that
we had is that there are people that will not
open their houses to you if you are a foreigner,
if you are from somewhere else. And the reason is
more simple that I imagine at the beginning to be
(20:28):
is that people have lived in Minnesota for generations. Literally,
it's very rare to see a Minnesota going out and
not coming back or even not going out at all
from the state. Because they have great universities there. They
don't have the need and the family tides are very strong,
(20:48):
so there is not chance for you to be part
of any Minnesota family because they already have their niche
and it's a very large niche. So our friends were
from outside that the transplant that established in Minnesota, so
that was very interesting. And then Georgia, it has been
(21:11):
a little bit difficult for me. When we moved to Georgia,
were actually more in the rural area. You're very spread out,
and so we're like an hour drive to Atlanta versus Minneapolis.
Was just hop skipping and jump away so they were
two very different environments. People is more racist, and I
(21:32):
have seen even people holding pistols or firearms of any
type a couple of times. I I've seen men in
their big trucks with that air cape is fifteen on
the top of their like the truck in the States.
There's not just the culture shocks that they had to experience,
(21:54):
but also some discriminatory experiences as well. Being in their
home country of Mexico, they were white slash white passing right.
Mexico has its own problem and system of racism that
is still being unpacked to this day, and it wasn't
until they got to the States that they really felt discrimination.
When he moved to a different country like the US,
(22:17):
the connotation of race and ethnicity and language changes. I
remember kind of having to listen to my mom fight
to be taken seriously no matter where we were or
the context at times, just to clarify in terms of
racist what have you specifically experienced, Well, in me at
the supermarket, Oh yeah, well in the supermarket, I just
(22:40):
had an experience. A man was very upset with me.
I was talking to you on the phone in Spanish,
and I saw his reaction. He was very upset, and
then I hung up because I need to pay. When
I went out, he approached me and said, if you
are in America, you should be speaking in English. And
(23:04):
I say to you, I do speak English, and I'm
speaking to you in English. No over the phone, And
I say, why I am talking with my daughter. The
communication between my daughter and I isn't my tongue language
in Spanish and say, I don't know where your ancestors
came from, but can you imagine for them to be
(23:25):
treated the way you are treating me right now. My
mom is one of the most outspoken and strongest people
I know. She's the one who taught me to defend
myself when I was being bullied in grade school and
middle school. And my mom taught me about hitting someone
with a white glove is what she calls it. It's
a Claudi Ideas method where you don't have to be
(23:49):
mean in any way back you just shine a light
on what's happening and the ugliness that the other person
is presenting. We're gonna get deeper into a person, options
that my parents have faced and how they perceived themselves
in different situations and cultures. After this break welcome back
(24:15):
to when you're invisible. The more my parents were in
this country, the more there started to be an intermingling
of cultures. Not only did it impact them, but also
their kids when they eventually had them, and my brother
and all of this kind of becomes an interesting melting
(24:37):
pot of its own within our family dynamics. We tried
to go back to Mexico, but eventually, as you live
more here, you started to lose many of the ties,
and eventually you lose your culture in many ways, because
culture is not a static thing. But yeah, the fact
that we decided to leave in many Mexican line and
we're not exactly traders, but I guess our families resent
(25:01):
to the fact that we left. That's probably the price
that you pay when you decide to leave your roots
in In our case, we came here, not as a
survival like many other immigrants. In our case was because
we made the decision that it was the best for
our future. We could have stayed in Mexico because of
my education and Claudius skills and education, we probably would
(25:24):
have succeeded in Mexico. But speaking of like being away
from family, what was it like raising kids away from family.
Especially Mexican culture is very family oriented in many ways,
relief in many ways missing. Mexican families are very controlling, controlling,
(25:47):
and also they like to be involved. Yes me, Titches is,
let me put my opinion into it, and I can't
help you with it all the time, whether you want
it or not, whether you are at or not. So
your dad and I had the opportunity to raise our
children in the way we thought it was the best way.
(26:11):
So it's a duality on the feeling that I have
raising you far away. I think in this farness, we
think we raise two very strong individuals with a mindset
of their own. They have lived their life the way
they wanted and I don't know if that transition would
(26:34):
have been more difficult if you were surrounded with the
loving environment of my family, and we have seen it
in your own cousins. They don't detached from their families
yet and they are. You left home at eating and
(26:56):
it was very difficult for me to let you go,
but gave me peace of mind knowing that your dad
did the same when he left Durango to go to Monterey.
But I did exactly what your cousins are doing right now,
and I don't know if one is better than the
other one. Definitely they were going to be missing on
(27:18):
all that experience and the support system that sometimes takes place.
We were fortunate to have really good friends along the
way that in many ways they played the role of
a close sister or brother or uncle or aunt. But
I think that's surprised that you always paid. Because we
weren't able to be close to our extended family, our
(27:38):
nuclear family became really tight knit. My mom emphasized this
idea of home should be a safe space, and within
that safe space, we were teaching each other a lot.
What's the hilarious story where Francisco or I taught you
something with me? Is my pronunciation like what like bitch,
(28:07):
which is what words c shore. That's why I never
said the B word to nobody. I just by the
sea shore, the bedding chit. I just can't even contain yourself.
It's like I just gotta laugh. That is another one,
(28:33):
and they laugh and laugh and laugh at me and said,
I know, but I cannot say it any other way.
I do also love the memory of like teaching you
what badass means. Yeah, I used to teach quite a
bit in Minnesota. So I got some feedback from students.
Sometimes they praise you, sometimes they tell you that you're
(28:54):
the worst teacher ever, could be a roller crouster when
you read those reviews. But one day the statement said
the teacher wears really badass sweaters. So it wasn't sure
if it was a compliment or or here she was
(29:15):
insulting me or what. So I asked the children, I
have a question for Literally, we were at dinner and
he goes, I have a question for you. What does
badass mean? Why? And I was like why, what's the contact?
And I was like that's a good thing, and he's like, oh, okay.
In all seriousness, though, my family was really open to
(29:38):
new experiences and whatever we grew into and became. I
always tell this story about Maria. She was in preschool
and she had a wonderful best friend Jody, and she
will always say, Jody, this, Mommy, Jody, Dad, Jody, Jody, Jody,
say mom can Jody come home? And the evening before
(30:01):
mommy pink shorts and white shirts, and Pony tells Mommy,
why honey, because Jody will be dressed the same way
and said okay. I loved a good matching outfit. Yeah.
And I go to school and I see these two
little girls hand by hand running out to meeting me.
(30:21):
And this girl was a black girl from Ghana, and
Marian never mentioned the color of her skin. It was Jody, Jody, Jody.
And when I saw them, I just started crying, bowling
my eyes and I say, wow, I believe in a god,
(30:42):
no church, no religion, but I believe in a higher power.
And I just thank God that my child was teaching
me such an amazing lesson because you grew up well.
My grandparents were very wealthy until my mother got married.
Right after my mother got married, they lost everything. So
(31:05):
you can imagine their friendships in Monterrey. All of us
were white, right, So racism existed, even if it was
not spoken. Indigenous people people that come to Monterrey to
work from Michuaka and from the southern part of Mexico,
they were black. They had just brown skin. There's also
(31:26):
a decent size of Afro Mexicanos. Yeah, but but we
don't talk about it. We never saw in Mexico. Basically,
the air existence is often denied. Yes, the Mexican government
to this day still does not count the Afro Mexican
population as part of the official Yeah, but if you
ask an average Mexican is we're not racist here. Mexico
(31:50):
has so much to yet unpack that they don't even
fully realize, and they're getting there. And Maria was one
of the first people that taught me to see people
lesson equal. I remember having conversations with you guys about race,
Remember having conversations with you guys about LGBTQ communities, right,
(32:12):
Like I remember back in the day, I don't agree
with what they do, but you can do it in
your own home, right kind of thing, and like having
kind of like a fight in the car about it
and like of why And to watch you guys get
to the place where you're like people are people do
whatever you want, like cool, like no opinion whatsoever, and
(32:35):
like hi, nice to meet your partner and going to
weddings and like there is no longer that reservation, which
is incredible to watch. And I think that's a huge
testament to like you guys and just humanity. That's what's
so beautiful about people, Like you said, Mom, this interest
in change and how change can be so integral and
(32:55):
how we allow ourselves to grow is the only way right,
because that process is true change, and if only we
understand that change could bring us closer together instead of
pulling apart from each other. So while my family did
have to grapple with tough topics, we eventually work through
(33:19):
them all. And one of the things that was particularly
a point of contention between my mother and I was sex,
sexuality and the perception of femininity because Mexico is a
very Catholic country still, like I was dealing with a
more conservative viewpoint in our household that I have changed,
I know, but we have to say it for the podcast.
(33:44):
So living in this country definitely took a toll on me.
I give my mom a lot of appreciation and I'm
impressed by my mother's ability to grow. And something I
find curious is the ways that he's been protective over
our extended family and at times hesitant to push them
(34:04):
to change. I remember t M, my listeners, t M
my warning, like when a girl starts to wax, Like
when I started getting interesting and having waxes. I remember
you were like lie to your grandmother about it, Like
you're not getting a bikini wax, You're getting a leg wax.
Or the fact. I mean, I'm going to say this
and maybe the family will find out. Like I remember
(34:25):
when I told you I was by both of you
handled it while in the car the first time. You're like, okay, cool,
moving on. But I remember when we had a conversation,
You're like, don't tell our family when you're in Mexico.
Why is that? It's not about me being worried not
to be accepted, but it was me trying to protect
(34:49):
you from projection or from questioning, or even make them
feel uncomfortable. Changing conservative more religion Mexican mentality is more difficult,
and putting you in an uncomfortable situation is what I
didn't want to happen, because it is why does she
(35:12):
need to do that? For what type of bikinni she's
going to wear? And white four who she's going with?
You know, it's all this question is behind right, And
I don't disagree with hiding things out of protection or
simplicity sake, but it is interesting to think about because
you know, sometimes I have the attitude of like I'm
(35:33):
gonna knock the fucking door down right. Both me and
France have that, which I've had to learn how to
temper Oh yes, just chuckles, just chuckles. But it is
interesting to hear the full reasoning more when we return
to when yere invisible. Welcome back to when you're invisible.
(36:06):
Everybody today, the way we talk about identity and identity politics,
we want people to fit into one box, but in reality,
everyone is filled with layers that are influenced not just
by every aspect of an individual, but also their experiences
and the places that they live. Like I've said, my
(36:27):
parents they both identified as white in Mexico, but that's
despite having indigenous roots, which we're going to talk about.
Then they come to the US and suddenly they're not
just white, they're not just Mexican. They're immigrants. They're suddenly
being grouped with other Latinos in the census, and that
comes with a whole new set of assumptions that my
(36:50):
parents oscillated in and out of fitting into. And while
that's happening, they're constantly coming up not just against others perceptions,
but they're own. One side of the coin is how
my mom is perceived as white even among other Mexican immigrants.
Like when she wants to connect and fit in with
(37:11):
other Latinos, sometimes the first thing they see is her
white skin, her hazel eyes, and the fact that she
dyes her hair blonde. That is until she speaks Spanish. Yeah,
in the case of Claudia, when she used to teach
to the Spanic communities back in Minnesota, she had to
convince them that she was Mexican, even that I speak
the language perfectly. Right, Where did you learn to speak
(37:35):
Spanish like that? And I said, excuse me, in Mexico,
no way. What happened is that Latin American immigrants that
come in a different circumstances. They come in Mexico from
that southern part of the country most of the time,
you know, Soccatecas, Michoka, and Wachaca, and all of them
(37:59):
creates small communities where you can go to the Mexican
side of Saint Paul and to the Mexican side of
Minneapolis and you will see just Mexicans. They're right, but
I didn't fit the pattern of a Mexican person because
of the color of my skin and the color of
my hair and whatever, or my education or so. It
(38:22):
was really interesting to say the least, to see these
people saying, no way, you are not. We do have
indigenous roots and we do have a whole part of
us that often goes ignored because of the whitewashing part
of us. That's right, Yeah, just think about it. What
do we say, oh, yeah, you know in my French, English, Spanish,
(38:45):
but never we say and where the martinis andres are
coming from our most recent parents and the grandparents rejected
those roots, that's right, So what happens? So it was
a filter to get rid of our own identity, right,
and the expression of that identity. It's really beautiful to
hear my parents acknowledge the indigenous side of us. It's
(39:08):
closer to us than what my family has been allowed
to express. And it's crazy how such a prideful group
of people can hide such a large part of the self.
Seeing pictures my great grandfather is super dark and having
(39:28):
to acknowledge those moments too have not just the physical
but culturally we have traditions that are indigenous, but we
don't discuss it. And so it's like really heartbreaking and
also very beautiful to have this moment of realizing how
deeply ingrained like self hate and desire to be white
(39:49):
and perceived as white, and to carry the traditions of
white cultures can go. Getting to explore and be honest
about what my family was coming from allowed me to
open that door to appreciate my full self. One of
the first moments that I saw my dad a grapple
(40:12):
with not only his indigenous roots but his immigrant status
his Mexican status is Latino status, is when the University
of Minnesota labeled him a professor of color, and it
confused him for a minute, and so I wanted him
to speak on that experience. That's in itself was a
little bit of my own evolution with recognizing the different
(40:35):
shase of racism that we have. The reason I was
classified the blood label as well because probably I marked
the block of Hispanic because of my name. So I
think automatically the university started to send me invitations to
be part of the faculty of color, which initially interestingly
and now looking back, I felt uncomfortable because I said,
(40:57):
I'm not faculty of color, I'm white. But I think
I realized that actually was my own bias, my own racism,
the realization that I do have Native Mexican ancestors, and
it doesn't matter what the color of my skin is,
but the color of my origins that's what really matters.
The last few years, I changed my viewpoint and said, no,
(41:21):
I am a faculty of color. It's okay that I
consider myself faculty of color. The thing is, it's not
only up to you to decide all the time. And
I want to acknowledge that in some communities of color,
I'm automatically accepted as part of it, as a person
of color. Other times I'm told I'm white and I'm
rejected from certain spaces. But of course I don't always
(41:43):
pass for white. I'm off and asked what are you,
or told you look exotic. My blood, my culture, and
color can feel at odds in different spaces. Me and
my dad and many others are trying to navigate this.
But no matter where you are, there's this pressure to
meld and be a part of one group or another.
(42:04):
It can be hard to just hold onto your unique identity.
You can feel like you're never enough. And one of
the things that my parents dealt with is feeling the
pressure of melding into the fabric of American society, and
not only that, but the fabric of Latino community and
what that looks like. What do you think about the
term Latino or Latina with the Latino American community, we
(42:28):
are different people raising a different way, just like the
English speakers people from Australia are different from people from England,
and even in the United States, each region is completely different.
But the Latini that the embracing of the culture and
the language. I think it is beautiful. My reaction to
(42:51):
be in Latino. I think I'm fine with term Latino.
I think it's a good way to try to incorporate anyone. Yes,
if you ask me, probably would I identify myself ethnically,
I would say his Panic, But Latino is fine with me.
The temptation of putting everyone together under a single term
is the temptation that exists everywhere. For the most part,
(43:12):
they have a common language that helps, but at the
same time, the Argentina and culture is fairly different from
the Bolivian culture and from the Mexican culture. I gotta say,
since we're talking about term Latino or Latina, the Latins term,
it's confusing to me. Yeah, for me too, I don't
think it's necessary. If you want to say that gender neutral,
(43:33):
you just say Latin neutral. I think we forget that
was there a long time before Latino or Latino culture
like it was Latin culture. Luckily, because of where I
sit in my little New York City among many different
kinds of Latin people, I astal I'll be like Latino, Latino, Latin, Latino,
(43:53):
Latin X and to me, I'm like, it's all of it.
One of the things that it's interesting is that many
immigrants when they um to those countries, often times are
encouraged to renounce the original origin, and they themselves renounce
it because they are subjected to discrimination and they want
to melt as much as skin. That's something we never
(44:14):
did because neither Claudia or I rejector or nationality that
we still have to this a then we basically tall
our children. You make a decision. We're proud to be Mexican,
We're proud to be American to this country has treated
us really well. We have many things to think to
our time here in the US, the many friends that
(44:35):
we have in the US, and we're very happy that
you feel proud of both of them when we're another.
Becoming comfortable with myself is partially thanks to my parents
and my family and spending so much time in both
my countries and the Spanish language has been a big
part of this journey. Having been the first gen you
(44:58):
face discrimination, and not just with America, but you also
kind of face it a little bit when you talk
to home country people, like you're the good or goodingal
and do you understand me when I speak Spanish to you?
Or you have a slight accent. I was really good
at erasing my American accent in Spanish. If I got
(45:19):
re immersed, I was like, Bam, now I talk like
a native, and that was something to be proud of.
It is something to be proud of, but it's also
something to be proud of that my accent is going
to be different because I am not you. But it's like, yeah,
you kind of face it from both. So then you
choose to potentially reject the Latino part of you because
(45:41):
you're like, well, if they don't want me and they're
going to make fun of me for it, I'm going
to simplify in this way. And then you lose it,
and then as an adult it's hard. We looked out
where we had some really loving family in Mexico that
I wanted to talk to them and I wanted to
be connected, and I was prideful it was so important
(46:01):
for me. While I spoke Spanish conversationally with family members
in Mexico and Latinos here in New York, I also
learned it formally while I was at Columbia. It's funny
because my parents kept suggesting I should maybe take formal
Spanish for native speakers. There was moments of shame, of
like is my Spanish not enough? We thought that your
(46:23):
job oppor changes by having two languages would be much
greater if you get some formal Spanish in your education,
which I mean it has helped. I've taken translation jobs,
I have acted in Spanish, and getting to tutor in Spanish.
I never heard my parents mix the languages. I was
(46:44):
around a lot of people who only spoke one language
or the other. And so while I did eventually meet
that mix in New York, for a long time I
didn't fit in because I didn't know how to mix
the language is We tried to avoid exing the two
languages together. Oftentimes I get praise by some of my
peers in Mexico or family in Mexico because they said, oh,
(47:08):
you haven't picked up any of the English slangs or anything.
We really want to conserve the language. My parents desire
to preserve the language is very much a desire to
preserve the culture, Mexican culture. Back when Mexicans were considered
wet backs and beaners, and people liked the food, but
(47:29):
they didn't fully understand it. And now post Coco, Disney's
Coco and seeing the flourishment of dachim tequila and mescal right,
people are now shifting their perception about Mexicans and the
culture and have a lot more love and respect for it.
But I find it really impressive that my parents were
doing this in an era where it was so negative
(47:50):
to habit. Can I ask you our signature question, when
do you feel invisible? Invisible? If you go back to
our experience in Minnesota or even here in Georgia, the
fact that we are not the traditional Americans in traditional
American communities, I think you tend to be ignored. Minnesota,
(48:14):
for example, we had the experience that, as Claudia described
that we used to invite our neighbors to have dinner
to our place, but rarely any neighbors invites us back.
No one invited back, and we had several of those
cases for different reasons. I don't know exactly if it's
the definition of invisible, but at least is you're not
(48:35):
important enough to actually have you in their homes. You
feel invisible because you are not that knowledge, you know,
And many times during my life I have felt like
that sometimes, even to be honest with you, I have
felt invisible in my own family. But maybe it's my
(48:56):
making too, because you have accomplished some You are my
pride and my joy. Your dad went to Cornell, because
your brother came out of Yale and Princeton, because you
went to Columbia and went through a difficult time and
you were able to fulfill and say I will go
through it with your strong will, right, And I am not.
(49:23):
I am a mama who keep the house clean, or
kept the house clean and my children safe. But that's it, right.
I sometimes felt invisible with my own husband because he
did not acknowledge therefore that I put in my home.
(49:45):
He does believe me, he does very often, but many times, however,
did not right, like I am not enough because I
haven't done the professional part of it, and I'm probably
my own doing nothing to do with you guys. I
have been felt sometimes invisible in that way because my
(50:08):
work is simple, because my work is has nothing to
do with professional accomplishments, right, I sometimes live through you,
the three of you. What did I tell you? Go
and see the world? And the three of you have
done it, not me, and I feel invisible for that too.
(50:34):
I just wanted to be honest. You know, I'm glad
that you're sharing the story because I think you're not alone.
I think there are thousands and thousands of millions of
women that their role has been traditionally just at home,
and they feel that they are not accomplishing anything in
their cases worse than years, because there are women that
(50:55):
even get abused after not even being seen. Very torching
that you are willing to share that story because that's
a great opportunity that will reach out to people being
in similar roles as yours. That really reminds me of
why I do this podcast. My family and I have
come from roots where a lot of people go invisible,
(51:18):
and a lot of women, and honestly, this is like
for them, and it's for my mom, it's for my dad,
it's for my brother, it's for my best friends. It's
for people who have not been able to get to
the dreams or live a full life that they deserve
or that they live a beautiful life and no one
ever knows or appreciates it. And that's the thing is
(51:41):
the world that I've gotten to explore is one filled
with incredible people. There is a story behind each person,
and that we are able to embrace those people and
just recognize that much a person, what a difference that
will make. Thank you so much for coming on this
(52:04):
journey with me and giving me the grace in the
space to have these conversations and thoughts out loud on
the first season of When You're Invisible. Hope to see
you soon, don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. You
(52:26):
can find this episode and future ones on the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
I'm your host and creator Maria Fern, with executive producers
Anna Stump, Nikki Ittour and bans producer Dylan Hoyer, with
associate producer Claudia Martha Corena and post production producer Daisy James.
(52:51):
Original theme music by Tony Bruno. When You're Invisible is
an i Heeart podcast network production in partnership with Michael Kura.
Cast Network
Host
Maria Fernanda Diez
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