Re-air spotlight: Rediscovering Latinidad Season 6 Episode 13 Criando futuros antepasados con LatinX Parenting

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Brian Rose here from the Rediscovering Latinida podcast, and I
encourage you to support the wonderful work that LATINX Parenting
is doing. LATINX Parenting offers several courses through their Esqualita
mission where you can learn and lean into healing through education.
Esqualita has courses, series and trainings centered around healing generational

(00:34):
trauma and decolonized parenting to liberate our lineage. Check out
LATINX Parenting's Esqualita workshops, series, events, and trainings as you
embark on a journey to decolonize yourself, your parenting, your community,
heal lineages and create a thriving future for our people.
These courses are truly informative and lean into comunidad. Check

(00:56):
out the Esqualita offerings at Latinxparenting dot org. That's Latinxparenting
dot org. Welcome back everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
This is Rediscovering Latini Dodd Season five, Episode eight, and
today we have a fantastic discussion with an organization we
have been working with and admiring for so long. We
are recording today with LATINX Parenting. The founder, Leslie Priscilla,
and Leslie's mission has been it's just been so inspiring

(01:31):
for me as a mother, a Latina mother, and for
our panelist as well. And I just love seeing everything
that new is coming through her organization and I can't
wait to talk to her more today and I really think,
you know, I just want to talk to our listeners
for a second. Last week, everyone joined us for our
the Litlis Moritos episode where we also discuss All Saints Day,

(01:52):
All Souls Day, seam Hayne and the similar holidays that
have similar traditions to this and what better way to
honor our ancestors by also using the lessons we have
as we raise our future ancestors. So with that, I
would love to introduce Leslie from LATINX Parenting. Leslie, please,
can you introduce yourself?

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yes? Absolutely, and thank you so much for having me.
I'm Leslie or Leslie Bisina. I am the founder of
LATINX Parenting, which I found out about six years ago
in twenty eighteen, and first and foremost even before that,
I am a mother. I have three young children that
twelve and a half year old, a five and a
half year old, and a just turned seven year old.

(02:32):
So I'm very much in the trenches with parents and
learning as I go to. But I'm very proud of
being a mama, and I'm very proud of the work
that we do with Latin Experienting, which holds a lot
of educational opportunities for parents, but then also professionals on
working with LATINX families. I really think that there's a
big need to talk more about what our families need,

(02:54):
our familias need, and so that's kind of my whole
goal and my purpose is to make sure that we
as a culture have our needs met.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Thank you so much, Leslie. If you don't mind me asking,
could you please tell us more about how LATINX parenting
was developed and how it's grown over the years, because
I've been a follower since at least twenty twenty, so yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Of course. So it was born of my rage, was
it was born of my love for my family. It
was born of my love for my Internnia, who didn't
have her needs met so often. And I always say
that my first experience parenting wasn't actually with my own children,
but it was with my little sister, who was born

(03:34):
about ten years after I was born. And at the
time she was born, it was a very tumultuous, very
chaotic time, and I remember even at that time thinking,
I want to protect this child, and I want to
make sure that she feel safe, you know, and connected.
And maybe I didn't have the language for it at
the time, but that was definitely like the energy that
I was coming into being a big sister with. And

(03:56):
so that was kind of my first like experience and
raising a child who has turned into an amazing, incredible person.
So I'm like, I know what I'm doing because my
sister turned out really great. But I didn't have the
best relationship with my mom growing up. And I think
that's pretty common for a lot of us who grow

(04:18):
up in our culture and our families. And part of
the reason that that is the case is because our
parents struggle, right, And I realized that a little bit
too late, right after I had already developed resentment towards
my mom, and I had all these confused feelings about
my family and my identity because on the one hand,

(04:39):
I was really interested in learning about children and child
development and parent education when I was in college, and
at the same time, I was looking at my family
over here, and I was like, wow, these things are
very different, right, I'm like learning about attachment and I'm
learning about brain development and all of these things that
you want to do when you're working with children, because
at the time I was a preschool teacher. Well this

(05:01):
is like early twenties, and I was just kind of like,
why didn't my family have access to this, right? Why
didn't my parents my theis, my theos? Why didn't they
have this knowledge, very basic knowledge I thought about the brain,
about stress, about trauma, right, I think, and trauma doesn't

(05:24):
have to be this like huge, you know, conversation. It
really is just like the hard adversity that so many
of us grew up with that lives in our bodies. Right,
So that frustration kind of began to develop. I started
working with families in two thousand and nine, and then

(05:45):
eventually I started working with parents, specifically in Latino parents majorly,
and in that experience, I was like, Oh, there's so
many similarities among us in our families, regardless as to
whether your family's from Mexico, your family's from Mminica Republic,
your families, right, there's all kinds of similarity. And while
we are not a monolith as LATINX people, we do

(06:08):
have this shared history of colonization, of having been colonized
by certain new European countries, and so that has created
that similarity. So as I began to explore all of that,
I was like, we need to know this, like our
families need to know that we are still very much
impacted by some of those things. It allowed me to

(06:31):
start to have a lot more compassion for my mom,
for my family what they experienced intergenerationally. And so from then,
you know, I didn't see that work being done by
the agencies that I was being employed by, by the
nonprofits that I was working with, and so I saw
this tremendous gap and I wanted to fill that. So
in twenty eighteen, I founded Latinex Parenting as a way

(06:54):
to meet my own need from ten years before that,
right as a way to meet my mom's need thirty
years before that. So really it's just again out of
a love for my people, out of a rage that
our families are still struggling, that the children and our
families still very much struggle. You look at mental health
statistics for Latin adolescents, for example, we have some of

(07:16):
the worst debts in terms of our mental health. So
preventing that really kind of became my life's mission, and
I love it. You know, I feel privileged. I feel
so honored to do it every day, to have these
very difficult conversations around things like machismo, around things like
you know, religious conversations, conversations around how religion impacts us.

(07:40):
So it's just, you know, it's been kind of a
magical and challenging endeavor to take on because there's been
quite a bit of pushback sometimes when I try to say, hey,
we should end hun cur culture and people are like, no,
that's our culture, you know, So to we have to
kind of work through the or untangle them. I should say,

(08:01):
we have to untangle those things little by little, and
it will take time, but I think enough of us
are starting to kind of wake up a little bit.

Speaker 4 (08:08):
All right. I have a bit of a two part question.

Speaker 5 (08:11):
First, if you could just explain maybe for some listeners
who don't know what Chankla culture is. And also it's
interesting you're talking about parents struggle. How did you come
to realize about your own family struggle and how did
you come to understand their point of view and what
they dealt with.

Speaker 3 (08:30):
Yeah, thank you for that question. So first, with chan
Cla culture, I think most of us probably listening have
some idea of what a chankra is, and if not,
then it's a sandal. Like in concrete terms, it's a sandal,
and we see it very frequently showcased, I would say,
on social media and memes, and there's this big joke

(08:54):
around it, right, Oh, your mom's going to come with
that changa. So we've turned it into something very humorous
and is such a strong point of resilience for our families,
like so many of our families are so funny as
philar years, I find myself on having been fast clown
in eighth grade. I should if I had my yearbook
around in somewhere, but I would flash and say to
here we are. So you know, I'm not dogging or like,

(09:19):
you know, criticizing the humor necessarily, I'm asking folks to
kind of think about what it means when the only
content that you see around parenting in our families is
typically a Latina mom being authoritarian with her children using
la chanka as a tool for some semblance of control, right,

(09:40):
some semblance of behavior management. Right, that's like the most
common stereotype that we're seeing. So I open the conversation
by talking about you know how that evolved, Like, how
did it evolve? That? That's how we see ourselves now,
you know, And people will say, oh, this is you know,
our culture and what you're doing is white people should

(10:03):
and you know, so that's the criticism a lot of times.
And so when we start to unpeel the onion a
little bit, we start to see that the real root
of some of this authoritarianism is an adaptation of colonial dynamics, right,
that were brought here from Europe. And so what we
know from indigenous cultures pre colonization and even into colonization,

(10:26):
is that there's this beautiful sense of collectivism where children
were actually very much involved in the household, where they
were seen as contributors, collaborators, right. And so when I
think about that, and that's not to say that there
were no violent people within indigenous cultures precolonization, right, That's
not at all what I'm saying. But the fact that

(10:50):
we were a people who were colonized definitely put strain
and stress on the families that were being impacted by
these very real terror things on the indigenous people of
Trutle Island, Daveyana, whatever you would like to call it.
So we see research just across indigenous cultures where certain
adaptations have been made into our families that come from

(11:14):
that stress that was initially placed on us by European
settlers on this land. And black families actually have a
lot in common with us in that way, in the
ways that certain dynamics within the enslaved and enslaver dynamic

(11:35):
kind of transitioned into Black families as well. So I
have a lot of black mentors that have taught me
a lot about at least how to trace back to
the route, and I've been doing that with LATINIX families
and so by now I can kind of see the
way that Chunkli culture has evolved as authoritarian dynamic has
evolved from a lot of the systemic stress that has

(11:56):
been placed on our families that stems from colonization. So
that's what chun quad culture is. It's not just physical
corporal punishment, right, there's verbal chunklate tassos. There's emotional chunkredassos,
which you know, I was definitely hit as a child,
but my mom's favorite was that emotional chunkredasso or she
really just knew the right thing to say right to

(12:16):
get me where it hurt the most. And I'm not
saying that I'm exempt because I also have you know,
I'm like if I if I reach a certain decibel
in my volume, my children are being hurt by that too, right,
So I'm not saying that anybody is perfect by any means.
But chuan clack culture is really just that that paradigm
of control that's been brought into our families or which

(12:39):
involves you know, self chunklit aassos are internalized chunk with
usos as well, self shaming and things like that. So
anything that is violating of another person's sovereignty, right to exist, humanity,
et cetera, is part of chunkqua culture in my eyes.
And then your second question, I'm going to ask you

(13:00):
to repeat it again because I feel like I just
went off with chan my culture is, so bring me
back this way.

Speaker 5 (13:06):
No, I really appreciate you bringing us back to bring
us forward. I guess just personally with your own family,
Like sure, colonization happened hundreds and hundreds of years ago.

Speaker 4 (13:17):
But how did you see this?

Speaker 5 (13:20):
How did you recognize signs of struggle in your own family?
And how did you come to understand And maybe you've
forgiven your.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Family, I'm not sure, but what was your journey with that?

Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yeah, so my family, I come from a family of immigrants, right.
My mom was one of twelve children. Eleven of those
children migrated to the United States. My mom came here
when she was fourteen years old, so she didn't have
much of an adolescence, much of an opportunity to kind
of develop her own identity, her own security, and herself, right,
So she just kind of came in and immediately had

(13:56):
to adapt, which was a very very stressful experience for
her and for my theos and for my theis and
for my family. And so I really saw the ways
that a lot of my theats and my theos didn't
necessarily have the tools of self regulation, right, So we
would end up getting yelled at, we would end up
getting hit, we would end up getting threatened, And so

(14:20):
I saw the ways that that impacted my cousins. I
have a lot of, you know, really unfortunate outcomes in
my kind of sample population that is my family, and
I love them to death. But I do have incarcerated
family members, you know, I do have family members who
are experiencing addiction. I do have family members who have

(14:45):
you know, experienced team pregnancy and things like that, So
things that are really disruptive to the well being of
a person, right, and so I wonder, it's just it's
a wondering, right what outcomes would have been different. Some
of those cousins felt really safe, really connected, really you know, yeah,

(15:09):
I just connected as the word I guess right where
I really wonder what would have happened. I know that
my feeling disconnected from my mom, from my dad led
to certain behaviors and myself right led to certain things
like self harm when I was an adolescent, led to
certain things like promiscuity a little bit too early, right,
led to certain things that I'm not super proud to admit,

(15:32):
but that were very real and were ways that I
was trying to get needs met that were not being
met in my family culture, right in my home. So
that's kind of how you know it really like I'm
doing this work for the community, absolutely, but I'm also
doing it for my family, you know, I'm doing it

(15:52):
for me who grew up as a child that didn't
experience that emotional safety. Even into my twenties, right where
I was pregnant and I really didn't feel like I
had that mother figure to go to and to guide me,
or I didn't really have I had olders, I didn't
have elders right that were able to kind of guide me,
shepherd me through the process of becoming an adult. And

(16:16):
again got frustrated, right looking at the ways that it
could have been, the ways that my textbooks in college,
you know, said this is how it should go, We
should be able to have these kind of dynamics, and
then looking at my family and saying.

Speaker 6 (16:32):
Why not us?

Speaker 3 (16:33):
Why not our family? Why not me? And so I
kind of wanted to build something I guess that was
able to meet that need for others and prevent a
lot of the things that could be prevented, right, because
we have a lot of disconnection. And again, one of

(16:55):
my teachers have said, like, you know, we don't want
to operate from deficit models. We don't want to We're
not going to say we're all wounds and we're all
trauma and we're all because that's absolutely not true. We
have so many strengths, and we have so much beauty
in our family and in our culture. And I say
our family, like all of us, right, our fum media,
our greater flam media, and we have to keep it real, like,

(17:18):
we have to be very real about the things that
have hurt us, not just in this generation, but in
previous generation, so that we can come to a point
of actually healing that wound, right, that ancestral wound that
we hold. So yeah, I mean there's there's so much more,
and I can speak to that, Edward, but it's very
much a personal process for me, and you know, and

(17:41):
a lot of it has been just my personal shedding
of shame, right, shedding of shame for who I am
or how I grew up. I went to Catholic school
my entire life, right, so certain things were passed down
to me in that experience that I've had to unlearned
that I've had to take accountability for my proximity to whiteness, right,
my being most of my life identified as as hetero

(18:04):
you know woman. Right, there's a lot of privilege that
I hold in even being able to like process all
of this stuff.

Speaker 4 (18:11):
So yeah, thank you for that.

Speaker 5 (18:15):
And two two quick things, just just immediately responding olders
not elders. Wow, that's that's that's such an important distinction.
And also it's interesting you're talking about family dysfunction. I
was a Latino studies major in college, and it's it's interesting,
like I read a lot of these old timey anthropologists

(18:36):
Oscar Lewis, and his culture of poverty immediately comes to
mind and and and it was such a thing of
like extrapolating particular families, like particular Latino families dysfunction, and
you know, making that into stories.

Speaker 4 (18:50):
About oh, all Latino culture is like this.

Speaker 5 (18:52):
So yeah, it's it's it's great to see that you're
addressing the needs without making us all pathological.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
So thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
Yeah, I think that's how I was trained, like I was.
You know, every behavior is a strategy to meet a need,
and that's just a basic universal fact. Every behavior is
a strategy to meet a need. And I think that
the more that we kind of absorb that and really
take it in, the easier it is to humanize each

(19:24):
other and to try to have empathy for our experiences. Right,
and so a lot of us kind of live in
shame a lot of time for who we are, for
the behaviors that we've you know, taken on as a strategy,
as a as a sad strategy. My teacher would say,
my teacher Ruth Bigohol eighty two years old, still fighting

(19:44):
the system. You would say, those are sad strategies to
meet needs. And so I want to be able to
give that language to bolts, right, And so that language
of needs and validating our emotions, you know, as a
result of a nderstanding our needs is very necessary for
all of us.

Speaker 6 (20:02):
Thank you and thanks again for joining us. Leslie, if
you could take a moment and explain the concept of
raising future ancestors and what that term future ancestors means,
and then how might we work toward raising future ancestors
and why if that approach so important?

Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I love the idea of kind of having this
very expanded view of our generations, right, and so you
have like a brand called seven Generation now, and there's
a reason that the brand is called seven generation because
there is a native or indigenous idea that we are
healing some generations back and some generations forward. Scientifically, I've

(20:48):
learned in more recent years that in studies of epigenetics,
and just like the ways that trauma lives in your genetics,
it takes about fourteen years for a gene that was
impacted by you know, some kind of traumatic event to
be rid of your system. It takes fourteen generations, not years,

(21:10):
and I wish it only took fourteen years. It takes
fourteen generations, right, And so when I hear that as
something that science is coming to, and then I know
this indigenous idea of seven generations forward, seven generations back,
it just it makes sense. Right, So what I'm doing
now in this lifetime is going to impact on a

(21:33):
genetic level, likely on a continued emotional level and continued
mental levels, right, my descendants moving forward, and that's not
just my biological descendants. Obviously, Genetically, I'm not able to impact,
you know, people that are not a part of that
genetic descendant lineage. But everything that we're doing is impacting

(21:56):
generations to come, you know. And we know that seven
generations ago, as six generations ago, things were happening within
our families that may still live in our bodies, and
so sometimes we get kind of frustrated because we don't
know what happened. Right, A lot of our histories have
been lost and erased intentionally. But it is our responsibility,

(22:16):
nonetheless to be able to be accountable of how we
show up now, right and teach that to our children
model that for our children. Parenting in general and raising
future ancestors is not even so much about what you do,
but it's who you are, right, It's how you show up,
It's what you embody and how they absorb that. A

(22:38):
lot of it is very energetic, Like my kids know,
if I say something to myself, I'm like, heait meniki.
That's very different than like, hey, what is manny naki? Right?
There's a different energy to it, And so I have
to be very responsible or that kind of energy and
know that that's going to be something that they potentially
adapt from me and then they you know, pass it

(23:01):
on to their in senates. So I see, this is
very responsible. It's a lot of pressure, I know for
some parents to be like, oh my gosh, I have
to break all these generational cycles of trauma. And I
want to say no, right, I want to say that
we can be super patient with ourselves, and we can
be super gentle with ourselves, and we can model ways
of taking accountability that are not attached to shame about
who we are, and we can take our time kind

(23:24):
of healing ourselves as we raise these future ancestors that
are going to impact you know, there are seven generations
going forward.

Speaker 6 (23:31):
Thank you. That's really beautiful brand, a very beautiful concept.
And again, as you're mentioning, right, just like being able
to take ownership right, to take our future back.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
So thank you.

Speaker 7 (23:45):
Okay you you touched on this a little bit earlier,
but we wanted to focus on how do you think
trauma impacts parenting and how do we decolonize parenting and
embrace our latiny that to honor our ancestors.

Speaker 3 (23:57):
How does trauma impact parenting? One fully, absolutely right, Because
trauma lives in the body, right. For a long time,
we thought that we could just kind of talk therapy
our way away from trauma. And what we have found
is that even trauma from two three generations ago, et

(24:20):
cetera will show up in our body. So that means
that if I am a dark skinned indigenous person right,
which I'm not, and I come into an encounter with
a white Caucasian person, right, there might be certain genetic
memory that has turned on in my body in coming

(24:41):
into that experience or that interaction that I might feel
some form of discomfort about, but not necessarily have cognitive
ability to say, oh, this is because my ancestors were
enslaved by people that look like this, right, So that's
kind of like the big, you know, the big intergenerational
trauma conversation. And then we have like childhood trauma, right,

(25:03):
And childhood trauma also lives in the body and is
more readily available. I guess to draw from right. So
I'll give an example when when my partner in the
past has tried to clean my car, for example, But
I have the experience that when I was growing up,

(25:25):
my mom would come into my room when I wasn't
there and empty all my drawers and switch all my furniture,
and I would come home and it was like the
worst feeling, right, It was just like the most hopeless,
like awful feeling. Later I was like, Okay, that was traumatic.
That sucked, Like that was really bad. So now my

(25:45):
partner thinks he's doing a nice thing by cleaning my car,
and what do I do. I freak out right, I
start raging. How could you do this? This is my space,
this is mine So I'm acting in that situation out
of a trauma response. We have to be really careful
that we know what those trauma responses are and what

(26:06):
they come from. If it's childhood trauma or intergenerational trauma,
because our children can activate that for us, right, And
the brain is such that it's going to try to
protect itself, so it turns on that memory really quickly
so that we can protect ourselves, but it's not always
good at discerning whether there's actual danger in that situation. Right,

(26:28):
So we're going to have our brain activated, our our
nervous system or what I call like our low brain,
which is all about survival. Right, So that is that
trigger is going to create that kind of response, and
then I'm going to operate not from this more like
conscious aware, frontal low like reasoning perspective. I'm going to

(26:53):
shout at them, or I'm going to spank them, or
I'm going to grab them and put them in the
room and slam the door. I'm in a survivable state. Right.
So the degree to which we're able to understand our
trauma and move through it and develop different skills around
coping with it is the degree to which we'll be

(27:14):
able to parent our children from a place of awareness, consciousness,
and respect of their sovereignty. Right. So if we don't
have even curiosity about what happened in our childhood, if
we're the kind of person that says, you know, I
don't think about that because that's fact, that's in the past, right.
The past isn't going to influence me now, but it

(27:36):
is going to. So you can either be conscious about
the ways that it will, or you could turn away
from it and then continue to do certain things that
are not good for our children necessarily. So that's sort
of how trauma impacts our parenting. And your second part
of your question Relisa.

Speaker 7 (27:54):
How do we decolonize parenting and embrace our latiny that
to honor our ancestors?

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, oh, that's a lot of words, okay.

Speaker 6 (28:03):
For us.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
I mean I'm trying, right, like you all know, I'm
writing this book that should be due out next year,
and so that's really the answer to this question is
like what's going to be there? But I think, in
simple terms, having an idea of the ways that certain
colonial dynamics have been adapted into our families, right, and

(28:28):
saying maybe that happened because my ancestors and my parents
were in survival, Right, Maybe that happened because they were
in survival. But I'm not necessarily in that survival state anymore,
at least not in the same way. Right, I have
the Internet, I have conversations that I can have with people.

(28:49):
I have a little bit more space to reflect on
some of those things. That is a privilege that I
have that maybe my ancestors did not. Right. So, now
that I recognize the privilege that I have, I have
a responsibility to heal my lineage, right. And I have
a responsibility to undo as much as I can a
lot of the colonial bs that was adapted into our families, right,

(29:10):
whether that's white supremacy and colorism, whether that's patriarchy, whether
that's harmful religious dogma, or toxic individualism. Right. So I
have a responsibility to decolonize in that way and identify
systems of oppression that have made it difficult for our
parents and our ancestors to parent us and to pair
in our parents and to pair in our grandparents.

Speaker 5 (29:30):
Right.

Speaker 3 (29:30):
I have a responsibility to break that cycle by identifying
those systems, how they show up in me, and how
I might potentially perpetuate them in my children. Right. So
adult supremacy is one as well, because children as a whole,
you know, back back back in indigenous cultures, we still

(29:51):
see that now, we still see this now. But there's collaboration,
there's an honoring of the child. You know, there's a
participation from the child that we don't necessarily see anymore.
We send them off to school, which, by the way,
you know, schools are an evolution of residential schools on
this land. So that's like a whole history that we

(30:13):
could get into. But we're fragmented. Our families are fragmented,
and so my responsibility is to make sure that I'm
still in a place of being in connection with my children,
with my family, which is really hard because we do
live in, you know, a very individualistic society that tells

(30:34):
us that if your parents are mean to you, just
cut them off, right, And for a lot of us,
we're like, well, I can't cut off my mom. She
helps me with maybe, say my kids, so I can
go to work, right, So I mean it's yeah, yeah,
that's the situation that we find ourselves in. So we
really really have to be good at recognizing, you know,

(30:54):
how how that pole to be more individualistic, or to
be in alignment with white supremacy, or to participate in patriarchy.
We have to see how that paradigm is trying to
pull us back into it, and we have to actively
say no, I reject this in the ways that I
talk to myself and the things, and in the ways

(31:15):
that I relate to my partner, to my community, and
in the ways that I relate to my children. Because
part of that adaptation of Chang Clack culture was the
dynamic of how we're over so parent over you know,
the child, and mother over the child, father over the
the mother, right, et cetera, et cetera. So the hierarchy

(31:40):
just kind of went like that, So, how do we
do that with so much grace for ourselves? Like, how
do we do that with so much patience for this process?
How do we do that by actually treating our children
like human beings who are worthy of being explained things
to by demanding that we as parents have access to

(32:05):
the things that we need that are going to create
ease for us. So I see parenting as a political act, right,
I see parenting as an act of resistance because we're
teaching our children to go against some of the systems
of oppression, and at the same time we are demanding
for our needs to get met. Finally, how can I

(32:28):
get down on my kids level and use eye contact
and a soft tone of voice if I don't I
haven't eaten since yesterday, or I don't know where we're
going to stay tomorrow right, or I just had a
racist encounter or you know. So there's all of these
factors that come into play, which is why I really
don't vibe with a lot of the prescriptive parenting stuff

(32:50):
because it's not for us, and it's not built for
some of the challenges that we have to experience. And yes,
knowing about the brain is going to help us parents, right,
knowing about how stress works in our bodies is going
to help us parent, but it's not necessarily going to
dismantle the systems that make it difficult for us to
parent to begin with. So all of that has to

(33:12):
be connected and all of that shows up in our
parenting in the way that we relate to our kings.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Thank you so much, Leslie. I just feel so inspired
listening to everything you're saying, and I'm just like, oh
my god, you put into words, you know what you
just put into words so beautiful. Like I just want
to say that I really love the movement behind healing
and our lineage and our inner neinios. As we break cycles.
How can we practice having a forgiving space in our
hurt for our parents and the ancestors and the pain

(33:41):
they inflicted, while also acknowledging their trauma, so leaving space
and forgiveness not only for ourselves but for them, not
excusing it.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
You know what I think.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
I think I hope that makes all sense, But I
think there's this complicated like almost like a tiptoe through
some I don't know, like it's it feels which way
you're gonna like fall? Like do do I react off
of this? Do I move forward with that? If I
move forward with that, then am I sacrificing my own
things as I'm healing. It's such a really complicated dynamic.

(34:11):
So I'd love to hear more thoughts on that.

Speaker 3 (34:13):
Yeah, I mean I kind of see. You know what
this movement is as resting on these two legs, which
is the parenting right, the raising of our future ancestors,
and then also the reparenting right. And the reparenting is
what speaks to this question of how do we hold
the duality of our parents did the best that we

(34:36):
could and it wasn't good enough for us to not
have to heal from trauma, right, So that's been definitely
a journey. I think it is for a lot of
people because we don't always see our parents within their context, right.
We see them sometimes as people that we have to

(34:57):
still protect from. I can tell you that sometimes I
still definitely have some kind of nervous system activation occurred
to me when my mom walks through the door, right,
I feel like I'm I'm about to get in trouble.
I'm about to like something's going to be said, and
so you feel that energetically, right, So I have to
deal with that at the level of my body first,

(35:20):
because my body's like, we're not safe here. But most
of us who are adults, we're pretty safe from our parents.
You know, they're not necessarily going to harm us physically,
and so we're able to create boundaries, or we at
least have the opportunity. I wouldn't say we're able to,
because a lot of us are still not able to
even me in certain things, but we have the opportunity

(35:42):
to create certain boundary. There have been times where my
mom just you know, was going off, like in text messages,
and I just had to be like, hey, I can't
talk to you for a few weeks, Like we're going
to have to not be in connection because at this point,
my interest is in protecting my internew Yeah, because we're

(36:02):
trying to heal, like we're trying to be good. I'm
trying to be good so that my children have a
mama who is good. If I continue to allow myself
to get activated and triggered over and over and over
again on top of just the stresses of regular you know,
mom life, and then I have family members who are

(36:24):
you know, kind of not attuned to that or not
sensitive to that, then it becomes my responsibility to create boundary.
Because we're a collective as culture, we don't always have
the template for how to create boundary in a way
that's respectful and that's honoring of their needs as well. Right,
And so the way that I was trained was that

(36:45):
all of us have the same universal basic human needs.
Every strategy, I mean, every behavior is a strategy to
get those needs met. So if I look at my
parents in that context and say, Okay, my mom is
acting like this because she has this need, I have
to decide whether it's my responsibility to meet that need

(37:06):
for her or whether she needs to take on responsibility
to get that need meant for herself. And I have
to accept the consequences of her not meeting that need
and expecting me to meet that need for her. Right,
So what does that look like? That could mean like
me standing up for myself in that moment, which I
have had to do right and said, actually, you're not

(37:28):
allowed to talk to me this way, and she has said, well,
i'm your mother, and I'm like, yes, but I'm a
person and I'm an adult and I deserve respect as well, right.
And so it took a long time and a lot
of therapy, if I'm honestary to be able to get
to the point where I can confidently speak up for
myself and for my energemia. But in doing that, I'm
very aware that I'm modeling that for my children too,

(37:50):
and they have a right to tell me what their
boundaries are, you know, and my daughter does that all
the time. The other day I called her a brat.
That is like anti what I teach, right. I was like,
she lied to me, and I was like, oh my gosh.
I was like, you're being kind of a sneaky brat
and she was like, oh, I do you know, I
can't believe you just called me a sneaky bread and
then eventually we were repaired. But in my mind, I

(38:12):
was like, that is like the least, that's like the
most mild thing that I that I call me like
compared to what I was called was your age. Right,
So we're always doing those dance between like our interernnia
and her wounds not hopefully being projected onto our children,
but then also like holding the wounds of my of

(38:34):
my parents and kind of like shielding them a little
bit and saying like, Okay, I can help you within
my capacity. And I still have my internet at to protect,
which is directly related to my ability to protect my
children from the trauma that I might inflict if I
don't do my work myself. So's it's a dance, right,

(38:56):
and we need a lot of community surrounding us to
be able to continue to have those conversations and to
because when we're in our wounded self, when we're in
our wounded in arninia, we're not always going to immediately
be like, oh, let me just draw a boundary. No,
it's gonna hurt, you know, we're gonna feel great about it.
We're going to feel heaviness about it. And so we

(39:16):
started the body right, we started the body we regulate,
we come back to ourselves and then we ask what
is loving to us? We ask what do I need
right now?

Speaker 6 (39:25):
You know?

Speaker 3 (39:26):
We ask what is going to help me re establish
safety right now? Because if I'm just regulated, that means
I'm not feeling safe. So then we develop those tools,
those practices in the reparenting process, and then we can
kind of come back and say, okay, well, what is
my role actually here? Am I responsible here? Do I
have to take accountability? Do I have to ask for
accountability to be taken? If accountability is not going to

(39:47):
be taken, am I okay? Releasing that?

Speaker 6 (39:50):
Right?

Speaker 3 (39:51):
So at one point I had to just acknowledge that
my parents can't meet my needs either, the same way
that my kids can't meet my needs, Like I have
to mother myself, like I have to be that for
myself in community. Right. It's not an individual process, it's
a communal process. But I'm still, you know, I'm still

(40:13):
supporting myself through it.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
I really appreciate you saying that you've you know, you've
gone through many years of therapy, because you very admirably
you You you describe so simply trained like trains of
thought and like retraining in your mind that very clearly
have taken you years and years to come to this stage.
So yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm I'm blown away by that.

(40:36):
Do you mind giving some advice maybe to people who
are starting to figure this out or who maybe haven't
gone to therapy for for the first time, Like, what's
some encouragement which which which you can give people like
that who are who are starting out in there on
this journey.

Speaker 3 (40:54):
I would just ask that they recognize that like, shedding
the shape that we carry is so worth it, right,
And really that's how I see healing is that is
shedding this shame that we were handed by these oppressive
systems around us. Right, So it's really not as scary. Yes,

(41:18):
it's tough, like you're rewiring your brain, you are physically
releasing mineral connections and establishing new ones. Like that's tedious.
That is work that takes a lot of tears sometimes, right,
and a lot of lessons that you'll learn in very

(41:38):
difficult ways. But none of it means that you are
not sacred, you know, none of it means that you
are not worthy of love and care and support. And
so shedding the shame is always going to be worth it. Right.
I had this experience with this young man who was

(41:58):
taking one of my classes when I was still working
at a nonprofit agency, and it was in a rehabilitation home,
and he was probably like eighteen year old, like little cholillo,
baggy pants, baggy you know, shirt, and stayed quiet the
whole class. I don't remember exactly what we were talking about,
but at some point I was talking about how all
behavior has a strategy to me to be and how

(42:21):
none of these people in this room were bad. None
of you are bad people. You know, nobody is bad.
We behave badly. Yes, behaviors can be bad, you know,
but at your core, your divine essence is not a
bad you know, it was not born that way. Right.

(42:42):
So at the end of the class, he stays, and
I'm like, h you know, he's ever stayed before. And
then he approaches me and he very shyly says, you know,
nobody's ever said that to me. And I said said
what because by that point, like we had already talked
about other stuff. And he's like, nobody told me that
I wasn't bad, and so no one has told me

(43:02):
that I wasn't bad, and that thing that you said
about needs, you know, and and he's like tearing up,
and I'm just like if you don't know, and like
no one knows, like you know. And so that's kind
of the message that I want to share, is that
we are sacred.

Speaker 6 (43:21):
Right.

Speaker 3 (43:21):
My mis Jerry Deo has he's the founder of the
National Compiitive Network, and he is just an amazing human.
He has a book called Recovering Our Sacredness, you know,
and it's really rooted back into Indigenous practice and kind
of seeing ourselves as this essence of goodness and this
essence of love, you know. And what happens is that
this paradigm, this very violent, dominant, binary colonial power over paradigm,

(43:48):
attacks our loving essence right, our sacredness, and we forget
it along the way. And so a lot of this
is just about reclaiming it, you know, and really recovering,
like he says, recovering our sacredness and remembering that we
are not bad. So what I would say is that
you are sacred, you know. What I would say is
that the shame will not serve you. What I will

(44:09):
say is that it's brave to even be in truth
about your story, you know, and that your story is
worthy of telling, and your story is worthy of being held,
and that you're Internia, you're Inernnia, you're Internenia. It's worthy
of all the things that they were always worthy of,
and so it's always going to be worthy to take
that step.

Speaker 5 (44:30):
Thank you so much, Leslie. I have a quick follow up,
like just quick if it's okay, because because you're talking
to genealogists, what do you recommend to say?

Speaker 4 (44:41):
You're talking to a to an.

Speaker 5 (44:42):
Elder and your family and they tell you about like
a really traumatic thing that happened way way back in
the past, Like how how should you handle that knowledge?

Speaker 6 (44:52):
Very good question.

Speaker 3 (44:54):
Yeah, you should be like you probably deserved it. No,
I'm just kidding you should. Oh. I will be standing
in line at like recently I went to us Now
the product concert, which she's like she got about it
amazing anyway, But I was standing in line and then
the person behind me and I were in conversation and
she started telling me about like really heavy stuff and

(45:17):
I was kind of talking to her and she just
started crying and I'm like, I like, you can't take
me anywhere. I will We'll get to that point, you know,
we'll get to that point. So when you have an elder,
which happens very very often in the groups that I
run because I work with a lot of nonprofits that
served that community, so I end up working with a
lot of grandparents and they start sharing their stories. There's

(45:39):
so much power in just holding it right and validating
it and saying I hear you. I'm so grateful that
you told me that. Thank you so much for sharing
it with me. You know, I had a conversation with
an elder I want to say, maybe a year ago.
His son was murdered by Anaheim police a couple of

(46:02):
years ago, and you know, I don't mean to make
people cry. I really don't, but I really want, you know,
I start sharing kind of where I come from and
my challenges, and then that allows people to kind of
feel safe. So acknowledging that safety that they're feeling in
that moment. You know, you also want to be very

(46:26):
careful because you don't want to open anything that you
may not be able to close. And that's something that
I have learned from my elders, from my so Jerry,
for example, where I want to open conversation, but maybe
I'm not in capacity to close it or I don't
necessarily have a resource for them to be able to
continue the conversation. Right. And so if you are wanting

(46:49):
your parents to get therapy, for example, or you're wanting
your elders to get therapy, I would hold it for them.
But then I would also and this is what I've
said to my mom sometimes is I can say, like,
I can't hold all of it, but I'm really happy
to like get you connected to a group. Right, So
you also have to be willing to kind of support
and shepherd that process. And if you're not in a

(47:11):
position to do that, then I wouldn't necessarily open anything,
you know, too far, because you're you know, people's traumas
and experiences are not something that we should take lightly.
We should be ready, right, We should have some kind
of resource, even if it's just like latinex, theapy dot com,
my friend Agana's organization, or something that we can say,

(47:34):
you know, I want to continue this conversation or how
can we you know, how can we support?

Speaker 5 (47:41):
Right?

Speaker 3 (47:41):
How can I support? But it is tricky. It is
tricky because you again, you want to know how to
bring it back. You know people will just and you
want to kind of know how to bring it back.

Speaker 4 (47:56):
Thank you for that.

Speaker 7 (47:57):
Well, okay, moving forward, we wanted to know how do
you approach balancing the identities and like the conflicting traditions
between American culture and our shared Latino cultures. I for
one can say like when I was growing up, anytime,
you know, my white friends would say, oh, my parents
said that I have boundaries and I can do this,
And my parents says, don't listen to those white kids.

(48:18):
They don't know what they're talking about.

Speaker 4 (48:19):
That's not how we do things.

Speaker 7 (48:21):
So we really wanted to know how do we balance
the two identities between obviously being Latinos and being Americans.

Speaker 6 (48:29):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (48:30):
I think it's like that Senena club, Like we're two
and what does he say? Edward James almost in the
movie's LENI is like, not Mexican enough for the Mexicans
and not American enough for the Americans. He's like, it's exhausting,
And yes it is, and it's extremely empowering to feel
very confident in your identity and to understand your ancestry.

(48:53):
And because of what we know about how we adopted
certain things like just hearing to authority and power for example, right,
and our white friends are saying, you can set boundaries,
and our moms are saying, like, no boundaries and Kannada,
like you need to you know, like we we're not

(49:14):
necessarily expecting change from our elders, you know, we can't.
We can't do that to them and like place them
in a position where they're going to understand. Some of
them are really ready to understand, and some of them
maybe won't get there. Right. I think for us in

(49:36):
navigating our own identity is holding both those right. There's
a reason why it's easier for white folks to do
gentle parenting right. And it's actually not the case that
white people don't hit their kids. They hit their kids
pretty close to the percentages that black and Latino folks
with their kids as well. But we don't always have

(49:57):
that stereotype for that popular right of having these more
child culture type dynamics. So we can hold this awareness
of attachment, of brain science, of trauma, of all of
these things and also understand the context that our parents

(50:17):
and our ancestors and our elders have experienced, and we
can say both of those things come together in me, right,
Both of those things come together in me and I
get to decide autonomously how I want to integrate that
in myself, what I want to let go from here,
what I want to let go from here, what I

(50:38):
want to keep from here, what I want to keep
from here, right, And so I think that's beautiful. I
think that having the autonomy and the sovereignty and the
ability to say that doesn't work for you or for me, right.
Maybe that worked for you in your survival state, or
maybe that worked for you in your lack of care
to be in connection and commune with your family and people.

(51:02):
That doesn't work for me, right. I think that's kind
of why Latin experienting exists, is because we get to
kind of create what that culture is. I have a
friend n named Nicolai Pisarro, and she has a really
beautiful book called Wringing the Alarm. It's one of the
first books that I ever saw that were written specifically
for black and Latino families, because the most parenting books

(51:23):
out there are not written for us, and they're not
written by us. So we need more, by the way,
I don't know anyway, So nikola I talks a lot
about creating a home culture, right, and how culture is
not necessarily just our ethnic culture or our racial culture.
It's the culture that we create in our home with
our children, and the culture that we create in relation

(51:45):
with our peers, right and our partners, et cetera. So
that's the culture that we want to focus on as well,
and that's something that we can create, right and co
create with the people that we're in a relationship with,
whether that's our children, our partners, or so. I find
that really empowering, I think for me in saying, Okay,

(52:06):
my identity is this, these things are true. I come
from this, these things are true. I also come from this,
which is like topic school culture, you know, early early
two thousands culture. Like there's all these cultures that kind
of like mash together in me, and I have to
just be like, yeah, that is that. That is that

(52:28):
right without shame. And so again it's a lot of
like the shedding of shame around those aspects of our
various cultures that converge in us, so that we can say,
I'm actually good with who I am, right, I'm actually
really proud of who I am. And that's the only
way that we're going to be able to do that
for our children. Also, so it's a complicated question, Ju

(52:52):
Lisa like, it's it's not an easy, easy question, but
it's also something that we have to continue to ask ourselves.
You know, who am I? What is my identity? What?

Speaker 6 (53:04):
You know?

Speaker 3 (53:05):
I used to not feel comfortable identifying as an Indigenous person,
and then the more I learned, the more I was like, Oh,
I'm a reconnecting or reclaiming indigenous person, right because I
know my heritage, I know my lineage, I know where
we come from. That's the thing that I want to
end with with this question is culture is always evolving.

(53:26):
Culture is never stagnant. Right. We are never going to
say this is just my culture. Yeah, it's it's an
evolution of the culture. We also are constantly and continuously
evolving the culture. Right. So it's in motion, it's the movimentho.
It's always moving, it's always creating. There's always movement. And

(53:48):
so we can't necessarily just say, oh, Okay, I'm going
to do this this way because it's my culture. I
didn't celebrate the other one of those growing up. You know,
that wasn't necessarily I grew up Mexican, but that wasn't
necessarily anything that my mom did. We can have ancestor veneration, right,
I reclaimed that, and I said, no, I want to
do this. This is you know, my feet I used

(54:08):
to do. This is what my grant grandparents used to do.
So we can reclaim those things, so we can say
I'm bringing this back in, you know, I'm bringing in
a healthy version of collectivism back in. So I would
encourage people to be playful, you know, I'm just being
playful with what you like, what you don't like, what
what vibes, what doesn't vibe, and be fluid in it
as well, because that might change next year. You know,

(54:31):
this might not vibe for you this this year, maybe
next year it will, or maybe it does this year,
maybe next year won't. So be patient and gentle with
yourself in that process.

Speaker 5 (54:40):
Thank you, so so such a great answer after our
the other list Martes episode from last week.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely, thank you, Leslie. And I just have
like one final question and then I think we'll end
with the questions and then I think fast when I
just have something quick to say, and well let's well
wrap it up. But Leslie, how do you hope that
or how do we hope that our children will parent
their children with everything we're learning and everything we're healing

(55:08):
within ourselves and reparenting ourselves and healing our lineage, and
will every generation have ones to heal? I think I
know the answer to that, but I'd love to hear
more from you.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Yeah, every generation is doing a little bit better. And
the last generation, my mom, you know, said she wishes
she had gotten let chime clack. What she got was
like terrible and much worse than that time class. So
my children only get like the loud verbal yelling chunk
with thosos. They don't get the cold chunk with thusles

(55:41):
that I got. So I think, and I'm not saying
I'm proud of that, because that's something that I'm working on,
but I think every generation is doing a little bit better,
I think for me at least, especially in this last
year and kind of seeing the ways that parenting is
connected to authoritarianism as a system, right as a whole,

(56:05):
and the way that we perpetuate that in our personal
lives and relationships. I think one of the things that
I've been very increasingly adamant about with my children is
that it is our role to make other people's lives easier,
like it is our role to understand our privileges. My

(56:26):
children are half white. My children have grandparents who are
very well off, not my parents, but on the other side,
they have parents who are very well off. And so
I see my responsibility in raising my son, for example,
who will be a white man. Right, He's going to
grow up and he's going to be a white man.
So that's my responsibility to make sure that he's acutely

(56:51):
aware of his privilege and of his role in being
responsible for the rest of humanity. I'm not saying that
to him right now, he's five years old, right, But
the books that I'm exposing him to matter, the content
that I might expose him to, matter, the visuals, et cetera.

(57:11):
And so that's a conscious thing on my part right
where I'm like, I want to make sure that you
know that, in actuality, why men are not the center
of the universe, right, And we have to we have
to share our power, we have to share our you know,
we have to defer to people who maybe don't have

(57:31):
as much privilege as you. And so I see, like,
there's so many goals that I have for my children.
Obviously I want them to be happy. Obviously I want
them to be, you know, good friends. Obviously I want
them to be all these things, but I really want
them to understand their responsibility to their fellow human and
I really want them to understand that that's going to

(57:53):
mean releasing some of their privilege, right, That's going to
mean some sacrifices. And yes, we can be happy, but
we cannot ignore the adversities that humanity is experiencing. We
cannot ignore the adversity of the planet is experiencing. Right,
And so I don't necessarily feel like I have to
teach that out right. I don't have to set you
down and to say this is who you need to be. No,

(58:16):
it's who I need to be, right, It's who I
need to be, and how I model that for them?

Speaker 2 (58:21):
And so.

Speaker 3 (58:23):
Whatever it is that I want my children to be
or how I want them to be, I had to
look in a mirror every single time and say, am
I doing those things? Is that what I am working
on in myself? How am I being transparent about the
challenges and being those things with my children as they grow? Right? So,
and then also helping them to know that like, not

(58:45):
everyone's going to understand that, Okay, not everybody that they encounter.
My daughter did a project last year on Matoaka, who
is It's Pocahontas is indigenous name, and so we watched
this whole documentary about how she was one of the
first documented murdered and missing Indigenous women. And then she

(59:06):
takes that to school and her teacher is like, you know,
kind of funny, not ready for that conversation, I guess,
and so we have to, you know, and she's like,
it's kind of weird because like, you're a teacher, we homeschool. Unfortunately,
we're homeschooling, and so that's again like another privilege, right
that I can kind of like curate some of the

(59:27):
things that I share with her. But then I also say,
even when you go out into the world, not everybody's
going to be there, you know, not everybody is going
to understand so the things that you understand. But she
sees it all around us. We live in Santana, s
and Fana is seventy eight percent LA. You know, we
have one of the highest unhoused people rates on house
people in the county right and in the in the state.

(59:50):
I want to say, but I don't have like stats
on that, but she sees it you know, like our
children see it. So I think for us it's our
role to kind of give con text to the world
that they're growing up in and to help them understand
what their role is in that. And so you know, yes,
I want her to crochet for leisure and for joy,

(01:00:11):
and also I want her to come to protests with
me right. And also I want to make sure that
she's spending really consciously and mindfully right and that we're
just being you know, we're being deconization. We're not decolonizing
with our actions, We're deconizing with who we are.

Speaker 6 (01:00:29):
Thank you.

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
Please please tell us when when when your book comes out,
because I'm this is this is going to be a
fascinating rate.

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
Yes, please, Yeah, absolutely, I hope.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
It's going to be next all. I hope that's the plan.
So I would start looking around for it next fall
twenty twenty five. We'd love to come back and talk
about it. The journey in writing it and working with
a publisher like has been something that one day I
will write about just by itself, because it's been very interesting.

(01:01:01):
But yeah, it's it's going to be good. I've spent
two years now writing it and there's been obstacles. You
know that that kind of created the delay, but then
at the same time, it's really allowed me to go
very slow and very intentionally. And I'm wrapping it up
right now, which is really exciting because I really want.

Speaker 4 (01:01:17):
To be done nice. So Fall five and what's and
what's the title?

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Again?

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Yeah, we're very excited enough for this book, Leslie, thank
you so much. Of course, I have something to read
with this voice, but I do want to read one
more thing, but I will hand it over to fast
because Fasto has a very special story and dedication at
the end, but I want to just wrap that up
before I can hand this.

Speaker 3 (01:01:42):
Over to him.

Speaker 2 (01:01:44):
I wrote something because I was I don't know, I
don't know if I could state this enough, but I
have been looking forward to this conversation for well over
a year now, and when I found out that yes,
and when I was when I was able to finally
lock this interview in, I mean I just felt like
my like I don't know, it's like a creative bucket list,

(01:02:05):
like it'spirational bucket list, and it had me thinking of
my own parenting. And I have one daughter, she's about five,
almost five and a half. Actually, she just turned five
and a half. So I wrote something I've been trying
to test out writing a little bit like a small
blurb for a couple of our episodes that are particularly
meaningful for me. So for this one, I wanted to
say that the first time I held my daughter in

(01:02:25):
my arms, any fear I had slipped away, I knew
I loved this little one the moment I found out
she was on her way, and when I looked into
her eyes as she stared at me while being held
up by myobe, I knew my heart would never be
the same. Loving her, inhaling all of her wonder was
so easy and natural to me. I would figure so
much out in time, the feeding preferences, diapers, routines, but

(01:02:47):
one thing that creeps up on you is how to
parent when they are past the infanstation into toddlerhood. A
lot of us would love to say that we would
do everything differently than our parents did, that we know
better and are better. Maybe we had some clear examples
of wounds we wouldn't replicate, And as time goes on,
we see the thoughts and mindsets we inherited without even realizing.

(01:03:09):
We see our child grow and remember old memories that
cause discomfort and maybe for some CPTSD responses for those
who are Latino, who belong to marginalized communities, or who
experience parenting hardships based on socioeconomic factors. It's hard to
ripple against a curR and you didn't even know you
were waiting until you're out to sea and finding your
way back to shore with feet firmly in the sand,

(01:03:32):
like the boots of the explorers in our family tree.
Only this new journey isn't a new land of opportunity
by force. It is one where our parenting is completely intentional,
where we unpacked our own wounds and keep ourselves self aware.
It's the most unsettling venture, But like all the journeys
our ancestors took, we some ed courage and had a mission.
Our parenting journey would liberate not only our children from

(01:03:54):
parenting done under duress and trauma from the past, but
one where we honor our ancestors legacies and do not
admit the struggle. Our ancestors endured hardship, poverty, war, economic instability, hunger,
and their parenting may or likely was influenced by fight
or flight survival mindsets. They had to keep strong and
prepare their children for the world that they themselves experienced

(01:04:16):
and maybe deep down couldn't imagine a world yet where
a child could be free to be a child without
carrying burdens of the past. Cultural differences in new lands
and exploration always lead to adjustment, sometimes assimilations, sometimes conflict.
This is nothing new, and yet, like all new journeys,
for all the explorers who pave the way, the road
ahead will be a path created for generations to follow

(01:04:39):
and who can build upon and improve our parenting, our
mission to honor our ancestors with honesty and dismantling trauma,
responses and influence and funneling it into our future generations.
Will that mean hinte. That is where we pave the
way with flowers and stable footing for the ones to come.
I hope all of my fellow Latina parents trying to

(01:05:00):
generational curses and trauma know that you are seen and
your ancestors that your descendants will remember as a crusader
of healing. We do it for our ancestors, for their
sacrifices and hardship led to their descendants and the ancestors
to come who will have courage in their veins, but
without the revailing wounds to our future ancestors, our children.

(01:05:20):
Remember those who came before you, honor them, and make
your own path of confience in your heart. And now
I will hand this over to fasta thank.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
You, Briar, and I encourage you to keep on writing
and please, you know, share it with us whenever, whenever
you'd like. I do love to hear your reflection. But
I wanted to take a moment, and I thank all
of my co hosts, prior Melissa Edward Leslie for joining
us today. But unbeknownst to most of our listeners, there

(01:05:51):
is a voice that is missing at this table today,
and that is my cousin Arlates. She recently passed away.
She was supposed to join us who contribute her insights
as Dominican American mother and as a counselor. She dedicated
her life to helping others, especially as a licensed mental
health counselor in our communities. And so this is just

(01:06:15):
a very sort of short tribute to her. And so
through this tribute, I hope that those who never met
her and begin to understand the profound impacts that her love, acceptance, openness,
and humor had on the hearts of families, friends, strangers,
and really anyone and everyone who experienced her gentleness and
her empathy. My family is heartbroken, and there's nothing that

(01:06:38):
we can really truly do to make this better except
to know that she will live forever in our hearts.
I am angry at how unfair the universe can be,
and I can only hope that her mother, my returner aunt,
and her sisters, whom I consider my cousin sisters because
we grew up four time together under the same roof,

(01:06:59):
finds in the love and light that Arlene always gave
so selflessly. This loss leaves an unfathomable emptiness, used only
by the love, care, and tenderness that she gave. I
will say that I am deeply thankful to Arlene for
being the first person in our family to accept me
without any judgments in my queerness, and for welcoming my

(01:07:21):
partner me into her home a couple of years ago
with open arms and a whole heart. I'm grateful that
I was able to say goodbye to her, and that
I could accompany her mom, her sisters, and her daughters
during this incredibly shocking and challenging time. I am also
grateful for the unity that they allowed me to share
with them in this moment of deep grief and profound sorrow.

(01:07:42):
Because she was an organ donor, Arlene was given an
honor or hero Walk, which was one of the most
fittual ways to be able to bid her farewell. Her
selflessness and love will literally help others stay alive. So
I am grateful for the death perence, respect, and the
sanicity that her sister showed her as they lovingly prepared
her for eternal rest. It was a humbling and transformative

(01:08:05):
experience to really witness how they pour their love into
that last moment with her. So Arlene, go in peace
and know that your family will do our best to
take care of your girls, our families future ancestors. Once again,
I can't you know. Thank you enough Leslie for joining
us today, and I also want to dedicate this episode

(01:08:25):
to Arlene and her two daughters. Thank you for allowing
me the space, Thank you for.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
Sharing her with Thank you Versto, Thank you so much,
Delis Edward. Do you have anything to share before I
do some housekeeping? And thank Leslie for her invaluable time
and yeah space.

Speaker 4 (01:08:41):
Thank you Leslie and Thank you also, Brian and Faustov
for sharing what was in your heart today.

Speaker 7 (01:08:47):
Yeah, that was so beautiful. Thank you for joining us,
Leslie and pastor your speech. That just reminded me of
this quote that I love, like after my mother passed away.
It's something that really helped me was Somemoselle Amorquezmo. So
she is our love, she is still with us. She
the love that she shared with you guys, is what's
gonna keep you all going.

Speaker 3 (01:09:05):
So yeah, beautiful, Thank.

Speaker 6 (01:09:07):
You everyone, Thank you, Thank you well.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
Leslie, thank you so much. And if you could just
tell our listeners where they could find more information. I
did try to have our information in an ad, but
I'm sure our listeners would love to hear from you yourself.
And then I'll just jump into housekeeping.

Speaker 3 (01:09:22):
Yeah, of course. I think the best way to stay
in touch is to go to our website and it's
LATINX parenting dot org l A T I Nxparenting dot
org and you'll get prompted to subscribe so you can
put in your email. We don't send like a ton
of emails out like every day, so please subscribe and
or follow us on all of the social media channels

(01:09:45):
Instagram primarily Twitter, Facebook, and I think we have a Pinterest,
but there's really nothing on it that you can follow
you on.

Speaker 2 (01:09:53):
Thank you so much. All right, everyone, thank you so much,
And just a little housekeeping. If you like our podcast,
Werediscovering Latini Dad, please hit follow our subscribe. It is
different from downloading. If you love our podcast, Rediscovering Latini DoD,
please leave us a five star rating and review. If
you'd like to reach out to us, please find us
at Rediscovering Latini Don at gmail dot com or call
our text us at six four six four seven zero

(01:10:15):
nine eight two four. You may also find us on
social media at Rediscovering Latini Don on Facebook, at Rediscovering
Latini DoD on Instagram, at redisc Latini DoD on x
or formally known as Twitter, and our dash Rediscovering Latini
Don on Reddit. If you'd like to become a Patreon subscriber,
please click on the link in our show notes and
join us next week as we discuss our veterans. Thank

(01:10:36):
you everyone, Bye bye

Speaker 3 (01:10:38):
Thank you, bye bye.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Re-air spotlight: Rediscovering Latinidad Season 6 Episode 13 Criando futuros antepasados con LatinX Parenting

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

Re-air spotlight: Rediscovering Latinidad Season 6 Episode 13 Criando futuros antepasados con LatinX Parenting

Stuff You Should Know