Aftermath Part 2: Mental Health and Immigration

education he couldn't. Okay, it's let's say the early nineties, a Monday, parent teacher knights always seem to fall on Mondays. It's a long one too. Alfonso rushes off the construction site where he's building the driveway of a house some rich family is going to live in. He's on his way to Marline's elementary school. He's running just a few minutes late to a conference with their third grade teacher. His rough hands are still covered in cement, his clothes too.

He's tired, like always, but he always finds the energy to show up to his kids school functions, and it's worth it. The teacher praises Marlene. She's smart, a model student, even as an eight year old. She's got out phones those work ethic, and he's filled with pride. Marlene feels a special pleasure in seeing the smile on her dad's face as he receives the glowing report. Then out Fonda

looks at her and then at his stained hands. I want her to do well in school, he tells the teacher, because it's easier to push a pencil than a shovel. Those powerful words become her mantra, the one she repeats as she studies for her say t s as she writes her college applications. When she gets into Stanford. They are her inspiration. Anytime things feel too hard, she thinks about the back breaking work her dad did. Finally, the

day of her graduation comes. As a ritual of appreciation, Marlene asked him to put on her cap and gown and flip the script on the traditional father daughter graduation photo. Alfonso's beaming, radiating pride. He looks like an esteemed scholar and a gray guilty draped in his daughter's cap and gown, and he kind of is That Monday night when she was eight years old, Alfonso gave his daughter the wisdom she needed to transform her life. More than a decade later,

Marlene pays him back by sharing her academic regalia. I'm Patti Rodriguez and I'm Mary Glendo, and this is out of the shadows. Children of eighty six. Immigrants and their children have long lived in the shadows of America. Their destinies aren't just shaped by where they come from, but the particular place in history in the lives of millions of immigrants and their children were changed by one lucky stroke of a pen by an unlikely ally, President Ronald Reagan.

This podcast will examine the ripple effects that Bill had on first generation kids of immigrants, who are navigating intergenerational mobility and transforming the cultural landscape. This is an untold story of luck, timing, triumph, opportunity, survival, and of course I hope My mom and dad are the hardest working people I have ever met, and the smartest too. My mom wanted to be a teacher, but had to drop out of school when she was fourteen years old to

earn money full time for her family. When she came to the US, she worked on an assembly line making large planting pots. My dad graduated from college with a degree in engineering, but it didn't matter in the US. He sold mufflers door to door and did other odd jobs. My parents did their best. We bounced around Southeast l a Lynnwood, Compton Paramount. But after Urka, my mom and dad got green cards. She became a stay at home mom, He got a job as the foreman of a large

produced warehouse, and my parents bought their first home. We moved from the Compton Paramount border to this place known as the Mexican Beverly Hills. Downey, California, is just eighteen miles southeast of Rodell Drive in the rial Beverly Hills, but it earned that nickname because of its affluent Latino population. For my parents, getting a house in Downey brought them closer to their American dream. The next step was becoming

a US citizen to see them we wanted to. Moving to places like Downey or Beverly Hills is an aspirational goal for many immigrant families, but the culture shock can be hard on the kids. For me, a first gen child of eighty six, sitting in those classrooms and Downey High feeling like a fish out of water, even in a place that was supposed to be a Mexican Shangra law was sometimes more traumatic than some of the stuff

I saw in the streets in my old neighborhood. Don't get me wrong, Erica was such a blessing because real talk, having undocumented parents wears you down. So in terms of physical effects, this often leads to eating and sweeping disturbances for children. That's Professor Regina laying out from UC Santa cru Is breaking down some of the ways it impacts children. It can increase pretty drastically anxiety, anger, aggression, withdraw, fear,

a sense of abandon mint, and depression. And then also what leads to attachment issues for children as well, because all of a sudden, you know, at the blink of an eye, a parent can be removed from their children without any preparation, um notice, and that is that is incredibly traumatizing for the entire family unit and especially for children. So this is a severed relationship with a parent um

and that is very, very traumatic. And in terms of the academic outcomes, um this often leads to academic withdraw and lower persistence and retention for children as well. Despite all that opened up for the children of immigrants, are could didn't change things overnight. Yeah, we got new homes, cars, ship like that. Mobility is at the heart of the

American promise. But that promise can come with a price, shedding community connection and cultural signifiers to fit into new places and realities, costs that aren't reflected in real estate. We grew up in Huntington Park and we moved to

Diamond Bar when I was eleven. Jessica Carral moved to a new city, way out in the suburbs of eastern Los Angeles County at an impressionable age, and that was a big jump because we lived in an apartment, and then my dad started making a little bit more money, and then we were we lived here in the present place where we're at right now, and that was a big jump. So I think we always had what we needed. Well.

She was glad to have the extra space. She felt like an outsider in a city where no one spoke Spanish. I came from a classroom where every single kids spoke Spanish, every single kid was Hispanic. Um, we always had the tall, white, blonde teachers and all the kids look different. But then when we moved to Diamond Bar, it's crazy. For the first time ever, when I was eleven, I saw in a person, an Asian person, one of my really good Friends was Indian. Her family was from India, and that

I had never seen that. So that was a big, big culture shock seeing the food they are, neighbors were all different and part of that culture shock was a whole new universe of pop culture. Yeah, at school I had to learn who the Backstreet Boys were and in sync and even just my cousin like, you don't know who the Backstreet Boys are? And I was like, no, but I know who Ricky Martinez, Like that's who we That's what you listen to at home. And that was hard.

That was really hard growing up because not I didn't go to one king because in Diamond Bar, no one had a king. Senea. I can relate to this duality to being misunderstood growing up. My mom didn't understand what I wanted to do for a living. When I was getting my start in radio. She would say things like that's not work or is this When she got how could creative work make me a living, make me any

real money. Her world view was informed by everything she had to overcome, so something like doing radio, even a podcast, seemed unrealistic. The world felt a little more dangerous to her, and she wanted me to pursue something with more security, something that can guarantee my future. I don't hold any grudges against my mom for not understanding what I wanted

to do. If my mom didn't get amnesty, I probably would have paid more attention to her words because I would have been conditioned to live with the fear of the I n S taking her from me. I would have lived more cautiously. But that's not what happened my mom getting amnesty. Believe it or not, it was probably part of the reason I grew up believing in myself, daring to be proud of who I am, having the

audacity to dream the dreams I dream. But still no amount of confidence could release me from the pain of being misunderstood. Out of the shadows, will be right back now, back to the show. Every experience that we go through lives in our body. That's the founder of Latin X therapy, Adrian Aere. And if we do not process that, it's gonna come out in some way in some capacity, whether that's verbal or physical. Um So our our body holds that memory. Part of the reason why Latinos don't tend

to resolve that trauma is cultural. I think in our community. People tend to also protect themselves um by creating this more so mentality that if you if you look back to the past, that it's a sign of weakness. And so I think that a little bit of that plays out and that's why people would rather they tell you like, don't even look back, look forward. And so I feel like a lot of the older generation adopts that um

for self preservation. Immigrants who come to this country not only more the loss of their place of origin, but have to adapt to a foreign country that can be very hostile. Often that means suppressing those feelings of loss to protect themselves, not looking back, not dwelling on what they've overcome, because of the reception that it makes you weak.

The reason why some folks don't tend to go back and and storytell you know what their journey was like is because it's it is revisiting for some people a trauma, and people don't have those skills. And people when they're revisiting and have probably talked about in the past, maybe by accidents, they experience all of these somatic, these these experience that they went through years ago back in their body, like as if they're reliving it again that embodied pain

impacts everything. One legacy of trauma is constant vigilance. Being always on the lookout for danger. Any threat, real or imagine feels heightened. It's a kind of hyper sensitive state that makes relating to others difficult for survivors of trauma, even with their own kids, and don't also know how to be empathic and compassionate towards a child that is struggling, because that parent also wishes that they had this opportunity

that they are giving to this child. The tension between immigrants and you know, American raised kids is so intense in many households. You know, of course, there there are some children that suppress their needs and you know, don't don't speak out about them, and then there's others that can even show up as rebellious, but really that's like how they're trying to communicate all of these differences and

changes language place. You nique psychological role in the lives of first generation immigrant children who become mediators between two cultures. There are so many unique nuances within our community being first gen as in I think people don't understand that from a very young age, we had so many responsibilities writing checks, translating work conversations, or legal or doctor's appointments,

um just from a super young age. That burden and mediating two cultures forced many of those kids to have to grow up fast, sacrificing parts of their childhood. Like Marcella Sanchez who wrote that letter to Reagan, I wanted to make sure that my dad was taking care of because he took care of us. Or like Raina Solis from a few episodes ago, there was just a line of people and I was just asked to come to the front of the line and translate for somebody who

did not speak English. And while growing up fast or grentification can have detrimental effects, it's born out of a finally a tune radar for vulnerability and a desire to help. They could be the helper in many different scenarios. They're always maybe just like sacrificing themselves for the sake of helping others. For CC go miss her traumas directly tied to language and Urka. Cci was born in Durango, Mexico, and came to the States when she was only eleven.

Soon after she started prepping for her amnesty interview, she basically went through questions kind of mathematically drilling me as far as like dates and how I got there, and so that interview relied heavily on that coaching. Essentially, what she didn't plan was the fact that the interview was just gonna be for me, by my self. And that's when things started to turn. Anxiety started to creep in

and she panicked. So I'm standing in front of the woman, and sure thing, she goes by um, question by question, kind of like what my mom had drilled me for many months before. And the lady stops in the middle of the questions and she she goes, you know, if you're lying about anything, you can get in bigger trouble, and your mom can get in bigger trouble. And that right there just kind of shook me. And so the

following questions I just buckled and I couldn't answer. I didn't know how to answer, and I just kind of, you know, splurred out whatever what was happening with home? You know, I just said, you know, I got here not too long and I wanted to see my mom and I wanted to stay with my mom, and my mom had been here for all these years, and I just wanted to stay with my mom, and immediately she looks at me and she's like, okay, denied and shoves

my paperwork to the side. In her young mind, it was the worst possible outcome, but it was multiplied by fear or what her mom would say. And I remember walking out sobbing, because not only was I sad about what just had happened, but I was really scared about how my mom was going to respond after her drilling me to stick to the um questions. The weight of that responsibility weighed heavy on her, costing her to develop a speech disability at home. I'm constantly in fear, constantly

in fear. I was actually a selective mute up until the age of fifteen. Selective mutism kind of falls within the language disorder, and it's often triggered by anxiety. It's often cost or brought on by a traumatic event of sorts, and you wherever it is that those triggers might be at the peak um that is where your voice just kind of shuts down. When I had the interview, the initial interview for the amnesty process, um being asked or actually being told to not lie. At that age, of course,

it triggered um a sense of anxiety. Out of the shadows will be right back now, back to the show. One of the biggest issues kids of immigrants often endure is navigating the dual cultures that their parents can't help with. And it's a weird dichotomy because for many of us children of eighty six, we've grown up embracing our families, culture, traditions, and identity at us on the weekends, Selena Cruz. We even grow up loving our parents country national soccer team

over Team USA. But then you turn on the TV or the radio and life is completely different. So for many kids, you begin wondering if something is wrong with your life. You grew up asking why is it if the holess every night for dinner and not McDonald's. It felt like we were kind of guess that, Cindy Rown says after RCA, her family moved to Laguna Beach, an upper class neighborhood depicted in the hit Fox TV show v oc Growing up in an affluent area was isolating

for Cindy, one of the few Latinas in the city. No, no, I never felt like a belonged there. I still don't really feel like I belong here. I feel like that whole imposter syndrome thing right, like we're just pretending. But I know now that, like I worked really hard and I belong here and I've earned my spot here. But I think growing up it didn't really feel that way. We always had to be good and do good and do good in school, like we had to do our best to just not stand out in any bad ways

and reflect really positively about our family. But Cindy didn't want to fit in. I had this idea in my mind from my young age that I needed to get out of here, like I needed to leave. That opportunity to leave the o C finally came in the form of a piece of mail. I remember sitting on my mom's bed and I remember opening the letter just thinking it was some other like acceptance letter, and I remember reading through it and them just saying the full academic scholarship.

And I remember I just like froze because I couldn't believe it. And I remember being scared. Remember I got goose bumps that I wanted to cry, And then I turned around. I looked at my mom and she had like tears in her eyes too, and she just kind of nodded, because I think she understood in that moment too, like this is it Cynthe now recognizes that being able to go to college on a full ride was just one of the benefits from her time in like Guna Beach,

one of the lasting impacts of Urica. There's so many things that because of the amnesty, we were able to do, like you know, as a family, were able to travel back and forth in New Mexico. I was able to have this incredible relationship with not just my grandparents, my great grandparents, my great uncle's, my cousins, like so much, so much family, so much love that I got to feel being able to connect with our family's roots was

one of the unexpected bonuses of IRKA. According to the Helio sans A, professor at University of Texas at San Antonio, it also provided uh individuals the opportunity to maintain their roots in Mexico, to return freely and to be able to come back here. So there's that that that duality also in terms of keeping the language, that people could take their children, but to visit family and so forth.

In the long tradition of people going back during the summers for the holidays, and so for the maintaining those ties, that fluentity was important to so many of the people we talked to. Curio I used to take him too a sable to celebrate his birthday with barrios and everything. According to Professor laying out, IRCA rattled other gates that had been close to immigrants from around the world, opening up new possibilities. There were definite benefits in terms of

the psychological, social, and material impacts for young people. It made college in the career seemed possible, and so with that also comes in increased sense of self confidence, self determination, and hope in this reduced vigilance and possibility that every single person in the world deserves to have. That possibility was enough enough to create a Latino middle class. Here's Professor Francisco Riverabattis, who teaches economics and education at Columbia University.

You're talking that about of ease on documented immigrant who applied for legalization were for Mexico, so it's a big chunk of the community. It's certainly pushed the middle class among the Latino population to grow more and them without it. A big part of that growth was seen through education. In thirteen Glena cor Tess wrote a paper rescifically about these about these children, and she found that these um original dreamers in a sense that they actually received legalization

uh sixteen percentage points greater college enrollment. The children often documented immigrants in general, those who had not been legalized. Martin A. Rolsco was one of those children. But I remember my dad in third grade. Marline is the young graduate from the photo at the top of the show, and it was her father's words of wisdom that bear repeating.

He came in his construction clothes with cement, you know, cement chips on his hands and his clothing, and you know, he told my teacher that he wants me to do well in school because it's much easier to push a pencil than it is a shovel. It may sound like heavy stuff for a kid learning her timetables, but it landed. And I think that that that framing really resonated with me. I recalled, I mean I would this was in third grade. I was like, what eight nine years old, and that

really resonated with me. I mean, I would see my dad worked long hours. My dad is incredibly smart, and again with a sixth grade education, I think about what could have been for him had he been provided the opportunity to go to college. And so I've made it my life's mission to go to college and get additional degrees as well. Their mission becomes hers, her fulfillment becomes her parents. Children of eighty six find themselves swapping rolls

on and off like her cap and gown. And I, you know, I credit my my parents, but I just I know what what that meant for them. My mom, if you go to our house, she has a full wall. She talks about how it's like her multimillion dollar wall of all of my siblings um uh diplomas. So she has my Stanford one, my Heart one Harvard one. I just graduated from Stanford UM with my PhD. So she newly minted has that one on the wall. All of

my siblings went to UM college. My brother became a lawyer, my sister is a news anchor on a English news station uh TV news station, and and my brother is just like a business guru. Well, the resilience of the immigrants whose stories we've heard this season is undeniable. It extends to their children as well. Cindy and CC made the best of their parents newfound liberties. They were able

to make their parents proud with their accomplishments. But it is important to note that these mental scars that we've outlined still persist in our communities. The pressure to excel the weight of unfulfilled dream can feel like dragging around an invisible plow. But there's one cultural difference that might inspire hope for the future that generation of kids, those children of eighties six, have a better understanding of the

role mental health place. Those stigma surrounding therapy and resolving trauma still exists, but at least now there's a concerned effort to address them, to acknowledge the vicious cycle that trauma can create in both direct and indirect ways. Here CC again, I had many years of therapy, and I

still have therapy. Um. Ironically, I'm a psychologist, right, so um, But therapy and also coming to terms that maybe my mom Obviously obviously my mom had mental health issues, so understanding that and having a conversation with her, she never apologized for her behavior towards me at all, so I see it from a different angle to maybe rationalize a little bit of her choices, not to dismiss her behavior but just to understand a little bit more on the

angle of being a woman, being brown, having to face all these um issues on your own right because she was also by herself. Um, I mean I was by myself, but she was by herself for a while and having to kind of battle all of these issues here in this in this country as well. So I'm very proud that she made the choices that she did. Obviously I'm here because of her choices. So just kind of having some understanding and some empathy a little bit about that.

But for some people like Erica L. Sanchez, New York Times bestselling author of I'm Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, working through those mental wounds in her work and therapy be it's essential. I mean, I think when your society hates your people, you kind of learned to internalize that.

And it makes me really sad. And and that's exactly why I wrote Mexican Daughter, because I wanted kids to feel good about being Mexican, uh and girls in particular, and so and to also show them that it's that I understand that there's circumstances are not are not good in many ways, and that it's unfair and so yeah,

I guess that was my whole journey. I went through like loving being Mexican, then like high school, just feeling some kind of way about it, and then eventually becoming this person that I am now where I just rapped hart from my peeps. I relate to eric Uh in her search for creative outlets like writing, storytelling, which aren't always the norm in our communities, especially for our parents

who don't really understand it. They didn't know what the hell was going on for me, so all of a sudden, be like, I'm a writer, I'm an intellectual, I'm a feminist. I think everybody was so perplexed, and then eventually they got on board and now they're extremely proud. But yeah, it's not something that we do. It took a lot of work for her to cope with that clash with her family, finally getting into a place where I don't

feel bad about everything. And it's been constant work, through therapy, through writing, through talking to friends, to talking to my husband, to meditation. So yeah, it's just so hard. So now I look back and I'm like, yeah, she hurt me. He hurt me, But they were doing their best, and I have to just let it go because otherwise it's just going to hurt for the rest of my life, and I don't want that, and I want to heal for my daughter, So then my daughter doesn't have to

carry that ship with her. That's not fair. So it's my job to do the work in order for her to be unencumbered. Erica is closing that cycle of hurt in order to make sure that our kids don't suffer the same emotional wounds. We have to understand where our parents were coming from. As a teenager, I blame my mom for my family's difficult upbringing. I blame my parents for being poor, but that psychle ends with me. I've started to forgive myself for being a bad daughter. I

forgive my mom for not understanding me. YEA. Thinking back to my childhood, man, I used to resent my parents from moving us to Downey. I was around wealthy kids, and I felt out of place and way behind. The schools that I went to before in my old neighborhood had outdated textbooks, so I was away behind my age group. I did so poorly on the entrance exams at Downey that I was put in special ad. I had to rush to catch up I hated it. I had to

start all over again. But as I grew up, I started to understand that my parents were playing the long game. Our house in the Mexican Beverly Hills wasn't some very tale. It took a lot of elbow grease, time and sacrifice to make it at home. Now I see and appreciate that sacrifice. I see the roots my parents were planting. Like the monarch butterflies who migrate to survive the cold winters. They may not get to the promised and themselves, but they fly far enough for their kids to get there.

And that is why it is so important for us to carry this legacy forward for a whole new generation. There are more than eleven million undocumented people in the US today. Senator Alan Simpson said it best we had to do something there after thirty decus of doing nothing for some eleven million undocumented families. Simpson's words are more true than ever. Something needs to be done. What's coming That's on the next episode of Out of the Shadows,

Children of eighty six. If you love this podcast, please help us get the word out by following, rating, reviewing, and sharing it with your friends. Out of the Shadows is written by Caesar Hernandez. It's also written, edited, hosted, an executive produced by Patti Rodriguez and Eric Glendo. It's produced by Bettic Cardanas, Karen Lopez and Gabby Watts. Its sound design mixed and mastered by Jesse Nice Longer. Our studio engineer is Clay Hillenburg. Karen Garcia That's Me is

our announcer. Out of the Shadows is a production of Seeing Me Other Productions and School of Humans in partnership with I Hearts Michael Dura Podcast Network. The podcast has also executive produced by Giselle Bantes, Virginian Prescott, Brandon Barr, and Chad Crowley. Our marketing and our team is led by Jasmine Mehea. Original music by a Arenas and if you loved his cover of Los Caminos La Viva this podcast theme song, you can listen to it on all

music platforms. Historical audio for Out of the Shadows comes from the Reagan Presidential Library and the National Archives. Special thanks to Ian Vargas, Alex and Alie, Caitlin Becker, gob Chabran, Daisy Church, Angel Lopez Glendo, Julianna Camiz, Ryan Gordon, Brian Matheson, Claudia Marti Corina, Oscar Ramidez, John Rodriguez, Juan Rodriguez, Joshua Sandoval, Eric Sclar, Tony Sorrentino, and Megan Tans