Amena Brown:
Hey, everybody. Before we get into this week's episode, please note that this episode contains brief mentions of sexual abuse. If this topic may be triggering for you, please take care of yourself by listening with caution or simply putting this episode aside for another time.
Oh, y'all, by the time y'all hear this, it's like a new year. It's a new year, and I don't know how the people feel. Sometimes, the new year feels nice. Sometimes you wanted to kick rocks. I don't know. Just know however you feel about the new year, we're here holding space for you, and I'm excited because we are here in the HER living room with author of Chingona: Owning Your Inner Badass for Healing and Justice. Yes, people, Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty is in the building. Woo!
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Thank you. Thank you.
Amena Brown:
I mean, what are the vibes? Are you a person who wants the people to give you Dr. Alma because we love the respect for the titles here or tell me the vibes, Dr. Alma, what do we want to be?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, so my vibes are for me, leaders and people with power, I've had some really interesting relationships with slash non-relationships and so it's a really hard topic for me. Even when I teach in my actual university class, when I'm teaching graduate students, I teach part-time at USC, I feel really weird and gross when people call me Doctor, and I think it's because of my past history with authority figures misusing and abusing their leadership. And so I don't ever want anyone to call me Dr. Alma if it doesn't feel genuine for them. But then I have people that are like, "No, I want to call you Dr. Alma because it's amazing. You're a Latina. You're out here. I want role models and you're one," and so I'm like, "Cool, then let me be that for you." But I'm not picky either way. You can just call me Alma. I'm pretty chill about it.
Amena Brown:
I like these differentiations because for you, listeners, I'm going to refer to her as Alma today, but that means if we was in a room and there's people there that need to pay money to Alma, then it's Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty. Those are the vibes.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Facts. Facts.
Amena Brown:
If it's people in a room that need to pay Alma money now it's not Alma, it's not a first name. It's Dr. Alma. That's how I feel like when you have people in your life-
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I like that.
Amena Brown:
... who have these types of titles, you need to hold it within in these ways. It's like if I'm at Alma House, then okay, that's Alma and Amena talking.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
But if we are in a work function or some other professional setting, it's Dr. Zaragoza-Petty to y'all? That's that.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I like this differentiation. Yes.
Amena Brown:
Because especially-
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes, I'm going to adopt that.
Amena Brown:
Especially from my friends who are women of color, it's like, "Sis, you know I earned this doctorate."
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Facts.
Amena Brown:
We want to go ahead and let the people know. And also, and you have to tell me if you experienced this, some of my other friends who have titles like this that they have earned through their work and education will get in situations where white folks or men, various and sundry discriminatory people will know the title is there and still not say it.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah. See, this is a great, great point you bring up because this is why it's such a really interesting kind of thing to maneuver for me in the classroom because the moment I tell people like, "Hey, just so you know, I understand there might be some weirdness with how power has been misused and abused within your lifetime and why you may or may not want to call me that or have reservations." And when I give permission, this group of people that is diverse, permission to call me either Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty or just Alma, guess who calls me Alma and who feels weird calling me Doctor?
Amena Brown:
Okay. All right.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
The people that you just mentioned-
Amena Brown:
It's like, "So what's the problem?"
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
So I get that. I get that. I get that. But I also, I think for me, the class that I teach is also about diversity, equity, and inclusion. And so part of it is we can bring that conversation to the room and be like, "Oh, this is interesting. Why are you having such a hard time as another Brown person, let's say, calling me Dr. Alma or calling me just Alma, I mean, because that's usually who has a hard time. No, that's because you earned your title and I want to take you seriously, and this is serious, blah, blah, blah. Whereas, why is it so easy for you to just refer to me as Alma and not think about calling me Dr. Alma if you're like someone who's a little more privileged in my classroom.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
That's not how I tell them. That's not how I tell them, but I have those conversations like, "Yeah, have you noticed that it was very easy for you? Have you noticed other people? It wasn't that easy for them."
Amena Brown:
Okay. Definitely been in some rooms where I've watched women of color have to be like, "It's doctor. It's doctor. It's not Miss. It's not Mrs. It's not just my first name. I'm deserving to be here and worked hard for my shit just like you did. So get it together."
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, I wonder if that's a South thing. I have never been called Miss or Mrs. It's very rare to be called that while you're in the West.
Amena Brown:
That might be a South thing.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
It might be a South thing.
Amena Brown:
For my people who are married, for the women in my life who are married and have a title that also gets strange in southern environments because they want to be like, "Oh, it's Mr. And Mrs." "Its Mr. and Doctor. She's a Doc. It's Doctor."
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Or how about when they just don't even address the ...
Amena Brown:
It's like your name's no longer there.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
... the woman in the relationship. Yeah. Yeah.
Amena Brown:
What are you doing?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, family of Mr. So-and-so like, "How about I exist too? Give me my own name."
Amena Brown:
"I'm here, please." So today for our conversation's listeners, it is Alma, but if you owe Alma money, it's Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty period.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
There you go.
Amena Brown:
Okay. Okay. I want to talk about this book, Alma, because I have so many questions for you because as a person who has completed post-grad education this way, and you've completed this all the way up to your doctorate, you've done a lot of writing. And now you've written this book, which also includes your story, and that is different than the type of writing that you have done in your training and in your professional life. So what was it like to go from writing things that are related to research and the type of writing you do in your work to now really thinking about your own life and the stories there you wanted to share?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, that's such a good point. It is very different. And when I first started the process, it was very hard for me to just let myself just be a person and not a researcher, not put on the head of researcher and talk how we like to talk as researchers. But interestingly enough, actually for me, it made more sense. Because if a little bit of my background, then it makes sense.
So I've always been into narratives and qualitative data, so I have always loved a good story and I've also always been very critical of the objectivity that some researchers try to bring into their work. And I've always questioned that I come from a much more critical feminist kind of training. And so we love disrupting. We just, we love disrupting that. And so even in my own more academic work, I always disrupted that and said, "Hey, I would have a positionality statement about who I am as a person and what I'm researching and how yes, that is affected by who I am."
Amena Brown:
Period.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
And people who don't say this are also affected by who they are on what they're studying, just because I'm saying it, it don't make it more biased. It just makes me more transparent and honest. So I've always approached my work that way in the academic setting. So switching to this wasn't too difficult once I let myself tell my own story because I also was very good at telling somebody else's narrative and other people's, which also has, there's some power dynamics there as the researcher coming into a setting and asking to interview folks and giving the opportunity for people to say no. Who's really going to say no when there's this authority figure coming into your setting? It's very rare, unless you're very privileged wealthy people, they're the least understudied because they know their rights.
Amena Brown:
Right. That part. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah. Yeah. But I have always focused on first-gen, low income background students as my participant, the people that I interview basically for my stories, whether qualitative, quantitative stories. And so yeah, it wasn't a really big jump in that way, but it was in terms of letting myself share with you all a part of my journey, especially the parts that are very, just have been very, very sad and hard to get through and to process. And so it took a lot of therapy to be honest, to just be all right with that and to also know the boundaries that I did want to have around, "Okay, this is how I'm going to share this," and the way that I want to share it without violating my own boundaries about my own personhood and what I feel like I need to keep to myself.
Amena Brown:
Yeah and I want to ask a follow-up question about that because the last time you and I saw each other in person, we were talking about this because I always have lots of curiosities around how people process this when they're writing books, especially books that are personal.
You and I were talking about this because obviously let's say in your life a hundred things have happened. Well, now you're writing a book and you're having to decide of these hundred things that have happened to me, some of which are really great and helped form who I am, some of which were terrible and are things that you may still be healing from. It's like you now are staring at these hundred things and having to decide what of this am I ready to talk about or write about in a public setting? What of this is too private or personal for various reasons and should not go in the book?
So how was your process in deciding here are the parts of my story that I feel comfortable to take here to this thing? I think what was scariest to me as an author is like herein I write a thing that just exists forever, somewhere, just somewhere.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
It's not a blog. Even these podcast episodes, y'all, those of us who are podcasters, if we decide all of this goes off the internet, we have control over that. But a book made me feel like herein is a thing that's just on a tablet somewhere. When I'm an ancestor, some people are going to find this book maybe.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
So what was your process in deciding here's what I'm ready to share, here's what I know I want to just hold and keep to myself?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Mm-hmm. Yeah, I also feel like this is why people write multiple books because when you first write a book, you're like, "Okay, that was me, but that's not me no more." We grow. We're still growing, we're still be doing different things, have healed from some of the stuff I talk about.
One of the things that I think people feel like was very private that I share is about my sexual abuse. And I'm like, "Oh, no, girl. I've been dealing with that since I was a little kid and have processed that." And I am completely, I mean to the extent that I can, I feel healed and it is not hard for me to talk about. One, because I know the statistics of how many women have gone through that, and it is not a secret that that's happened to me and to people like me. And two, I think over the years, I realized the power in talking about that more openly and how giving myself permission to talk about that gives others who haven't even confronted that the permission to also talk about that.
And I saw that probably most powerfully one time when we were holding a workshop through the Prickly Pear Collective, and I was sharing about it and someone said it out loud for the first time and they were like, "When do I get to your position when I am no longer crumbling every time I say it?" And I just thought like, "Wow". That's so powerful that they were even able to realize that was happening and that they saw me as an example of like, "Wow, it does get better. There might be a chance for me to heal still or to be in a different position with my pain." And so there's that. That really kind of helped me to open up.
There was other things in there that people probably thought were not a big deal that I shared that I'm still like, "Dang, I should not have shared that. Was that really necessary?" And that's the part where I feel like, well, you know what? I just have to accept too that I can't control what people think about what I write. And if you really don't know me fully as a person, just know that that book is just a very small sliver of who I am as a person. I am so much more than that. I don't even talk about parenting in that book. And that for sure is like 75% of my life right now.
So I'm just like, "That's not even me. I don't know who that lady was." I'm just kidding. No, but one of the things too that also really helped was making sure that I didn't cross the boundary between what's my story to tell and what's someone else's story to tell. So making sure that I took accountability for what I went through, my feelings, my thought processes, and how I understood things versus what people may have meant slash how they're interpreting things. Because I can't say that that's unequivocally that how I experienced this is exactly how I went down. That was just how I was impacted and what may have happened for me. And so I'd never wanted to speak for other people.
So I talk about some of my mother wounds and just my relationship, very hostile relationship with my father. But I never talk about, for instance, my father, I kind of mentioned more in passing. I never talk about his upbringing and how crazy his own story is because one, it's his story to tell, not mine. And also sure, that would've contextualized a lot of my pain, but it was about my pain. It was about how that moment groomed me and how I learned from that. And so that's another thing that I was very careful to make sure that I wasn't doing and that I wasn't telling someone else's story. I was focusing on me and what my own process.
Amena Brown:
Yeah. I think that's so powerful to hear you describing because those of us who are writers, whether that means in your experience, in my experience becoming authors, even to people who are content-making in some way, there's a lot of conversation going on around what we're doing with our stories.
And I think there have been different times where air quote "society" has sort of leaned to like, oh, well, just everything. You owe the people everything. Everything that's happened, you have to share it. That's your way to help. And maybe sometimes it is, but I think I love the balance in what you described there, that there is this way to be empowered to choose what of your story you want to share, and that your story doesn't belong to everyone. It's something that you get to decide if that's something you talk about at a dinner party, if that's something that ends up in your book, if that's something you only talk to your family about.
And the other element you brought up about the stories we have that parts of that story belong to other people. Yo! I feel that because in both of the books I've written, I wrote about some family things and it was a fascinating time trying to really be very specific about your story there. I actually think one of my chapters, I remember I had to write it the messy way first knowing like, oh, I'm never going to actually put this in public.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Oh, yes.
Amena Brown:
But I can't get down to the part I need to say if I don't just like ...
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
I got to write it all.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
You got to peel all the layers so you could get to what you really want to get to sometimes.
Amena Brown:
Oh, for sure. Okay, so I want to take a step back to when the idea for Chingona came to you, and I want to talk about this, Alma, because I know that there are people listening that have book dreams, and I was one of those people before too, and there's sort of this mystery of when you dream of becoming an author and then you meet people who are authors, but you don't always get to find out well, how do you get from like, "Oh, I would love to write a book to now I've written one"? So how did the idea for this book arrive to you? When did it start germinating that you were getting this is what I want to write about?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Mm-hmm. Honestly, I feel like it's been germinating for a really long time. It was also a very spiritual process for me in that I was like, "I'm good. I don't need to write a book. Come on, God, stop trying to make me write a book or divine entity out there. Why are you putting these thoughts in my mind? I don't want this for me."
For a really long time, it really felt like a struggle with the divine where I was like, "No, I'm not going to talk about my story. No one wants to hear that. I don't want to tell people about that." And then the other part of me was just like this kind of intuition like, "No, you need to tell this story." Almost a more divine kind of intuition of, "No, this story has to be told. I will not leave you alone until you tell this story."
And I know that sounds crazy, y'all, so I want to step back for a sec, and yes, acknowledge that does sound a little kooky, but what was even it just solidified it for me was that there was this one specific week, it was probably about a year before I finally started writing down and actually getting down to it, maybe three different people told me, "You need to write a book."
First of all, I've heard that for a while growing up, "You need to write a book." I don't know if that was their way of telling me, you got too much to say, "I don't got time for you. Go write a book." Or if it was like, there way of being like, "Dude, you love to story tell, go do that somewhere else or be real good at that," or whatever. I don't know why, but people have approached me and had told me, "You need to write a book."
But there was this specific year right before COVID, where it was becoming really loud. Everyone and anywhere would tell me like, "Have you written a book? I feel like this could be a book." And I was just like, "Whatever divine entities out there trying to give me these messages. I rebuke you."
Amena Brown:
Get out of here.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
"Get out of here. I'm not going to do that." But then it got so real when one of my therapists who had told me that too, that was some of the people that had told me that was like, "Yo, I not only think you should write a book. I am going to pay you to write a book."
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
"I will give you money to publish a book because if I had your story, it would make my job easier. I could forward this book. I could share this book with those folks that feel that way, that think they're the only ones this way or that have that type of history and experience as a first-gen immigrant background community coming from that kind of community. If I could just have something to give them to be like, "No, you're not the only one."" And that felt real to me.
I think at that time when they actually were like, "I'm going to give you money for this." I was like, "Oh, this is real." Okay, now I'm tuning in to the divine and being like, "All right, all right. I see this is really going to happen. Okay." I got really excited about it and decided to talk to my own network of support. Jason, my partner, who had also was thinking of writing a book or maybe had already written his by then and asked him for support, he was like, "Oh, no, girl, we going to get you somebody. That's ... " because we were thinking of maybe getting self-published, and he went like, "No, somebody's going to pay you for this book."
Amena Brown:
Big facts.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
One of the biggest lessons was that it's impossible to write a book as a woman of color with kids, who's a mom without a really strong support system.
Amena Brown:
Right. Right.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
It's just hard because we just have so much going on. I don't have ... I'm not a trust baby, so I couldn't just take my money that is making money to go off somewhere and write a book.
Amena Brown:
Right. That part. That part. Um, you didn't have the cabin?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
No.
Amena Brown:
You didn't have the extra cabin-
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I don't.
Amena Brown:
Where you could just drop up to the cabin and write?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I don't have that boat. I don't have that boat.
Amena Brown:
Oh, man. Wow. What a time.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, I know. I don't have that boat, sadly. So yeah, I was like, "Okay, this is going to be hard, but I'm going to do it.
I literally was so inspired by Gloria Anzaldúa. She made it. She's one of the people that I talked about in the book and some of the things that she talks about not in the works, but when she's directing to women of color who write and they're just like, the world is set against you writing from the get because there's just so much going on, so much things that politically, socially, in your families that will get in the way of that, but it's going to be a gift. I just remember having this thought of, "It's going to be a gift." She just gave me so much life in being a writer, and then I read somebody else's book too. That was really helpful for my writing process. The same woman that wrote Eat, Love, Pray.
Amena Brown:
Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Elizabeth ...
Amena Brown:
Elizabeth Gilbert.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
Yeah.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
She has a book on writing, and she talks about how you have to treat writing like your secret lover that you really want to see every single day, but you got to be real, real sneaky so that your husband don't find out. And I was like, "Okay, okay."
Amena Brown:
Please.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
This is problematic. But-
Amena Brown:
I can see it.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
... I like it."
Amena Brown:
Problematic.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
There's got to be a lot of work thought into getting sneaky like that.
Amena Brown:
Big facts.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
So I was like, okay, I think I can do that then. And someone actually recommended that book while I was in my writing process. And I mean that's my community. That's the people that really believed in me during that time, were pouring into me, were being like, "Yes, you got this. Here's a meal. Here's my extra room for the weekend," little things like that that as a mom, for me, I need a quiet and silence because I don't get that as much in my home environment. Not because it's crazy, but because we're busy kids, I'm married, full-time job, et cetera. I would say that was definitely how my book happened, actually, the support that I got and this nagging feeling that I think was a divine kind of intervention of me like, "You need to write this book not for you, for the people that might need to hear that."
Amena Brown:
Yeah, man, what you said about the support system is so powerful because writing is lonely. It can be lonely as far as when you finally have to get in there by yourself and actually type or write or whatever your process is to get the words out. And if you feel alone, it's like it's already going to be lonely. You know that's true. But if you feel alone in the sense of not having the people around you that are rooting for you, that are actually tangibly supporting you in some ways, I mean.
So I think that's such a wonderful note for those of you that are interested in book writing or writing longer projects. Think about who are those people in your life that can babysit if you have children, that can take your pets out and handle that, that can bring you food so all you have to do a certain day, however many hours you have. Like you said, we're not of the people who I know of, some writers are like, "Oh, you know, every writer needs a cabin." I'm like, "Who has a cabin? Who has a separate house? What'd you mean?"
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Or money for that?
Amena Brown:
What do you mean?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes. Yes.
Amena Brown:
We need to find some other ways to do this.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
That was my other motivation for writing my book. I've always been a big personal development, self-care, self-help book reader because of my own issues that I've had and that I've grown from. And I just remember reading things and I was just like, "What? I don't understand your life experience in general. What do you mean doing these things, going to your grandparents' cabin by the lake? I don't understand that."
So the personal experiences that some of these amazing writers, by the way, who I've learned so much from personally, I just couldn't relate to, and I just wish there was a story that I could relate to. And that's kind of what really prompted me to also be very honest about my own story, because I wanted others to see that themselves reflected in my story and that we are so different. We can't get tired of telling the different ways that we have been able to find joy and healing in this lifetime. Because for every person that says it, there's someone that doesn't understand that perspective. We need somebody else. And so that was really my, I guess, even my grounding model through it all. Just my why, like why I was going to do this.
Amena Brown:
Ugh, I love it. Okay. Describe a chingona. What's she like?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
A chingona is a badass. She understands that no matter how scary it is to heal herself and how lonely it might be that she needs to go through that because it is a way of her ancestors in a way that her ancestors were able to survive. And it is a way forward in that it gives her community and her own descendants that ability to see hope despite the violence that might be surrounding her, despite colonialism and all of its effects, she still rises even through all that. So that's what a chingona is to me. She's just out here breaking generational cycles, sometimes taking anti-depressants, you know what I'm saying? Sometimes you need that.
Also be looking at some metaphysical kinds of deity and that's her own ancestors as a fuel and just fire for her to keep going. And so I love chingonas. I think women in general are chingonas because there's just so much that we do. We bring life to this world, not just physically, but I think emotionally and communally. We just ... we're out here. We're involved. We try to walk along each other and support one another in those dark times.
And I just think that's beautiful. That's a part of womanhood that I really, really was able to finally see and participate in after many years of, I think as a woman of color growing up feeling like I had to be at odds with other women or just fighting other women and realizing like, "No, that's all just patriarchal violence on our bodies. Stop that."
So yeah, I read this book now, I go back and read my book and I'm just like, "Dang, okay. All right, lady. I wish I had that energy right now." When I was writing this book, I was in that real beautiful pocket of really believing my own stuff. So I was like, "Dang, it's powerful," reading back now and being like, "Yeah, I need that today."
Amena Brown:
Right like, "Yes, sis," but to yourself, I like that. I love the theme of reclamation that happens so much throughout this book, Alma, and you are specifically reclaiming the term chingona, because you write in your book how chingona, if that is said to you in your culture, that that was a negative thing to hear. So why was it important to you to reclaim the term chingona?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, so chingona was often a term used to really silence women in my family. It was a way to say, "Sit down, be quiet. No one wants to hear what you got to say." I grew up in a very machista household, so that explains a lot of who I am. I know, not a surprise there, but chingona, when that term directed at my male counterparts, chingon was always said with such pride and adoration for that person. And I was like, "I want that. What's that about?"
And it wasn't until I grew up and I realized the history of chingona and the word chingona in general, that I was like, "Well, isn't this interesting, everybody?" It was actually a term, a derogatory term used for the Mechica children, so the half-indigenous, half-Spanish children of the raped women in not only Mexico, but in Central America. And because of that, it just broke my heart that there was so much just ignorance about even the history of it and how we use it and how so biasly or how it was used very biasly, and then also how it just wasn't really meant to be this way to just otherize these children and as unwanted, not really almost like the word bastard in English. I know it's kind of a outdated term as well, but just that feeling of you don't belong. You're a fatherless child. You're not claimed as a person.
And I think over the years, I started to see the reclaiming of the term by different women of color, Latinas across the world and from different backgrounds. And I realized, "This is amazing." It's an amazing way for ourselves kind of say, "No, we can also be the part of chingona that we've reclaimed it to really mean more of badass, something to be proud of, to feel that you're admired." That chingona is admired because they're seen as this almost these older women or maybe a little just women that are really coming into their own, whether they're old or not, is what I'm trying to say.
So it just became more of a way of saying, "Wow, that person's really stepping into their own." And the fact that that couldn't be captured in this word, that used to be something crazy. I was just, it just really, really moved me. And that part of that was like, "Yeah, how do we claim that part and how do we reclaim ourselves?" And that's what this book is about. It's really about reclaiming my own identity as in just from trauma, from intergenerational violence and the things that I grew up kind of witnessing and wanting a term to capture that, to say, we could really make this mean something different.
And so now it's obviously reclaimed, it's also still very unpopular. And in some ways, there's some folks that have told me that actually here in LA, they wanted me to come talk about my book, but that there's been some criticism about the term and how it's a bad word.
Amena Brown:
Huh!
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Because it is like to chinga in many Latin cultures means to F-word. And so there's that connotation because of the history of the word. That's what it was used for, because it was about effing these, raping these women.
Amena Brown:
Wow.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
And so there's that connotation. And so I tend to notice that a lot of folks from more middle to higher income Latinos are very like, "I don't like this word." They kind of have feelings, stronger feelings about that word. But I grew up, like I said, I grew up hearing this word all the time. And I don't know if that was a part of my own positionality as a working class background woman that maybe to me it wasn't that big a deal. I mean, cussing in general isn't that big a deal. So there's that.
Amena Brown:
That part. That part.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
But I can see why some people are very uncomfortable by that.
Amena Brown:
Right. Yeah, no, it's good to ... I think it's just interesting, especially talking with other folks of color and from our own backgrounds, the things that we discover to reclaim, I think is so powerful because there's a lot of our histories due to colonization and other a sundry racism and things that were stolen away, taken away from us. We were made to look at those things in a certain way instead of be able to reclaim some things is so empowering. So I was very interested to hear you talk more about that. I love it.
I want to ask a very important question, which is, were there certain snacks that you needed while you were writing this book? Because I really need to know about the snacks were you-
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
Were you a snack person while writing or not so much?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I was definitely snacking. I don't know that it's a snack. It's actually a whole food, a meal that I would come back to. But I really love Thai food. One, I feel like they gets down with their chilies like my-
Amena Brown:
Dude, yes. That's spice. Yes.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I respect that. I respect that. And so I remember when I would go on my writing retreats, which were really me at an Airbnb for the weekend or things like that, I could not wait to not only get Thai food but not have to share with anyone.
Amena Brown:
Oh, my!
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
And also get whatever I wanted because it's for me.
Amena Brown:
That's it.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Not for the family, not for my partner.
Amena Brown:
That's it. Now that we're talking about this, Alma, I really want to encourage any women who are listening, even if you're not writing a book, tell the people in your life you are so that you too can get access to some Airbnb, some hotel room out there, and just order some food for yourself that you don't have to share.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
With nobody. I feel like that's worth them thinking that they could be asking. You could take you six years to air quotes, "write a book". Do whatever you have to, is what I'm telling y'all.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
It could be a lifetime project.
Amena Brown:
And they'll be like, "But did you come home with some chapters, mama?" And you'd be like, "Don't worry about it. Mind your business. I'm doing what I'm supposed to do." Yes.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
Okay. So it was the Thai food for you. Did you have a particular dish that is your dish or are you just like, "Whatever's on this menu, I'm here for it."
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
No, no, no. I definitely have one. So papaya salad. I don't know if you've ever had papaya salad. So good.
Amena Brown:
Mm-hmm. That's it. That's it. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
So good. I like anything with a good noodle in there. So I get anything noodle with my papaya salad and their chicken, I never say it right, satay, saute chicken?
Amena Brown:
I'm sure that I am also not saying right. Whoever's listening, you know what we're talking about and it's delicious.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes, yes. It's that orange chicken.
Amena Brown:
Yes.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Kind of.
Amena Brown:
Yes. Delicious.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
It's not orange chicken. It's like chicken breast on a stick that has some kind of peanut sauce, chicken on a stick. So good.
But I concur with you about women just in general needing their own time away. I have motivated some of my friends and close acquaintances that are not writing no book to go away for a weekend and do you, and just eat your food and nourish yourself and just treat yourself that weekend. And oh my gosh, to me, that's self-care.
Amena Brown:
Listen.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
You can miss me with the massage. I will want some time alone and some good food. That's me.
Amena Brown:
Period. I have a couple of friends whose partners are like, "When is that person birthday?" Their partner be like, "Don't worry, I got it." And it's like, it's a hotel. "I'm going to take you there and drop you off. If we going to take you to dinner for your birthday, we'll take you the next day, but your actual birthday, go to there. Just here's a robe."
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yes.
Amena Brown:
"Order room service, get some food delivered." That's it. I think this is a treat that some of us need because it's a lot of caretaking. Some of us are entering the age where even if you may not have children, you might be caring for elderly parents or other elderly family members. You just have some people you is taking care of. You need you at least 24 hours. Get those people together. Get them together, please. Please. Yes.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah.
Amena Brown:
Mm-hmm. Okay. Let me ask you about this, Alma. And then I want you to share with the people how they can stay in touch with you, how they can buy five copies of Chingona, because those are the rules on HER with Amena Brown. When people come on here with books, I'm not just suggesting they go and buy one, they need to buy five. That way they have one. They have one as a gift. They could take one to work. It's a lot of options when you buy five copies at a time. But we're going to get to that.
I want to talk about the healing journey because you make reference to this a lot, which I think is so powerful because when we have experienced trauma, when we have experienced deep pain, we think sometimes that healing is a place we'll arrive to there that will get to this point where, "Oh, I'm here now. I no longer blank, blank, blank." And really it's this constant journey, but beginning that journey is hard when you're realizing a painful thing has happened to me and I don't want to be stuck in that pain. But sometimes it can feel equally as painful to begin. If you could give thoughts to people who might read your book and say to them, what are some things they can think about or consider as they begin their healing journey? What would you say?
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, it is definitely hard, especially for me, and I talk about this in my book. Part of my healing process was almost like my body just deciding like, "Nope, I'm not going work anymore correctly if you don't take care of your mind, body, spirit connection because it's just not going to happen." So I literally just was not physically feeling well. I had different kinds of things going on in my body, panic attacks and just my arm, shoulder.
And a lot of that was because I was living so disembodied from how things that I was. I went through a lot of racial discrimination in my PhD program and I talk about that too. And then before that, just different things in my family that compounded on that and just how all of that just became so much for me to just keep going without pausing and needing a pause in my life.
And so for me, it was very difficult to ignore. It was very tangible and it just really kind of sat me down and I had to deal with it. And it was hard because if you know anything about overachievers, when they got to sit down for a little bit, they think the world's going to end. Or I don't know what they think.
Amena Brown:
Child.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
They're just real worried about everything.
Amena Brown:
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Do be. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
So I was just like, "I don't like this." And then my sensations, feelings, critical thinking brain. And then I realized, "No, that was just some toxic, negative self-talk there."
And so I had to really learn all of that. And all of that couldn't have happened if I hadn't just giving a big pause in my life. And that's kind of what set me off. And absolutely after I did that, it just felt like I was going into a void that I was getting deeper, deeper, deeper, deeper. And I was just getting real scared that I was going to get stuck there forever.
And it wasn't until I just embraced like, "No, this is just where I am," that my compassion for myself grew. And that just all of the different ways of just even engaging with oneself, it just grew so much that after a while, even if I were to go through a very dark, dark process like that again, what I have now in just in terms of healing is really the way that my brain got reconditioned to thinking and reacting to those things.
And so two years of just feeling like, "When am I going to stop crying?" It was very depressed season, just feeling just very unreachable almost. And really what I learned from that was just I needed to look to go through that to find the self-compassion, to then be able to move forward because I couldn't until I just allowed it.
And so it was one of the biggest lessons, even just going through that really dark time because the process itself is teaching you things, which is something that I didn't realize before going into it. I was resisting. 'Cause I was like, "That sounds like a big waste of time and I don't want to do all that. Can we just skip to the part where everything's cool again?" And I was like, "No, you kind of have to go through those things to learn some of these harder lessons in life."
And now of course I'm super grateful for that but when you're in it, it's so hard. I think that it would've been catastrophic if I hadn't had people around me that were noticing and trying to support me in that process. I mean, I surrounded myself with the support group and therapy and antidepressants at one point because sometimes you just need that extra help and it's okay. And that's part of healing.
It doesn't have to feel like you're going to be there forever. It's a step towards feeling better and eventually, depending on your own journey, it might be months, years later, you don't need all of those things anymore. I'm currently not on antidepressants anymore, for instance. But when I needed them, I needed them.
And so I think that a lot of times, to me that was a harder process, accepting that I needed that was harder for me than actually being on it. Once I was actually on it, I was like, "Oh, okay, cool. The world's not catching on fire. That's cool." It just helped my brain to start making some healthier neuropaths in there because I had just been stuck for so long.
Yeah, but it doesn't take away from the fact that it is scary.
Amena Brown:
Sure.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
You do need support. It's hard to do it alone. Don't do it alone. Find somebody, it's not a fun. Nobody says like, "Oh, I can't wait to go see my therapist today." Nobody likes that. No, nobody wants to cry. Nobody wants to show up and dig deep. Having that support group for me, it was monumental just having that.
So one of the other things that I talk about in my book is just this scar isn't just the wound, it's actively healing, but it's also a bridge to healing. You can heal that. And so I think even having that perspective couldn't have happened if I hadn't gone through my own growth process through all of that pain.
And I'm just excited that when folks go through those changes, I feel like I learned so much from them myself in a support group, the ways that they see the world, the ways that they're starting to reimagine things, it's beautiful. So yeah, it's definitely hard though. I'm going to play that down at all.
Amena Brown:
Right. Big facts. It's a challenge, people. It's a challenge. Okay? But I want to say to people who are listening, if you are-
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
I think because you're going to come back and be like, "Alma said, "Nope. It's going to be hard.""
Amena Brown:
Okay. All right. Alma then told y'all the truth. And I think that reading Chingona is going to be so good for folks, especially if you are a person who is realizing now some of the things you may experience in your life.
And sometimes especially those of us growing up in communities of color, there's a lot we experienced that is totally and completely trauma, but we don't realize it is until much later. We don't have that realization, "That was actually a traumatic thing I experienced." It just became normalized as means of survival and things. And I feel like there's so much you wrote there, Alma, that I think is going to be so useful for folks.
So if you're at that place where you're like, I'm needing to take some steps for myself, start with some material that can help you. Chingona is a wonderful resource for you to hear someone else's story to hear about how healing is a journey. None of us have all the way gotten there. We all just walk in hoping that we can just grow and heal a little bit as time goes on.
So now to the important things I want to say as well. When people want to go and buy five copies of Chingona, Alma, where should they go to do this? If they want to follow your work, if people want to pay Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty, where do they go to find more information about you, to follow you? Tell me the things.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Yeah, so I am most reachable on Instagram, and so you could find me @thedocZP, T-H-E-D-O-C-Z-P. And I got all the links there on how to buy my book, click on my bio. I really encourage folks to buy it on bookshop.org because it supports local, your local bookstore as opposed to the cog and the machines and the all that. So that's one way. But I'm also in all the machines and the cogs, so if you want to buy on Amazon, I'm there too. So just get your books.
Amena Brown:
Absolutely. Buy five, everyone. Five. Five. Y'all can't see my fingers, but pretend you can. Five, five copies of Chingona.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty, thank you. Not only for joining us in the HER living room, but for taking the time that it took to tell your story that other people can feel found and seen when they encountered Chingona. Thank you so much.
Dr. Alma Zaragoza-Petty:
Thank you so much. That's beautiful. Makes me feel like I really did something out here. Thank you.
Amena Brown:
HER with Amena Brown is produced by Matt Owen for Sol Graffiti Productions as a part of the Seneca Women Podcast Network in partnership with iHeartRadio. Thanks for listening and don't forget to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.