EPISODE TITLE: #52 The Lasting Impact of Trauma With Professor Esther Villegas-Sandoval
EPISODE DESCRIPTION:
Esther Villegas-Sandoval is a sociology professor at the College of the Sequoias. She received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from California State University, Northridge where she focused her studies on the experiences of undocumented college students in Southern California.
Her areas of research and expertise include the experiences & identity management of undocumented students; trauma-informed practices; and critical theory of love.
Professor Villegas-Sandoval strives to foster equity,
agency, and well-being.
Follow Professor Villegas-Sandoval:
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There is also this undocumented closet that that undocumented individuals and students you know are in
um and again this is not necessarily good or bad it just is and so i i’ll have a couple of students um
who tell me that they’re undocumented um but i think most of them don’t come out
to me and that’s okay i so one and one of the things that i talk about in my workshop is do not
expect your undocumented students or anyone um whether they’re foster youth or
whether they’re someone who has mental health disorders to come out to you because not everyone will come out and
it actually has nothing to do with you because some professors and counselors that get personal like why don’t they
come out they can trust me it’s not about you and it’s like sometimes they don’t trust the setting sometimes they don’t trust their classmates sometimes
they don’t trust um you know like they’ve had really negative past experiences i i’ve had
students that have interviewed or like yeah coming out was was not easy then they started joking um
you know my own friends started making fun of me and making comments that made me feel insecure
so i tell and i preach this in my classrooms i’m like you don’t have to tell me anything like i’m gonna be here
for you right like you tell me what you feel comfortable with hey what’s going on everyone i’m your host kevin munoz
you’re listening to the leo podcast where we talk about various educational topics especially those impacting the
latin american community this is today’s free episode if you want early access to episodes and bonus episodes you can find
that right now on our patreon.com slash latinamericanail and if not then
enjoy this one in today’s episode i had a pleasure to speak with professor esther villegas sandoval a sociology
professor at the college of the sequoia she received her bachelor’s and master’s degree from california state university
northridge where she focuses studies on the experiences of undocumented college students in southern california her
areas of research and expertise include experiences and identity management of undocumented students trauma-informed
practices and critical theory of love professor villegas sandoval strives to
foster equity agency and well-being a large part of conversation focuses on trauma’s impact on many young immigrants
and how the environment plays a role so let’s just get right into it and i hope you enjoyed this conversation as much as
i did
so hi everyone it’s esther village i’m actually a sociology professor and a researcher out in california
i’ve been teaching at the community college level for i think it’s 10 years actually
and i have my research has primarily focused on the experiences of undocumented
college students and then from there i’ve kind of gone down this path of learning to be trauma
informed and cultivating love and the reason why i fell down this path is because one of the themes that kept
constantly coming up in my work with undocumented students and research was that is that there’s a lot of trauma and
stress in the experiences there’s also a lot of joy right so like these things can coexist
so then i became really passionate about like how do we foster joy in classrooms so that students can thrive
and how do we approach people so that they can reach academic goals experience
well-being and we can foster all that um so now i’m a professor i’m also a
speaker a public speaker my research allows me to be hired and i do trainings and workshops professional
development to aid teams and their knowledge how did you decide like how did you decide to
pursue your bachelor’s degree um and then eventually get your your master’s degree at california state
university um in northridge right um and you touched on a little bit but what
made you like concentrate on undocumented people specifically uh in the southern
california area correct yeah so it’s so funny because i was actually a psychology major
or i went in like i’m going to help people i’m going to be psychologists you know i don’t know how many of you are
your um your followers can identify with this but so often you
know we’re told like go to college but no one tells you what to study right no one tells you like i can definitely relate to that right like like the regan
right they yell at you they scold you everyone’s like do this but like no one tells you what to do so i kept hearing
you know you go to college but i was like like what what majors i want to help people so i guess i’ll do psy i
took a psych class didn’t like it i got a c i was butt hurt
and i get degrees right uh yeah i know but i was not happy with that because i’m not a c student
um although there’s nothing wrong if you are your grades don’t define you and you know things happen
but um i ended up taking the sociology class and i remember just being so blown
away one of the things that had made a sociology i’ll be very honest with you is actually learning about domestic
violence i there was a lot of domestic violence in my household it was something that made me feel really alone
very ashamed i didn’t know how to process it because we don’t talk about domestic violence
for the most part right right and when i would hear when i would see my friends
yeah maybe there was conflict in families but you know there wasn’t that excessive domestic violence that i had
in my home so i remember feeling really ashamed very isolated and i took a sociology class
and they talked about the difference between common couple violence and intimate terrorism which are
still part of domestic violence but they’re entirely different beasts and i remember thinking like this is
what i’ve been going through right like this has been my life um
this is i can understand why my mom never you know fought off my dad i can
understand why my mom stayed in the relationship so it made me not feel alone it made me
finally understand my mom because i think i was really confused and really hurt and um it really allowed
for a lot of healing and i really do believe that like for some people in some ways education can be part of our
healing process so that’s how i fell into sociology and then i love the discipline because
it’s all about understanding people but understanding the societal factors
um and to this day like i write or die sociology all day every day right like
the world is symbolic we give meanings to things there’s inner intersections of power um so i die for sociology like i
rep at hardcore i just imagine having like a hardcore like i die for sociology tattoo like
right right it’s so funny you say that because i have been thinking of that and the closest i’ve got into a science
tattoo is this one it’s like a little atom bomb oh there oh i love it that’s awesome yeah so um but i’ve been
thinking i’m like dang what kind of social tattoo can i get but um yeah it’s it’s awesome and then i went
into my master’s i didn’t think i was going to get a master’s to be honest with you again you don’t know what to study right
right right yeah i was going to say did you just go into your master’s right after your bachelors or was there like a
uh some break in between there no right away i remember having this professor
who to this day i like love like in terms of i feel like an attachment i remember him calling me into his office
hours to help me with a research paper i had and it’s so interesting because you know
he saw things in me that i didn’t even see in myself and um i remember him telling me like you’re
so smart you need to get your masters and i was like i can do that and you know like i didn’t know anything and
so i applied and i had a really high gpa i had something ridiculous like a 3.9
so i had great write letters of recommendations and you know i
i got in without a problem and then sociology just helps me understand the world it helps me stay grounded
um i’m disappointed in people but i understand them at least right
that’s a kind of like the double-edged sword also of like like learning more about the world and
how it works it’s just like wow it’s so interesting but just like wow there’s so much like like
hey like negative but like you said there’s also so much like great things about it too but it’s just such a
so much information on both ends to consume yeah like and you know sometimes it’s
even harder because like you want to get all wrapped up in your feelings but then you’re like well let me think critically
and thinking critically means that you kind of have to keep your feelings in check right yeah you have to be like oh i can’t get all passionate about this
because i have to think about it um so it yeah um and yeah i got my masters
i remember thinking like i hate tests so i don’t want it to uh i’m gonna be real
uh i get hardcore like exam anxiety so i got a 3.9 gpa over there
i don’t know how overcame that right and um but i still have it and i hate it
so uh i was like i’ll write a thesis and i remember thinking like what do i want to
write about and at the time that i started writing and researching there wasn’t as much scholarly work around the
topic there was actually very little to no scholarly work around the experiences
of undocumented kids everyone’s looking at their parents right but no one is thinking like what happens
to these children who are brought over as youth or as teens or as older teens
right or as babies no one’s asking about how they’re doing and so i really started uh finding
researchers emailing them like hey can i have access to your research studies and
sure enough they would say like hey this hasn’t been printed yet but here you go wow and um yes and so now it’s it’s
entirely different right like now there’s a lot of scholarly awareness and a lot of research interest but when i
started it wasn’t there and i just remember um
you know i i think that there’s so many populations that we misunderstand like women who have
abortions survivors of domestic violence people who stay in domestic violence i think there’s a lot of stigma around
groups and i’ve always been really passionate about like let’s bridge them let’s create
understanding um and then of course i have family that’s undocumented
and then in general i just care about people and i care about human suffering
and i would like there to be a world where there’s no human suffering eventually yeah um and so i just really
fell into that and you know i just i don’t know that’s that’s so that’s how i went in all right
like that’s that’s the way to that you want to go and and that’s how you want to impact this
world right that’s amazing because like even you asking people for their research and
even if it hasn’t been out that’s just like such a risk to take because you know people say no and everything and
then even then like your passion drove you to just go dig for that information and and that’s
not easy to do so i wanted to also focus on you know this
this whole interview came about with the the video that i stitched on and on instagram and tick tock with um
with the the kids hearing how kids like you know how in our household we’re so used to
hearing our parents argue like unfortunately this is just something that we are used
to is hearing like our parents argue back and forth and you know even in your own experience and
as well as in my own experience we’re we just kind of sit there and absorb that maybe without even
um knowing that we’re like disassociating from that situation right and i just
wanted to get your point of view on that as well um i thought it was really
interesting and i’d love to hear more about like what the impact of that is for
um for like undocumented kids and hispanics latinos in general and and since it’s
such like a cultural thing you know there’s a there’s a lot to an impact in that and so i don’t so i’m
going to provide an answer but there’s a lot to say there okay yeah yeah i mean
bits by bits you’re right so first of all one of the things that really bothers me is when people like
say things like you know like i see these videos sometimes on instagram and people will say things like oh we’re just built different like we know how to
take it like first of all first we don’t choose to disassociate right
that is something that subconsciously happens for the brain to keep us as safe as we can
so it’s not like there’s these buttons that we have and i’m gonna be like oops point let me activate this right
um it is fundamentally a coping mechanism
right um so for some people when they experience so let’s take it back so
when we talk about trauma we’re talking about things that overwhelm our ability to
function and so they often come from events set of circumstances
or conditions that created these impairing responses so trauma is not the
event or the condition itself it’s the impact and the everlasting it’s the lasting impact that it has on the body
okay now not all stress becomes trauma and some stress is rather healthy for us
but if you’re constantly stressed out and your cortisol levels are constantly high then that’s when it’s problematic
so not all stress because trauma and not all trauma becomes ptsd if something stressful impacts your
ability to function and jeopardize your well-being your feelings of safety then that’s trauma
right if the trauma symptoms meaning so let me ask you this kevin
have you ever gotten into a car accident uh yes i have okay so after you experience a car
accident sometimes you start feeling a certain ways when you’re driving right
like what um so i’m more careful with taking turns
but i will say i don’t think it impacted me as much because it wasn’t like a big car crash
but i will say this my sister got in a really bad car accident uh where like
her car was totaled and everything and this didn’t happen too long ago but
uh she was driving and i was in a passenger seat and it was really windy outside and
be this just like the sensation of the wind like against the car
made her have like uh like a panic attack um so she had to pull over and i drove the rest of the way
um you know and that’s that’s from like the the car accident like she said
she it’s like like she had a bunch of memories just flash back to her um
when like and that’s what gave her like that so so that’s trauma right because it’s
impairing her ability to function in this case it’s repairing her ability to drive right or continue driving yeah and
um so stimuli in this case went is triggering that flashback which is very um very
common so when we experience things that are traumatic oftentimes it’s very hard for
us to remember clearly or talk about what happened because we do not tend to
retain keep or access explicit memory so it’s really hard for us to talk about sometimes what we went through
but your body will remember right you’ll have flashbacks and you’ll have nightmares so those are the type of memories that we tend to have um
so let’s say your sister’s symptoms don’t don’t go away then that’s ptsd
if if those symptoms persist typically for six months and on then that’s ptsd
right because the time has passed on but she’s still engaging in avoidance she’s
still getting maybe sweaty right when the when the wind comes she’s still having flashbacks she’s still having
nightmares etc so trauma will lead to certain somatic
experiences for the body to experience certain things like headaches and all kinds of stuff right yeah um so i wanted
to clear that off the way um trauma impacts the body and the brain
in so many ways it impacts learning it can make people hyper alert so some
people who have experienced a lot of trauma it’s really hard for them to sit down and focus because they’re constantly scanning the environment
because their brain has what happened i said i’m like that
those are yeah from like coming over here um you know from like crossing a border and everything i was now
like i scan like everything you know i’m always scanning the rooms i never like
realized why why i did that so much i’m always like very present aware of my surroundings because of my
experience of my passage to the united states you know yeah so those are hyper alert traits
right and so some people can be hyper alert other people can be hyper aroused so
they [Music] they react to what other people would call
non-threatening cues so like for a dimension like like a kid who grew up in domestic violence maybe a
door closes and they flinch you and i would perceive that as a non-threatening queue right it’s the
door closing but for them it’s gonna trigger it like the wind the wind for most people is a non-threatening cue
right but for your sister it’s it’s triggering um so so then so there’s that going back
to this whole stage um you know i i don’t think sometimes
people realize so so let me backtrack one of the things that also bothers me is when people are
like oh like you know your trauma made you strong i don’t want to discredit that because
in some ways trauma survivors we have so much resiliency and we show so much
resiliency like kevin look at you’ve been through a lot here you are providing for your family
not only are you providing for the for your family but you’re providing for the community you provide for free a service
if that is not a prime example of resilience of resiliency i don’t know what is right like here you are that
you’re committed to your love once you’re committed to your family you’re committed to educating the community like la raza right yeah um so i don’t
want to minimize that but i think sometimes what people overlook is that like yes
trauma leads to maybe us being what strong quote unquote right but in so many ways trauma also impacts
how we function like disassociation is not necessarily a good thing
because in our relationships in our classrooms in our lives we need to be present
so if you’re shutting down think about what you could potentially be missing
out on and the one thing that i always think about too is like you know i just associate you kevin i’m going to
be straight up with you um disassociation is my go-to whenever i start feeling really stressed out i zone
out and people who i’ve worked with have told me this like if i’m in a really stressful meeting i’m like esther is
blah blah like i’m present physically but esther has left yeah and
it takes a lot of um it takes a lot for me to be present and and um you know in my relationship
now with my fiance you know he brought it up to me one time and he was we were having an argument and a lot of
the times i get really overwhelmed with with arguments even if we’re not fighting yeah because it’s triggering
for me right and i’ll disassociate like i can’t do this i started zoning out like he’s
talking i’m not even listening to him and he made a comment that he’s like how
can we fix things if you’re not really present
and that’s true right yeah how can i even how can i begin to understand if i’m not
even capable of listening so you know when people say like this association like oh this is great i mean
it’s functional we needed to disassociate so that we could preserve our sense of safety
but as we get older this association doesn’t work for us anymore right yeah you got to be
president like you said yeah or like i mean and i think people forget that it’s just because something
served a purpose for us in our childhood doesn’t mean that we should carry over that behavior into adulthood like thank
god we had that back in the day but we’re not here anymore
yeah no absolutely and that just brings about two just like um when i post it on ticks i got a lot
of comments um on on the tic tac one that just like oh this is just part of
the culture like this is what makes us stronger um this is uh
like i’m glad like that happened to to me like this isn’t a real problem
and and it’s just like a lot a lot of that what you you said too that just
like that’s toxic thinking in my opinion like yeah it but maybe it did make you stronger
but you know personally like there’s other ways to be strong um that doesn’t have
to be like traumatic for for a kid right like like why does this
have to be like the the way of of our people to to uh grow up and and be
strong right like it’s just and you know i kind of um i i kind of
push back on this whole idea of like it’s part of our culture i think it’s part of people who had a
culture of violence in their family yeah right and and the thing is that not all latinos have a cultural violence in
their family and when we say like our culture that’s a way to homogenize and make something very like black and white but the
reality is that not all latino households are unhealthy not all latino households have domestic violence right
right um so i think it’s one of the things for us to think about now you know i don’t want to minimize people’s
experience because and maybe some people feel that way maybe some people feel that it’s like oh
i feel proud and you know what you’re allowed to feel the way that you want to feel
but think about the ways in which maybe for other people this has been destructive right like maybe for them they don’t
feel that way um for me personally i feel like
i feel i feel both ways about the trauma that i’ve been through i feel like in some ways it’s like i i really do
fundamentally think that my trauma shaped who i am and i know i know
this like intuitively and also like like educational wise right like the reading is all there
um and i do feel like you know i’m not
i don’t want to minimize that but at the same time do i wish that i didn’t go through that yeah of course right like
my trauma had really hard like you presented me with really hard challenges like it would have been nice to not have that i i think back to a lot
too like like i like it shaped who i am and i’m stronger on certain aspects of
it you know um because of it uh but what i want someone else like my
kid to go through that like no i wouldn’t like i’d rather like go like if i had a kid and
like show him a different level and of like of um affection and
and try to stay away as much as you can right i feel like sometimes it’s just like uh if you’re having an argument like
let it be like a healthy argument right like with your loved one and and i don’t know how to define a healthy
argument argument versus like a non-healthy argument like but
um another thing that i wanted to touch up on and um was it was in one of those
articles that you were kind enough to share with me um was how
it the environment like affects um also our our ability right to think um
and how it impacts our trauma um that we we end up like adapting to
her to our environment around us and that’s when i think the this association
i guess becomes like um a thing is that when we adapt to that type of environment um
how do you think that like affects us um later in life when when
we’re adapting to environments that are maybe not so healthy disassociating is a
way of adapting to the environment right so here you are as a kid
and there’s constant chaos right maybe verbal abuse maybe physical abuse
uh yeah maybe psychological abuse which by the way psychological abuse is views
that are that hurts your sense of self and your sense of security right so threats are emotional views no one
actually has to touch you it’s still abuse because it’s impacting how safe you feel so stalking is a type of abuse
even if no one that stalker never touches you stalking yourself is scary right yeah because it’s this person is
always there um so disassociation isn’t is adapting to the environment you can’t change the
brain knows you can’t change the environment you’re in this environment and the brain’s like you know what we’re
going to check out so that you can maintain a sense of safety and you can maintain a
sense of attachment to your caregiver so we’re going to shut you down right so
that these things are not compromised um and again i i think it’s
functional in the moment because it keeps us relatively safe right it prevents us from being overwhelmed right
so we kind of shut down we’re not necessarily processing all the chaos so it’s functional great
[Music] and i don’t as we move on right get older become a
teenager to become adults um it is important for us to be present in work in our relationships etc and i
think fundamentally this association breaks your ability ability to be present
and as an adult you need to be present i’ll give you a perfect example kevin right so we just adopted a dog last
thursday his name is we named him milo and we ended up taking milo to
the emergency vet on sunday night we were there for five to six hours yeah we
were there until 2 a.m and
i was so overwhelmed in panic because he couldn’t breathe properly he couldn’t
get him from the floor it was scary i was crying paul was crying too and scared
and we had to listen to the vet tell us what were the options i had to fight my
disassociation so hard because i could feel myself disassociating because why because i felt overwhelmed so whenever
you feel overwhelmed the body’s like oh i remember this feeling right i remember what i do i remember this is what helps
me so that’s what builds coping uh patterns right and so
i realized that i was shutting down he was talking and i remember thinking like esther you are not paying attention like
you’re shutting down and i’m like you have to listen and i was trying to so one of the things i kept doing is i kept
checking in and my am i hearing this correctly so if i missed something the doctor had the
opportunity to re-say what he was saying and i know paul shut down too because
there were things that he was like oh the doctor didn’t tell us this and i was like no babe he did but i think you were
so overwhelmed that you tuned him out and so that’s a perfect example kevin that like if
you’re taking your dog your child to get medical services
you can’t shut down you need to listen to those or you shouldn’t right you shouldn’t shut down because you need to
listen to those instructions like there are doctors telling you like you need to do xyz um so that’s kind of like a trivial
example but you know we’re surrounded by these uptime if you’re in a car accident if you’re in a car accident and you
start disassociating how are you going to remember details right yeah how are you going to ask for
the right information so that you can give it to your insurance so ideally we should learn how to stay
common self-regulated so that in moments of emergencies we can be present and we
can you know navigate those as those situations as they need to be navigated don’t go
anywhere we’ll be right back after this break you’re listening to the leo podcast i’m kevin munoz support for
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yeah how do you find like a healthy uh balance with that like how do you fight off like dissociation um
is it is it a matter of like knowing that that you’re about to shut down uh and then kind of
saying like no i need to be president for this or like what so i can’t i can’t really speak to this
because that is way outside of my area of expertise and i don’t want to come off and be like this is what you do because
you know i’m associated what do you do like what have you done um to
to uh be more present to like what have you actively done in your life to try and be more present right so i can
send you some instagram handles that you should follow um so one of the things so first and foremost and this is true for
everyone first and foremost understand your triggers that so that that is very true it is important to take a step back
and take an inventory of what your triggers are so for your sister to know like my triggers are when blah blah blah
blah right because then maybe that way she can anticipate right she can come up with a game plan does that make sense
yeah so first and foremost know your triggers second know your coping patterns
whether they are maladaptive or not so maladaptive coping patterns are things
that you do to deal with the stress however they’re considered maladaptive because long term they don’t really
help you out they don’t really serve you right so like shutting down disassociating
um one thing also to note and we’ll eventually get back to this um
a very common coping mechanism maladaptive
within the immigrant community is actually avoidance so avoidance is found in a lot of trauma
survivors and it’s definitely been found in in immigrants undocumented immigrants
so we have been so overwhelmed by certain experiences
that later on we avoid things that are stressful so what that means is we won’t call our doctors to make an appointment we won’t
answer an email right we won’t answer a test so we learn to avoid things to
immediately provide a sense of relief and some of you may be hearing you’re like oh yeah that’s great i get to put
it off but the reality is that that anxiety just moves because then you know like i
have to do it and i have it does that make sense yeah no that makes sense so yeah so understand your so know
your know your triggers know that you know your coping patterns um definitely get in touch with therapy
which you know that’s very taboo in the community but cbt psycho education can really really help
so if someone is listening and someone is like you know what i don’t want to go to therapy i respect it don’t go to therapy
read a book by a licensed clinician not some fool you’re listening to on instagram because there’s really
kevin you don’t even know seems like we had some experience in
that um scenario i sometimes i try correcting people but
it’s so hard there’s people who really really speak out of their outside of the area of expertise and it really really
bothers me because people look to you as a source of credibility and you’re out here spilling garbage that isn’t true
maybe it’s true for you that doesn’t mean it’s true for society um but really dangerous too yeah okay i
mean if you’re saying the wrong thing and and someone goes and maybe takes that to
heart and then maybe they get worse because of it right like maybe that advice is the
wrong type of device and then and might just make their whole behavior like spiral out of control or something
like worst case scenario there’s a there’s a financial advisor who who i i follow i won’t name her um she’s latina
and she’s always talking about like oh you know we have to you know
say we have to get up and she just wrote a post about like how attachment is not good and we
have to let go of attachment and we shouldn’t have expectations and the goal should be for detachment and i was
thinking you’re so wrong human beings are driven for attachment
um and the goal in life shouldn’t be to detach like the issue is that we need to attach ourselves to healthy people the
issue is an attachment the issue is that we attach ourselves to things that don’t serve us that’s the problem you know
yeah and and then she’s talking about how like oh we don’t have any expectations are you kidding me we have
expectations expectations are part of society and relationships
and they’re normal to have the issue is is that so many people have unrealistic expectations
yeah and so she’s going on and on and i’m like homegirl you are not a social scientist stop your
financial advisor which thank you tell me how to do my taxes and tell me like tell me how to talk about the fight is
yeah yeah but like you were speaking way out of term um you know so you know just stuff like
that but you know one thing for you to keep for you know the listeners to keep in mind is there strategies on how to
ground yourself uh you know drinking water if you’re feeling really stressed out
take a sip of water um splash hold water on your face that can bring you back
right do some squats playing i’m i’m being dead serious right lay on
the ground so people are going to respond to different strategies so learn what works for you so for some people
movement can get people out of it it can bring people back into the present um whenever i teach i always have water
um and part of that is it’s like if someone is stressing me out one of my students i can’t shut down because i
have to give them an answer right yeah so taking a drink of water allows my brain to regroup
and then come back i could picture you just like taking like a drink like and then
getting back to them and they’re just like so i want to buy a sticker that says
emotionally supportive water bottle because because i it’s like it is true right
like it’s my emotional support and i sometimes just have tea too um and like
could be hitting the fan i just need my tea because my teeth wouldn’t and my waters was going to keep me like kumbaya but
there’s so many there’s so many tips right um again like changing the temperature is
is very it’s a very good one you just have to figure out like you know what works for you right yeah and
yeah that’s that’s the other thing too that kind of leads into like you mentioned earlier was the
uh i think you said that there was like levels of stress like having a little bit of stress is uh is is healthy right
it’s good um but like having too much repeated stress i think you said is what um
leads to like ptsd uh and anxiety right like how what did
what are they like the level was like a healthy um amount of stress compared to like non-healthy
so that i can’t give you but i there is a ted talk that i can find and i can send it to you later on yeah is that the
one that you sent me on the no i knew okay okay no there’s another one so um
so sporadic stress is fine but the one that is chronic stress that’s the one
that’s problematic because it’s gonna you know shoot up your cortisol levels and there’s real ramifications from
constantly being in a state of stress right um we know that trauma definitely can impact brain size
brain chemistry like their studies on this so we know that that’s problematic
i can’t give you like this recipe like this formula like hey as long as you’re like only stressed one day out of the
week yeah and i feel like that’d be hard to like measure too because everyone’s you know different like this gets
stressed by different things and everyone handles stress differently right and i think that’s another component too
is like how do you handle your stress like um because some people can be
constantly stressed but they’re better at managing that stress so there’s a lot of moving components to
that um but i’ll find something and i’ll send it to you yeah i know i would love to read that um speaking of that ted talk
though the that was from uh i did look into it i saw it and i found it because i found it very like intriguing um it was a ted
talk from pediatrician harris and she was explaining like the
um the repeated stress of abuse and neglect of parents struggling with mental health um even some like
substance abuse issues how that has like real tangible effects on um the
developing brain right so she’s talking about like kids uh that are exposed to this and how it unfolds over like a
lifetime i one thing i i got out of that ted talk um
was how like like you said it has real effects on like the brain where there was like i saw
also connected to another article that you shared where like it compared like an mri of like two brains and like one
was like a normal um brain and then the other one was like exposed to like extreme uh i think it
was extreme stress um but you could see like the real difference in size and i
was like mind blown i was like it can literally like shrink our brains to be constantly
exposed to this and and another thing she mentioned was like it can lead to like heart disease
and like lung cancer and i was just like this is insane like why isn’t like more
more work being done to um
make us aware of this and like more educate more people especially like
immigrants who are and minorities and and people of color who are exposed constantly to this type of environment
and stress like why why do you think more hasn’t been done or do you think there has been more like over the years
the only perspective that i have is like the perspective of education right do i feel like we explore enough trauma
and form practices in education absolutely not no do i feel like this is adequately funded
no um do i feel like there’s enough professional development no there is such little
um opportunity and maybe that’s driven by a
lack of interest right of how trauma impacts learning
how trauma impacts functioning because trauma can definitely impact like and
again so my whole knowledge is like in the classroom but in terms of in the classroom like
trauma can impact your sleeping habits your eating habits so you know sometimes kids are falling
asleep in classes and you might be thinking oh this is lazy when the reality is that you know they just experience trauma
some kids are really quick to like instigate fights i remember one time i had a situation with a student um she
was a latina female um and she like you know i i pushed back with my students a
lot like why do you think that is you know and she would take it really personally and one day i had to sit with
her and i had to be like it’s my job to teach you and it’s my job to make it incredibly i’m not attacking you i’m
cultivating an um you know a learning environment and she came at me hot and not this is
not my proudest this is not my proudest moment but i turned to her i said to her i said
i don’t know who hurts you but i’m not here to hurt you and i don’t know what you’ve been
through but this is a safe space and my intention is not to hurt you i’m here
for you and she just broke down and she started crying and in reality i shouldn’t have made
that assumption right but to me it became very clear that this person is in pain
right and she’s not purposely trying to be difficult or mean or rude like you could tell that this person was hurting
and that’s why i said i said i don’t know who hurt you but i’m not here to hurt you and that’s when she broke down and she
was like this is what i’ve been through and her attitude in my class totally changed completely we went we did a
total 180. like she was so respectful so it’s so kind and so um one of the things
that i advocate and this might be a going a little bit off topic but i i advocate that professors and teachers
allow for healing to occur in the classrooms and it’s so crazy kevin because when i talk about cultivating
love in the classrooms and cultivating um healing i get so much pushback
especially from colleges and you know college um oh wow okay
like love doesn’t belong in the classroom this is a professional setting i have been told that my research is
techie feely which don’t even get me started because i’m like if i was a man would you say that
to me would you say that to my academic work um yeah we’ll get on that as well
because you know i want to learn a lot more about how because you’re you’re doing the work right you’re doing the
work for with your workshops and going to colleges and being a professor um
so yeah not to cut you off but i also want to get into into how you approach
um schools and how you approach your class and your experiences
as well i again i haven’t so i mean that’s a whole conversation for another for another day but i call my classrooms
bubbles of love and and you know and i tell my students levels of love right like it doesn’t
mean that i’m not going to give you i’m not going to discipline you that doesn’t i mean i’m still going to give you consequences
and there’s going to be expectations right because forget this whole like there’s no expectations of the world and i said but you’re going to be
respected there’s going to be flexibility i’m going to see you as a human being right
i’m not going to shame you and so you know i’ve approached my classrooms i
really do believe in cultivating bubbles of love um in terms of like this whole idea that
like classrooms can be healing spaces and and i even want you to think about you know anyone who’s listening to the
podcast to like how we can be agents of change for other people we can absolutely be ages of change if
you with other people in your relationships if you’re trustworthy if you’re honest
right if you keep your word you are allowing for some healing to occur
because here’s the thing when people have experienced trauma so often we lose trust in people
yeah yeah right i agree and so and so if we can show up in our spaces and in our
relationships and keep our words be transparent be consistent
be loving that can allow for healing because it can allow them to repair
some trust in others now the thing is too is that approaching
people with love we may never see the fruits of our labor
but maybe we planted a seed and so that’s how i approach my students um
and i think this is also really important for trauma survivors to be aware of and i don’t think i was really
aware of this early on but like if you’re a trauma survivor you need to find your agents of change
you need to find people who are trustworthy who don’t manipulate you who don’t shame you
who are um you know flexible and adaptable
and like you said something earlier kevin um and i don’t want to interrupt you but you know you were like oh what to do what’s the difference between like
a healthy argument and a healthy argument are your are you being respected
right is someone actually listening to to you um is someone name calling you
but i can guarantee that if someone’s name calling you if someone is uh minimizing you then that’s not
healthy but if you’re having an argument with someone and you’re not name calling
you’re really pausing to listen and then countering that’s healthy conflict
right yeah if you can maintain that attachment of you know what kevin i’m mad at you
but you know let me tell you this and you listen to me and then you count her like well lester i think you’re wrong
and this is why that’s helping yeah but when we get to like you know
you know the yelling and the cursing and the name calling and the belittling and the gaslighting then that’s unhealthy no
i i agree that’s it’s about i think primarily like listening to to the other person right
and then and then engaging in that conversation so um you’re very
big on like the uh the whole love aspect right yeah yeah i could tell and i even
noticed that um you teach what you call is it the theory of love tell us tell us a little
bit about that oh man so this is not my own work at all so um the critical theory of love that i
talk about is by brooks he’s a scholar out in the east coast he talks about how
love should be adopted in university level yeah campuses right
because in college campuses and in schools you have people who are marginalized and are
trauma survivors which is 100 true right 100 true um you have people who are gay lesbian
trans right homeless foster you um you have undocumented students who
experience a lot of trauma in their in their lifetime typically um
you know you have kids of military vets you have military vets you know
all kinds of stuff so he basically says listen in our college campuses we have trauma survivors we have people who have
been marginalized right people who have been oppressed and so if we want them to do well we need to
follow these six pillars right um and i forgot what the six pillars are this is always like i need my little
like cheat sheet yeah yeah um but it’s like seeing people for like you know same people for as hope as
whole people as people who have resources which is super important um if you want to really love others you
have to realize that you are not their knight in shining armor people can save themselves right yeah
you’re there to support you’re not there to you know this isn’t about you um
and so he talks about like seeing people as whole he talks about attending people’s basic needs so like on college
camp so like we’re undocumented students i think about this all the time like for college campuses it’s like
colleges need to yeah i know i’m going to say colleges
need to do a better job with dealing with their undocumented student populations like yeah give them degrees cool but
teach them how do you get a job saint papeles right like like how do you do all of these
things you know um hook them up with like legal aid so it’s so this critical theory of love is
really about moving beyond teaching them but also making sure that um
you really take inventory of what their needs are and that you maybe take a step back and
you shut up and you let people who have been marginalized take the mic
right it’s really about transferring power back to them um so yeah i talk about his work um
there’s a couple of things that i kind of like twist and adapt to particular populations especially with undocumented
students but it’s just really this idea of like you’re actually really helping and you’re really understanding people
and what they need from you yeah no i absolutely agree that um i feel like more if if that was the case
like more love was applied into like college campuses like even just like
done um like the work was done with love for undocumented students like instead of
just saying like we’re doing this for undocumented students um but not
having people like going to like tell undocumented students how to do the
work like how you can apply for like financial aid or like hey look we have these scholarships instead of like us
having to go to the like office and being like
when you’re at your breaking point at that end like when you’re like i can’t fund the college like is is
there any options for me like oh i’m gonna have to like drop out and she’s like oh actually you can do this and
it’s just like wow like i didn’t maybe i even have to go through this whole like traumatic
experience um and i saw you like a little bit like hesitant and saying like why
like like colleges need to be better at that is there like a particular reason i don’t i don’t want to like you know like
crap talk my institutions you know but but it’s true i think people forget like like i’m i’m an educator but like oh
yeah there’s so many flaws in the college system yeah and i think it’s really important like like if you’re a cop cool
understand that there’s flaws in life law enforcement you know yeah like be a doctor cool there’s problems in medical
care um and so as an educator i’m like dude we’re so messed up like we could be doing things so much better um
but institutions are hard to change sometimes um i think one of the things that i really wish one of the things that i i
want to bring to my campus so besides teaching sometimes i work on these like proposals like oh yeah let me get this
person on campus and actually kevin i might reach out to you but one of the things that i would love to do on campus is i want to run a like
a series or like a workshop where for undocumented students that can teach
them how to create businesses without being a citizen or a resident
so essentially like essentially like how to how to be entrepreneurs entrepreneurs because
it is true that sometimes undocumented students are going to get their degrees but based on what’s happening they may
not end up having a career in their degree because if like if someone doesn’t have
papers right how do you end up in certain institutions
and so you know that’s a conversation that i’ve had to have with some of my documented students um and i said like you know make it work
like you know what else could you do until something changes you know like
um and i don’t know if you follow like any um undocumented um like ig influencers i
guess yeah like yeah but like not like sizzle uh la says i like the dg out in
here in l.a like she’s a baddie um let’s say you’ll see you’ll see um
he’s a poet and you know he goes on campuses and he recites like his poetry and he gets
money for it yeah you can do this thing yeah i know people i have um my friend for vicki from a shout out truth podcast
actually she goes um she also does like workshops on the undocumented like experience for
colleges um and even like um other things she does as well but like
you know that’s something that she gets paid for that like that’s awesome like there’s there’s uh things that we can do
but we just have to do them in like a different way um and and like even starting your own
business like you know as if you have your like itin number and and investing and all that and all that type of stuff
like we can do it too but just have to take like different different roads um
what are like some things that you typically see like in your classroom from like undocumented kids um
when it when it comes to how they uh behave and like learn in
in like a uh in college environment right i can’t answer that question to each for
you kevin and this is why a lot of my students don’t tell me that they’re undocumented
right okay yeah and so i can’t i don’t know and it’s really interesting because
so this is something that i know this is within my area of expertise i can talk about coming out so coming out is a
process of you disclosing something that is um deeply secretive and intimate about
yourself right so most typically when we think about coming out we think about people who are gay or lesbian right
but the reality is that there’s also an undocumented closet oh yeah oh yeah it was tough for me just
to start like like the podcast and like speaking out because everything that comes with that right
right and so like there is also this undocumented closet that that undocumented individuals and students
you know are in um and again this is not necessarily good or bad it just is and so i i’ll
have a couple of students um who tell me that they’re undocumented
um but i think most of them don’t come out to me and that’s okay i so when and
one of the things that i talk about in my workshop is do not expect your undocumented students or anyone
um whether they’re foster youth or whether they’re someone who has mental health disorders to come out to you
because not everyone will come out and it actually has nothing to do with you because some professors and counselors
take it personal like why don’t they come out they can trust me it’s not about you it’s about their past
experience right you’re laughing right it’s true yeah because it’s true like yeah it’s not about you
it’s not and it’s like sometimes they don’t trust the setting sometimes they don’t trust their classmates sometimes
they don’t trust um you know like they’ve had really negative past experiences i i’ve had
students that i’ve interviewed for like yeah coming out was was not easy then they started joking um
you know make my own friends started making fun of me and making comments that made me feel insecure
so i tell and and i preach this in my classrooms i’m like you don’t have to tell me anything like i’m gonna be here
for you right like you tell me what you feel comfortable with um so coming out there there’s four there’s
four stages and coming out um and i don’t want to bore you because then it’s gonna sound like a lecture right no well
you could like name them you can you can name sure yeah so so there’s passing covering
implicitly out and explicitly explicitly out and i’ll quickly talk about that so when people pass
they it’s essentially like pretending so when people are passing they’re
giving off the image that they are documented that they are citizens or their residents right oh yeah a lot of
i’ve done that a lot of us do that for just reasons that makes it feel safer and then more normal around our
environment like and and so coming out by the way is typically a the product of a risk
benefit analysis and people tend to come out when it feels like it’s going to favor them so that’s passing right it’s
like pretending then we have covering and covering is when people omit they
keep out the information that would let others know that they’re undocumented so
they’re honest right they’re not pretending but anything that has to deal with being undocumented they keep that
information out so maybe they don’t tell their friends that they were born in a different country does that make sense yeah yeah
um so if you’re not lying you’re just keeping information out yeah i would never tell like i wouldn’t
tell people you know and i’m i’m speaking from like my experience i’m sure a lot of this is like a lot of similar experiences right like i
wouldn’t tell uh people that i was like born in guatemala unless i was like
asked because of what came with that it’s like oh what you were born in guatemala like oh you know spanish then
like oh what was it like whoa how did you come here like you know it just opens a whole can of worms yes and that
can and and that can be traumatizing like keeping telling your story again
and again that could be a source of stress or a source of trauma or both um and then the other type of coming out
and this is the one that i i tell professors and counselors to be the most careful with
some people are telling us who they are so the the next step in the coming out
process and by the way this is not linear and people can be all over the place like you can be out in one setting
and passing in another one maybe because one setting you’re safe another one you’re not so it’s not like
you know you’re level but leveling up like a nintendo game like you can be all over this this line right
um and so sometimes people students are implicitly out and i’ll give you an example of this so implicitly out is
when people are honest about their lives and the details about their lives but they don’t use labels
so i’ll give you an example um last week one of my students who i’ll call albert
um he’s a very sweet kid very much likes me uh whenever he’s walking by and he sees
me and even if he’s not in my class he always waves to me even if i’m teaching my other class so i look ridiculous because i’ll be like teaching and i’m
like waiting to a kid in the distance like hey what’s up and um albert very sweet um he was telling me
that he’s in this like student success program where like counselors help them individually and i was like well how do you like it
and he said oh i like it he’s like you know i wasn’t born here and he really helps me understand my options
what are you thinking kevin like he like he’s trying to like uh like get help he’s coming out
like telling you that he’s like undocumented right you know he’s coming out but he’s not telling us
yeah explicitly yeah like indirectly like telling you like like just throwing it out there i like to see
as a feeler and so i don’t know about the whole feeler stuff but
that’s someone who’s implicit um implicitly out they’re honest but they’re just avoiding the labels
and so one of the things i told teachers and for people who are listening you listen to me sometimes people are
telling us who they are they’re just not telling us in a way that we understand so it’s our job to listen to people and
to kind of read a little bit in between the lines and maybe clarify or not like am i correct in this now i’m not going
to ask my student if he’s undocumented or not right that’s that’s not going to happen um
but anyway going back to your question like do i do i see a difference in their learning
i wouldn’t know how to answer because a lot of my students don’t tell me that they’re undocumented right but i will say this in my undocumented students i
see a lot of stress a lot like a lot and it breaks my heart
um i see a lot of i see a lot of everything obviously i
see a lot of joy and a lot of resiliency and i don’t want to take away from that but i see a lot of loss of faith i see a
lot of like this esperacion desperation i see hopelessness too
um i have an i have a student who’s undocumented and she doesn’t qualify for daca
and she has her bachelor’s degree in sociology went to the same university i did and she works at college junior
and she feels so defeated and i love her so much i still keep in touch with her
and i see a lot of that i see a lot and it and it’s normal like
this idea that it’s like oh you’re always gonna be like bright and cheery and look in the bright side no people
are allowed to feel like this is messed up and this is unfair and so i see a lot of that i see
a lot of um i see obviously gratitude too like oh at least i see everything under the
spectrum but there’s also a lot of stress and you know this kevin right it’s a lot of stress yeah absolutely you
know and it’s that’s that’s also what i ask is you know you you see this every day and
um that’s a lot of something that i didn’t realize till like after high school and
i got more comfortable in college was handling that stress and how
it impacted my ability to learn um while i had like constant fear
of you know just being deported and everything that comes with that and also trying to help my family and
also trying to learn trying to pursue higher education like it’s it’s tough and it’s something that i i’ve had to
come to terms with and like learn to uh de-stress and and how
a lot learning a lot about ourselves is is definitely what we have to do is invest a lot into
learning a lot about ourselves um but you know i appreciate you coming on the podcast and if there’s any like
topic that i didn’t touch up on that you want to bring up as well uh or if you want to speak up a little
bit about your more about what you do like your workshops um and where people can get in touch with you this just oh
yeah i forgot about that um yeah but but first and foremost like um you know i i
just want to you know let people know that it’s like you know it’s okay if you have trauma it’s okay if you’re a trauma survivor
you know like you don’t have to be defined by your trauma and people are not um and just remember that there’s help
out there you know like cognitive behavior therapy is really helpful psycho education so if you’re
not ready to go to therapy again like find a book find a reputable person that
can um teach you coping skills right if you’re not ready to talk about it or or you
find something right some of it sometimes can be like trial and error yeah um first and foremost i would say
like don’t invalidate your experiences i feel like we have so much invalidation
and sometimes toxic positivity like oh but it could be worse just because something can be worse
doesn’t mean that it’s not bad and so just be really careful with how you talk to yourself
um be really careful with the people that you surround yourself with um if you can be an agent of change for
other people whether those are students that you work with or co-workers but just surround yourself with that too
um trauma absolutely has real ramifications on learning right like you know what you
were talking about kevin yeah when we’ve experienced trauma we can be very distracted because our brains are
thinking about other stuff right it’s like ruminating on things exactly and
even like even students who have daca or people who have gakka their stress isn’t done because maybe they won’t get
deported but maybe their family will right so
you know this stress is real and there’s ways that you can adapt and there’s things
that you can do um for yourself so that you can stay afloat
it’s just about finding something that works for you and making sure that you have the support that you need i’m going back so
my name is esther vegas sociologist researcher i talk a lot about trauma-informed practices
a lot of my research has focused on understanding undocumented student experiences particularly in california
because that’s where i’m from and that’s the access of students that i’ve had with but sure if anyone wants to reach
me you can email me at mindfulsociologist gmail.com um i had an instagram account going for
a while and then i just stopped because i myself was overwhelmed so understanding my own boundaries i
just took a step back um because you know cova has been really challenging i think for a lot of us
and i needed to show up a little bit extra for my students right now and i just needed to keep all of my
extra hobbies kind of on the down low but i have an ig account mindful sociologist
i hope to restart it soon maybe in the summer um but yeah if you want to if anyone
wants to have me on or book me for a gig because you know the extra money is helpful so i can keep rescuing dogs and
taking them to the that hospital and having 1200 you know bills oh my god yeah no actually follow
her and um hit up as well for the workshops i mean you you shared a little bit about like the
wealth of knowledge that you have with us and um i appreciate you doing that for us um
it’s kind of funny i saw touching up on the adopting dogs and stuff i think i saw that you had did what did you have a
cat in your in your backyard oh my god you also had to take in like
i was like you you went through like getting this the mother cat and i saw that she had like kittens or something
like what was the whole like so i had kittens born in my backyard
with a mom okay and at first at first i thought mom wasn’t around when she was but then i kept feeding them because i
was worried about them and then um so for a few weeks i was keeping an eye on them making sure they
were growing and then recently i had to trap all of them so that i can get them so i had to find
a foster mom for them um right now i’m finding camp mom so i’m telling my
students and it’s so funny you say that kevin because today i got a message do you know anyone who wants a pug so now
i’m trying to find this pug a home so um i love animals um
i really do and so i you know i think my
positive trauma response is to health and i think that’s what’s helped me i
think get through life is feeling like i have a purpose and feeling like my purpose is to
make sunshine and people or in animals lives so just so you know kevin um yes the the
kid the kittens are gonna be home i need to trap mom to get her fixed so she can not have kittens anymore and so she can
be like live her best life um but milo has kept me busy because
he’s right here like panting so right now i’m giving him antibiotics and you know so that’s my life so so apparently
i’m like a pet mom yeah i was like i was so invested i’m like wait wait she found
like a cat mom wait she had babies it was the most yeah it is so so yeah so
oh my gosh so i’m over here trying to save like you know one student at a time and what animal at a time
but you’re bringing sunshine in everybody’s life and yeah especially in ours today so thank you
thank you although the universe can chill with the animals for a while you know it’s very i’m over like buying
random pets [Music]
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i’m kevin munoz this has been the leo podcast and i’ll see you next time
