Latest / Age Defiantly with Mark Young / [Ep 16] How Storytelling Bridges Cultures | Dr. Ligia

Transcript

[Ep 16] How Storytelling Bridges Cultures | Dr. Ligia · Age Defiantly with Mark Young

• 0:00
  Welcome to Performance Driven Living, the podcast where we question everything.
• 0:05
  We don't tip to around tough topics, we walk right into them, not to provoke, but to
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  get closer to what's real.
• 0:13
  You might not agree with everything you hear, and that's okay.
• 0:17
  The show isn't about being right, it's about being real.
• 0:20
  These conversations are meant to stretch your thinking, challenge assumptions, and spark
• 0:25
  something deeper.
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  The views shared are those of our guests and may not reflect those of the host or team.
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  And while we dive deep into health, performance, and transformation, this is not medical advice.
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  Talk to your doctor before making changes to your health or lifestyle.
• 0:42
  Take what lands, leave what doesn't, but whatever you do, don't stop questioning.
• 0:56
  We are back on the Performance Driven Living podcast, and again, this is the podcast where
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  I get to learn a lot of stuff, and you get to learn a lot of stuff because I'm learning
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  a lot of stuff.
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  So I bring on some really cool guests so that we can learn stuff together.
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  And today, I have the distinct privilege of welcoming our guest, Dr. Ligi Ami-Hoods.
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  And then I know how to say your name correctly, because I went to Romania once, and they
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  call me a schmecker for any Romanian people that are listening.
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  But Dr. Mahoods actually is a writing professor, and soon to be faculty member at the University
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  of Miami, starting in the fall, congratulations.
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  And the author of a new book right now with Pittsburgh Press, correct?
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  University of Pittsburgh Press called Immigrants Brokers and Literacy as Affinity, a powerful
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  work that captures the stories and struggles of Romanian immigrants chasing the American
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  dream, which I find exciting for a couple of reasons.
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  One, because I happened to know, because we talked before, that you're in the process
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  of becoming an American citizen, American citizen.
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  How many Supreme Court justices are there?
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  Nine.
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  Very good.
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  Thank you for your help.
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  You're welcome.
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  I'm helping people become American citizens.
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  Thank you for your service.
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  But so the topic I really want to discuss here today, because you're a writing professor,
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  you're teaching students.
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  You've been at Barry University here for 10 years.
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  You've done your master's and your PhD in the United States, an immigrant yourself from
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  Romania having grown up in the communist country of Romania under Chichesky.
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  You've seen it all.
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  You've seen a lot, right?
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  I'm saying a little bit of your story for you.
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  But the fact that you are an immigrant who's become a doctor of, I didn't get a doctor
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  of philosophy, but specifically, I mean, you've been teaching English and creative writing,
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  but literacy in general.
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  And if done a lot of research and your passion is into immigration, which is amazing, because
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  that's your story.
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  And a lot of time in people's pain is their purpose, right?
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  And I love that.
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  Your own story and your own struggle turns into your purpose.
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  And that obviously is this, but I see your purpose as being different than the show notes.
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  So I'm going to really rock things here, because I know that you're a person, because you're
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  a close personal friend of mine.
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  And I will say that I know you're a person who loves preparedness.
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  And the fact that you showed up to be a guest on a podcast with a notepad is hilarious
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  to me.
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  But trying to take notes.
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  It's true.
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  Listen to your questions.
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  Oh, that's good.
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  So, okay.
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  So I'm going to pivot the topic a little bit here, because knowing you on a personal level,
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  I think you've got an incredible amount of value to a listener.
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  And being able to help shape some of this story that I want to unfold here, and that is,
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  your book is obviously about immigrants and the necessity of language in order to help
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  a person adapt into a new culture.
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  And for anybody who speaks more than one language, we know that a lot of times we may know all
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  the nouns and the verbs, but the nuances are completely lost.
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  The fact that you can be there and communicate, but you still feel ostracized somehow.
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  And I think that's an incredible thing.
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  But I want to talk real quick, not even real quick, I want to talk for the next 40 minutes
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  about the topic of storytelling, because one of the purposes that I find in my life,
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  one of my passions is helping people tell their stories.
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  But one of the things that I've identified as you as a person, and even some of the
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  show notes and, you know, the telling the story of an immigrant is that we as humans have
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  a inherent need, and I would love for you to just like start by telling me your thoughts
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  on this topic, we want to be seen.
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  And one of the most painful things I think that a person can go through is not being seen.
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  And I think that your passion and your drive is to make the unseen of the world be seen.
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  And you do that through storytelling.
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  And you do that through helping people learn how to tell their stories in significant ways.
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  And noticeable ways, and I'll say even respectable ways, because a story poorly told isn't a
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  good story.
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  And you bring to life out of people their own stories, you know, maybe nowadays more
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  with chat GPT, but nevertheless, like their stories are being told, because you as a
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  college professor are able to help young people, particularly at Barry University, that's
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  a lot of immigrant students who are foreign students coming to school there, like you're
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  able to help them bring out in their second language, often a story that hasn't been told.
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  Okay, so as I was saying, I was listening very carefully to your question, because
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  you use the word to be seen rather than to be heard.
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  So you use a visual word, and when someone tells their story, we often think of it as an auditory.
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  This is what happens when you get a language professor on your podcast, but it's a great nuance,
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  I love that.
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  So I think storytelling, and what I want to emphasize with that is that storytelling is very
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  interesting because it does involve, in my opinion, the entire, it's a holistic approach to the
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  individual. So if you think of, you know, sites and hearing and senses, it's very experiential.
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  So in that way, it's very powerful, and so going back to that idea of being seen and what happens
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  in the, let's say in the shadows, I think there's a lot of growth and a lot of interesting
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  work. Let's put it that way, that happens in the shadows. And in fact, if we go back to the
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  title of my book, there's a word in there, brokers, that is not a very common, but it's not a very
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  common term that we use, maybe in the business, not in writing, or in the literacy field, but
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  but even so, I would say for a general audience, you know, you would probably think twice as to
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  what would you associate it with, but in my book and the way in which I see it, and that's one
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  of, that's one of the revelations that I had after more than a decade of research. Is the brokers
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  do the invisible work of, define what you mean by broker? So brokers are those people,
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  mediators, those that build bridges. Okay, so not necessarily the immigrant themselves,
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  but the person who helps that transition take place. Correct, they could be immigrants themselves,
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  but they are in, so you'd consider yourself a broker? Yes, I would be consider a broker of literacy,
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  but oftentimes brokers are really those that are more, they do the daily work of the more
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  invisible work. They're not, so I'm more of a sponsor of literacy, the one that is official,
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  right, because I'm, let's say, in the classroom, you're not the tutor who's helping the person learn
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  a language. Correct. So the distinction would be perhaps the tutor or perhaps someone that is
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  a peer, a colleague that, you know, asks the, asks the right question at the right time,
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  so the story can be told, can move forward. From there, I want to take one step back,
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  because I don't want to get into, to me, I'm going to tell you my interest in the conversation,
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  more is, and I love that. I love the book. I love the concept of brokerage that, you know, we as
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  people are helping other people along the way, right? I always, I always use the, in the marketing
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  world, I always say that we're a storyteller and, or me as a brand to be able to help a consumer
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  find a product. We have to act and I always use the Lord of the Rings, right? It's that I'm not
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  Gandalf, or I'm not that the brand itself needs to be Gandalf, that it photos the hero, right? It's
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  the, the, the, the, the, the Frodo, the Hobbit, which is the consumer is the hero of the story. And
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  I'm here to be Gandalf and just help coach the person along the journey. And in brokerage, I'm
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  seeing there's a lot of Gandalf there, right? Like the broker is the person who's kind of helping
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  the protagonist through the story. But I want to, I want to take, I know, you speak such academic
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  language. And I'm so I'm like, oh, it's like that story, the fairy tale. Like I'll take it all into
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  some, some bottom shelf language here. But my, my question for you, I want to go, I want to go one
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  step back to that because when we talk about storytelling, I want to, I want to first dive into
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  the importance of that story. And I love the nuance of being seen versus being heard.
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  Um, because there, there is, I want both, right? It's not an and or it's, it's a both. Like, I want
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  to be heard. I also want to be seen. I want to be understood. I want to be and the word that I'll
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  use is I want to be validated. I think is where more people are there, right? It's not that they
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  want their stories told. They want their stories validated that I want my struggles to be recognized
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  as being real. You know, and with immigration being such a hot button right now in our country,
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  I think it's important that we kind of unpack that a little bit because the, the academics of
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  immigration is great. But, you know, we're, we're in this deportation. We're under an administration
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  that's very much stop legal immigration. And there's people on both sides of this argument.
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  And I kind of want to touch on that. And I don't want to be political in our conversation.
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  But I think there's politics to be had in some of that because
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  here's the deal when, when N equals a million things are dehumanized. But when N equals one,
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  it's very hard to talk about an individual without talking about an individual story.
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  And, and if I talk about immigration as bad get out of my country,
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  that's easy to say to a large group of people. When I talk about you need to get out of my
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  country, it's become very personal. And then we start saying, yeah, but what about the mom
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  who, you know, was abused so badly back in her country that she fled or what about the political
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  asylum, what about the, you know, that the oppressed, what about that, you know, this is just a family
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  trying to get out of poverty. Like all of those are legitimate stories. Like, and, and, and mass,
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  it's illegal go home. But in, in individual N equals one conversations, I don't know that I,
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  that I don't even know. I mean, I'm, I'm not a fan of illegal immigration, right? Like, if it's
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  illegal, it's illegal, it needs to be dealt with legally. And if we need to change the legal system,
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  then we need to change the legal system. But we, we follow the rules. And that's kind of where I land.
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  But I also know that when we get into an individual story, if you were to say, look,
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  so and so in your life is in the country illegally, are you going to, you know, tell him or tell
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  her to go back to their country? Like, would I be able to look that person in the face and say,
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  you need to leave? Because when N equals one, it, it's now relational. It's not transactional.
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  Correct. And I, and I think the more we can get into large numbers, the more transactional,
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  these decisions feel. And yet when we start getting into the, the, the, I keep saying the N equals
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  one, but the individuals, individuals are relational. And I believe that part of your purpose and
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  part of what you do is to tell individual stories, which begins to humanize these transactional
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  and mass numbers. So when, when you're telling stories and you're helping people verbalize their
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  struggles and you're helping people do this from a classroom. I mean, that's your position of
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  influences from a classroom and from a mentorship standpoint on a university campus.
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  How does that, how does that psychologically, I want to say and emotionally
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  work for a student or for an immigrant student who's come into this country with, you know,
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  with whatever, but it's like they want to be known, like being seen, being heard, being felt,
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  being understood, being validated. How does that, how do you see that affecting people? And you can
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  answer the question as, you know, based on what you have experienced with students. But I would
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  equally ask you, how does it speak to your own story? Okay. So giant questions. Yeah, it has,
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  that's why I need to write it down. So there are definitely two parts,
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  they're multiple parts to the question that you propose here for discussion, right? So
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  first of all, there is a preconceived notion that personal or individual stories
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  are also not public or political. I don't know that I agree with that. I think, I think
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  politically we talk about big numbers because it dehumanizes populations. And then both sides,
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  you know, and you watch it at the state of the unions, right? Like, you know, so and so,
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  who's in the room tonight had an experience with this, this, and I'm going to give you a
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  medal to award you. And it's like, yeah, because you took it in equals one, right? Let me
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  rephrase that in academia. The personal has been traditionally devalued. Agreed, because
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  academia prefers, they prefer quantitative. Well, because they prefer rationality, they prefer
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  an argument that is evidence driven. And while the personal can serve as a way to advance a claim,
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  it's generally not. So one way in which we can counteract that is create more spaces where
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  individual stories, whether it's students, whether it's an immigrant student, whether it's a student,
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  a first-gen student, right? So socioeconomically marginalized or, you know, or an adult student,
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  you know, a mom that has dropped out of college in order to raise kids and then comes back,
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  in order to continue her education. So, you know, there are different types of stories that we
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  encounter. So creating spaces, you know, I think that's a very important. And would you say spaces?
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  Are we talking like platforms? Are you talking like this is a space, right? So one space platforms
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  is one, but even in Indochiriculum, right? So for instance, we have at Berry University, actually one
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  of our most successful assignments was literacy memoir. It's a type of, it's a way of telling your
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  straight, it's a narrative type. And one thing that was interesting for us is that where do you
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  locate that in Indochiriculum? Should it come at the end? Should it come in the middle? Should it come
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  at the very beginning? And we used to have it at the very beginning because it was a way in which
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  we started to know the students early on. And it created a community. It built a community of
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  learning and a community of trust and empathy. But otherwise, if you delay that, unfortunately,
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  you had to move it towards the end. But the rationale for that at the end of the semester of
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  the specific class, the rationale for that was, you know, to help the student finish the semester
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  on a lighter note with a personal essay rather than with a research paper when everybody's hitting
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  all every single student with a research paper or big protest. So, you know, there was
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  a somewhat good reason for that. But I agree with you. Like, building relationship early
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  actually leads to academic success. Right, right. And I recently, I had a situation. So if we
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  give specific examples without necessarily providing names, but I had a student that, you know,
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  should have failed the class because of the rationality, the number of absences. Sure.
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  You know, the work submitted. And then he submitted his literacy memoir. And I mean, when I read it,
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  I cried. So it was, it told the story of how, you know, of course, he ran away from home and a few
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  other things. He is an immigrant student. But it was the story of how his single mom raised him
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  and how they had to walk for two hours because no bus would stop to pick up, you know, this
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  single lady with three kids. And it was not just, he was an amazing storyteller. It was not just
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  what he said, but also how he said it. That was highly impactful. And I really thought, you know,
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  I thought I was weighing everything, including being ethical towards my other students that did
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  come to class. But I really thought that the student had particular circumstances that he wasn't
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  even able to articulate, not necessarily to me. And this is where maybe if we tied back to
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  brokers and sponsors, when I was trying to make decisions whether he should pass or not,
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  I reached out to his advisor who should have been his advocate, his broker. And he didn't have
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  anything to say. So interestingly, he didn't really, he didn't even know his own bus. Yeah.
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  That's one situation when I felt, I felt sad because here's a student that could have with the
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  right coaching, if someone had advocated for him, it could have been a different story.
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  And, you know, I hope in my feedback, I try to convey that to him. Yeah.
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  Some of the things that if I had known early on, I would have, I mean, I cannot advise every student,
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  but this was a particular case, I speak of specific cases, you know.
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  Well, you say that it makes me think like, I'm always a person. I use the words relational
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  and transactional all the time that we tend to be very transactional in lives. And part of the
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  reason about that is because relational interactions are messy. Yeah. You know, transactions are very
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  clean. Like the math, the rationality versus right? Absolutely. The rationality makes sense. And as you
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  know, and some of our listeners know, like I was a college professor for years. So it's like,
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  and I worked in inner city schools for the most part with disadvantaged students. So it's like,
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  while they weren't necessarily immigrants, these were the unsung, you know, people of inner cities,
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  like whose stories also seldom get told because it's much easily, it's much easier to marginalize
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  through transactions and rationality. And say, you're not motivated. You don't do well as opposed
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  to how can I relationally have empathy for your situation and how can I help pull you forward?
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  Right? And the problem is is the relational side of those transactions, they're harder.
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  It's messier. It's sloppier. It's emotional. It's and yet in relationships and in a relational
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  and equals one storytelling, that's that's influence. And often and I would arguably say that
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  influence is much more powerful than rationality because people make stupid decisions all the time.
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  Like we've started wars over influence that had absolutely no rationale.
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  And yet people fought or causes that made no sense. People fight in battles where they know they're
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  going to lose. And they do so based off of that relational messy, sloppy side of life that
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  isn't calculated. And it's why I come back to this whole concept of storytelling to say,
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  you're facilitating people's stories getting told. And in that facilitation, you're a very
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  logical, pragmatic person and you understand data and you understand the academic side of this,
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  except it's interesting because you're pouring a bunch of academic into the top of this funnel
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  and at the bottom coming out with a very influential case. So it's like you're almost taking
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  rationality and bringing the emotion into it through the power of storytelling. And I believe
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  that a good story changes the world, right? And what's the phrase that use all the time, like never
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  let facts get in the way of a good story? That all the facts in the world are irrelevant because if I
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  can sway you through emotion or I can sway you through some other form of influence, it's important.
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  And I think that's actually more powerful than data. As much as I'm a data-driven person,
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  that influence and storytelling, my gosh, it's so much more powerful, right? Like people are listening
• 23:35
  to this podcast, they're not looking at the statistics of it, right? Because they want that. And I
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  even, as a college professor, I use the word edutainment all the time because yeah, they want the figures,
• 23:46
  but they want to be entertained through it, right? Like there needs to be that. My question to you
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  is it passed the baton back to your half of the conversation here. But I want to say in that
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  influence in that storytelling that n equals one, you wield an incredible amount of power
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  because sometimes the wrong stories get told. Sometimes the right stories get told poorly.
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  And sometimes influence falls into the hands of people who it doesn't. Sometimes grace is given to
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  the ungraced by definition is undeserving, but I would say that you're giving this student a break
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  because his story moved you. But another student with the exact same story who didn't tell it the
• 24:30
  same way may have failed the class. Because I mean, that's fair, right? Like there's probably a lot
• 24:36
  of other students that you failed in classes who just didn't tell their story as well. This guy
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  happened to bring you to tears so he got a break. And I know that hurts to say, right? Because you're
• 24:46
  like, man, yeah, I guess that's probably true. Maybe I didn't because I was more rash.
• 24:51
  I have either. Yeah, but but truly there are students who I've cut breaks for and there's
• 24:57
  others who I've just said, absolutely not. Like you turned it in late. It's the end of the semester.
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  You're cutting into my time and I'm going out of town soon. Other times I've been like, you know,
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  you smiled really nice when you were in class and you seemed really sweet. I know you're a
• 25:10
  single mom. And you know, like, and you cut breaks based on these non-pregmatic, non-logical
• 25:19
  patterns that we see. And it's all and it could be nothing more than we relate to the person somehow.
• 25:24
  You as an immigrant professor see immigrant students all day long. I'm certain that your
• 25:30
  relationship with them is different than mine because I'm an American born white guy.
• 25:35
  Like I wouldn't have that same connection. And I mean, I worked in like I said, I worked in
• 25:39
  inner city schools like I was the minority. My question for you is I was just saying like you
• 25:46
  wield a weapon here in helping people understand how to tell their stories. But I want to know
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  when you when you're dealing with a student, when you're dealing with an immigrant who
• 26:00
  because I want to get into a responsibility conversation in this. But when you're when you're
• 26:05
  dealing with a student or someone who is an immigrant, when you're trying to help them tell their
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  story with great power comes great responsibility, right? We learned that from Spider-Man.
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  The how does it make that person feel when their story is told? And that may be auditorial,
• 26:23
  that may be visual, that that may mean whatever. But to to a population of people who feel unseen
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  or unheard, what do you see happen in that person? And that could be emotionally, physiologically,
• 26:36
  like do you see a when they actually see their story on paper? Like what happens?
• 26:43
  Well, it depends on the story, right? Because as I said, some of the stories that my students
• 26:50
  write could be about immigration learning a language, adapting to being here. Some could be
• 27:00
  you know, with COVID. I have several students that have had some automatic experiences
• 27:09
  through COVID and you know, being secluded or you know, just falling behind. And and some of them,
• 27:19
  I think some of them are just are excited to be able to talk about it, to write about it,
• 27:24
  to process. So I don't think there's always the big aha moment. And I think this is in a way the
• 27:32
  beauty of a storytelling that each one, each individual has its own process of making sense of
• 27:42
  their narrative, right? And with that, you know, my story of immigration is very different,
• 27:48
  for instance, I would say it's 90% different from the people that I've interviewed for my book.
• 27:55
  So I'm not the typical immigrant. Go ahead. So in that sense, and also I'm not the one that
• 28:04
  a lot of immigrants, they, you know, say, you know, when you introduce my book, you know,
• 28:11
  using part, my bio, is there in pursuit of the American dream, right? So it seems like a
• 28:19
  straight shot. Stories are not always like that. They happen in, right? Chapter by chapter. Exactly,
• 28:25
  right step by step. So I think it's very important. It depends where the student, so you know,
• 28:31
  where the student is or the person that you know, whose story we want to, to help be told,
• 28:42
  so sometimes we are in the middle, sometimes we are at the beginning, sometimes, you know, so
• 28:49
  and with that, if you don't, and you know, I'm going to come back to responsibly because there's
• 28:54
  something very important, there's, there's point of view is very important in a story, right? We can
• 28:59
  have the same experience you tell it, like this room, you will, you have a different angle,
• 29:07
  different vision, right? Then I do, even if we are seated at the same table and we have the,
• 29:14
  you know, we are both engaged in the same conversation, right? So point of view is very important,
• 29:19
  that's what happens with immigrants or with any other issue is how we frame it, right? From whose
• 29:26
  perspective? And also there's, with immigrants, there's this dichotomy between, you know, the
• 29:33
  immigrant as the hero, the hero story, right? Or the foe, he's the enemy, but there's so much
• 29:40
  to happen, there's so much in between, and it's not always either or there's, there's multiple
• 29:50
  layers of stories that, so you mentioned the immigrant as the hero versus the immigrant as the
• 29:58
  foe, and I mean, I can't, I can't help but draw a political parallel there, right? Because there's one
• 30:03
  side that's being demonized and saying that all immigrants are bad, and it's like no one over there
• 30:07
  said that, and there's another side that says, you know, oh, immigrants are heroes, our whole
• 30:12
  country's been built on their bags, and I think, and even the, even the criminals are not criminals,
• 30:16
  and I think I don't think they're saying that either, right? I think that there is, there's a lot of
• 30:20
  shades in the middle of those two polarizations, but the stories that are being told are they,
• 30:26
  and I'll use the phrase, we give way too much credit to they, because no one even knows who they
• 30:31
  are, but they seem to have very strong opinions. But, you know, if I'm, if I'm right leaning,
• 30:37
  I believe that, you know, we need to purge the country of anybody who's, you know, illegal,
• 30:44
  but that message gets turned around to all immigrants are terrible, we need to throw
• 30:48
  malania Trump out of the country. It's like, no, nobody said that, and if I'm left leaning,
• 30:54
  it's this, well, even MS-13 gang members need to be allowed full citizenship, and we need to
• 30:58
  give them, you know, five acres of land, because they're all good people who are just trying to make
• 31:02
  a better life for themselves. And I'm like, I don't think anybody on the left is saying that either,
• 31:07
  but the point of view that you're saying is that they're telling these stories about each other,
• 31:12
  and it's not based on data, it's based on the more powerful story gets the greater influence.
• 31:17
  Right, and so, so that's, that's what I, that's actually what my book is trying to do. It's like
• 31:24
  trying to, to fill that middle ground, because actually when I started my research in the community,
• 31:30
  interestingly, everyone was trying to point me to, and here is a keyword that I wanted to go
• 31:38
  back to is access, access to the story. When somebody tells you a story, they're giving you
• 31:44
  access, so you want to, it's a privilege, you know, to actually be part of that, and I had that
• 31:52
  privilege to, to be provided access, and I can explain that a little bit more as to how it operated,
• 31:59
  something, you know, that most people would say, oh, you're a Romanian immigrant, you, you know,
• 32:05
  there's a, you know, a direct consequence of that, that I have access to the Romanian community.
• 32:12
  Right, thank you, that is, that is, that is, that is, I have, I have, correct, I have one thing
• 32:19
  that did give me some, you know, access, which was the language and one friend, but it gave me
• 32:27
  access to, think about clusters, okay, so this is how, you know, there's clusters of people and
• 32:34
  interests, there's immigrants of different ages, there's waves of immigration, I came with a
• 32:40
  particular wave, I didn't come as a refugee, I didn't leave Romania in the 80s when, you know,
• 32:48
  right, and some of them left with brown passports, which were passports of no citizenship,
• 32:56
  like Romania at the time, those that wanted to leave, like they absolutely severed their
• 33:01
  any ties with those that wanted to leave the country, so it was a very, you know, traumatic
• 33:08
  experience for many of them. And I want to interject there real quick, because you bring up this
• 33:14
  topic of brown passport, it's like, I would tie all of this so much of this, I would tie back
• 33:19
  to identity, and that being known, being seen, having an identity, and it's like, you're saying
• 33:25
  people with brown passports were a citizen of no country, right? It wasn't that they didn't have a
• 33:31
  home, it's that they were stripped of identity, and being stripped of identity, like I can't think
• 33:38
  of anything that's more painful, right? Like that, that is the, you know, that's, say that's not
• 33:44
  see like, right? That's a strip people down and remove their dignity, and by removing dignity,
• 33:48
  they don't resist, they don't fight back, and the fight back isn't about a fight, it's about an
• 33:53
  easier to control. So again, the people who control the stories are the people who have control.
• 34:01
  Just why there's such a fight in the story world. Right, so when I started to gain access,
• 34:07
  right, they wanted to, I'm going to take it back to the foe versus hero, right? They said, you know,
• 34:14
  why don't you interview this person, he's a doctor, why don't you interview this person,
• 34:21
  all the successful people that have made it, and so it was very interesting to me, like how
• 34:30
  they wanted to be represented, right? How the community wanted to be represented through, you know,
• 34:39
  successful, visible professions, right? So think about, you know, coming back to your notion of
• 34:46
  identity, it's not just political and public identity, but it's also professional identity.
• 34:51
  Positive affiliation, right? So if you were a doctor in Romania, yeah, good luck with being a doctor
• 34:56
  here, right? So, you know, it's not, it's a harder transfer of knowledge of skills and everything,
• 35:04
  right? So there's always a bit of a downward mobility for certain folks, and it all depended
• 35:14
  back, you know, it depended on language actually, a lot of it, right? So if they had the ability
• 35:20
  to speak English and to adapt more easily, then they were able to transfer some of their skills,
• 35:25
  but if not, then they kind of went into your down. All of that, and I mean, I think you're bringing
• 35:33
  a very, you know, I love the fact that we're humanizing stories, because I think the power of
• 35:39
  story gets overlooked too often, that everyone has an identity, but that identity doesn't mean
• 35:46
  anything to anybody else unless it's able to be verbalized and told, because we all have an
• 35:51
  identity, right? We all have a past, we all have a struggle, we all have all of these things,
• 35:56
  and you know, we're here, the stories about like never, you know, never judge somebody,
• 35:59
  because you don't know what they've been going through kind of situation, and it's like, well,
• 36:02
  yeah, get it. But we do tend to live into somewhat myopic world, that I really don't think about
• 36:09
  the struggles of everybody else, because I too busy thinking about my own struggles. But when we
• 36:15
  get back to this concept of, again, I go back to storytelling, right? Like I get the concept of
• 36:21
  the book, I get the idea of brokerage and language and so on and so forth, but I want to get into
• 36:27
  the responsibility of the storyteller again, because if I'm a really good storyteller, I can
• 36:35
  manipulate people. And if I'm a really bad storyteller, the reality is, is I may end up finding myself
• 36:42
  vulnerable to being misunderstood. And you know, I would say that in order to say a history is written by the
• 36:52
  victors that we seldom know the story of the people who didn't win, because those aren't the ones
• 36:58
  we write the stories about. And yet when we take this topic of immigration and we take this topic
• 37:04
  of individuals stories being told, I don't think if we lined everybody up and gave them 30 minutes to
• 37:10
  explain why would we do that? And I'll give you an example and tell you that recently I was reading
• 37:15
  a book and it was talking about the ability of a judge to be able to grant parole to people.
• 37:21
  And they statistically using it, I don't remember who wrote the book, but it was one of the authors,
• 37:28
  like a Malcolm Gladwell kind of author who was taking a look at social phenomenon.
• 37:34
  And for a parolee to have a meeting first thing in the morning, he was more likely going to be
• 37:41
  granted parole than if the parolee was granted a meeting right before lunch. And it was like,
• 37:49
  just the idea that the judge saw the person while he was hungry made the decision. And they actually
• 37:55
  set up a separate decision maker where AI was able to go through the files of people who were on
• 38:04
  parole and make the decisions and found out that based on the information and just fact-checking
• 38:10
  that AI was able to actually do a better job of predicting a person's guilt or innocence
• 38:15
  and a judge. And that if they actually took these cases and adjudicated them using AI,
• 38:22
  because the AI is not influenced. The AI is not influenced because the girl that was on trial
• 38:27
  was really pretty and looked sweet. And it's not influenced because the guy there reminded me of my
• 38:31
  nephew. It's none of that. It's a contextual, yeah. Right. And because of that, they were able to
• 38:38
  kind of say out and say like, we as humans were bias. But storytelling allows us to sway the bias.
• 38:46
  So in that respect, I really do go back to that with great power, comes great responsibility.
• 38:53
  Like as a storyteller and as a person who's training people to be able to tell their stories
• 38:58
  properly, I think there's a being seen, being heard from the side of the immigrant population
• 39:07
  that you work with, whether that's out of campus or on campus. And I know that's going to be
• 39:13
  changing for you soon as you move to the University of Miami. So total switch.
• 39:18
  But what are some of the ways, like I really want to get into for the listeners, you know,
• 39:22
  in our last minutes here, I want to dive into super interesting about storytelling in general. But
• 39:29
  to to a listener, we're we're affected by story, right. We go to the movies to watch stories. We read
• 39:36
  books to hear stories like we were emotionally captivated by storytelling.
• 39:40
  How does a person maintain objectivity when listening to a story and filtering through those
• 39:48
  things? How do we find ourselves affected by that and be able to make rational decisions? Or
• 39:57
  you know, you know, conversely, how do we tell our stories in ways that are more captivating?
• 40:02
  Do you have do you have tips for somebody that can understand how to be more persuasive when
• 40:07
  storytelling? Oh, for that, you would have to sign up to take a class.
• 40:14
  Oh, she's so intuition now. So you're asking me to sell my tips here,
• 40:21
  without selling it all. Give me a way for free.
• 40:26
  So here's the thing. One one way to to think about it is, I think we need to start asking
• 40:36
  better questions. I like that. So oftentimes, you know, I have an accent clearly.
• 40:47
  And instead of asking someone, whether it's me or anyone else, but you know, where are you from
• 40:54
  when you hear the accent? Yeah. If you reframe that and ask the question, how many languages do you
• 41:00
  speak? Wow, that's interesting. And how did you learn them? How many languages do you speak?
• 41:08
  Do you use to, you know, like I can ask you that? It's a real question, right? Do you use Duolingo
• 41:13
  or where did you learn in school? Did you learn from, you know, speaking with your abuela or
• 41:19
  you know, like all of a sudden, right? I'm getting. So the questions, one of the things that I work
• 41:25
  with my students when we also have interviews that they do in the community. So I really love
• 41:32
  community-based research. But it's it's see like the academics is often phrased as as distinct
• 41:41
  from what happens in the real world. And I think for a good reason, it has been perceived as the
• 41:46
  ivory tower. But that's changing a lot of it. So I think of research as, you know, if you break
• 41:53
  down the word research, right? So a way of searching, right? Like look exactly reframing.
• 42:00
  So the same thing happens here with language, you know, you reframe what you just noticed,
• 42:06
  you noticed something, you know? And that allows you to hear a different story rather than a one
• 42:12
  where, well, I'm from Romania. Well, what does that tell you? Have you been, like you could connect
• 42:18
  to it because you've been to Romania? But someone else would be like, oh, is that in, oh, is that
• 42:23
  Transylvania? Is that like in the middle of the country? No, it's not Pennsylvania. You know,
• 42:30
  so, so ask, learning to ask better questions. And I think that goes to actually curiosity. Yeah,
• 42:39
  that you cannot ask a fake question. And to the point like we try to categorize information.
• 42:45
  And by asking the question, where are you from, I then apply all biases I have. Like if I
• 42:52
  knew people from Romania, I didn't like, I immediately assigned you to the, I don't like you
• 42:57
  group, even at a subconscious level. Or if I know people from Romania, like as the case when I met
• 43:01
  you, like I know people from Romania that I love. So when you told me you were from Romania,
• 43:06
  that actually triggered positive limbic response out of me. You know, but there may be other,
• 43:11
  other places or other people groups that we don't have that same limbic response to.
• 43:15
  But I love the way that you're saying, reframing that question and how many languages do you speak
• 43:20
  because it stops the categorization? It really opens up. It allows the person to actually tell you
• 43:26
  a story. Correct. And it humanizes the narrative rather than trying to categorize.
• 43:33
  And then, so, so that's one. That's a buzz for me, right? Just the idea that to humanize people
• 43:40
  rather than categorize people. Like I'm going to use that one in the future. Like I really love those
• 43:44
  words or that because we do have a tendency to want to categorize. And if we spent more time humanizing
• 43:50
  it would probably shape the way that we interact with people differently. Right. And it does go back
• 43:55
  to language, right? The language that we use. And then I would say a point of view, you know, one
• 44:04
  revelation, which goes to reframing, but it's a reframing of how we tell the story, right?
• 44:11
  I think that allows us to, you know, to hear different voices, to maybe see the same event
• 44:23
  as I said, like from different angles. I think that's a very useful skill, no matter what,
• 44:28
  right? Like in relationships, you know, the same. Oh, there was a conflict, right? Okay, well,
• 44:35
  my story, her story, you know, all of that, like that's a point of view.
• 44:39
  Well, and everybody in a conflict thinks they're right. Right. I mean, again, you're the here.
• 44:43
  Can you retell the story? So one piece of advice would be tell one of the most important
• 44:49
  memorable events that has marked you, right? And now, you know, maybe write one detailed paragraph.
• 44:56
  Okay. Now, we tell that from a different point of view, from, you know, or focus it on a different,
• 45:03
  like, where you're not the hero of the story. I was, I was, I was, I was recently, I did a,
• 45:10
  my dad has a podcast and I actually went on his podcast because I'd released my book Radical
• 45:14
  Generosity and, and thanks. And he had done a podcast on it with like, I want to introduce you
• 45:21
  and so on, but it was funny because one of the stories that I told in this book was actually a story
• 45:25
  of when I was a small child. And it was with him and it was the two of us. And it was funny because
• 45:31
  as we're doing this podcast, he's like, you know, he kind of hinted at tell us that story. But then
• 45:37
  after I told the story, he told the story from his point of view. And I got to listen to my memory
• 45:46
  from someone else's eyes. And it was like, well, it was interesting because it's like, he's like,
• 45:52
  well, actually what happened that day was I was blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like to me,
• 45:56
  I'm like, you just randomly showed up and wanted to go deliver gift baskets to the Salvation Army. And
• 46:00
  he's like, well, actually what was going on was this, this, and this. And I wanted to do this
• 46:06
  because I was listening to a radio program. And then the radio program was actually saying this.
• 46:10
  And that's why we went. And I'm like, oh, wow, I don't remember that detail. And he's like,
• 46:15
  well, do you remember where the house was that we went and delivered him? I'm like,
• 46:18
  I was probably eight, nine years old. I have no idea. It was in Detroit. That's all I remembered
• 46:23
  was it was in Detroit. And he's like, it was actually down in such and such a neighborhood. And
• 46:27
  if you don't remember, that's actually close to where grandpa used to live. And I was like,
• 46:32
  oh, wow, like, but the point of view was kind of like, wow, there's so many other characters in
• 46:36
  our stories. And we'd seldom see the story from other people's perspectives because we're so
• 46:43
  used to the narrative that we rehearse all over our own memories, right? Like we tell ourselves
• 46:51
  the story all the time and don't stop and listen to the other side of that. So I thank you so much
• 46:57
  for being here. But the question I have is like, I keep wanting to, I want to give you the last word
• 47:02
  in the conversation if you can believe that. But my, but my, your generous, my, my hallucination
• 47:13
  here is, if I can use Tony Robbins words, that the ability to be able to tell a story is validating
• 47:22
  that people often feel as if they are validated because of that. And I will say,
• 47:27
  when I first met you many years ago, I think there was a part of you that in the social circle
• 47:35
  that we had met, that there was a part of you that felt like you were the outside of something
• 47:39
  like that. Even though several people in that group were immigrants, but they were all immigrants
• 47:44
  from a similar culture. And your culture was different from where anyone else was because most
• 47:51
  of them are Latin and you're Eastern European. Like, right. As Romania is known as a Latin island
• 47:58
  in a Slavic Sea. Yes. Geographically. Your experience. I mean, you grew up in communism. You,
• 48:06
  you grew up as the daughter of a pastor. So you were automatically ostracized by society, particularly
• 48:12
  in a communist nation. And then grew up in academic, you know, in a world where women should be seen
• 48:18
  and not heard. And like so many things that are part of your identity and are part of your history.
• 48:25
  And then again, my point of view coming into a story, I'm like, there's a girl who
• 48:33
  PhD college professor and you feel out of place amongst a group of people, but it's because
• 48:37
  they had a shared experience, right? Like they grew up in a Latin population. They spoke a similar,
• 48:43
  they, you know, they spoke a second language, but their second language was the same as each
• 48:47
  other. But we live down here in South Florida. So people speaking Spanish isn't weird.
• 48:54
  When you get the opportunity to tell your story, when people ask you to hear you,
• 49:02
  what are the highlights that you lean on? Because I've told some of the darker moments,
• 49:07
  right? You grew up under communism. You grew up as the third or fourth children. You grew up as the,
• 49:13
  as a village outcast, if you will, because your father was a pastor and, and, you know,
• 49:17
  you lived under a microscope because everybody wanted to see the church fail.
• 49:23
  You know, I know because of a personal relationship that it's like, you remember gunshots on
• 49:28
  Christmas day, the day of the rebellion that overthrew communism in Romania. But
• 49:34
  what are the highlights of your story that you would want people to know?
• 49:38
  Um, that's a great question. I think only languages do you speak?
• 49:49
  The highlight of my story is, I mean, you know, in a way you kind of said it because I almost
• 49:58
  feel like I've always been a minority wherever I would, you know, whether I was in Romania,
• 50:04
  you know, because I was an evangelical, our family, we were evangelical, we were, you know,
• 50:10
  being, and I just wanted to blend it. And ironically, this is something you haven't mentioned.
• 50:18
  You know, I was, I was an outlier in my own family. I always thought that I was adopted
• 50:24
  because now you cannot really see, but I have curly hair. And when I was young, I was super curly.
• 50:30
  And I always thought that I was the adopted one that I did not belong to the family
• 50:38
  because, you know, I looked different. I think some of the things that, the really good things
• 50:46
  that I want to emphasize that are part of my story is that I did grow up under communism.
• 50:53
  But I also, it has taught me the things that really matter, the identities, the values that
• 51:02
  really matter. When you have, you make a choice to declare I am this, I am an evangelical or my
• 51:12
  father would go to school and say, my kids are not going to school on Sundays to cheer for the party.
• 51:17
  My kids are going to church. That's a, that's a very bold statement. And I always thought,
• 51:24
  like, how is my dad not afraid and, you know, to go? And so in a way, as a child, I was both
• 51:32
  fearful and I also admired my father for doing that, right? But I also, so values, right? It
• 51:40
  hasn't still been a set of values that you have to know what you believe. And also, you have to
• 51:47
  understand that your values are permanent. Political governments, even dictatorships are
• 51:59
  temporary. Yeah. And they crumble. So the fact that I did hear gunshots on Christmas,
• 52:05
  but I also had, I mean, I was born in a dictatorship. I did not know, like, unlike my parents,
• 52:13
  right? I did not know what was before, right? So I was born in the dark, so to say, right?
• 52:19
  But I experienced the paradox of something that seems so strong, a government crumble.
• 52:28
  That's an, like, you know, crossing the border for the first time. Like, that's an amazing
• 52:35
  issue just to get ice cream. When the border's open, we just drove into Hungary, we got ice cream and
• 52:42
  we came back to Romania. So, so values, you know, like, know what you believe and no matter, you know,
• 52:52
  what happens, like, you have to know who you are and what you believe in. And that's very
• 52:57
  essential. I also had an amazing community. Like, I grew up with, like, you know, I'm in the middle
• 53:03
  child. And I, you know, my brother and my older sister and my younger sister, I was surrounded by
• 53:10
  people by being in the middle. And that's what I love being around people. Like, my parents once
• 53:16
  sent me to my grandma and, you know, which was about three, four hours away. And then they called
• 53:22
  back within an hour and within a few days and said, you know, you have to come get her because
• 53:28
  she's not eating. That was a bad sign because I was, I loved eating. Like, I missed my siblings.
• 53:35
  I wanted to be with my siblings. I wanted like, you know, so, so, and I grew up in a community that
• 53:42
  was, um, they were highly educated. It was the competition. And I was them, they were a little bit
• 53:48
  older than me. So my brother is about four years older than me. I'm in my mid 40s. Um, and that
• 53:56
  kind of raised a little bit the bar because I wanted to be part of the conversation. And you don't
• 54:00
  when you're a kid, even like one or two years, you feel like, oh, you're the, you're the preteen.
• 54:05
  We are teens. And, you know, we have different conversations. But I grew up in a community that
• 54:11
  so it's almost like within the commoners regime, there was this, let's call it a bubble or Christian
• 54:16
  bubble or our friends bubble or where we just, we just, we felt seen like to use your language. We
• 54:24
  we just, we grew, um, intellectually, we grew, uh, physically, we grew emotionally, we grew
• 54:33
  spiritually. It was, it was an amazing time in so many different ways, despite what was around
• 54:40
  us, right? So these are some things, uh, you know, values, community that are part of my story.
• 54:47
  And I think, you know, I did, uh, I have a very curious mind. And that's how I came here. I did,
• 54:53
  I was just, I wanted to study more. I wanted to, my horizon to open up. I was an English teacher
• 55:00
  in Romania at the time. I actually had a good situation in the sense that I was part of a good
• 55:07
  community. I had a good job. I was a 10 year high school student in Romania. We have a 10 year
• 55:13
  for high school teachers. Um, I was in, you know, relationship. Um, and so I, I had it all in a way,
• 55:21
  you know, but I, but I didn't have what I wanted. I wanted more. Uh, and you know, at the time,
• 55:27
  I couldn't really define what that more was. And I started with a master's and, and I remember
• 55:32
  my father when he took me to the airport to come. He said, um, the only thing I fear is not that
• 55:40
  you will not succeed is that you would want to go for a PhD. And I was like, oh, come on. Yeah.
• 55:47
  Of course. No, I really, it was, it was just for two years. And then it, you know, yeah, here I am
• 55:54
  21 years later for anybody who has been listening to this podcast. I want to, I want to point something
• 56:00
  out. Um, and that is your countenance right now. Okay. Because during the early part of this
• 56:07
  podcast, and, and this is, this is the point of this entire story. And that is, you are smiling,
• 56:15
  you are glowing, you are animated, your hands are moving, your, your verbal inflection completely
• 56:21
  changed. Um, because early in this conversation, you were with a notebook in hand because you
• 56:27
  were going to listen to the questions. It was very academic. We talked about brokers. We talked
• 56:31
  about sponsors. We talked about all of these very academic things. And yet the minute I turned to
• 56:37
  the conversation and asked you to tell me about your story, everything about your energy changed.
• 56:44
  And, and I, I do that demonstratively because I want to point out that even to a girl who came in
• 56:50
  here, very academic to have a conversation about the power of immigration and so on, so forth,
• 56:56
  the minute we focus our energy on an individual and give a moment for that individual to tell
• 57:03
  the highlights of their own story. And while your story is amazing and the, the power of positive,
• 57:09
  positive thinking and, and positivity in your life. And I knew I was going to go do great things.
• 57:13
  And I always felt seen and I always felt heard and I always felt that it, although the world around
• 57:17
  me was literally collapsing, I never felt like that was a problem, which is a testament to your
• 57:21
  parents, but, and the community. But I want to really point out everything about you changed
• 57:30
  when you started telling a story. And there's no other way to capstone the entire conversation.
• 57:39
  And literally just saying, did I just trick you into doing that? But, but, but literally seeing
• 57:45
  the way that everything about you, your, your, your countenance, the fact that you got into,
• 57:50
  they called me curly kind of kind of story because even subtle nuances mattered.
• 57:57
  Like even the things about I had curly hair in my family didn't like, that's part of your story.
• 58:03
  And, and when you tell that part of the story, like you physically change, like you physiologically
• 58:08
  change, I guarantee you that telling that story is an oxytocin, oxytocin pump in your brain. Like,
• 58:14
  there's a serotonin release that's taking place because it parts of that were traumatic.
• 58:20
  I'm sure parts of it were, but, but I tried to resolve them. But whether our stories are
• 58:24
  traumatic or not, there are stories. Right. And, and then the being seen and the being heard, like,
• 58:30
  what, what I want anybody and you can agree with me or not, but what I would want anybody to take
• 58:35
  away from this conversation is take the time to listen to other people's stories. Because when
• 58:41
  N equals one, everything changes. Like one-on-one relationship is just so different than trying to
• 58:50
  take a community of people and categorize them rather than individualizing things because
• 58:56
  even an academic when given a microphone to tell a story physically changes.
• 59:01
  Right. Yes, absolutely. And, I think, you know, your point in emphasizing the individual story
• 59:10
  versus, you know, masses of, you know, I don't know, we can name the ethnic group that we want,
• 59:18
  right? But maybe we shouldn't. But, you know, it's, it does dehumanize. And, you know, I think,
• 59:28
  I appreciate you making that point because I feel like I've been doing it for too long,
• 59:33
  that I, for me, it's, it's, you know, I'm a humanist. I'm, I mean, the humanities, this is,
• 59:39
  this is what I do. You want to put light on people. Right. And, I think that, that's a very important
• 59:46
  point to an important takeaway. Thank you for that. And thank you for what you do with students
• 59:51
  here in South Florida. And obviously, students from abroad who are coming here to study in South
• 59:55
  Florida. And congratulations on your new position at the University of Miami. They're lucky to have
• 1:00:01
  it. But for anybody who is listening who wants to learn more, talk to you, maybe just tell their
• 1:00:07
  story, how would they go about getting a hold of you? Can they, can they find you at the University
• 1:00:12
  of Miami website? My, officially, my position starts in August. So, I'm still affiliated with
• 1:00:20
  Berry University. And, but I'm very easy to find if you just do a search for my name.
• 1:00:28
  We'll put some stuff here to show you. And I will give you, right. And it's easier. I mean, in,
• 1:00:34
  in a lot of, I just use the same handle, the first two letters of my name, Lee, and then my last
• 1:00:41
  name, Lee, who's on Instagram. I'm going to try to post more often. But I think starting in the fall,
• 1:00:49
  I will have a, I'm hoping to collect more stories. So, I'm hoping to provide more opportunities
• 1:00:55
  for South, especially South Floridians to tell their stories. I love that. You can check it out
• 1:01:01
  in the show notes. You can actually see the spelling of Lee, Jimmy, who's name. And find social
• 1:01:06
  handles where you can reach out to her if you've got a story. And let me just give a final note here
• 1:01:10
  and say that story telling is so important. And it's important for us as individuals to want
• 1:01:15
  to tell those stories. But sometimes we need to shut up. Like, shut up and listen to somebody
• 1:01:19
  else's story. Because I think you'll find out that there's a lot of similarities between a lot
• 1:01:23
  of those stories. And, and often people don't need to be helped. They just need to be heard.
• 1:01:28
  So, I encourage you to do so if that's my takeaway from today is shut up. Like, listen to other
• 1:01:34
  people's stories, like validate where people are. So, thank you for listening to performance
• 1:01:39
  driven living. And we will see you next time. Thank you.