A Hero's Welcome Podcast

📖 The Latinx Guide to Liberation: Healing from Historical, Generational, and Individual Trauma with Vanessa Pezo

• Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S & Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S • Season 2

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What happens when the pressure to be "twice as perfect" meets the complexities of cultural identity? Join us as trauma therapist and author Vanessa Pezo unravels this very question in our latest episode. Vanessa's groundbreaking book, "The Latinx Guide to Liberation," provides a powerful framework for understanding the pressures Latinos face navigating American and Latino cultural expectations. Through the lens of iconic stories like "Selena" and the personal narratives of immigrants, Vanessa sheds light on the profound impact of historical and generational trauma. Her insights challenge prevailing stereotypes, urging us to honor the rich tapestry of immigration stories that underscore the invaluable contributions of the Latinx community.

Together, we explore the critical importance of community and a shared language in addressing acculturative stress and emotional complexity. Vanessa discusses the limitations of traditional diagnostic tools like the DSM in capturing the unique experiences of Latinos and other multicultural identities. Her advocacy for radical imagination invites us to envision a world beyond existing systems, fostering healing and connection in a fragmented society. As we celebrate the launch of Vanessa’s book, she shares the joyous anticipation of her next personal chapter, including the arrival of a new family member, reminding us of the power of embracing and celebrating our stories.

Buy the Latinx Guide to Liberation: Healing from Historical, Generational, and Individual Trauma at Jessica Kingsley Publishers. Use the code PEZO20 for 20% off. You can also find the book on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and on Bookshop.org. 

A Hero's Welcome Podcast © Maria Laquerre-Diego & Liliana Baylon

Maria:

Welcome back listeners for another episode of a Heroes Welcome podcast. I'm your co-host, Mariela Caradiego, and I'm here with my ever well-read co-host.

Liliana:

That's me, Princess Liliana. I'm still adapting that name because I like it. I'm just kidding. This is Liliana Baylon. I'm an LMFT, and we're here with Vanessa. Vanessa, how do you want to introduce yourself to our audience?

Vanessa :

Hello everyone. My name is Vanessa Pezo, and I am a trauma therapist based in Long Beach, California. I'm a Latina, I am Mexican on my mom's side and Ecuadorian on my dad's side, and I am the author of an upcoming book, the Latinx Guide to Liberation Healing from Historical, generational and Individual Trauma, that is coming out today, right February 21, 2025, when everyone will be hearing this yes, so please, as soon as you hear this, go get the book.

Liliana:

Like I mentioned, I had the privilege of reading the book before it went out and I just couldn't stop talking about it. I share with Vanessa, I share with Maria and I truly love the work that you did on this book. So thank you.

Maria:

Thank you. You know it's important if Liliana is reaching directly out to the author of a book, because she reads a lot of books and she does not contact all of the authors, so you know it's an important read for her when she does that, and then it's quick to share it with the rest of our group. So this is a book that needs to be on your radar and this is someone that you need to know about.

Liliana:

That's right. So everyone is doing it. Maria has a Maria. Vanessa has a Maria too. Vanessa has a big platform in social media, but if you do not know, we will include all her social media so that you can contact her. But yeah, vanessa is amazing in what she's posting online. Vanessa, tell us a little bit about your book. If you wanted to describe it, how would you describe it?

Vanessa :

It's really a book for Latinos and so I actually open it up. The dedication is I do dedicate it to all of my fellow Latinos who have ever struggled to feel like they are enough and at the end of the day, that's really who. I'm targeting this towards my fellow Latinos who have had maybe similar and different experiences, such as mine growing up in the US, and have had to navigate all of the complexities around identity and belonging and enoughness. I hope to just give background and information that helps us make a little bit more sense of our experience and take off some of that individual pressure that it's this individual problem If you don't feel like you fit in or you don't feel like you're validated, and open it up to a bigger perspective that shows us that a lot of that's by design and where it comes from and how it impacts us.

Liliana:

I love that you jump in there because the chapter twice as perfect. When I started reading it which is not fair for maria that she has not read it, but she's gonna get her her copies in when you talk about the chapter and you use the movie clip of selena, I started laughing. So, maria, have you ever watched, uh, the selena movie? Yes, of course there is a a clip. Is it okay if we talk about it? Of course Okay.

Liliana:

So in the movie where Selena is going to give a concert, she was excited she wants to go give a concert in Mexico and then realized that Selena does not speak Spanish. Welcome to all of us who do not have a perfect Spanish because we've been living in the US for so long. And her dad I forgot the actor's name who portrays Thank you, he goes twice as perfect. How we have to be perfect enough here in the US and not have an accent and speak perfect English. And then when we go to our country of origin not just Mexico then we need to have the perfect Spanish, because if not, we're just never enough. So the idea of twice as, twice as perfect, it's something that all of us who are Latino therapists in the US or just Latinos period. Feel that pressure, it's one of our core, like we have to be enough in both worlds.

Vanessa :

Yeah yeah, no, I, when I was writing that chapter, I thought like what is something like an example of this, because there's other terms people use, like something people will say like ni de aquí ni de allá, and that kind of has its own sentiment and energy. But I have always just thought that the way he puts it there, of having to be, he goes, we have to be more Mexican than the Mexicans and more American than the Americans, and this double-sided pressure that's so intense that we feel and then you often are like, well, I don't measure up in either.

Liliana:

Yes, right, and even when you said it, I don't measure up in neither Like the drop that we all can get familiar, either because you can identify it or apply it as gender inequality If you're female and it's just not enough. Um, if it's uh, you know, whatever it applies in in so many levels, not just in ethnicity, but you're absolutely right. Um, that was like something that I started laughing because I identified, and then it was like laughing, crying I. I was like that's right, will I ever be enough? Will I ever be enough? Not enough Mexican and not enough American, because it's always the other important. The other chapter that I really enjoy and I'm going that in chronological order is the migration stories matter. Can you tell us a little bit more?

Vanessa :

Yes, so I have a chapter in the book called Immigration Stories Matter and the idea around it is that in the United States, and especially now, we have these narratives around immigrants and people talk about immigrants obviously in a really negative, disrespectful and dehumanizing way, as people who come in and they're here to take or they don't contribute to society, or they are breaking laws or all of these different tropes and stereotypes that we have around immigration. And I've always wanted in my work with people to open up to bigger perspectives, not just on your individual experience and not just on your family experience and not just on your family experience, but like what's the context that all of that happens within? And so I talk about the way that the United States has intervened in countries around the world, especially in Mexico and Latin America, through things like their economic policy, like NAFTA, the free trade agreement between Mexico and Canada, and also in their disruption of the political systems in other countries, so financing coups, backing right-wing militias, overthrowing governments, and how that actually leads to immigration. And so I think I have a line in the book that like eventually people realize that one of the best ways to avoid living in a society where the United States is going to come in and overthrow your government is that you then have to live in the United States. That's one of the only ways to protect yourselves from it.

Vanessa :

And so people get like vilified as immigrants for wanting to come to the United States for safety, security or resources or for you know a lot of other reasons. But why are they leaving home in the first place? Right, most people would prefer to stay in the place that they have a connection to and a history in, but we have and when I say we, I mean the United States have made it where people are unable to do that, and so, you know, there is this experience of really like forced migration, where you are really unable to stay in the place that you've maybe had generations and generations and generations, and it's not necessarily your fault. The US plays a big role, yet we're the ones that get targeted and we're the ones that are made to be the problem.

Maria:

When. Americans are problem when when americans are immigrants themselves. Yes, I say as a as a as a white woman in the room all right, we, we are, we are immigrants. This was not our land, yeah right it would be really convenient for us to forget that yeah.

Vanessa :

And also the idea of you know, sometimes there's those sentiments. People who are anti-immigration will say, well, my ancestors came here the right way, quote, unquote, the right way. And so I do even talk a little bit in that chapter about how immigration policy changed over time and became more restrictive, and so sure, if you want to say your grandparents or great grandparents came the right way, what was the right way? They showed up and there wasn't really any narrative around being documented and undocumented. It wasn't until the immigrants were Black and brown and not white, basically that all of a sudden we have this new narrative around the right way and create all of these systems and rules and visas and caps and quotas, that, uh, we have the narrative from today.

Maria:

Well, and you, you said it perfectly, we made them up yeah the policies are made up based on a handful of people's preferences, beliefs, agendas, but they're made up right, so go ahead. I'm just I was super curious. I know that this is this is coming out and a lot of us uh, I feel like it's very timely, but clearly the work went into it before last month's uh, events, um, but I'm wondering what? Because writing a book is no joke. This, this, is a labor of love. Was there something in particular that like lit the fire for you to put pen to paper and put this out?

Vanessa :

I think the book is really a collection of a lot of the things that I've been really fortunate to learn along the way through my own journey of healing, through my own education, and so I've been able to almost like collect information over time, and I always say to people sometimes I will have an experience with one of my clients and I'll be like, oh my God, I'm so glad I took that class in community college 10 years ago, cause now I know what they're talking about in this moment, like things kind of unfold in a particular way. But one of the big motivators or I would say like catalyst is maybe a better word I had a couple of TikTok videos that did really well in maybe around like 2022-ish, and one of them was about a culture of stress that like kind of twice as perfect pressure and how, for Latinx people, we would assume that coming to the US makes their life better in a lot of ways, and in some ways it does, but actually it can be really harmful to our mental health when we live in the US, and there are some studies that show the longer we're here in the US, the worse our mental health outcomes get, and so I had made some videos about that and I had a huge response and people were relating to it so much and it opened up so many conversations. And one thing people would ask me is where can I learn more about this? And I would say, uh well, I mean you can read like this book talks about this little bit of it, and this article but it's kind of an academic article, but it talks a little bit about it and you know, there was no one place I could send people that was written specifically for Latinos and that was written for a general audience.

Vanessa :

A lot of it had come from more like textbooks and trainings in school and academic journals. And so I realized that there was a huge need for something that talked specifically to a Latinx audience about mental health but that incorporated not just like that kind of like individual lens a lot of self-help is but that really brought in the cultural pieces and the societal pieces and the historical pieces pieces and the historical pieces. And so when the opportunity arose and I met an editor with Jessica Kingsley publisher, who's my publisher, I just said to myself you know, this opportunity presented itself to me and I should just take it, I should just run with it.

Liliana:

And it went fast and it's going to go on fast ever since, but that's how it started I love that and I am so grateful for it, because we do need, not only because of how you broke down the chapters, but not only just as Latinos because we need to see representation, but because of what you just mentioned, which is there's no class that we can take in order to help us, not only to make sense of what we're working with, but what do we name it when in our training proper trainings per se we don't have this. We only have stereotypes. What you did in your book is you humanize, and that's what we need.

Liliana:

Can we be curious about the person in front of me that comes from Latin America or is just a newcomer? And then, what is the difference when I'm working with one who is first generation, versus second generation, versus third generation? What you're just describing right, which is true, the third generation is dealing with higher levels of anxiety and depression, and most people will say but why? Because you've been here, the longer you're separated from this generational trauma. But it's the other stressors that come with. You know some that we have mentioned, but it is true in regards to the longer that this stays. Now that it gets better, maybe the financial piece, maybe we start building other stuff, maybe you're not living with the cartels, but you know we have other stuff dealing right now. Yet is the mental health piece in regards to the third generation and what they deal with, that we don't get trained, yeah.

Maria:

That continues to be one of our talking points, liliana, is that when we talk about diversity and we talk about different cultures generally, what we're given is stereotypes and not authentic experiences, and often not from the population that we are talking about yeah, no, this is what I love.

Liliana:

Uh, as I started following you a while back, that sounds like I'm stalking you.

Maria:

She was, that's fine it's not stalking, it's fangirling.

Liliana:

Liliana fangirl but I've been following you for a while. So when I because I was like, how do I came across but it was through the publisher that I got to learn about you in the book context that I was like, oh yeah, what you've been doing for us. You've been doing this for a while already, trying to make sense and organize it in a way that all of us were working with this population, have a common language, but also, how do we organize it for clients? So you've been on it for a while already.

Vanessa :

Yeah, and I mean, it's also even my own journey as a therapist and working with Latinas and Latinos and Latinx people, trying to understand how to present this to my clients in a way that is empowering and helps them in their own journey. And I find that sometimes just having a name for something is so powerful, because it's not just this like mysterious feeling I'm having and I don't know where it comes from, but once I can say like, for example, the twice is perfect. The mental health term for that is acculturative stress. Right, trying to balance two cultures at once creates acculturative stress, and so now I can actually name this as something and there is power in that right. It's now something I can grasp, or I can kind of hold on to and understand and be reflective of these opportunities to talk and share our experiences, because we're not all experiencing them in the same way, yes, but we are feeling elements of them as a collective.

Liliana:

Oh, love it. Music to my ears, right. Which is now you started naming the different kinds of not only traumas, but stress that Latinos are dealing with, and actually other cultures too, instead of when we go to the DSM book and it's like can this fit the PTSD, which is the umbrella for everything that you're just naming, and not having that common language just with every other therapist, because if I say those terms, they'll be like what are you talking about?

Vanessa :

Is that in the DSM book? Yet you have this ability in this book again to name a lot of these things. Yeah, provide those definitions, and so I'm hopeful that you know. Just having that language in a sense is empowering to some people to be able to say this is something that I can connect with and relate to.

Maria:

I want to build community right. I mean, that's one of the things that Liliana shared, even just in the beginning of this was like. That spoke to my experience. It was nice to hear it, but it wasn't just me, I'm not the only one struggling with this or adjusting to this, and I can only imagine I mean, we've see this across our country. But communities are so, so important now for people, for individuals to find safety, to find healing, to find connection in a world that, while we're connected through the Internet, feels very disjointed and isolated. And isolated, yeah.

Liliana:

Yeah. So I'm curious when I say is there a chapter that you were like, oh, this was either hard to write or one that you enjoyed the most?

Vanessa :

Ooh, that's a great question. I will say, a chapter that I found was hard to write, I think, was the chapter on historical trauma. It's just such a heavy topic and I wrote that chapter after I had written the chapters on colonization and the trauma of colonization. I had written the chapter on race and white supremacy, culture, and so to come to the chapter of really talking directly about historical trauma and all that it entails, like it said, there's so much heaviness there and also it was kind of putting all of that together of how does that live on today in our culture and our communities and our bodies, and so I found myself really taking time through that because it is just a very big, you know, pain for all of us to contend with, and so that's definitely where I noticed myself really having to take care and to kind of take that on the slower side.

Vanessa :

I had a lot of fun with a lot of the other chapters, right, the twice is perfect chapter that you talked about with the culture distress.

Vanessa :

I love writing about that because I find that that's really one of those things that people can really immediately attach to, yeah, and not even just Latinos, right, but most people can have and they can reflect on some time where they could feel that kind of mismatch, even if it's just sometimes like you might switch jobs and you're going to a new job and the culture at this new job is very different from the one that you've come from.

Vanessa :

Or your family moves cities right, and now you're in a very different type of environment than you were before, and so I've always loved that topic because I find it's really one that really brings people together right away. I actually was just doing my audio book and my director for my audio book was an immigrant from New Zealand and when we finished that chapter he was like, wow, that's what I was feeling, a culture of stress, and he had questions for me about it and we talked about it, and so I love that even he was able to connect. So that was another fun one. And then some of the later chapters where I talk about like when we need and kind of having this radical imagination for liberation and what we want to create, I always really enjoy, because that's part of like the art and the creativity of seeking liberation is what could be a world we would build outside of all of these systems and what would healing really look like, and that's a really amazing exercise to be able to witness people take part in.

Maria:

Yeah, love it. Beautiful, and I know today is launch day for you, but what are you working on? What are you working on now? What am I working on?

Vanessa :

now? Yeah, but what are you working on? What are you working on now? What am I working on now? Well, you know, I really want to just kind of enjoy this book process and see what comes of it. I've really felt like there has been so much that's come into this and it's been, I think, not even just a personal sacrifice, but like a family sacrifice, like with my husband's support to me as I wrote this book. So I'm happy to just kind of witness this book be out in the world and not just an idea in my head. And I am also expecting a baby in April and so I'll be taking some time, and so this is really just a time for me to have. You know, I was really hitting the gas pedal for a long time and now I think I'm gonna kind of just coast and see where life takes me for a bit yeah, absolutely.

Maria:

I mean, you put one baby out into the world, you've got another one coming.

Vanessa :

It's fair to be able to enjoy that process yeah, so I'm excited for just this, this next chapter and what it will bring, and I'm open to all of it.

Liliana:

Oh, love it, that's a nice affirmation. I am open, right to all of it. Oh, love it, that's a nice affirmation. I am open for all of it. Oh God, is there something that you wish you would have added? Now, as you're reflecting, as you're doing, the audio that you're like, I wish I would have talked about this.

Vanessa :

I don't know that there's like any big topic that I wish I would have added, because I think this is something that I covered a lot of different stuff. I will just say now so much has happened since I turned in this original manuscript, right? So, even though it's now going to be February 2025, this book has really been done for almost a year and just gone back and forth with the editing process for almost a year and just gone back and forth with the editing process. And so just now, with everything that's happening in the United States, with the political climate and just you know, the fear and uncertainty that we're all living with, I do sometimes think like, well, I wish I could have spoken to some of this now more directly, but I don't know that any of us really could have anticipated that this is where we would find ourselves here at the beginning of 2025.

Maria:

Um, no, absolutely.

Vanessa :

Absolutely.

Maria:

And and I think this is one of those you know, you, you put it out and then immediately the world continues and things continue to happen. I think it's the topic that will continuously be on the move and adjusting and experiences will continue to happen and policies will be created and adapted. And you know, and I think that this is going to become just a living document out there for people, it's not an end all point. I think the discussion about culture and generational trauma, colonization there isn't just a one-liner and then you know it right, and it's never going to change.

Vanessa :

I think this is really important to keep in mind too, that this is going to be kind of a living document that continues to adapt and unravel as we experience all the changes in the world that we have right now we experience all the changes in the world that we have right now, yeah, and I am hopeful right that having a little bit of a foundation of historical trauma, generational trauma, individual trauma, you know, culture distress, that some of those things people will be able to say, well, I can kind of critically apply that to what I'm seeing now, or maybe have a little bit of a different lens that they can put towards some of what's happening.

Vanessa :

Because we really are being exposed to such high levels of stress right now and I think that's on purpose right. It's by design that they're going to throw all of this negativity out and all of these wild policies out and hope to just put us into a space of shutting down. And perhaps, if we understand what's happening, we can make more intentional decisions so that we can avoid feeling disconnected or shut down and have routes we can take to find agency and resource ourselves as needed and have a bit of space for ourselves to heal. Still.

Liliana:

Beautiful, beautiful, stated. So again, everyone, this is a book that is released today. The Latin, the Latin, the Latin oh God, I cannot even pronounce it. The Latin X the Latin Guide to Liberation. This is when I know that, one I had enough coffee. Two, my brain wants to switch to Spanish. Does that happen to you, vanessa? When my brain is like no, say it in Spanish, it just does this on me. So I'm like oh god you know what?

Vanessa :

no, so my first language was Spanish and then, um, I've been, I still speak some Spanish and I am more fluent in English now, over the years, which is something we talk about in the book too, about, like, how language changes over generations. But you know, even like the idea of the word Latinx, we have to talk about in the book the history even of that, of why I would use it, because that has its own narrative and there's a lot there too.

Liliana:

Oh, I think we can write a whole not even book, right About labels, when it comes to the labels that were given here in the US, because when you go to Latin America, either you're Mexican or you're Honduran. Like you have this, you don't have all these things, the exception of the US. So even as my brain was trying to reconcile that cause, I was like, oh my God, what is it? But that's the whole new podcast that we can totally do and that's the whole new book just on labels that we're given when we are othering. But I'm so excited about your book, I'm so excited about everyone reading this book. I cannot say enough about it. I wish you so many blessings with this book and, again, thank you for writing it, because we need it more than ever.

Vanessa :

Thank you so much. I appreciate you both for having me and giving me space to talk about it and to share that with your audience. I hope people find it to be helpful or maybe even empowering, and I have loved to talk to you both today.

Maria:

Thank you so much. We'll include all of your contact information and direct links so that they can purchase their own copy and put together their own book club and work through this very important text you put out. Thank, you. Till next time, guys.

Vanessa :

Bye.

Maria:

Bye.

People on this episode

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Liliana Baylon, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Maria Laquerre-Diego, LMFT-S, RPT-S

Host
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Vanessa Pezo

Guest