EP3 EMBRACING DUALITIES

The speaker, Doña Fresa, shares her experience of immigrating from Mexico to California at a young age. She discusses the challenges of adapting to a new language, culture, and environment, as well as the trauma and responsibilities she faced as an immigrant child. She highlights the importance of embracing one's identity and shares her gratitude for the people who have helped and guided her. She also reflects on the pressures of the American dream and the negative effects of living in survival mode. She encourages listeners to appreciate their parents' sacrifices and to seek growth and emotional expression. Que onda primas, this is Doña Fresa back with you guys. I hope you guys are doing good and having a good day today. Today's message is Embracing Tu Identity. So basically, I was brought from Mexico, Acapulco, to California when I was about 5 years old. I don't know smack where the heck I was going, you know, so I'm sure a lot of y'all can relate. You guys have been moved by your parents to a different country. And you had to learn the language, you had to adapt to the environment, to the culture, quote-unquote, that's around you. Every state in America has a different culture. It's not just one culture. Anyways, but we have a lot of differences and we do come from different backgrounds. Everybody, you know, some people are not U.S. born, so we have to adapt. And I want you guys to understand that it's hard for us and we've had to deal with a lot of stuff, like not just learning English, but learning Spanish correctly, learning our traditions, our costumbres, things that our parents, mothers pass on to us, trauma that we're not used to, taking care of siblings when you're younger, and not being able to enjoy being a kid because you've got to take care of your older siblings. I mean, I'm sorry, your younger siblings as being the oldest. But yeah, so I just wanted to talk a little bit about that and see how you guys can get some insight from my story. So basically, like I was telling you guys, my parents brought me over when I was five years old from Acapulco. I went to L.A., South Central L.A. to be exact. And I had to learn the language. I had to go to school. I didn't know anybody. I was grateful that I met Miss Alice. Actually, that's my middle name, Alicia. But I met Miss Alice. She's considered a big idol in downtown L.A.'s Skid Row area. She's a humanitarian. She's a nun, comes from Canada. She's still doing this right now. I'm 37. I met Miss Alice when I was like five or six years old, going to her, trying to learn English. But she took her time to teach every immigrant child in her daycare, which was Familias del Pueblo, trying to teach us English and not have an accent so we wouldn't have to deal with all the racism that comes with you having an accent. Like they start being all racist. It's so weird how it could trigger somebody's mind to just think that. And it's so messed up. But that's the world we live in. That's society. As society, as humans, we are visual. We are auditory. We see and we hear and we judge. And that's just bottom line. I don't care who you are that says, oh, I don't judge people or I'm not racist. Even Mexicans, we're racist against our own people. Okay, so don't feel bad. And I'm sure if you're from a different culture, you feel the same way. It's a human trait. It's not a race. It's not a, you know, it's not a Hispanic or Asian or black trait. No, it's a human trait. We're visual and we judge people just by the way they look. So yeah, so sorry for my voice, guys. I'm just getting over being really sick. Had a bad sinus infection lately and couldn't get over it. But I'm aquí la libre. Como dicen in our language. Hierro a mala nunca muere. But yeah, I had to, I'm grateful to Miss Alice because she taught me how to learn English and speak it and write it and, you know, be able to put it into sentences. So I'm grateful. I'm grateful that there's been people in my life that have been able to help me and guide me in some way or form that, you know, that's made me the young, I mean, not young lady anymore. Shoot. La señora que soy ahora. I'm Doña Fresa. That's me. All Doña Fresa. But yeah, so I had to navigate modern life and Latina culture. So my kids, my friends, you know, growing up in school, like following trends and nosotros, we're like, okay, that's, it's for us like to see all the kids wearing like the new clothes and like all this stuff. And it's like, we got Payless shoes. We got stuff. There wasn't even Walmart back then. Like we got Payless shoes. We would go get clothes from the swap meet, go get the shoes from the swap meet right there on Slauson or Alameda. If you're from California, you know where I'm talking about. But yeah, we didn't go to the mall. I didn't, I didn't go to an Ulta or a Sephora until I was like of age to buy my own things was like when I was 18 years old. Right now I'm taking my daughter at 11 years old to Sephora. Psychological thing. I want her to enjoy the best things in life, you know, but not go overboard. There's always got to, we always got to set some type of limit. We can't just go AWOL with all this stuff that is being handed to us. You know, adapting to culture and other people that don't look like me. You know, I had to, I was very fair. I've been very fair skin since I was born. So even in my culture, they're like, you're too white. And but in this, in American culture, I fit in. But then I didn't because it would always be like, oh, you look exotic. You look, you don't look American. I go to hell. So it had to struggle with all that stuff growing up. And it's just, it's crazy. Like you just, you don't realize how that psychologically affects you and imprints something in your mind and your heart that you just like, okay, so this is next, you know, you're like, what, what is this? So as a child, we just don't know what the hell's coming towards us, you know. So, you know, this was a culture shock for me. I always wanted to go home, back to Acapulco. My mom would be like, esta es tu casa. I'm like, I want to make it a mi casa. And she'd be like, esta no es mi casa. Si, aqui es tu casa. Like, no. But yeah, so my parents came here. I'm a product of immigrants. You know, my parents immigrated here. My dad was a tailor. He owned his own shop in Acapulco. So he had money to come over here and the means to. So I never understood why the American dream, why they wanted to come here if they had it so good in Mexico. But I guess they also got influenced too by the Raza saying, oh, in America es mas dinero. Alla pagan en dolares, blah, blah, blah. And it is true. They were able to send their money and provide for their families. But growing up in the ranch, in my grandma's ranch, tenia mi burrito, mi caballos, mi vaquitas, mis cochinitos, all the stray dogs. And then moving to South Central LA was a big culture shock for me because it went from one environment to a whole different environment. And that will shock anybody, especially a young child at five. So we were just trained to just do certain things. And it's sometimes it's too much for us. But yeah, it was a lot for me, adjusting, adapting to people. To me, it wasn't rare for me to see a brown person, porque in Mexico we don't call them negros. Well, yeah, we do call them negros, but it's not insulting. We call them morenos, morenas. We don't say, you know, here, the whole white culture, American culture against black people and brown people because they're really not black. And we want to get into colors. As an artist, there's nobody in the world that is black, because we're all red. We're all red inside. But when I got older, I started seeing like, well, when I went to school, I had white teachers. And to me, that was like, a person is super white, like, I'm more of a yellow than more white undertone, skin tone. But to me, that was weird, you know, and then there was, I remember, I'm going to give you guys a story. There was this one kid in my fifth grade. I went to Ninth Street Elementary in downtown Los Angeles. Skid Row. I went to Familia del Pueblo. It was a daycare for latchkey kids. If you don't know what a latchkey kid is, look it up. And there was this one white boy in my school, and he was on the poverty line, okay, because that was it. And everybody would make fun of him because he had a lot of wax in his ears, guys. And I remember, they used to bully that kid. I still remember him, poor thing. But he was so white, he was pink, you know, red. And I remember, we were all, like, I'm telling you guys, we're all red inside. So if you guys start thinking of stuff like that, like, if you cut somebody, they bleed red, right, no matter what color they are on the outside. But anyways, yeah, to me, it was weird. It was not normal. So, and he was the only one there. So I basically grew up in a predominantly Hispanic community, poverty community. South Central, of course, wasn't as bad as it is now. It was much nicer. But after the riots in the 90s, it went to shit, you know, it went bad, it went crazy. I don't understand why people were burning their own stuff. That was kind of odd back then. But I was a kid, like I said, I didn't know what the hell. But moving from different countries, I'm telling you guys, like, I had to. Okay, when the riots happened, I'm gonna tell you this story. My mom made me, we lived on 46th and San Pedro between Avalon and San Pedro. Look it up. My mom made me get a trash bag and put one pair of clothes in there and a pair of shoes and a toy in case we needed to evacuate our home. Imagine this crap at six years old, seven years old, and you are still trying to adapt. And all these things are happening around you and you are a child, you have no control of these things. So I had to endure, I had to survive, always living on survival. I have been living on survival for a long, long time. And if you don't assess all the things that have happened to you, you will go crazy and think you're crazy. But no, we have to assess all the damage that has been done and acknowledge it and, you know, put a name to it and move forward because we cannot just be going in circles and just doing the same thing over and over. We have to be living on survival because we're just used to that. And that's where it comes down to this whole message, because even though our parents have always been on survival, a lot of our immigrant parents thrive off survival mode because they're always wanting to provide, trying to look for money, food, trying to keep everybody afloat because they have to help their mom, their dad, their brothers, their sisters, their drunk brothers and sisters, the ones that go to school. They don't want to spend all the money with all the, you know, ladies, special ladies out there. It's so dumb. And we need to stop living as a culture, as a Mexican society, as a whole, we need to stop living and thriving off of that survival mode, quote unquote, because it's caused so many health problems, mental problems, you know, family strains on so many families. It's caused so many health problems across Mexico, across the US, across the world. Because of that, because of all this dumb trauma, and all these survival, like, the American dream has turned people into always wanting more and more and more and more and more and more. And it's never going to be enough. We need to learn to live within our means. And maybe do live a little bit extravagant because the world is for us to enjoy and things are here for us to enjoy them and have them. But when you are just living to work, work, work, work, and I understand my parents, I don't judge them. I don't, nothing. I comprehend because I come from a place of love. I'm not coming from a place of hate and, you know, they weren't there, they didn't spend any time with me because they were always working. My parents spent most of my life, my whole life basically working, even Saturdays, Sundays at the house working. They used to work at the sweatshops making clothes. And they were always working. They never spent really quality time with me. They did go to my graduations, but they never showed up to say, hey, I'm going to come eat lunch with you like I do with my child, with my children. They never put me in like a special sport to be like, you know, something. No, I never had that. I used to go to school from 7 and be picked up at 6.30 sometimes from the daycare and go home and eat whatever my mom would make and shower and do it all over again. So that was my life for 17 years, 18 years, until I finally just decided to just go and start my own life. Yeah, so I suggest that you guys stop your own life, you know, and stop driving off survival mode. I know we have got that trait from our parents, because that's all we've ever known. That's all we've ever seen. And I think it's not healthy at all, because that's what our – we're doing the same thing. We're doing the same pattern. If you're thriving on survival, your children are going to be thriving on survival, and it's just going to be a shit show from there. And it's been a shit show, because that's all we've ever seen. But the American Dream, back to it, it does have a lot to do with it, because they have pushed our parents, society, to just strive for more and more and more and more. But it's gotten people nowhere. I'm sorry to say, but my parents came here for the American Dream, and what did they do with it? Not much, besides be homeowners and thank God to their employers, because back then they were able to get citizenship, and that's how I got citizenship, through them, because through their employer. They were Korean family, love Korean, Asian, anything. I love people, but we're grateful to them. So my dad felt like he had to pay them, and he stayed working there until even above his retirement age, because he felt like he needed to pay them back, because he gave us citizenship. But I had to literally beg my dad to move to Texas with me, because he wouldn't stop working. He wouldn't stop, because he just felt that guilt. And I'm like, dude, you already paid your debt, you've worked so hard for this man, and you're grateful that we've been able to eat off of all this work that you've done. But it's all been work, it's all been money, and money is not everything in this world. And I want you guys to know that, even though I have money now, it's not everything. Because you can have money and be miserable, you can have money and still be a shitty person. You can have money and just burn it all on stuff that you don't need. You can have money and not do good things with it. So money is not everything. It's good if you know how to manage it, if you know how to disperse it among people that really do need it. Use it wisely to build businesses for people that are lower income, or you're trying to help your community. That's what I'm trying to do right now. But money can be used. It's a tool. It's not something that, you know, in our culture, money is bad. Money is frowned upon. If you're rich, you're just like too much. But going back to my parents, like, I don't judge them. I did judge them for a bit. I'm human. I have emotions. I have anger. I have, you know, we all have all kinds of issues. We all have some type of trauma that's happened to us, and we hold on to it. And it messes us up. Like, it fucks us up. But I don't judge them. I don't hold anything against them. I want to use them as an example, because I feel for them, because I really did. I had to put myself in their position, like, visually, because I'm a visual person. I had to visually visualize myself, and doing the same things that they did, and not having the best tools for them, and not having internet, and not having a mentor, not having anybody to guide them. Not having anything, no resources at all, but just thriving on survival and just taking it one day at a time. So I don't judge them. I thank them. Thank your parents for all the stuff that they have done, all the sacrifices they have done for us, because it is really good to be grateful and show it and say it, and not just keep it to yourself. You have to show people that you're grateful. Just a simple thank you or a simple hug. Just do it today. But yeah, I hope you guys got something, and I love you guys. And like I said, don't judge people, because we all have some type of drama. Drama, trauma, we have all kinds of it. We're human. We're not robots. We feel things. And we just need to learn to feel our feelings. Let it out. Talk to somebody about it. Talk to a friend, a therapist, counselor, somebody that you trust, and get it out of your chest, and keep thriving, because if we're not growing as human beings, we're stuck. And just like the seasons change, so do we. Okay, so I love you guys. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you guys soon.