Episode 13 - Karina Mora: Season 2 Intro
Hola!
Welcome back!
Oh my goodness, I’m so excited to be launching season 2!!!
I’ve been working a lot on the back end of things after the first season. I’ve done a little brand refresh, and have started recording the episodes for the season, and let me tell you, I didn’t think I could be more excited than I was when I was working on Season 1, but as I dream and put a vision to what I want this podcast and community to look like, I’m just so excited for the conversations, inspiration and growth that will come out of this.
Like I’ve mentioned before this season will be focused on health and wellness. As we see on social media and become more vocal about our own metal wellbeing, we’re realizing the traumas and mindsets passed down to us from our family, are not really serving us today.
A big reason why I’m doing all of this and creating this space is because I think about my kids, and how I can do my part to create a better world for them.
We might think, well I turned out ok. Or our parents did the best they could.
And those two statements might as well be true. I know I’ve said them before.
But what is your definition of OK? Yes, we function in society. We have friends, we are fine. But have you taken time to think about how your life choices have been affected by your childhood. And if you have kids are you re-constructing what parenting is for them?
I remember when I was pregnant with my first child in 2011 I sat down with my family and made point to tell them that I was not going to tolerate any negative talk about me or my kids. I know Latinx parents like to tease or call us names according to features that stand out either in our personality or on our body. My father would call me“cachetes” or “cejas” because according to him I had big cheeks and bushy eye brows.
Now this is something I obviously couldn’t control, and I know it was said in jest, and not in a mean way, but it set me up for being self conscious. So I told them that I didn’t want them making ANY comments about how my child looked. I was serious. And to this day they don’t talk negatively about how my children look, and they don’t say anything to me or about me in front of them.
That was the beginning of me standing up for my family and attempting to change the narrative around my parenting. While it was stressful to have the conversation, I’m glad I did and it has given me leverage to stand up for other things in my kid’s life.
Let’s go back to the phrase, “Our parents did the best they could”. Y si, For me, es cierto, I know this statement is true because they DID do everything they could to create a better life for us. And I’m so grateful for the sacrifices my parents made to change the narrative from their childhood.
But it’s also up to me to continue changing the cycles too. I will say that this takes work. It’s so easy to continue the things that were done from childhood because it’s what you know. But if you take time to think how things have actually affected you today you’ll do the work to change, even if it’s complex and messy, and tricky to navigate.
I’ll share that from my father’s side, I’m a first gen-daughter of an immigrant. He immigrated to the US in his teens. From my mother’s side, I’m a second gen-daughter. My grandfather was born in Mexico, and my mother was born here in Chicago. So I’m navigating the complexities of what it means to be a first/second generation daughter of immigrants. I’ve worked hard to make my father proud as I’m thankful for all of his hard work and sacrifice. I knew how important it was to hold on to my Mexican culture and being able to speak Spanish, and travel to Mexico to know my family.
But I also didn’t have the experiences a lot of first gen-kids have because my mother was already part of the American culture. While I spoke Spanish, it wasn’t a priority to speak everyday since my mother and father both spoke English. My mother went to college and was educated in the medical field, and then chose to stay home to care for my sister and I. And while I’m the oldest, which does come with extra responsibilities and expectations, I wasn’t left to care for my younger sister because my mom was home with us.
So estoy en medio I straddle, the complexities and the privilege that being a first and second generation daughter of immigrants has, and thinking through that privilege is important because I can better explain to my kids the privilege they have because of the sacrifices my parents and grandparents made. It’s important to think about this, so we can process and have the words to pass on to other generations…especially as it comes to parenting.
Many times I remember being called a perfectionist. And to me that didn’t sound so bad. I mean of course I want things to be excellent, why is that so bad? I wore it like a badge of honor. But when I think about where that need to be perfect comes from it comes from the fact that when I did something wrong I would get in trouble and be expected to correct it immediately. I remember living in fear of getting bad grades. I was only praised when I got good grades, probably because I was constantly told that because I was a woman and a Latina I would have to work twice as hard to get what other people were given. It is something that has stayed with me. I worked my hardest to get honors and to make my family proud. And when I would mess up, I internalized it. So I was encouraged into being a perfectionist.
And then as an adult, when I couldn’t hide my stress and anxiety, I was told not to be a workaholic. Not to take things so seriously. And that’s when I realized that I had work to do in undoing the concepts and things I had believed and had become my identity. And I had to do that because I was starting to see the same traits and anxiety in my children. I had to take serous inventory if I wanted to change the narrative for my kids.
This season we will be hearing many professionals in the health and wellness space. They will walk us through their journeys and the importance of educating on the things that they do. Because while mental health is getting to be more normalized in our conversations a lot due to social media, I feel that in the Latinx community we still have a long way to go as far as healing ourselves and starting to dive deep into our past trauma that could go as deep as the time of colonization, something we might not even realize is affecting our present day mindsets and actions.
I really want people to come away with a better understanding of what health and wellness can look like from the Latinx perspective. This is something that many of us are trying to learn now as adults because it just wasn’t a thing for our parents so we didn’t see it modeled growing up.
We’ll hear from a variety of experts that will help us understand wellness holistically from a mind, body and soul perspective.
It really is complex, but I’m excited to bring more light to this topic of health and wellness in the Latinx community for Season 2. Like I said, we have a really amazing line up of interviews, and we really get into it. We talk about it all and dive deeper on some of the things I’ve touched on in this episode.
So subscribe to the podcast so you don’t miss when an episode goes life. You can also watch on YouTube to see our the passion behind our conversations. I also encourage you to share with others because the more people we have talking about health and wellness in the Latinx community the easier it will be to make a collective change for a better future.
There will be a new episode every Tuesday, so after you listen feel free to take a screenshot to post on IG and tag @elevatinglacultura or send me a DM. You can also comment on our YouTube video if you’re watching online. I always like to hear from people an how they resonated with the stories I share. SO leave a review on apple podcasts so we can get more ears listening to these stories and we can continue elevating la cultura. Alright, enjoy the rest of the day/afternoon/evening whenever you’re listening, y nos vemos next week.
Watch the episode on YouTube.
