Hey y'all, some reason I have to think that all of us got into this work is because there's something about telling our story or being on the other side of listening to someone else's story that connects us. And it's not just the pain that connects us, it's the goodness that brings us together when we can be with another person in their pain and the story of their people and the pain of their people. And when we joined them in that, when we witnessed them in that story, there's a sense of love, a sense of healing, a sense of like, you're not alone anymore. A sense of we can be together on this and move forward. And so the past weekend, we weren't together. I felt that rupture. So what does it mean to tell a truer story? What does it mean to engage collective trauma, but also collective healing?

I mean, when we think about collective trauma, it's a traumatic experience. Like here's the, like by the book Play of Collective Trauma, it's a traumatic experience that affects entire people, groups, communities, or societies. The size and scope of which shatter the very fabric of the communities impacted. I think about Uvalde, I think about Buffalo. I think about the Atlanta massacre. There's a number of examples we have in our communities of collective trauma. It not only brings distress and negative feelings and consequences to individuals, but it also changes the very fabric of our communities. A sense of life, like before the event, and a sense of life after the cataclysmic event. When I think about collective trauma and the Latinx story, it's like, how do we even define Latinx, right? Like, I'm Mexican. My mom's mostly indigenous, and her family came over from Mexico. Then I know there's those of us that come from other countries in Latin America that are often forgotten.

There's Puerto Rico, there's Afro-Latinos, there's the indigenous Latinos, there's fair-skinned Latinos. There's really dark-skinned Latinos that aren't black. So we have this wide variety of what it is that's come to be called commonly as Latinx. So when we talk about telling, uh, a truer story, we're engaging all of these ethnicities at once under the Latinx umbrella, which actually isn't very fair. We're talking about memories. We have these collective traumas. We didn't really talk about collective resilience, but let's be real. We have collective ways of being resilient and surviving and thriving. We're not just surviving. Many of our communities are thriving in our own ways. But let's go back to collective memory. So we remember these historical accounts, and there's facts and events, but how do we make meaning of those facts? Or the memory is how we make meaning. What are the stories we tell about the events?

It lives beyond the lives that are directly impacted. So there will be stories told about Uvalde, the stories told about the teachers, the stories told about the students, the parents who were waiting and fighting to get into the school. They will tell their own stories now. And in a generation, people will be telling stories about what they remember from the stories they were told. Collective memory is remembered by a group members that may be far removed from the original traumatic events in time and space. There's three things I want us to think about from a Latinx, and I'm, I know it's very general. I want us to think about [inaudible] heart to heart listening. I want us to think about testimonial like a testimony technically in English, but it's a sharing, telling or expressing these events in the presence of a collective community. It's a strategy for survival resistance, and it's a refusal rooted in indigenous traditions and the Latin American social movements.

Speaker 2 (05:06):

So I think that, that, that might be the sense of heart to heart listening, right? Like there's something that happens where, right, that, that's a part of the alignment is I can read with my eyes the, the space, right? And then this thing about testimonial, what comes to my mind is that the phraseology keeping it real, right? This idea that with there, like the story that is being told needs to be a true story. Mm-hmm. , we have lots of, you know, when you hear the snaps and all this, but the sense that something has resonated in my body, w with the sense of like, now what you just said is that that's the truth, right? Mm-hmm. and, and, and a problem. If that, if that's not what happens, right? To the point, that is a compliment. Oh, he keeps it real. She keeps it real. He keeps it 100, right? It's the basic sense. You're, you are telling, you're, you're saying the story that you're giving is the truer or truest version of what happened. Um, and probably for the last one, in terms of trust or confidence or inclusion,

My, I I will probably say, um, the, the sense when I be like, oh, that's my girl and we're here, right? Mm-hmm. , that's, and again, with the eyes, it's something like these two things. If the first two things happen that leaves the door open for a sense of, there, there is a trust and a confidence in the sense that we are in alignment together, right? Right. And, um, if one of those three things is not legit, then you are out. We are like, we not here. Mm-hmm. , do you know what I'm saying? I mean, that's very, uh, colloquial in the language, but I think the, the, the dynamic is true nonetheless. Right? What's the version? And so there is a sense even that my whole body has to be engaged in the process for me to feel this kind of alignment. I need to see it, touch it, taste it, hear it. Like all of my senses need to be engaged before I feel like I could say, right? And if I, if I don't have that, I don't know. I don't know. You , right? Like, I don't know. You like that?

Speaker 1 (07:32):

Mm-hmm. ? Mm, mm-hmm. . Tj, any thoughts or anything to add or comments? Not yet that I'm enjoying this conversation. I think one thing I wanted to add, Brooklyn is like, trust is something that happened at my daughter's quinceanera. Now my fam, no, they're not my family, but I'm calling them my family. They all came and chow and Corte, it's their, um, their daughter and their, and their son-in-law came, the son-in-law's white. He's, and he's, he's joined the family. And, uh, they're always telling me like, Hey, he didn't say hi to so-and-so, can you help him out? You know? So he didn't speak.

Speaker 2 (08:14):

Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:15):

Didn't speak. So, uh, that's a big thing, right? To say hi to everybody. I'm all say, Hey, did you say hi to them? He is like, I think I did. I'm like, brother, like, you better go do it again. They don't feel like you really said hi. He's like, I waved. I'm like, no. They wanna like, no, that

Speaker 2 (08:29):

Ain't no,

Speaker 1 (08:30):

No. They, you gotta like shake your hand. And so they're giving him, they're giving him hands, right? But they, they're keeping him. They're not, they're not, they're not pushing him out. And so at, at the point where the dancing was on and the dj, they requested a song and they're like, Sam, Sam, get out there and dance. And Sam was like, okay. And it's this, it's this, basically it's this Mexican line dance. And he was right on it. He had the whole dance down and everybody cheered for him. They were like, you're in, you're in. And they were going nuts. And afterwards he was glowing. He was so happy. And it, it wasn't a sense of like, if he didn't do it right, he was gonna be ridiculed. It was just like, you're part of us, you know? Mm-hmm. . And so that's kind of what I think too about trust and inclusion, like the trust to share moments like that with someone mm-hmm. even in fun times, you know? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. Does that make sense? It

Speaker 2 (09:33):

Makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1 (09:35):

I wish you could see this guideline dance. It

Speaker 2 (09:38):

Makes perfect sense.

Speaker 1 (09:40):

. And by the way, Mexicans do a lot of line dancing. And that's,

Speaker 2 (09:44):

I mean, you know, black people know a little bit, just a little bit, just a little bit about mine.

Speaker 1 (09:50):

So we have [inaudible] testimonial and za, these are the three elements that I believe are essential when bringing our voices, when bringing our stories, when living inside of the collective story of Latinx peoples. What happens when that story is fragmented or edited? When we just take out a little piece of history when we say, oh yeah, there were three cops at Uvalde. What happens to the story? What happens to the memory of that story? And how is that passed on from generation to degeneration?

Speaker 2 (10:29):

And by the time they get off the ship, it is, it is the creation of a new people group,

(10:36):

Which is, it's, it's mildly controversial, but not really. Cuz nobody, even though, even though there's a whole sort of back to Africa and I wanna do the 23 and me thing and find out like what tribe from Ghana I came from, it, it isn't really about that kind of fracturing, right? Mm-hmm. and I and so there wasn't people, there's something about what she said that resonates with people enough that you didn't hear any real pushback on, on that ideology. So I'm wondering Right, if I'm wondering about that, I'm wondering about that felt experience and lived reality and if the invitation, even in the Latinx experience, is to not, not, not fracture it that much, right? Is there some invitation in the text and in the lived experience that is about, we we're not going back to Eden

Speaker 1 (11:26):

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (11:27):

We're we like, we are pressing forward to, to the city of God and when we get there, your, you are, you will be able to hold and there's absolute invitation from Jesus to hold Mexican American

Speaker 1 (11:44):

Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. ,

Speaker 2 (11:49):

Right? In a way that would allow you to note the Asian ancestry and the African ancestry, whatever else in the indigenous ancestry with all the honor and celebration it deserves, and not have that be a fracture. But African American, it is, is a term of respect. And it, and it's also a notation that you are an outsider cuz we don't call each other that mm-hmm. , you know what I mean? So, and, and to me, whenever I say like Asian American, I feel stupid. Like I be, I feel like I'm un I'm entering into the conversation in a way that is unintelligent because I, I, I think it's a dishonor to, to slap that name when what I really wanna know is what country are you from? And is it better for me to identify you as Japanese-American or Chinese-American or Taiwanese than it is for me to say Asian American. You know what I mean? Like, I, I just feel the awkwardness of how's this gonna read a a again, I think because I'm aware none of these are self named monikers. Mm-hmm. , they're all imposed, but, um, by whiteness. And so it always feels awkward.

Speaker 1 (13:09):

And I mean, the additional con conversation for Latinx, even Latinx, I hate that word, but even the additional conversation is how have people of all these various backgrounds had to rally together to fight western intervention in their cities, in their countries, you know? Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Yeah. So they have to rally around that. But even that gets confusing because with the infusion of like money and power from the United States or other outside interests, it even splits. It splits people even more. But I think when people get to the United States, they say stuff like, I'm Cuban. Mm-hmm. , you know, or I'm Mexican. There's not, there's a way of surviving in that. Right?

Speaker 2 (13:56):

Right. Plus what do you do with the, because like where I grew up, if you were Puerto Rican on the west coast, that made you Mexican, but if you're Puerto Rican on the east coast, you are black like end of story, end of conversation. And so even, even that is like mm-hmm. . Yeah. Like all, yeah, all those, all those lines, it is different.

Speaker 1 (14:25):

So trauma decontextualized over time in a family can look like family trait and trauma decontextualized in a people can look like culture. Yeah. SMA MEK had a lot of good points there. As I say that, what do you notice in your body? Are you numb? Are you angry? Are you frustrated? Why is intergenerational story important to you? Why do you think it's important to La Latinx peoples, Mexicans, Puerto Ricans folks from El Salvador, Argentina? Why does collective story matter? And what happens when that story is fragmented or edited? If we just take out a piece of the story like in Alde, what was going on for you when you believed that there were only three police officers there when there were 10, when there was a possibility that the police didn't arrive until after the shooting started, that the door was locked to the school? What happens when we edit the story of a people group, or the traumas that a people group's experienced, or what happens when we edit the healing power that a culture has within itself? When we forget about Tika, when we forget about testimonial, when we forget about the idea of za, and that at the root of our culture perhaps was inclusion and trust,

Speaker 2 (15:59):

I think in some ways we've been asserting that the, the whole, this whole time, right? This idea that like, if you're black, you need to lean fully in into that and fully into the ways in which your culture, that culture has made you, made, made pathways towards healing for you mm-hmm. , right? And the way that your culture has understood and made meaning out of your story, um, and, and, and therefore created avenues of, of, of, of, of healing for you, right? In, in a sense, you're asking what archetypes right? Ha has, has your culture created for you? Um, and, and, and, and that the more that we do that, the less dissonance we have, right? Mm-hmm. mm-hmm. . Um, and in some ways the very creation of sort of the identity of the oppressed, right? Is the, the, the, the very identity that gets created under the force and weight of oppression is that is what healing looks like, right?

(17:04):

I mean the, like, the meaning that gets made out of the identity of the hyphenated existence is to define the harm and then define what it looks like could be healed from it mm-hmm. in a way that is unique to the story that you have, right? And then the truth is the same is true for the majority culture, right? I mean, and the, and the work that will have to be done on behalf of our white brothers and sisters is what does it look like to tell a true story? And what does healing look like? Mm-hmm. , right? And, and I think the, the pitfall is if the invitation at a majority culture is to not tell the true story, if the invitation out of the perpetrator culture is to be dismissive and to live in a level of denial for what the true story is, you never get to those pathways or architects of healing because you, you can't admit that harm has actually been done.

Speaker 1 (17:57):

I actually have a frame in my body that's working towards healing. I have been created that way. And that is good.

Speaker 2 (18:06):

And that is resiliency, right? It is the God given capacity to navigate the harm that is embedded in your story, right? And, and it is this sense that Jesus knew in this world you will have trouble. Like, like it's, it's, it, trauma is going to hit you, right? But, but I have embedded in, in, in, in your collective story, a a sense of what healing looks like and redemption looks like for you, right? And, and, and resiliency is your, is really in some ways the capacity to tap into that mm-hmm. and to leverage it.

Speaker 1 (18:47):

I'm gonna jump into something a little more heady, even though it's about the body. So this chart's gonna pop up and you're gonna look at it and you're gonna be like, what the heck? Well, the chart is made by my friend Jenny McGrath, and she has, uh, worked it from Ruby j Walker, and so it's been adapted. So we have a number of citations here, and I want you to notice that's very important, and this is my take on this chart. Our different cultures allow us to be in these different states and, and kind of like what we've talked about before. And that's not wrong. And, and I think, I think what's hard about this is that some of our resiliency has been pathologized.

Speaker 2 (19:32):

Yes. Mm-hmm. , very much so, right? And the, the simple argument that, uh, uh, because our, our whatever reaction we took in the moment was in fact a reaction to something traumatic is the thing that pathologizes it, right? And, and I, I think that's a mistake. It's like to say that we were kicked out of the garden, and because of that, we built, we built a response to that severing that the response itself is pathological. Because our goal is to be back where we were in the garden before sin entered it. That that's not how the story go. That's not how it works. Mm-hmm. , right? I mean, yes, we were excised from the garden, right? And what's pathological is that she ate the damn apple when you kind said don't do it, that that part is a problem. But, but, but, but the capacity that we developed to live life outside of the garden is not itself pathological simply because it is in reaction to the fact that we no longer live in the garden, right?

(20:37):

That the, like, there will be a reaction and there's good reaction and healthy reaction that is, that is in fact resiliency. Mm-hmm. . And then there are other reactions that are pathological that are problematic and that we do need to address, right? Mm-hmm. . But the simple factor that something is a reaction to a traumatic event does not itself pathologize it. Mm-hmm. , right? And this is the part where I, I, I, tide Trit has a song, um, and there's a line in the song where he says, um, something of like, the devil's gonna wish he never messed with me because I, like, I came back stronger and better than I would if, if he would've left me alone in the first place. Right? And so there, there's, there's something I think we're missing in the theological frame that that is like, um, the, there's something that happens in the WestEd and for evil, God moves for good. There's something in whatever that switch is that rotation, that flip that is of significant value

Speaker 1 (21:46):

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2 (21:47):

, right? And if we simply pathologize it, because it is a reaction to a move of evil, we have missed the, like, the mystery of God in that moment to take a thing that was meant to be our downfall, and not only caused us to survive it, but to, but it is that thing that actually makes us better, stronger, more like him, right? And so, so that in and of itself is good. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. , I, and so there's something of the ability to move up and down this chart that is, that is freaking brilliant

Speaker 1 (22:23):

Mm-hmm. . So, so I think I wanna go back to that story in Genesis. And when, you know, they ate the apple and then God came walking through, he, he asked them where they were, and, and through the conversation he says to them, you know, he finds out that they ate this apple and that that's why they were, you know, wearing, had sewed these fig leaves and made this, this, um, made these like coverings, right? I'm assuming for their body. But that's not, they weren't in trouble for their shame about their body. Mm-hmm. , you know, that's not why he, he kicked them out of Eden. It was for what they did, right? And then actually when they were out of Eden, he honored that shame. He made them close out of animals. So God actually didn't take them, didn't take their shame and move them through this polyvagal chart and force them to be calm in their body in a certain way.

Speaker 3 (23:24):

I think that's a really important thing to say. Mm-hmm. ,

Speaker 2 (23:30):

Right? And, and I think there's also a sense in which

(23:36):

That what, what you're, what that means then is that something was fundamentally altered in Adam and Eve, and they never got to go back to the state in which they were in Eden as if it had never happened. Right? And, and, and I think there's something about the gospel that is, um, that that isn't what, that's not what you're meant for, right? There's a kind of naivete before she eats the apple mm-hmm. , right? That we, we don't get to go back to mm-hmm. . And, and there might be some loss there, right. Of, of, of innocence, right? But there's also something to be gained in the process of having God honor the shame and re reshape it and reimagine it for us, right? Mm-hmm. . And, and it, um, there's a quote on my Facebook page, something of like, uh, um, a gratitude that I have for my struggle because in it, I stumbled across my own strength mm-hmm.

(24:42):

. And, and so there's something, I think, uh, there's something that we gain in the wrestling and the struggling and the coming out in a place of God honoring where we've been, including the shame that we have felt that that, so you don't ever really get to go back home again, right? Like, you never get to go back to life before the apple, but you do know the grief of having ate the apple, the agony of having eaten the apple and the sweetness of God having restored your relationship to him even after you ate the apple, right? That, and so there's a different depth to your relationship with Jesus.

Speaker 1 (25:25):

So the polyvagal chart, I think some people are like, what the heck is a polyvagal? And it, it's this nerve and it's got like this bowl of like nerve endings in your gut, and you have all of these neurons around there. So when people think they say, well, I'm thinking with my gut. Yeah, you are. You literally are. And when you feel, feel like I have a gut feeling or my stomach's upset, or I can't breathe, what's going on for your body, you're likely somewhere on this chart, or the way perhaps our cultures have been pathologized for staying in different places in this right cycle. And therefore, as a practitioner working in a cross-cultural environment, we have to come in with an attitude of first alignment and then willingness. Yes. To be curious and receive, you know what Ernest said, that criticiz ability,

Speaker 2 (26:23):

Right? Right. That plus I think, like I said, I think there's a time and a place for every single thing on here. So some of the pathologizing of communities of color is like, sometimes vigilance is not hypervigilance, sometimes it's just situationally appropriate vigilance, right? . And, and the problem is that the majority culture is isn't isn't paying attention to the power dynamics in the room. So they are misreading the need for vigilance in the room, right? And so and so then I'm not actually in this pathological space of hypervigilance, right? I'm not in this space of PTSDs where I'm actually not on the battlefield. And so my vigilance doesn't make any sense. I actually am, and my body is rightfully reading some sense of threat in the room. The problem is that in your not reading the room, well, as you know, as a, as a member of the culture that happens to be in power in that moment, you, you're, you're, you're not, you're not being honest about what the dynamics in the room really are.

Speaker 1 (27:32):

So thinking about the dorsal vagal system, dorsal vagal, sorry, it's freeze and appease. So in freeze we have some categories. Now these are categories that can be defined within each culture. They're not gonna look the same for me as they look for you. And this is something that we have to engage one another in curiosity and kindness. And as a therapist, I don't make assumptions about you, um, where you might be on this polyvagal chart, I chart, I can notice with you where you might be or what I'm experiencing. And then it's a collaborative effort for us to kind of decode what language comes between us. So I'm saying those, these words with that caveat in mind. So we have freeze, which is dissociation, depression, um, raised pain threshold, um, helplessness, shame. We have appease lack of boundaries, overcompensating, victimization, acquiescing. When you are in freeze and appease, that's gonna look different based on your individual story and your collective story.

(28:38):

And boundaries are defined differently. Overcompensating is defined different differently, victimization, acquiescing, all these things. So that's why it's important that you're in community when you're experiencing. You may feel like, Hey, I, I'm in this trauma state and, and I can tell you honestly, I was a little bit depressed this weekend and dissociated, uh, and what I experienced, just kind of being zoned out around my family, not able to focus after not being able to be together this weekend. We also have the sympathetic activation, which is fight flight. So fight again. Now, uh, western psychology has pathologized many of these words. So I want you to take these words with the caveat that I'm speaking from a particular location, from a particular education, which is largely a European white lens. And I am additionally adding on this lens of my Latinx culture and history and how I'm raising my kids.

(29:33):

So you're gonna hear all of that mixed together. So fight is rage, anger, irritation, and honestly, a lot of those I've needed to make change. Um, I'm gonna think about flight, panic, fear, anxiety, worry, concern. And again, have you been in those states? Cuz I have been, I've been worried, like, how's the group gonna be? How am I gonna be? Um, are we gonna be able to hang together? What's this gonna cost one another? Um, then I wanna think about ventral vagal, and that's called rest and digest. So you have words like centered, grounded, settled, curiosity and openness, compassionate and mindful of the present moment. It's possible you may be going up and down this chart, like what is Danielle gonna say? Mm-hmm. , what is Rebecca gonna say? What will happen in this moment mm-hmm. and, and to, for us to honor those bodily experiences. And maybe, you know, how we did with Jenny, just slow down and ask mm-hmm. , because I will be going up and down this chart during the talk because, you know, there's performance pressure. There's the idea of I wanna honor my culture. There's the idea of how do I interpret myself mm-hmm. . So I think it's fair to name that.

Speaker 2 (30:59):

Yeah. And that there are really good reasons why Right. That that, you know, and, and how do you step into a sense of self-evaluation about how much,

(31:14):

What, where's the line for me between like, this is a, a, a resilient response that I need to honor. And where there are places where there's some hyper vigilance, right? I mean, not that you wouldn't honor all of it, but to help them start to understand like there, there are resilient reactions and then there are reactions that are more about like being resigned to, to the weight o of our collective stories. Right? And the, the text doesn't ask us to be resigned. Right? Right. It it, it asks us, uh, to, to fight and to persevere, right? Um, and to press on towards the mark.

Speaker 1 (31:51):

And in in fact, that's what, you know, that's where we can come back to. Like, God didn't ask Adam to get on with it to like stay naked, right? And he didn't even call it out as a problem. He's just like, here man, here's some nicer clothes. Right?

Speaker 2 (32:11):

Right. And right. And, and, and you can almost hear in that a sense of like, like, Eden is where you started, but it isn't where you're gonna end up. And, and, and, and there is a journey that we will be on together, right? And so like, there's some things you're gonna need for the journey, including some clothes.

Speaker 1 (32:33):

And so you're gonna say, well, maybe I've been there this weekend too, but maybe you had trauma. So what is normal? It is normal to go through these different areas on the chart with some fluidity to move between them. And it's also normal for you to be a part of a collective that may be feeling a collective response to a trauma or to even a good moment. And for you also to have your own individual experience. So it's far more complex than either or. It's likely both. And.