Episode Transcript
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where i live in southern
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california psychic shops are practically
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is plentiful a coffee shops there
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are a part of the landscape i
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know people who have regular appointments with
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their psychic it's the kind of thing
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you can drop in casual conversation
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and no one bats an eye and
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i can understand why people
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want security they won or know
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what the future will hold and
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whether through tarot cards or a crystal
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ball the fortune teller
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will hint at how your story
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will play out let
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me say up front that i don't know how this
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tale will play out or how it will end
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because in this story the fortune
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teller came to me at
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the very beginning of this podcast
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i never thought in a million
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years it would turn
0:52
into what it is now my
0:54
name is faith p new and i'm a reporter
0:57
at the los angeles times but
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back in october twenty nineteen i was
1:01
working at a small community newspaper an
1:03
orange county called the daily pilot and
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that's where i first got a call from paulina
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stevens paulina told me that
1:10
from the time she was a child she was told
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she would be a fortune teller that
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she came from a whole family a fortune
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tellers and then she
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mentioned something that made my ears perk
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up it
1:22
was a warning about a psychic shop in orange
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county she told me that
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this was the psychic shop that she
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had escaped i suggested
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we meet up in person at a local cafe
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i'm a little nervous so sorry for league as
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i don't know like kind of nervous like i'm
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okay take years i whatever
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wasn't
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people call reporters all the
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time with salacious tips but
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when polina started talking i felt like
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i was drinking from a fire hose what
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do you do you know what i'm saying
1:56
what are you do paulina said she had
1:58
an arranged marriage with the
2:00
And at 12, it's like you're supposed
2:02
to know who you're getting married to, you know? That's like,
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you're going through puberty, like I was getting too
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old. That her parents shielded her from outsiders.
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Any kind of outsiders was a big, like, no, no.
2:11
And then she was pulled out of school entirely,
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at 12 years old. I was actually lucky,
2:16
like, I got to go to school up to sixth
2:18
grade.
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At the time, I was used to writing stories
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on city council meetings and town art shows.
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So Paulina's story, it was totally
2:28
out of my wheelhouse. It seemed too big.
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Because ultimately, Paulina kept blaming
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her culture, her culture, her culture. And
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if you disobey us, then you
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disobey your culture. Paulina's
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culture is Romany.
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I don't think I had ever even heard the word Romany
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before. And that's because Romany
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people are often known by another
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name. You know,
2:50
a gypsy. You're not going to hear
2:53
me throwing around the G word on this podcast.
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As for many in the community, it's a slur, not
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for outsiders like me to use.
3:00
But at the time, I had no idea.
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Because even a pop star like Shakira
3:05
casually throws around the G word.
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It's set against this catchy, poppy backdrop,
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like something you'd instinctively hum along to. If
3:15
you weren't paying attention, you'd never notice the
3:17
lyrics are actually overtly offensive.
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Cuz I'm a
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cheap C. Are
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you coming with me? I
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might steal your clothes and wear the
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mistase with me.
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Once I started noticing it, I couldn't stop
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seeing the G word everywhere. Clothing
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brands and restaurant menus, surfboards
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and teabags. It's become a shorthand
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for something nomadic, wild,
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deceitful, romantic. Something
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exotic, a style anyone could put
3:47
on and wear like a costume.
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And there are two stereotypes that always
3:51
come up, that Romany people
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are fortune tellers and thieves. But
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the thing was, Paulina and her family
3:59
were acti-
4:00
fortune tellers. And while
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Paulina told me about her family and their
4:04
history, she also seemed
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to be painting herself as those very stereotypes.
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She seemed to want to shock me to get me to pay
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attention. Like, the
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rule is no stealing, only scamming.
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Because people give you stuff so it's not considered
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stealing. Paulina
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seemed to be telling me, yes, fortune-telling
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is a scam. I am
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a scam artist, you know, born in bread.
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That's
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what I'm telling you. I just looked
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at her like, what? You
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know, you're sitting here with a reporter. Are
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you turning yourself in? I didn't
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know what to think. And honestly, it
4:41
didn't seem like Paulina did either. Gypsies
4:43
have a bad rep, and
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they should, I think. I don't
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know. Not all of them. And then,
4:50
Paulina said, she had decided
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to leave. Because when I left,
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I had no education, I
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had two kids, no driver's
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license, okay, no car. You
5:01
know what I'm saying? I had nothing, nothing, nothing,
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nothing.
5:05
The franticness in Paulina's voice suddenly
5:07
made sense. The unfiltered
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panic and blurting out extreme claims.
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It was the sound of someone stepping
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out of one world and into another,
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questioning everything she's ever learned.
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And this was certainly part of why Paulina
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said she had come to me. But
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it wasn't just to tell her life story. The
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real reason Paulina reached out to me
5:29
was she needed help.
5:31
Paulina has two
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little girls. And when she left her
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community, she was at risk of losing
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them. To fight to keep
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her daughters, Paulina did the number one thing
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people in her culture were taught not to do.
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She turned to the outside world.
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She took her case to the American legal system.
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and her custody hearing was coming soon.
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By leaving her community, going to the courts,
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and talking to the press, Paulina was
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opening up her life to a world
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of scrutiny and doubt.
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Lots of things
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are sad in the heat of a fight
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to protect and to not lose
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your children.
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It's hard to me to support you if I don't know what the
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f*** you're doing. Paulina was a diamond. Now
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she's just a stone.
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But Paulina and I kept talking. For
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years. As Paulina and I got
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to know each other, we peeled back layer
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after layer together. Both of us
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trying to get to the actual truth beneath
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the surface, to
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the place beyond the resentment and the
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stereotypes. You
6:36
have to be exclusionist
6:38
in order to preserve identity.
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You have to close ranks to
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prevent infiltration
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from outside. One
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time during a session she did
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a healing bowl and it put
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me in a complete trance. I
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opened my eyes and the whole room
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was like a white cloud and I could barely
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see her. What we offer
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is a spiritual
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practice and
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a spiritual, dare
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I say it, business, right? Because
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it's true of any community, of any
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identity, that there are stereotypes
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and there are truths. And
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while sometimes they can overlap in superficial
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ways, the whole and deep
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story is so much richer and
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more complicated than we could have ever predicted.
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It's weird actually how I went
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from loving it to absolutely
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hating it and now missing it.
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I'm Faith Pinyou
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from the Los Angeles Times. This is
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FOUR-TOLED. Coming April 11th. Listen
7:50
and follow FOUR-TOLED at LATimes.com
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slash FOUR-TOLED or wherever you get
7:55
your podcasts. That's LATimes.com
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slash foretold. You
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