WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.420 of that. Just looking at what they experience and trying to understand what it is for illness 2 00:00:10.420 --> 00:00:15.900 in immigrant populations. So I've done a lot of looking at that. 3 00:00:15.900 --> 00:00:21.880 Since we're at the beginning of the real, could I just get you to say, just say real number two and then give us your full name? 4 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:27.140 Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, sir? 5 00:00:27.600 --> 00:00:28.540 Yeah, just go ahead and say your real number. 6 00:00:28.600 --> 00:00:31.740 Real number two, my name is Olga Nuno. 7 00:00:34.040 --> 00:00:43.460 Okay. You were talking about the details that bring people together. Let's talk about that some more in terms of the murals, 8 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:53.280 how they sort of brought the community together and also how they helped channel energy or what effect they had on the community. 9 00:00:53.820 --> 00:01:09.880 Okay. For some of the families, they became a topic of conversation. And it allowed people to have something to start with as far as expressing their feelings. 10 00:01:10.860 --> 00:01:19.380 I think for my parents, even though they came in, even had to live worse conditions than I did, 11 00:01:27.620 --> 00:01:39.320 they didn't talk about it. They didn't talk about it. Other people dealt with it by even trying to forget that they knew Spanish and just emphasizing their own English. 12 00:01:39.320 --> 00:01:49.780 Or learning English and encouraging their children not to speak Spanish. They wanted to belong. We all wanted to belong. 13 00:01:50.700 --> 00:01:57.060 But felt that we just were too different and couldn't fit. And there were lots of signals that we didn't fit. 14 00:01:59.660 --> 00:02:11.920 And for our family, or for me, I guess because I'm the analytical person in my family, I could use the murals. 15 00:02:11.960 --> 00:02:18.720 I could talk to my dad and I said, you know, did you see what they're painting? 16 00:02:18.720 --> 00:02:26.880 They're painting morelos and would have discussions about how accurate, whether he looked like him or not. 17 00:02:27.820 --> 00:02:36.800 And he then would go ahead and tell me stories about what he knew, what he had grown up to learn about these people that were in the murals. 18 00:02:36.800 --> 00:02:40.900 So we got little history lessons from them. 19 00:02:43.240 --> 00:02:50.640 The other nice thing that occurred was that not only within the family, but other families that we knew. 20 00:02:50.820 --> 00:03:00.400 And we exchanged views of what was happening. 21 00:03:03.820 --> 00:03:12.220 Looking at it back, I think it was just very difficult to talk about those initial experiences for my parents' generation. 22 00:03:12.660 --> 00:03:19.200 It was just too painful. And this was something on the outside that kind of reflected, 23 00:03:19.200 --> 00:03:34.680 it reflected at least their sense of oppression at times, their sense of the protests. 24 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:37.760 What they really wanted to do was protest. 25 00:03:40.920 --> 00:03:47.700 And their hopes, because some of them did depict sort of a sense that there was a way out. 26 00:03:51.020 --> 00:03:52.760 Certainly other ways. 27 00:03:55.340 --> 00:03:57.820 And we talked about those. 28 00:03:59.380 --> 00:04:01.580 Before that, there was this silence. 29 00:04:04.400 --> 00:04:07.700 So for the people of our generation, it was very strange. 30 00:04:08.720 --> 00:04:11.240 Our parents just didn't talk about those things. 31 00:04:12.280 --> 00:04:15.180 And they expected a lot from us, too. 32 00:04:15.180 --> 00:04:22.620 They felt that if you get education, you're going to know how to master whatever it is that we're experiencing. 33 00:04:23.380 --> 00:04:24.940 You're going to make a difference. 34 00:04:25.480 --> 00:04:29.500 But they didn't know how to guide us in our education. 35 00:04:29.660 --> 00:04:31.900 So it was kind of a strange situation. 36 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:38.800 So having those things in common, 37 00:04:42.880 --> 00:04:44.040 nurtured communication. 38 00:04:46.000 --> 00:04:56.780 And it was, I mean, so it's a strange sort of way, but it opened avenues for communication. 39 00:04:56.900 --> 00:05:02.680 Not only within families, between families and between the community itself. 40 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:13.020 Because also, my teachers, probably until high school, 41 00:05:13.020 --> 00:05:24.400 most of my friends who were not Mexican or Puerto Rican or black were the teachers and the priests. 42 00:05:25.180 --> 00:05:31.200 And a few girlfriends, one was from Yugoslavia. 43 00:05:32.920 --> 00:05:34.600 She was curious about it. 44 00:05:34.640 --> 00:05:39.360 So it gave us an opportunity to talk about some of the history of Mexico. 45 00:05:39.800 --> 00:05:42.320 And I got to know a little bit about their history. 46 00:05:42.320 --> 00:05:45.820 So we got interested in family roots, that sort of thing. 47 00:05:49.340 --> 00:05:54.900 And they thought it was a strange thing to do, to paint these things. 48 00:05:55.200 --> 00:05:57.480 But they saw some value to it. 49 00:05:57.780 --> 00:06:02.280 They said, well, at least it's not graffiti, and it's a lot nicer than graffiti. 50 00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:11.500 So they thought it was at least a more positive move on the part of the community. 51 00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:13.300 So it was accepted. 52 00:06:14.820 --> 00:06:19.560 Strange, it just hit me right now that indeed, not only was there enhanced communication 53 00:06:22.380 --> 00:06:27.200 between the different ethnic groups there, too. 54 00:06:28.100 --> 00:06:29.320 Something to talk about. 55 00:06:30.440 --> 00:06:33.020 Can you give us some kind of picture? 56 00:06:33.180 --> 00:06:35.480 I mean, there was a time there were no murals. 57 00:06:35.860 --> 00:06:37.760 And then, can you describe that? 58 00:06:37.980 --> 00:06:40.280 Were they all of a sudden popping up? I mean, what happened? 59 00:06:40.280 --> 00:06:43.540 Yes, they seemed to all of a sudden start popping up. 60 00:06:43.680 --> 00:06:49.660 I think that most of them were painted within either 1969 or 1975. 61 00:06:53.060 --> 00:07:02.460 It was during that period, it seemed like a lot of unrest. 62 00:07:08.260 --> 00:07:13.700 I think in the nation itself, there was a lot of unrest. 63 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:15.620 So it affected us. 64 00:07:15.740 --> 00:07:22.780 There was more of a sense that we need to protest and things can change. 65 00:07:25.860 --> 00:07:32.300 It's hard to know why, but from the perspective of the people who were there, 66 00:07:32.300 --> 00:07:39.940 from my experience, I think that the fact that this was a generation that had to make a decision 67 00:07:39.940 --> 00:07:42.860 about where they were going to put their energies and commitment, 68 00:07:43.460 --> 00:07:48.240 and they weren't so sure that going back to Mexico was going to solve it, 69 00:07:51.720 --> 00:07:57.700 and what we saw on TV or heard about in the newspaper, all of that, 70 00:07:58.340 --> 00:08:04.780 and our teachers, I know that the teachers I had were very progressive. 71 00:08:06.160 --> 00:08:08.960 And it's very strange because I went to a very small school, 72 00:08:09.380 --> 00:08:11.760 but looking back, they were very progressive people. 73 00:08:12.040 --> 00:08:14.260 There was an emphasis on getting people together. 74 00:08:15.700 --> 00:08:19.920 And in the late 1960s, we experienced the riots, 75 00:08:20.880 --> 00:08:25.100 and we couldn't ignore them because our friends were black, we have black friends. 76 00:08:25.100 --> 00:08:31.860 So it affected their lives, so it in turn affected us too. 77 00:08:39.480 --> 00:08:46.220 And I think there was, you just couldn't ignore it anymore. 78 00:08:46.440 --> 00:08:48.080 You couldn't ignore the problems anymore. 79 00:08:49.720 --> 00:08:57.580 There had been at least 10 years, at least 10 years of people feeling like they were, 80 00:08:58.980 --> 00:09:00.180 of people suffering. 81 00:09:02.320 --> 00:09:05.520 I don't know if every decade we kind of go through this re-evaluation, 82 00:09:05.900 --> 00:09:10.980 but it just coincided, it coincided with, 83 00:09:13.940 --> 00:09:18.300 it was a generation, I guess like in the rest of the United States, 84 00:09:18.360 --> 00:09:22.460 the most educated group of people also. 85 00:09:23.880 --> 00:09:29.480 The contact with the different people from all different nations and backgrounds and cultures 86 00:09:32.060 --> 00:09:36.200 also created an atmosphere where people were looking at differences 87 00:09:36.200 --> 00:09:41.200 not as something threatening, not as something that you're less, 88 00:09:41.880 --> 00:09:43.780 you're worthless if you look different. 89 00:09:45.080 --> 00:09:52.000 So we started feeling like, no, our parents are wrong. 90 00:09:52.620 --> 00:09:54.460 We're different, but we're not inferior. 91 00:09:55.560 --> 00:09:56.700 And this is our home. 92 00:09:56.980 --> 00:10:02.320 We have to do something about it, improving our things at home. 93 00:10:07.440 --> 00:10:11.020 I think that was happening in the black community. 94 00:10:12.780 --> 00:10:24.780 I think they, I learned a lot from the black organization 95 00:10:24.780 --> 00:10:32.160 and their own movement to improve their situation as well. 96 00:10:34.680 --> 00:10:47.160 And I think that the murals were just probably another form of communicating this. 97 00:10:48.240 --> 00:10:49.100 Great advertising. 98 00:10:49.900 --> 00:10:57.460 We couldn't afford putting ads on TV or radio or anything like that. 99 00:10:57.460 --> 00:11:02.180 So this was a way of advertising, at least in the local community. 100 00:11:04.720 --> 00:11:12.260 Another thing that they did, most of these murals I think were painted in centers, 101 00:11:12.560 --> 00:11:19.540 community centers like hall houses, churches, or the grocery store, you know, the market. 102 00:11:19.740 --> 00:11:22.500 Those were all the places where people gathered. 103 00:11:22.520 --> 00:11:23.840 So it was great advertising. 104 00:11:27.460 --> 00:11:31.460 Or inspired or whatever by these murals. 105 00:11:35.260 --> 00:11:37.220 That too is the strongest message. 106 00:11:37.220 --> 00:11:38.540 Mm-hmm. 107 00:11:54.020 --> 00:12:03.400 You had talked about being sort of an interpreter and a translator for your family when you were a kid. 108 00:12:03.400 --> 00:12:10.880 And you told a story about going with your mother to the grocery store 109 00:12:11.440 --> 00:12:15.680 and sort of the difficulties of interpreting between two cultures. 110 00:12:15.860 --> 00:12:20.400 And I was wondering if you could talk about that a little and maybe tie it to what you're doing today 111 00:12:20.960 --> 00:12:24.680 if in some senses you're still in the same position. 112 00:12:25.220 --> 00:12:26.200 As a translator. 113 00:12:28.060 --> 00:12:32.900 Yeah, I remember now we were talking about translation. 114 00:12:33.260 --> 00:12:39.520 And I said that one of the advantages of pictures is that most people are universal. 115 00:12:41.520 --> 00:12:45.200 And it takes a lot of the work out of translating. 116 00:12:46.580 --> 00:12:55.520 As being the person that got the education, learned English, 117 00:12:57.780 --> 00:13:03.200 starting about 11 years of age I was basically responsible for making sure that, 118 00:13:04.620 --> 00:13:11.260 you know, be it telephone bills, anything where you needed to talk in English, was the translator. 119 00:13:17.780 --> 00:13:22.740 Which to my parents it seemed like, you know, English, so it's going to be so easy. 120 00:13:23.980 --> 00:13:30.260 So to give you an example, my father wanted me to, he had been a mechanic in Mexico. 121 00:13:30.740 --> 00:13:34.120 So he bought this technical auto mechanics book. 122 00:13:34.280 --> 00:13:36.740 And here I was, 11 years old, brought it home. 123 00:13:36.740 --> 00:13:40.720 I said, well, okay, translate, tell me how to fix this thing. 124 00:13:42.800 --> 00:13:46.760 I didn't know the names in English, much less in Spanish. 125 00:13:47.080 --> 00:13:49.580 Certainly I couldn't tell him anything about process. 126 00:13:50.260 --> 00:13:55.720 But it was just this naive belief that all he took was just knowing how to speak English 127 00:13:55.720 --> 00:14:00.260 and knowing how to speak Spanish and you got it, you know. 128 00:14:01.780 --> 00:14:09.600 What they didn't recognize, and I didn't recognize initially because I was under the same naive notion, 129 00:14:10.340 --> 00:14:13.440 was that there were a lot of things that are not equivalent. 130 00:14:14.000 --> 00:14:21.300 There are a lot of experiences that we call culture that are just, you don't find equivalents in a different culture. 131 00:14:22.840 --> 00:14:30.220 Things like, as simple as different ingredients for foods, you know, you can't find them at the store. 132 00:14:31.900 --> 00:14:36.560 Different concepts of what illness is, you know, what produces illness. 133 00:14:37.740 --> 00:14:40.700 Different concepts as to what, how to solve things. 134 00:14:41.780 --> 00:14:44.180 And you can't translate those kinds of things. 135 00:14:46.200 --> 00:14:50.700 Sometimes you don't even have the words for it in Spanish, you just know they exist. 136 00:14:55.480 --> 00:15:02.180 So there's not also the words in English. 137 00:15:03.420 --> 00:15:17.600 So for me it was also a process of becoming familiar and also acculturated into American life, which I could do. 138 00:15:17.660 --> 00:15:19.180 I was in a better position to do that. 139 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:31.320 And it was only when I became, I was more cultured, familiar with the American culture, 140 00:15:31.780 --> 00:15:40.240 that I think it improved my translation because then I could find words that would approximate. 141 00:15:43.120 --> 00:15:55.860 Language, in the different languages, there's just many words that you will not find in others 142 00:15:55.860 --> 00:16:03.240 simply because of the differences in the collective experience, culture, whatever you want to call it. 143 00:16:07.860 --> 00:16:16.540 So my very early, I became a little acquainted with legal terms. 144 00:16:18.040 --> 00:16:23.960 It was very strange. My parents didn't have names for it because they grew up in a rural community. 145 00:16:24.720 --> 00:16:30.600 So I could never translate back what was being said. 146 00:16:30.600 --> 00:16:38.620 My mother has always been interested in helping out the neighbor, we call her a local social worker. 147 00:16:39.240 --> 00:16:48.940 So she always takes me to translate when someone was at the immigration office or to get some papers corrected 148 00:16:48.940 --> 00:16:59.520 or to the dentist or the doctor or when we went grocery shopping at Sears was the popular place. 149 00:16:59.520 --> 00:17:02.660 It's really funny, behavior is very funny. 150 00:17:03.840 --> 00:17:08.740 Places where you went and you were treated decently, then word of mouth got around. 151 00:17:08.880 --> 00:17:10.680 You can go there, they'll treat you nicely. 152 00:17:11.080 --> 00:17:13.920 There were other places where you went and they totally ignored you. 153 00:17:14.080 --> 00:17:19.260 You stood there wanting to be waited and they would just ignore you. 154 00:17:20.060 --> 00:17:26.740 Other places they would also, they may just ask you to leave. 155 00:17:27.600 --> 00:17:33.060 We had experiences of going to a restaurant and not being waited on. 156 00:17:33.340 --> 00:17:34.140 We'd have to leave. 157 00:17:35.520 --> 00:17:43.620 So word got around as to where you could go and they would make an attempt to communicate with you and they would treat you nicely. 158 00:17:49.060 --> 00:17:59.980 When now at this level that I'm involved in medicine, I find that I continue to be a translator. 159 00:18:00.580 --> 00:18:03.880 Now I translate between one culture and another. 160 00:18:03.880 --> 00:18:13.720 There's more interest in learning about the Hispanic, Mexican and Hispanic, which involves all the different cultures. 161 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:19.120 And so I continue to do that. 162 00:18:20.120 --> 00:18:23.740 It was a very big challenge for me. 163 00:18:25.260 --> 00:18:26.400 It continues to be a challenge. 164 00:18:26.580 --> 00:18:29.900 I certainly feel like I'm just a beginner still. 165 00:18:31.260 --> 00:18:39.400 But primarily, I think, it gave me a sense of mastery enough that I am in this field of psychiatry, 166 00:18:39.420 --> 00:18:52.100 which I see a lot of as in the area of mental illness or just difficulties with stressful life events or stress. 167 00:18:53.760 --> 00:18:59.400 Because there's not the physical ways or signs. 168 00:19:00.520 --> 00:19:02.300 We depend a lot on language. 169 00:19:02.860 --> 00:19:09.340 We depend a lot on those subtle nonverbal kinds of things to communicate, to try to find out more, 170 00:19:09.520 --> 00:19:16.740 to try to see what the problem is so that we can start taking steps to resolve it. 171 00:19:16.740 --> 00:19:20.920 So I see this all in the same. 172 00:19:30.880 --> 00:19:38.900 So I think I approach medicine and psychiatry now with that same kind of attitude. 173 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:42.740 It's just a different language to learn. 174 00:19:47.100 --> 00:19:54.900 And being open to different ways of doing the same thing, which I think the cultures are, 175 00:19:56.700 --> 00:19:59.000 it's helping me a lot. 176 00:19:59.240 --> 00:20:01.920 So I just feel like it's natural for me. 177 00:20:30.020 --> 00:20:33.960 I can make that assumption. 178 00:20:33.960 --> 00:20:45.100 And again, what was, I make that assumption, that kind of explains as to why they were so accepted 179 00:20:45.100 --> 00:20:50.460 and why they popped up all over in just that brief span. 180 00:20:54.520 --> 00:20:58.920 They had to reflect what people were feeling or thinking. 181 00:20:58.920 --> 00:21:04.520 Or else why wouldn't they be defaced just like everything else? 182 00:21:04.960 --> 00:21:10.720 As a matter of fact, when there was some conflict or controversy, some of them did get defaced. 183 00:21:11.000 --> 00:21:17.740 The ones that, according to certain groups, did not reflect the spirit of the community, those were defaced. 184 00:21:19.320 --> 00:21:35.700 But in general, the ones that reflected what was going on, and I use spirit because it wasn't always something you talked about. 185 00:21:37.860 --> 00:21:40.800 Those were the ones that stayed and are still there. 186 00:21:42.560 --> 00:21:51.740 In Kazakhstan, the first ones that people didn't like, they were too political, they said. 187 00:21:52.040 --> 00:21:55.280 So those were painted over. 188 00:22:00.180 --> 00:22:21.040 The, just how in a random process, the ones that survived it, I think, at the least, are, it's because they reflect the spirit. 189 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:27.760 That non-verbal, non-physical thing that was going on. 190 00:22:33.560 --> 00:22:42.040 There are murals now in other communities, I know that, and probably they were painted at the same time or around that time too. 191 00:22:43.780 --> 00:22:54.980 And there, I look at those too, and I get the message, you know. 192 00:22:54.980 --> 00:23:00.360 It's, that they're experiencing things like we did. 193 00:23:01.540 --> 00:23:11.860 And it's made me more understanding of others, other ways of looking at the world. 194 00:23:13.220 --> 00:23:14.620 They're pretty universal. 195 00:23:16.900 --> 00:23:23.780 They started, again, when I was a kid in high school, they seemed like very personal. 196 00:23:23.780 --> 00:23:26.920 Now I see that the themes are very universal. 197 00:23:27.260 --> 00:23:39.660 I can say that those murals are not talking about any people that feel different, that feel like outcasts, that feel like they're not sure of themselves. 198 00:23:40.940 --> 00:23:45.780 That have a lot of hopes and inspirations, and they want to let people know. 199 00:23:49.600 --> 00:23:58.640 Because I think it's in the other, some of the ones that I've seen in other communities are in what were at one time or another very poor communities. 200 00:23:59.760 --> 00:24:03.240 And that's where a lot of hope is needed, a hope of getting out. 201 00:24:04.480 --> 00:24:13.020 So you think there's a correlation in between a poor community, a struggle, and this kind of expression? 202 00:24:13.020 --> 00:24:17.440 How would you describe that? 203 00:24:17.900 --> 00:24:23.500 I mean, the kind of expression where you're actually painting on walls versus other kinds of expression. 204 00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:31.400 That's an interesting question. Let me think about it a minute. 205 00:24:48.580 --> 00:25:01.340 Well, thinking about it from being there, what we call emphatic experience. 206 00:25:01.340 --> 00:25:19.940 Just think about it. If you are feeling that you are either suffering or in a situation that's unbearable, and you feel helpless to do anything about it. 207 00:25:21.240 --> 00:25:33.420 You engage the help of someone that you feel comfortable with, which is usually someone that looks like you, or things like you, or at least in some way makes you feel comfortable. 208 00:25:35.040 --> 00:25:39.320 If that's not enough, you have to get more people involved. 209 00:25:39.320 --> 00:25:51.360 And how are you going to get people involved when they have a different point of view, different language, different experience? 210 00:25:52.660 --> 00:26:05.080 What I would do is I would look for things that are universal, that are symbolic, but recognizable by others. 211 00:26:06.320 --> 00:26:11.020 Music, the arts are it. They're still it. 212 00:26:12.100 --> 00:26:20.760 And another thing that is called folk arts that we haven't talked about is songs. 213 00:26:20.760 --> 00:26:36.640 And there's a lot of songs that we heard during those times that were written that are kind of like counterpart of the murals, that they talked about history, famous heroes, whatever, and carry that message. 214 00:26:36.640 --> 00:26:49.820 So for a community that's trying to communicate their experience, murals are acceptable. 215 00:26:50.880 --> 00:26:57.040 They're recognizable by even people that have not gone through the same experience. 216 00:26:57.760 --> 00:27:04.820 And they're very effective means, if only the fact that you're listening right here, I think. 217 00:27:04.820 --> 00:27:13.600 And that someone took the trouble to take photographs of them is evidence for it. 218 00:27:21.100 --> 00:27:29.660 In Mexico during the 1960s, there was a lot of troubles, too, and dissatisfaction with the government. 219 00:27:31.180 --> 00:27:34.300 A lot of those popped out, too, in Guadalajara. 220 00:27:34.300 --> 00:27:41.660 Places where you'll find them will be universities. 221 00:27:47.100 --> 00:27:55.840 And they were seen initially as protests, and often they were painted and repainted. 222 00:27:58.620 --> 00:28:05.180 And some of the people, artists that painted them were very politically, and they were political, too. 223 00:28:06.240 --> 00:28:13.080 And I think perhaps the artists that painted these had that in mind. 224 00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:15.600 But the choices, I think, were unconscious. 225 00:28:16.720 --> 00:28:24.520 It ties too neatly to be something that was planned, manipulative, as maybe some of the commercials on TV maybe. 226 00:28:29.200 --> 00:28:50.720 But it was people who were listening and looking at non-verbal kinds of information that just basically captured it in a form that could be understood by others outside the group. 227 00:28:50.720 --> 00:28:50.940 Yeah.