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Book Club: Of Women and Salt · Stuff Mom Never Told You

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hey, this is Danny and Samantha and welcome to Stephane
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Never told your production of I Heart Radio. And it's
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: time for another book club. Before we get into this one,
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: content warning for addiction issues, political trauma and violence, immigration trauma, sexism,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: and racism. We're not going to get too deep into
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: any of that stuff, but totally here you if you're
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: like I can't deal with that today for whatever reason, right,
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: And this is a great book and if you have
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: that depth to be able to wade pass through that
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: and this is a recommended on one. Yeah, oh I
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: loved it. Yeah. Today we're talking about Gabriella Garcia's Book
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: of Women and Salt, a novel that covers five generations
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: of mothers and daughters from Cuba to Miami other places.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: And there's ruggles around things like politics and immigration and
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: addiction and the clicklical nature of trauma, which I think
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: is a story we've been seeing a lot lately. Yeah,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: that's a trend. That's a huge trend. I feel. I
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: feel like we talked about mothers before, but all of
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a sudden, the mother daughter aspect has come through pretty
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: the grandmother in as well. Like it's usually three generations, yeah,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: talking and coming up. So yes, yes, yes, look out
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: for that. But this book is absolutely beautiful and heartbreaking
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and presents so many scenarios where these external forces are
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: working against the characters. Like I feel like it's great
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: in the sense that it's tragic and you can see
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: where character wants to do more, but because of all
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: these other things that they can't control, they can't and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: that hurts someone else in their orbit. But like these
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: legitimately didn't have the option right to help them. There's
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a similar parallel between all of them about how they
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: try so desperately to connect with their child but inevitably
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: pushed them away. And it's like a generational thing once again,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: as you said, it is, it's a very interesting, heartbreaking
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: but beautiful book. Yeah. Yeah, and uh it's pretty recent
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: and Garcia, you can find some really good interviews with
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: her about it or she talks about kind of her
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: own experience and why she wrote it. And I think
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: it was she was really well spoken about what she
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was trying to accomplish, and I think she did accomplish it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: So random fact, so apparently she took a class with
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: Roxanne Gay and after she published this book, If you
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: listen to the audio version, there is a snippet of
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: their interview. Roxanne Gay interview Gabriella about the book. It
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: was nice. It was a nice little exchange. I love that.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: I love that. I know Roxanne Gay reviewed the book,
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: So that's a that's always cool. And So in this book,
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: you've got Maria Isabelle, who became the first woman to
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: roll cigars and later the first woman to read in
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: this community UM in Cuba in eighteen sixty six. You've
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: got Jeannette, who witnessed an ice raid next door to
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: her home in Miami in and offers food and shelter
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: to a young girl named Anna who got left behind
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: after her mother, Glory, was detained in this ice raid
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: and sent to an immigration center in Texas. We later
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: get chapters from Anna and Glorious point of view. You
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: also briefly hear from Jeanette's mother, Carmen. Yes, and there
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: there are other women involved, UM and it kind of
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: reminds me I feel like this was a it's pretty
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: simple key track of the threads, even though they're not
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: told in a strictly chronological manner, there is sort of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: an overarching chronologically but not strictly. Yeah, and it this
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: was originally short stories, so not all of them. There
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: was a I think she had written a couple of
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: chapters as short stories and then autom together. And I
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: know there was some of the like reviews, people were
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: very not upset, but really so confused. I just felt
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: like it was too much, and also that they're like
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: I didn't like I don't like short stories, so for
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: her to write it like this makes me feel to
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: see that they call it a novel, which is still
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: a novel. Yeah, bt dubs. It kind of reminds me
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of Fainian Zoe was a Sallenger book and that's how
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: it kind of originated as well. But I love this.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: I love the style anyway. But yes, it does jump
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: around so much like any and I have had to
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: be like, wait, so this doesn't this But it's also
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: one of those books when you come to the end
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you realize what happened and I feel like you need
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to go back. Yes, yes, And in the front of
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: the book she has a like family tree situation. Uh
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: so you can kind of keep track that way because
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: it reminded me of when you read Joey Luck Club
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: and I kept getting the names. Wait, who is this
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: and how are they related to this person? And how
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: they related this person? Um I feel like this overall
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: was simpler just because there are a lot of their
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: stories were while they were very similar, threads were very different.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: So I could be like, Okay, this is Maria Isabelle
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: who's rolling cigars in eighteen sixty six, right, Like that's
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: very different than Jeanette and Miami. But still yeah, then
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: I had to have a little we may between this. Yes,
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: so there are a lot of things we wanted to
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: touch on this one. One of the ones that I
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: feel jumped out immediately to me was this sort of
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: idea of having secrets of these hidden selves and also
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: along those lines of addiction and not talking about that
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: or trying to hide that. Um So in the first chapter,
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: I believe, here's this quote, sun child, hair permanently whis
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: by the wind. You were happy once I see it
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: looking over these photos, such smiles. How was I to
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: know you held such a secret. All I knew was
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: that you smiled for a time and then you didn't listen.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: I have secrets too, And if you'd stop killing yourself,
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: if you get sober, maybe you could sit down, maybe
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: I could tell you. Maybe you understand why I made
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: certain decisions, like fighting to keep our family together. Maybe
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: there are forces neither of us examined. Maybe if I
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: had a way of seeing all the past, all the past,
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: maybe I'd have some answer as to why why did
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: our lives turn out this way? And I love that
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: quote because it's in the very beginning, and I think
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: that's a good kind of thesis statement for what the
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: book is about, because it's the book examines these paths
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: and this past um and how everyone ended up where
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: where they ended up, and all the external forces and
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the trauma that led to that point. And I think
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: this whole idea of I don't know, I've been thinking
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: about this too. You have this idea of what a
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: person is and how they feel. And UM like my
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: mom for it, since she keeps these baby books and
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: they're very detailed and they're very sweet, but it's kind
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: of strange to know, like how our lives turned out
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: and not that you know, anything super tragic has happened,
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: but you know, based on this baby book that I
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: think she's looking at, and then the trajectory right of
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: our lives. Yeah, And I think about the secrets, which
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: is again is a theme throughout the book. It's like
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: them sharing or trying to protect their families by these
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: small secrets. And I think about that because, uh, as
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I was with someone else's family, we were all hanging
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: out and I was getting to know them about their
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: childhood or about their past and the children who are
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: their children. When they were listening to this, they're like,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: I never need this about you what and trying to
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: get more information. But as an outside of course, I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: would ask these questions because it would go deeper in
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: and because as the child, you don't think beyond what
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: you already know of them, and you don't really like
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: you hear small stories sure about their past, but you
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: really don't get the in depth look of who they
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: were at that point in time, where they traveled, what
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: they've done, what they were ran from, what they were
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: scared of. Like all of these conversations were like, wow, Wow,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: I knew you had life. I never thought to go
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: beyond just what I know from what you told me.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: You know that there's so many things to asking the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: deeper questions, and I'm sure like there's definitely families who
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: do that, but typically as the children who are caught
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: up in their own issues, and we have a lot
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: of them. The children that is that come up and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: open to these new secrets or new discoveries, it's a
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: whole different thing. It becomes a whole different conversation. I
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: always found that fascinating about when you really start to
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: discover and then you have that moment of clicking up
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: like wow, that was you. You did that you Wow?
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I didn't know that, Like that's kind of that level. Yeah, yeah,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: And I I think that given again what you and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: I mentioned, like movies like in Concho and Turning Red,
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: there's this whole idea of the younger person not realizing
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: that the older person in this you know, like mother,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: grandmother daughter situation. Yeah, I struggled and had a life
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: and his day with trauma as well, and maybe you
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: don't know what happened in their life. And I remember
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: when I was in college, I found out that my
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: dad had a previous wife and had gotten divorced, and
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: it was really painful, and I was like, how did
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: I not know? Like I have an adult and I
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: never heard the story. What wouldn't it just happened? Right?
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: My mom was like, oh yeah, I thought you knew
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: what I would remember talking about this, right, Yeah, but
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: kinds of secrets we keep in families to keep the
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: family together or yeah, functioning. And then you realize, like, oh,
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I thought I was the only one keeping secrets. They're
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: keeping secrets too, and everybody in the family is kind
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: of doing it right, MS. Interesting, it is interesting. Here's
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: another quote, and this is from So. That first quote
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: was from Carmen, Jeanette's mother. This is from Jeanette. The
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: man at the door slides his thumbnail over the tap
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: of his beer. He looks at the nail. She can
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: taste the beer, a memory on the tongue. Why is
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: it that men can be hard drinkers, suave and smooth,
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: leather and whiskey her father. A woman who can't stop
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: is simply a mess, irresponsible. So Jeanette struggles with addiction
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: and sobriety. So I just thought that was really interesting
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: because I do think I think this is changing, but
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: for a long time that has been the case in
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: our media of like, oh, he's a real man. He's
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: drinking his bourbon in the dark, like in the gym light,
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: and he's doing it at work, or he's doing it
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: late after work and ignoring his family or whatever it is,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: and that's like how men are, and that's acceptable. They're
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: just down in their luck type of thing, or that's
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: coming from a hard work, like all of these conversations
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that really make them look like that they deserve or
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: of course they would be at this point in time
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: instead of being neglectful. Right, Oh yeah, right. I've been
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: thinking about, kind of along the lines of our Strategic
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: Incompetence episode, about how we also kind of glorify self destruction,
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: especially in men. Women you're like falling apart, get your
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: life together, but in men, it's like, oh, what trauma
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: has put you here? What they might put you here?
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: And I think that's a really harmful I think it's
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: harmful in a lot of ways. Um, but I do
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: think that's something that we've done, Like if you think
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: of it something like Mad Men, where they're like, oh,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: these men are messed up, but they're like drinking their
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: bourbon and it's a great character point and it's so
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: interesting and I'm like, right right in the office. Yeah,
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: I don't know we should be celebrating. I think it's
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: meant to show a flaw, not sexy let's not say
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: that's a sexy Let's not ignore that it happens, but
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: let's not glorify it. Say it's a good thing. Okay,
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: here's another quote. A moment ago, Jeanette had thought she'd
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: reached the precipice of who she wanted to be. I
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: thought she'd finally walk the halls of gables high like
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: a harder girl, like the ones with boyfriends who didn't
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: have to lie about sexual experience. So this is we
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: got a couple of quotes about this um and we're
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: getting to the others in a second, but I want
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: to include them because they feel like a lot of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: people will connect with this. When you're in high school,
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: when you think you have to be the sexual being
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: slash also no, because you don't want to be seen
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: as a nature. People oftentimes sexualize them, whether they want
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: to or not, whether it's how they dress, whether it's
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: what they say, whether it's what they like. Yeah, again,
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: let's look at Turning Red if one. Now we're gonna
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: talk about it, but they are. One of the big
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: controversies was your sexual lie. Seeing these seenagers and all
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: they really thought about was having a crush on a
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: young boy right, a boy band. Right, Oh gosh, I
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: cannot wait to check about that. But I also think, like,
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: that's a really good point you brought up of the
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: we stigmatize like sex said, and any sexuality with young girls.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: So as young girls, we feel like we can't ask,
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: but we also have to know or will be made
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: fun of, right, Or we have to know because we
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: have to understand what we're saying, and oftentimes because we're
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: trying to show our maturity as we were expected to be.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Make it up and then yeah, we we go into
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: a cycle that's dangerous. So here's one of the first quotes.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: But she pictured the men following through on their promises,
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: shoving her into their cars too hard to that juicy.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: That's what those cooler, harder girls did, wasn't it they got?
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: But she couldn't picture the popular boys at school, boys
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: like Chris and Raoul and Marcello talking to their girlfriends
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: like that, expressing such raw desire. She was amazed that
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: she could inspire such want, such need. She was baffled
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: that these same men who shouted at her and Sasha
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: did things that say her mother and father did. She
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: could not picture her father, her mother, She thought, these
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: men want me more than anyone wants my mother, more
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: than anyone wants the coolest girl in the school. Then
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: she felt good and yeah, and this is the same conversation.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Is that we really feel like our worth is based
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: on how sexy we are, not understanding how traumatic that is,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: but because we see it so often or being we
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: are told that we are often you're gonna break hearts
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: or you're you're gonna be so pretty, you're gonna break
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: those boys. That's what we think are worth is based
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: on and understanding I am more value because someone wants
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: to have sex with me than this other person. Right,
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: And going back to her versation we had recently on
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: consent um, this is another thing that I'm talking about
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: when I say I think we're in a society we're consent,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: Like true consent is almost impossible because we're raising girls
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: to think like this and to want to be the
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: hard girl that everyone wants to have sex with. And
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: that's dangerous, like you're putting yourself in a dangerous situation.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: And I remember when I was like in high school college,
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: people would cat call me and I would like smile
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: and feel flattered, like I'll admit it, like feel it, um.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: And then one time it put me in a really
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: unsafe situation where this guy like push me against the walls,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: are kissing me, and I didn't know what to do
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: because it was like I should feel good about this,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: right right, don't want this, do I? And I just froze.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: I totally froze. I mean, it's definitely that whole situation
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: of feeling like this is our worth, being told this
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: is a good thing, your desire, this is what you want,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: this is what the TV tells you that this is
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: who you are. Then you get there and you're not
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: told how you should react when something goes the way
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you don't want it. But because you think this is
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: your worth, you had to follow through to get that
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: value right right, And there's like the also the question
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: of safety and also yeah, if you do go through
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: with it, then you've got the sledge shaving right right,
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: and which is probably already traumatizing because the experience oftentimes
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: it's traumatizing if it's led by this route. Yeah, I'm
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: not understanding. Yes, oh yes, um, So here's another quote.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: And if we didn't specify, I think we did. But
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Jeanette and at this point, it's like high school underage.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: She's like fifteen fourteen. Yeah, she's young, all right, So
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: quote do you like it? Raw Manning had said to
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: her in class one day. Jeanette had no idea what
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: he meant, though now she knew, but she had feigned
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: knowledge because she liked that. Manny thought she was the
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: kind girl who know she liked that Manny pinched her
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: waist and winked when he said it. Look, I'm not
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: going to pretend I can stop you from, you know,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: doing you know, her mother had said, refusing to meet
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Jeanette's eyes. I just want you to know that nobody
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: is going to want you for serious things, things like marriage.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: If you are you know, if you've been well, if
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: you've been used already. Jeanette had giggled, and nobody looked
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: more used up than her mother. She'd never have said
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: it to her, but Jeanette knew her mother was just
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: jealous her father didn't want to use her anymore, that
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: nobody wanted to use her mother, that her mother was useless, right.
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: There so many sad things to this. Yeah, and you know,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: though I I do ruminisus to the fact that when
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: Jeanette was like she didn't she wanted to be one
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: of the cool girls. She didn't want him to know,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: so she just pretended. I was definitely thought I was
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: the cool girl because I was the one at one
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: point in time telling people about sex. And this is
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: like fourth fifth grade. I was the bad girl and
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: people thought I was so cool. One dude actually asked
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: me to be his girlfriend because I cursed a lot.
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: That was my rebellion, by the way, I didn't do
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: anything else, but that was it, and that was I
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: was like, Oh, yeah, I am the cool, hard girl.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Let's go. You know, there's this level of like feeling
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: that pride. I'm not sure if it was because you
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: get this attention and or you feel safe because you
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: do feel like you're mature so that you can tell
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: everybody f off. Essentially, it's very interesting. But yes, we
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: do see this new angle of competing with the mother,
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of like conversations and how
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: badly they can go awry. There's there's so many things. Yeah, yeah,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: so I One of the reasons I wanted to include
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: this is because I have a very similar memory to this.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: When I was in seventh grade. This guy essentially was
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: asking if I like blow jobs, but I didn't know
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: what he meant, and he made like a gesture and
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: I didn't get it, but I was like, yeah, yeah,
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: And it started this whole rumor about me, and I
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: became known as a very like sexual person and I
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: felt I think I leaned into that hard because I
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: was kind of like not interested in sex, right, and
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I thought it was cool to have that. But there's
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: so many memories I look back on now that haunt
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: me to this day. And then this conversation with the
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: mother of like, it's it's tricky because she is saying,
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: essentially like you can't have sex, You're gonna be used up,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and that's implying the thing we've talked about that this
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: is your worth, this is your value. But also on
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: Jeanette's side, it's unhealthy that she thinks, oh well, it's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: cool though, so they're not neither of them are having
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: a healthy view on this. It's not helping any right. Well, obviously,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: like the mother has come in a whole different view,
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna talk about Mom Carmen, her her background
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit. But yeah, I mean, but this is
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: that whole purity level, right, that we've talked about before.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: We've had that episode about virginity and purity and how
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: toxic it can be. And this is one of those
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: conversations of you really think by calling me dirty and trashy,
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: if I do these things that I'm gonna, it's gonna
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: prevent me from these things. The whole analogy of like
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: the you know, virgin bride being absolutely pure, and and
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: and and like this whole level of unused. It's just
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: such a gross conversation anyway, and it's completely pretending to
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: girls only it is oh um, And I want to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: include this quote because it resonated with me so much.
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: She was so tired of pretending to get things. I
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: feel that so hard, Like that was my whole I
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: just felt like the whole time, I was just trying
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to figure out how to appear normal and fit in
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: with everyone else, and everyone else. In my mind, it
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: seemed to be like having sex was cool at one
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: group that disagree to buy most other people, we're like, yes,
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: this is what you want, right right. And so this
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: whole thing has been based on a club scene where
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Jeanette goes to this club very young, and that whole
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: scene I was so upset with how much I was like, yeah,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: that's happened to me. Yeah, that's happened to me. And
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: again she's massively under age, like older men hitting on her,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: and she ends up going with one of these older
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: men in his car to a beach. Um. Here's a
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: quote as Johnson undid her shorts as he tugged her
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: at her tank top. She wanted to yell that he
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: should stop, not because she wanted to, but because why
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: would he want to be exactly what everyone expected? Didn't
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: he know how exhausting it was. She couldn't find her voice,
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: but it didn't matter. Jeanette knew it. Then harder girls
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: weren't happy. Probably nobody was right, right, Yeah, yeah, and
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: it did begin the chapter began, if I remember correctly,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of them stumbling onto a dead body. Yes, and this
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: is part of the scene that we come back to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: flashes back, because we do have an in between scene
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: as it opens. But yeah, the thing is really there's
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: so many again to that point of that whole scene
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: with her friend where they're trying to get cigarettes, pretending
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: to be over like a certain age, and then the
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: French on on like girl, no, let's go girl, what
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: are you doing? I was the person I was like, no,
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: we're leaving, Like like my survivor instinct was was too
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: heavy at that point. We gotta go, we gotta go.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: But yeah, that whole need to be cool, not sure
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: what was going to happen, wanting to take risks, really
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: not understanding what that risk is. And yeah, this dude
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: absolutely pretending like he didn't know her age. And then
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: at the end when he's like, we can't call the
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: cops because I know you're like, what fifteen? I love
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: those excuses she lied about her eight Yeah, oh yeah,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: come on, um yeah, and it's a it's so predatory.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: I don't know, it's it's weird when you're in it
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: because I remember being that age and being again yeah,
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: like flattered. But looking back, I'm like, oh, that was gross.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: That was so gross, Like he had to know I
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: was underaged, like sloppy, drunk or whatever. But also we
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: talked about when we first started working together, Samantha, we
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: did that Trauma mini series, and we talked about how
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: this kind of self destructive instincts can manifest in trauma,
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and I feel like that's sort of what's happening here,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and coupled with this really toxic messaging that you need
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to be this cool girl who will have sex, who
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: was sexually desired, and it's haired because I feel like
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: I was also like you. I generally didn't. I kind
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of was like, I gotta get out of here. I
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: don't think you should go with this guy. But I
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: also felt weird because they kind have made me for
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: like a prude. And that's not a great conversation either,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: because I was just trying to look out for my friends.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to be controlling, but I wasn't right.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: There's so many things. There's so many things, um and
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: then moving on, of course, and then we're going to
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: go on to the next quote in the books that
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: we like. Of course, Carmen hadn't known about the abuse,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: so we're coming back to the mother's perspective. For God's sake,
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: she stayed with Julio because she thought he had a
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: level of love and affection for Jeannette that would dissipate
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: under the weight of separate homes. Because she, Carmen knew
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: better than anyone what it was to lose a father.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: She understood what Jeannette had waited until Julio died to
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: tell her why she had let Carmen more than this
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: man live with him all those years, sleep in a
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: bed beside him, this man who was now an infection
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: eating through her. She would have killed him, had she known,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: she would have called the police. Would that have saved Jeannette?
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: Even she knew that was a lie? So at this
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: point we oh that Jeanette had been molested, and she
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: even mentioned that during her time in talking about the
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: dude that she rise in the car with. It continues
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: on to say, but she absolutely knew it could be.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: How many nights has she woken to drunken Julio over
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: her body? How many times has she fought him off
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: and then given in, thinking I'm married to him? Isn't
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: this just duty? How the violation has strangled her, How
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: she willed herself another life. She had thought herself a
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: bad wife. Yeah, and that's one of the pieces we're
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: talking about when you talk about like the secret selves
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: and hiding these things from people, because and all the trauma,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: that inter generational trauma, because Carmen lost the father and
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: she was trying to prevent that's so hard that perhaps
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: she missed these signs and then Jeanette didn't want to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: break up the family, didn't want to mess this up,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: so she didn't tell Carmen, her mother until after Julio died.
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: So it's like both of them trying to protect the family, right,
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: and it's hurting both of them. Yeah, And I'm sure
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: like we both of us have talked about our own
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: traumas and that that way we have done that, we
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: continue to do that, uh to a certain extent, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: why we feel like it's important to do so. So
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: you know, who knows, in our later life, maybe will
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: be another conversation similar to the book results of them
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: not talking I don't know, but then thinking that at
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: that point in time it was for the best um
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: and not understand. And I will say in this book,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: I really kind of really appreciated Gabrielle's way of framing
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: the abuse. So it was not necessarily constant molestation, it
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: was not necessarily rape, but it was molestation and it
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: was definitely a sexual abuse. But I like that she
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: didn't mitigate the trauma that it caused because I feel
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: like that's what happened so often, and so that's why
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: we women who have been molested but have not been
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: raped will say things like, but it wasn't that bad
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and try to minimize it ourselves because it doesn't feel
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: as bad as if it had been continuously like that
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: type of level. But that is still that traumatic and
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: it still will ruins relationships, It ruins your life, It
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: ruins what you know of safety. And so even though
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: like it was to me, maybe it was safer. I
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: don't know the decisions, but it connected with me as
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a person who's been through both of those that have
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: this being placed as a forefront of being a big issue,
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: even if by standards A, it's not provable, and we
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: know that because I've seen this in court cases too
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: many times as other abuses, but B it is it
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: is traumatic to that person and that family. So I
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: feel like the that narrative and the way she framed
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it was really really well done, and I feel like
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: validated so many of the victims who have gone through
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: similar situations. Yeah, I agree, And I've talked about this
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: with my therapist because some in one session I got confused.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: I was like, I don't understand why this incident, which
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: is less traumatic, is upsetting me more than this other thing.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: And I think there's so many factors that go into that,
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: like the circumstances that people involved, all that kind of stuff.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: So I totally, I totally agree. Um. And that's one
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: of the things I wrote down about this when I
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: was reading this section was that whole idea we've talked
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: about before, they could have been worse, Like I feel
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: like that was going on here of sort of dismissing
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: things because it could have been worse and it wasn't
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: that bad. It could have been worse, and we know
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: how damaging that is. Yeah, and that we also see
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: through that. A lot of this book is we see
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the trauma and the thought of this abuse and how
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: it affects other people, because I think that's a big point,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: A big theme of it is she's sort of this
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: domino effects which traumatic event. Yeah, you know, even from
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: my own experience and I don't know about you again
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: going through something similar to this, just like vir Jinette
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: or her mom, And they finally have it out, and
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: her mom's reaction was not great. She didn't trust her
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: as a child, she didn't she know she was not
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: even though Carmen didn't know. There's still that point of
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: like moment of like you're the parent for the as
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: me as a child, thinking on the adults in my
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: life at that point, that you're the person who I trusted.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't get that protection, so I don't trust you.
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: I may love you, but I'm definitely not going to
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: come to you, and that my traumas are not going
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: to be related to you because you can't handle it,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: or in my head, you can't handle it, or you're
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: not willing to handle it, or you're not willing to
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: protect me from it. So all of these things like
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: it kind of just really delve into this is why
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: the trust issue happened in the first place, is that
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: she felt unprotected in her home, so therefore why would
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: she trust the people who were in that home. And
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that's hugely damaging to to trust somebody to protect you,
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: or to even go to somebody and then they don't
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: believe you or they are kind of like, well, don't
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: walk the vote that sticks with you. M Here's another quote.
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: It's been only a month together in my apartment, and
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: I want him to stay so bad that I am
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: afraid no man has ever given me so much attention.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: It made me feel like some kind of save here.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: I am constantly calibrating who to be, what kind of
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: woman Mario wants, though I know that he likes me
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: because he thinks me the kind of woman not constantly
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: calibrating who to be for him. So this is Janette
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: about her kind of on again, off again boyfriend Mario
• 30:53
  Speaker 1: m who's kind of presented in that same because she
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: has the addiction sobriety story. He's kind of presented as
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: a bad habit she has. But I liked that because again,
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: it's it's sort of going back to this cool girl
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: idea or this hard girl idea, where we're pretending like
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: everything's fine and everything's easy, and I'm not constantly calibrating myself,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: but you are. Actually this is like our one of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: our sex in the City episodes that will come to Yes,
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: it is for that as well. Um, here's another quote.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: Mario likes that I'm willing to try it all, that
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: I'm willing to go there, that I am not a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: barrier to whatever he wants. You're not like other girls,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: he says, And I wind the words tight around me
• 31:38
  Speaker 1: a cape. The world is full of other girls, shiny haired, giggle,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: glowing simultaneously pure and sex and thrilled, groups of them,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: worlds of them, walking in community, writhing under club lights,
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: running through parks. But if he says he doesn't like
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: other girls, if I'm not an other girl, he will
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: be mine. Not There's so many things in a small
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: about all of this we have, we have, but like,
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: there's so many contradictions in there. Again, the tight rope
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: we mentioned all the time. It was like, you have
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: to be sex and thralled but also pure, Like you
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: have to be all of these opposite things at the
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: same time. And if you happen to slip a little
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: bit on that tight rope, then you're you're out ostracized.
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: Can we talk about that you're not like other girls? Jope?
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: So hard? Oh so I hate Like I've had a
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: guy probably five years ago actually said that to me,
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: and I was like, you said the thing, and you
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: said it sincerely. I gotta get out of here next
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: that you're gonna be like my girlfriend was so bad. Yeah,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: that's why you're gone. You're gone, You're gone, red flag done.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Uh And if you continues now it's my turn to laugh. Mom,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: I say, I'm nineteen. It's a bit too late for that,
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: don't you think and he's not drinking because he can't,
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: and it is the man he was, and I don't
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: love him. Okay, I've decided I don't love him, and
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: my voice snags in my throat comes out horse and
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: then before I know it, I'm gulping and crying, and
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: she's looking at me and shaking her heads like she
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: doesn't understand. And I'm thinking, say it, just say it.
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: And then I still can't just choose me or him.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I scream at her instead, but I would always choose you.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: She yells back at me, and now she looks like
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: she's going to cry too. Yeah. I think this the
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: pain of these dramatic things that you try to keep
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: under wraps and when you it's so scary and raw,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: vulnerable to admit them. And the other person involved in
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: this situation, like her mom, is also dealing with these
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: feelings and emotions in her and it's just it's painful
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: and hard. Uh Yeah, there's a lot of pain in
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: that little in that paragraph. Something else I wanted to
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: talk about, or we wanted to talk about, was political trauma,
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: because I think that's pretty throughout this book. Here's a quote.
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: Uh so, this is from Maria asabel who was again
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: in Cuba in the eighteen sixties. UM, for Maria Isabelle,
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: a scorching anxiety had long replaced those lofty early notions freedom, liberty.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: She hated the unknowing. She hated that her own survival
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: depended on a shadowy political figure she could hardly envision. So, UM,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: I think that's still the case. I think, UM a
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: lot of us feel in a lot of ways, especially
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: marginalized people in every intersection area. And it gets worse
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: and worse, like there's things outside of our control and
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: they're impacting our lives and our mental health and our
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: physical health, like all of this stuff. And don't get
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: me wrong, like we can do great work by coming
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: together and um forming in geos or protesting or all
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: these activism and advocacy we can do, but it's still
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: like there are these forces that are right now impacting
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: our lives and out of our control. Right And just so,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: I don't know if we say this earlier. So this
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: is based in Cuba during the dictatorship, and she was
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: things were changing and when they talk about literature a lot,
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: I know we'll talk about this in a bit, but
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: and it's a very big like her becoming a part
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: of the rebellion, her her love is becoming part of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the rebellion and seeing change as a dictatorship and the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: battles happened, and and like it's a big political stance
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: and a lot of trauma. So this is kind of
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: that setting. So we have a history and from what
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: I do know and I'm sure you do do. Gadriella
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: kind of started the book based on historical context like this,
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: So it was the basis, and that's where we see
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: the background of the descend that Maria who was the
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: beginning of matriarch. Yeah, yeah, and we get uh these
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: threads of you see, like enslavements and taxes and abolition
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: and how that's impacting her life. Here's another quote. Then,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: as she made a turn towards the river bank where
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: she did the wash each Sunday and bathed in the sun,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: she stumbled over what felt like a log anchored in grass.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: She looked down and screamed. A man, his open eyes
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to the sky and his mouth a permanent expression of disbelief,
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: had his neck impaled by a sword, the pointed end
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: emerging on the other side. Dick coagulated blood pulled around
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: his head, and flies swarmed the wound. Maria isabel looked
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: up past him and saw it a field of dozens
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: of men just like him, left rotting in the heat,
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: their inners and flesh unrecognizable. One giant mass of scorched
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: meat as a final insult, a hog chomping through the remains,
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: its face and teeth smeared in dark blood. She recognized
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: the face of a fellow tobacco roller. The grass quivered,
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: with Maria Isabelle, oblivious to the carnage to which it
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: bore witness. It began to rain, and she stood there
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: until a stream of red forced a jagged path to
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: the river. Then she ran, in her dress, torn and
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: muddied and soaked, calling out to her mother as when
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: she was a child, calling out to the giant, unheating
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: span before her, and it fell at the door of
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: their home. Her sobs heavy. That night, her mother died. Yeah,
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: so I think that the fact that Jeannette, as you mentioned,
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: witnessed that body. Um, there are these sort of connections
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: throughout all of these stories and all of this history,
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: And we always say this in like female first like
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: it's frustrating how often we'll read something from like there
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: and like, oh wow, we're still dealing with some of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: this stuff. Um. And then this idea that she called
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: out to her mother, like in this traumatic moment where
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: she was panicking, she called out to her mother and
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: then her mother died. I think that's something else we
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: see throughout This is a lot of like mother daughter
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: relationships and the daughter like even if the relationship with
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: the mother was strained, like asking the mother for help
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: or calling out to the mother mm hmmm um. And
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: to that end, I want to include this quick quote
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: about grief. Uh. And Jeanette has wondered whether loss unspoken
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: becomes an inherited trait just because you know, in these
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: conversations with intergenerational trauma, trauma that's sort of passed down
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: even if you don't talk about it, it's still manifests
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: in other ways, right Right then, don't talk about laws
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: too often either, like even the different deaths they mentioned,
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: and bypass it and then live in the aftermath of it.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: So I feel like it's very fip somewhat literal as well.
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: Um and continue and all. And of course we want
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: to talk more about the mother daughter relationships because that
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: is kind of the basis of this bok at the matriarch,
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, we want to come back and talk
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: more about this as well outside because again, like we
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: said earlier, it's a theme right now, and I've seen
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: this theme as a cultural theme. I don't know if
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: you would degree with me, like especially with the Latino community, uh,
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: the Asian community like that, and then like true African communities,
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: like we see that level of matriarch is so heavily
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: based on and how how big of an impact it
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: does have long families. Um, I think it impacts the
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: US as well, But again, we have a lot more patriarchy,
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: uh and misogynistic ideas in the US to me, especially
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: when it comes to families with that whole Western icet
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: Christian idea of the man being the head of the household.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: That's a whole different conversation. But I feel like this
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: is definitely a huge leaning into like Latino and UH
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: Asian communities that we're gonna talk about soon. Yeah. But yeah,
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: so we're gonna keep talking about the mother daughter relationship
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: in this and and then there's a passage in this
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: in her book saying Maria Isabelle's mother worn down by
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: decades of loss, hard work, nonetheless retained a certain elegance.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Her skin was smooth, with hardly a line, her teeth
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: neat rose unstained. After her husband's death, Aurelia had many collars,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: men with missing teeth and a sunweathered papery skin, who
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: presented a little in the way of wealth, a donkey,
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: a small plot of mango and plantain trees, but offered
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: care that she brushed off. She said. A woman does
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: not abandon love of God, nor of country, nor a family.
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: She'd say in those days before the men stopped seeking
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: her out, I will die a widow. Such is my
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: fate in life. Yeah. I thought that was interesting because
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: sort of compared to how they described Aurelia of like
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: the smooth skin, perfect teeth, and the collars male collars
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: being like missing teeth, sunweathered, and then her saying like,
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of this religious patriotic family level responsible
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: of no our widow. Right, I'm fine with this. I
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: don't need you. I think it's interesting because Maria's introduction
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: as well, when she talks about the books and working
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: at the factory, she also talks about people looking at
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: her talking to her. She's like I don't want that
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: and kind of that same level of like these men
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: do not offer the quality I need, kind of that
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: conversation or the love. Uh. And I think that was
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: like a comparison to the mother, was like, how dare
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: you come to my mother who was of this elegance
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: in this way offering me a donkey? Um? And I
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: like that. I like that's a strong sense of like, yeah, yeah,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: I know you're worth No, you're worth what you want. Yes.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: And there was a lot of a lot of themes,
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: current themes about caring for sick guardians and also being
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: the dutiful daughter, which we've talked about before too. Um.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: Here is a quote the baby's wailing mixed with the
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: firecracker sounds of gunna blade yelling to the sky. An
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Tonio's mother cut the cord, placing the wriggling infant and
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: Maria Isabel's arms wrapped a blanket over mother and child.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: But Maria Isabel pulled herself to stand on wobbly legs,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: we smeared with blood and sweat, trembling. The baby cried
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: out again, and she held it close to her heart,
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: tried to remember the feeling of her mother's arms as
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: a child. So this is Marie Isabel gave birth with
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: this like huge act of like war rebellion is happening
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: around here. I feel like there's some symbolism there with like,
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: you know, a new country or a new government being
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: born as well, but having that going on around you
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: while you're trying to have a baby, and then knowing
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: like this is the life You're gonna raise a child
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: in this environment or either find way out of this environment,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: which is a lot of responsibility um, which is a
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: good segue to my next quote, which is um a
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: quote where where it's sort of a stream of consciousness
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: idea of like raising children and the difficulty of being
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: mother and it goes thinks how even the best mothers
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: in the world can't always save their daughters. And so
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I thought that was a common theme in this too,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: of these no win situations, like you try your best,
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: but again there are these external forces. There are these
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: things that are working against you. There are these obstacles
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: that are set up to make things hard for you,
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: that just make it impossible. Yeah, right, And that brings
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: us to this storyline about we mentioned earlier about ice
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: um and how that plays plays a role in all
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: of this. So Jeanette's neighbor, Gloria is detained by Ice
• 43:31
  Speaker 1: and her daughter Anna is left at home her very
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: young daughter um and Gloria is taken to this Texas
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: Immigration center and she says, quote, I do not want
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: my child here where every child has a cough in
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the guards run their eyes, ever curves, hungry. I do
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: not want my child here, but I do not want
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: her alone thousands of miles away. I want my child safe.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: If safe, for a place, it would look nothing like
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: any of my options. And I want to scream, but
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: I swallow. I want to claud but I smile because
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: I need to seem good, because I need to seem
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: worthy of something, something, some solution. Yeah. So again like
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: that kind of know when situation of I don't want
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: her here, I don't want her alone. I don't want
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: to go back where it's dangerous. And you know, I
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: really do appreciate that she jumped into talking about ice,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: and I don't know how. I'm sure she researched it.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't get that background on that. I don't know
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: if she was able to visit any because we know
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: it's pretty notoriously. Did she she worked with a nonprofit
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: organization in fourteen in Texas. She has experienced with it. Yeah,
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: I'm yeah. So I'm wondering if she actually got to
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: stay because I know, like for a long time they
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: were trying to hide it and pretend like it wasn't
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: that bad, calmed down, it's fine, um, And it wasn't.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It was awful. Um. And as we know, in the
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: state of Georgia, we've had an incident where women were
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: given in voluntary his direct is forced to have his
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: direct me because gen x and uh, Georgia's racist, especially
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: when it comes to refugees and immigration. And I really
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: did appreciate that she kind of dug into that. She
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: made it a lot more human, and I think she
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: made it kinder than it needed to be. I think
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: she's made it very realistic. But I think she really
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: did because in the perspective of Gloria, she was more confused.
• 45:21
  Speaker 1: Like as we see, because the country, especially specific states,
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: are not welcoming to refugees and immigration in general, it
• 45:31
  Speaker 1: makes it difficult for them to be able to survive
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: constantly and to have access to anything or such as
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: healthcare or uh, you know, I d s. We know this,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: so I think the level of Gloria being both scared,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: somewhat relieved, confused, and then just giving in, it's just
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the mix. I think she does a wonderful job in
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: relaying the more realistic of what is happening as you're
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: in the middle of it, and then we'll talk about
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: the results of that later. But I found that really fascinating,
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: and I wish we could get more like that. I
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: wish we could get more narrative into that so people
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: can hear it and see it, because it needs to
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: be we need to bring it to light. But anyway,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: moving on and continues. Sometimes I want to be a fighter,
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: as when I consider attacking the men who stand guard
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: over me, what about not caring about the consequences. Throw
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: me in prison, beat me with your martons, give me
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: up to the television another headline. Some moments I want
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: my daughter returned to me, but God forgive me. Others
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: I want a different life for her, away from me.
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: It's ugly to admit, but don't believe the mothers who
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: tell you motherhood's vocation or sacrifice or beauty or anything
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: on a greeting card. Motherhood question mark a constant calculation
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: of what if, what if we just gave up? Yeah,
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: I mean this is that same narrative, UM, And I
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: hate this narrative about why so many refugees or women
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: in harsh circumstances give up their children for adoption, thinking
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: that they're giving them a better life when it's not
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: necessarily true, or they're being tricked into thinking that, and
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: or they're being treated and thinking they're just going away
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: for a while coming back. That's a whole different conversation.
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: And essentially the system praying on on these vulnerabilities because
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: you don't want your child to suffer the things that
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you have suffered, and trying to give them the best
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: life you can, and it's and it becomes such a
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: mixed bag to so many things. But yeah, but does
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: m Yeah. Well, another thing we wanted to talk about
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: that you mentioned um is literature, because throughout the book
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: there's there are these reoccurring themes around literature and kind
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: of like connecting people through generations. Because Maria is Bellows
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: reading Hunchback of Notre Dame or later misserabla Um and
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: then other le Jeannette was like, you see that kind
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: of go um, So Maria Isabelle. Oh, I think I
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: said Maria isabel earlier. Sorry. Sorry, Maria Isabelle um In
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: response to her wedding proposal quote, she said yes, So
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: she meant perhaps wedding vows had long ceased to signal escape.
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: She said yes because she had nothing left and a
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: learned man seemed as hopeful a prospect as she could conceive.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: And she says that he too saw a conciliation through marriage.
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: And Maria Isabelle Antonia had found a way to flee
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: without lusting after other shores have found a reason to
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: feign a braver face each day, she knew, and despite
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: the weight of it, accepted her role as liberator of
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: a frightened man. Maria isabel thought it had always been
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: women who wove the future out of the scraps, always
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: the characters, never the authors. She knew a woman could
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: learn to resent this post, but she would instead find
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: a hundred books to read. Yeah, so she was as
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, she was the one who learned to eat
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: in her community. She was the first woman to learn
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: to read, and she would read to the workers during
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: their lunch hour. She was kind of she was kind
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: of forced out because of that, and other reasons as well,
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: but it was something that was so important to her
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: and that she found so much solacen and so much
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: connection in and he goes on. In the margin of
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: one page, Carmen showed her was Jeanette's handwriting below another
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: note in faded script that seemed to spell out, so
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the same thing we are forced the scribble read, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: then Jeanette had added her own words, we are more
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: than we think we are. Though Anna had no idea
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: why Jeannette had written those words, she chose to believe
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: the sentence the scribble was a cry across time women,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: certain women, we are more than we think we are.
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: There was always more So this was in reference to
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: the book. Uh, this was what the book that had
• 50:04
  Speaker 1: been handed down from generation to generation. Jeanette had actually
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: gone to Cuba at one point in time, saw the
• 50:11
  Speaker 1: book in her grandmother's place, tried to steal it because
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: apparently she's kind of a klepto, and then got caught,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: put it back, and after she left, the grandmother sent
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: it to her as a gift. Unfortunately she had passed
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: before then, so Carmen the mother kept it. But yeah,
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: so the we are fours was a continued mantra that
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: Maria Isabella would say even when her husband died, like
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: all these things, being a rebel, like constantly reminding herself
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: as the matriarch that we are of force. Yeah yeah,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: And I really like that idea of this connection throughout
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: the generations throughout time. Um yeah, that's what I love
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: my short stories. They connected. Yes, we love it. We
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: love it. Something we don't love sexism, racism, which is
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: picked her out as well. Um so you do have
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: Marie Isabelle, who was a cigar roller, talking about how
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: she was kind of the only woman. So here's a
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: quote true that cigar rolling was a coveted, respectable job.
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: She had a printice for nearly a year to working
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: for a wage, yet the factory paid her by the
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: piece half of what the men earned, and she was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: the only woman in the shop and knew the men
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: resented her. And she has a whole thing with her
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: boss abusing her. Um so you see also that unfortunately
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: throughout time of the sexism impacting all of these women, right,
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: which is why I also I think she did like
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: her husband and accepted her husband was He was the
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: one that taught her to read and knew she had
• 51:45
  Speaker 1: an interest, so it was like he was lifting her
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: up and seeing her ward. So that was a beautiful thing.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Goes on. One day, as I played with two school friends,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: one of the Christian missionaries approached and spoke in Spanish
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: to me. She said, quote, despite so little, she said,
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: you're so happy you could teach the children in my
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: country so much about what's really important in life. I
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: hadn't known until the moment that I had so little,
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: even as an adult, when I had experienced enough to
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: place my own life in comparison. I marveled at the
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: woman's comment. I wondered what she'd expected, sad, poor people
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: being sad and poor at every sad, poor moment of
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: their lives. She mistook happiness for what it was, how
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: we survived and build lives out of the strings we hold.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: But she must have known deep down that she was
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: lying to herself. She had said, I knew the secret
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: what was really important in life, what made a person happy?
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: And oh my God, and that's so unfortant about Christian missionaries. Indeed,
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: that savior complex and the pity, the pity compliments, and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: you really just want to smack them and be like
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: they're fine, They've survived without you. There's a few things
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: if you want to help with them, medical supplies, if
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: you want to help build some buildings, if you want
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: to help get clean water. Okay, but don't come over
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: here telling us our lives is not happy. Right. Yeah.
• 53:11
  Speaker 1: That reminds me of that conversation we had around how
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: people will comment on folks with disabilities and feel like
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: it's their business. Um, so essentially make themselves feel better. Right,
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: this is about them exactly exactly wise, not appropriate? Goodiny
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: on uh this. I still haven't gotten used to the
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: blatant racism, how it commingles with revolutionary forever at times
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: in the older generation in a way that seems unlikely.
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: But perhaps I am naive, and racism among even revolutionaries
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: is as obvious as me sticking a lazy thong in
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: my pocket at sixteen, as obvious as a fact I
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: am no good, I say nothing. Yeah um, And then
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: here's another quote. But it isn't as though black Cubans
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: fare better in Miami, where racism is just slightly more polite,
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: a little quieter. This is the fact in Miami, Cuban
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: is synonymous with white in Miami, Cubans will scoff when
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: you call them Latino. I'm not Latino, I'm Cuban, they
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: will say, by which they mean I am white. Another
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: kind of white you don't know about outsider. So Gabrielle
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: Garcia has a really good essay about this and her
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: experience and thoughts around this that you should definitely look
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: up at. It's it's worth reading so much. But I
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: thought that was important and interesting part of the conversation
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: to bring up that, like proximity to whiteness, right, well, yeah,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: like passing a white passing is a bigger conversation. Colorism
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: within all the communities. All of the communities are very
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: heavy and prevalent, and we need to talk about that
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: because there was a preferential and there is another ring
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: of that, and that's so like offensive in itself, and
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: the fact that people are so ignorant not to realize
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: just because a nethlicity, you have a mindset of one ethnicity,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: that's not true for the entire population. So you need
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: to calm down. Yes, agreed, Yes, agreed. Uh So to
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: close out, we wanted to include a few quotes about
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: um the section on Jeanette and Anna when Gloria on
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: his mom. Gloria has been taken detained by Ice, and
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Jeanette brings on it to her house and is taking
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: care of her and trying to figure out what to
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: do with her. So here's a quote. Jeanette closes the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: door to her bedroom. She lies back on the bed
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: and balances her laptop on her stomach. Google searches what
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: happens to children if their parents are deported? A link
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: to child protective services, a link to family detention centers
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: in the region. To lawyer after lawyer after lawyer. Another
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: search how to find someone detained an immigration and Customs
• 55:40
  Speaker 1: enforcement database that requires an alien registration number for the
• 55:43
  Speaker 1: detainey phone number. She can find lawyer after lawyer after lawyer.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: So that the confusion and like no clear answer and
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: nobody was really willing to help you is pretty big
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: in this whole thing. Here's another quote. Wet squeaking through
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: her how us and leaving muddy imprints. She walks past
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: Anna drawing, still drawing a house, drawing a bird. Jadette
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: takes the phone to her room, but she doesn't call Mario.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: She closes her eyes and tries to remember the opiate rush.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: The watery, calm, the hit to the brain, delicious, sleepy
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: coasting his voice in her ear. Don't you feel every
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: molecule that surrounds you, everything is holding you now. She
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: doesn't call him after she's called the cops. She doesn't
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: call him, even when the police car pulls up and
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: she hears Anna opening the door and call her name,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: and her heart is thumping in her chest and she
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: feels for the first time. No, this is what it's
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: like to break. Um. Yeah, it's a really heartbreaking scene.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: Like Jeanette tried all these things and has no options,
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: and everyone kept telling her to call the police, so
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: she did and going back to that idea of like
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: no win situations. And it's just so so sad. Right,
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: there's so much to this, And yeah, the breakdown of
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: the book, just so y'all know, is that after Jeanette
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: tries all these things, she calls the jobs, her mom
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: encourages her to call the cops, saying, there's nothing you
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: can do. If you don't do this, you're gonna get
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: yourself in trouble. You're gonna get in trouble. You these
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: are the bad things that don't happen to you, And
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: so she does. Turns out that Anna had been with
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: a babysitter. Gloria was hoping that the babysitter would have
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: kept her and kept her as her own essentially and
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: give her a life that she couldn't, but then she
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: came back. They get deported and they get deported to Mexico,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: which that's not where they're from. They're from Elf Savador.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: So they get dropped off into Mexico, even though she
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: had repeatedly told the people asking for help that she
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: did not live in Mexico. Please don't deport me there.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: They get stuck there. Anna tries to take care of
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: her mom. Again, that generational stuff happens because Anna grows older. Um,
• 57:44
  Speaker 1: she's trying to take care of her mom. A lot
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: of sadness happens, and that, Um, there's so many heartbroken
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: moments that you're just like why. And for me personally,
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: I've had this similar situation, not this necessarily, but where
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: we have had to like if a kid gets in
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: trouble or families and committed, we were required by law
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: to contact the embassy and report them. I will tell
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: this and they can't do anything to me. I refused
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: to do so. I would never because I'm like, I'm
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: not doing this. This is obnoxious, and if we do this,
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: we're sending the family away from the child because the
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: child was born in the US. And it's the whole
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: problem which there is no solution and no one wants
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: to help you. Even when we try to find lawyers
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: ourselves as government workers, it was impossible. And there's that
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: one scene in which Gloria tries to talk to someone
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: who tries to get her to sign away something that
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: she couldn't read and understand. He's like, if you don't
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: do it, which I'm pretty sure is why she got deported.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: But also, yeah, Jeanette's solution was to call a lawyer
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: and the lawyer talks to her and be like, if
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: you send me five thousand dollars, I can help you.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: And it's so painful and so painful. I will say,
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: we do have an amazing group of lawyers in Georgia. Uh,
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: one of them being like somewhat of friends, a mutual
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: I guess that's what I know. And she's they are
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: amazing and working with the immigration and refugee clients here
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: at Georgia, but it's there's so few of them it's
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: so few that they can't take on the cases. But
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: it's so frustrating, but it's so real, and yeah, it
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: keeps going, Um, they killed your uncle. Six months later,
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: you still latched to my chest, You're still sleeping in
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: a bundle by my side. I will spare you the
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: details and say only this, I made a choice again
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: for you, and I'm sorry I had nothing else to
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: offer Anna. But there are no real rules that govern
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: why some are born in turmoil and others never know
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: a single day in which next seems an ill considered Bet,
• 59:32
  Speaker 1: it's all lottery, Anna, all chance. It's the flick of
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: a coin and we are born. And yeah, so this
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: is after Anna comes back to be reunited with her mom,
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: which is a better scenario than some, but it's it's
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: so sad in this intergenerational Also, one of the things
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: that we didn't talk about is that Carmen and her
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: mother no longer have a relationship, and they kept saying
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: she left and it was political reasons, it was political reasons.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: And then turn is out that Carmen had witnessed her
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: mother disposing of the body of her father after the
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: mother had killed the father, who was abusive and Carmen
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: never saw that portion because her mom tried to protect her.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: So there's so many layers of this, and then the
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: like ill set sadness that they all lost touch with
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: their mothers somehow on a left after the death of
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: her mother, try to connect back with Jeanette, only to
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: discover Jeanette had died of an overdose, but connected with Carmen.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: So that was an interesting ending, kind of hopeful maybe, yeah,
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: I say that shaking Lee. Yeah. No, it's it's so
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: much of it is as we said, it's beautiful and heartbreaking,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: and I love I feel like all the characters and
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: all the connections and all the trauma, like you can
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: see why they made the decisions that they did, and
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: we obviously really loved it. Highly recommend it. Yes, I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: think it's what beautifully written. I think it has a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: lot of conversations about mother daughter bonds and what mothers
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: do for their children, what the children see and try
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: to do for themselves and too for their mothers as
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: well sometimes and how it can go all right no
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: matter what. Yep, Yes, now it's really it's really wonderfully written,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: So please check it out if you haven't already. In
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: the meantime, if you have a book you would like
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 1: to suggest to us, please do our emails Stuff Dr
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: mom Stuff and I Hurt me dot com. You can
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: find us on Twitter at mom Stuff podcast or on Instagram.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: A stuff when I never told you. Thanks It's always
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: start A super producer, Christina, thank you and thanks to
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you for listening stuff whenever told the production. But I
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: hart radio for more podcast on my Heart Radio because
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