17. Dr. Joe Ryman and Dr. Dolores Ryman - Immigrant Resilience Trauma and the True Meaning of Wealth

Hey, everyone, this is Luis Baragas, and thank you for coming to Wealth Camp Warriors. Today you're going to hear Dr. Joe and Dr. Dolores Ryman, who have written three books on immigrant immigrants. It's called Immigrant Concepts, Immigrant Psychology, and Immigrant Health. And they share incredible information. It takes a little bit us to get going at the beginning. It's very educational, very formal. And then we break through probably about maybe one third into the show. So continue listening. I will share with you that probably the second part of this podcast. You're going to come out with some epiphanies and some wonderful information that you're going to be able to learn and use and apply in your life. So enjoy the podcast. Welcome, everybody. This is Luis Barajas, host, host of the podcast Wealth Gap Warriors. And as you know, Wealth Gap warriors is a podcast should introduce you to people working in organizations or people who just doing great work helping to eradicate financial injustice and economic disparity in our underserved communities. And today, actually, we have very, very special guests who are doing work that's aligned with our work on financial and economic injustice and disparity. We have Dr. Joe and Dolores Ryman, who I met actually at the conference for Celebrando Latinos. And I was walking past and they were doing a book signing there. And while talking to them, they graciously gave me their books because I said, I'm going to invite you to my podcast. And before I introduce them, I want to show you we have immigrant concepts that they've written. We've got immigrant psychology and we've got immigrant health. And based on everything that's going on right now with the administration, with the deportations, and these people have, you know, these, these I call professors, doctors have written books on the resilience of immigrants, not just Latinos, but immigrants who have come to the United States and have done phenomenal work. And so I am going to start with Dr. Joe. Let's start with you. I want you to tell us a little bit about yourself from your beginnings, from Berlin to El Paso to San Diego. How did your life path lead you to what the work that you're doing here? And then Dolores will. Will ask you, and then we'll get into the, the. The podcast as to just kind of, we want to know a little bit more about context, about who you guys are.

Yeah, perfect.

Dr. Joe, you go first.

So basically I start. I was born in Berlin then. Yes, it was at the time West Berlin. My father had an expertise in electron microscopy. He was getting his Doctorate while we were still in Berlin. And then we moved to another place called Marburg within Germany. And then he was essentially imported into the United States because Scripps Institute of Oceanography needed somebody who had expertise in this arena. They had bought the microscope and they needed somebody to actually use it. So I came when I was 10 years old, no English at all. Well, I knew a little thing about the bonnie flies over the ocean and something about a frog in a well and a couple of other words like satchel, but that was it. So they stuck me in the back of the class, gave me Dr. Sue's books, and then I had to take it from there. So it's immersion all the way fast forward. Then my parents moved to El Paso. So I went from surfing to catching scorpions in a jar, which wasn't that much fun, and graduated from UTEP twice for University of Texas at El Paso, first with a bachelor's degree in psychology and then with a master's in educational psychology. Worked for a variety of organizations, including the Private Industry Council, which was a workforce development scenario where I met Dolores. And we got together and we were both immigrants, we were both interested in some of the same things. So we decided to do this crazy thing which is going out back to San Diego and at least back for me to San Diego and getting a PhD and then over time, we both work for San Diego State University, we work in private practice, we work for community based organizations. And so this all added up to, you know, different perspectives and a variety of different experiences and multiple environments that we're trying to integrate into our books and into our current work. Great.

Dr. Dolores.

So I was born in Piedra Negras, Coahuila, Mexico. And for those who want to get oriented, where that's at is turn on Fox News and Eagle Pass, Texas will be on 24 7. It's across the border from Eagle Pass. Anyway, I did my primary and Secondari and Piedras Negros. And then at 15 we moved to the United States and I entered high school as a sophomore and graduated the following year as a junior. Junior would not recommend that. And I don't when clients come into my private practice. But anyway, at 16 I decided I wanted to go off to college against all traditional values and family values. So anyway, I took off. I was on my own. At 16 I went, I got my associates in Uvalde, Texas. Another thing that's been not that long ago on the map for not the best reasons. Then I went to utep, UT El Paso, and I got My degree in psychology. And then after I graduated from utep, I went to go work for the private industry council, met Joe, got my first master's degree in counseling psychology. And then we did the unthinkable left med career to come out to California and to basically start over against the best wishes of family saying, what's wrong with you? Why are you doing this to your husband? Why are you dragging him out to California? Can you calm down and settle? And so, you know, it was either my idea and I was dragging him or it was his idea and I wasn't convincing him to stay in El Paso. Anyway, we came to San Diego, we got our doctorate, we worked in a variety of settings including doing academic research, public health research, community work. We work for Survivors of Torture International. We get community needs assessments, private practice, and now we're with our new company for Immigrant Resettlement and Assessment and that's our that and private practice is where we're at right now.

Great. So let's get into what I call your life's work now, right? Because I mean you've had a lot of different life's work and right now and the books that you've written and how I think that your work right now is also going to get a lot more attention, especially what's going on, you know, with all the deportations that are going on in the United States and what's going on with the current administration and all the immigrants that are facing a different kind of resilience that they have to go through right now. Now you've worked with survivors of torture, immigrant families, Middle Eastern communities targeted during the post fail 9 11, what currently right now, what do those experiences teach us about resilience and what lessons can we employ in today's climate? I mean right now I know you've done a lot of research and if you want go back and tell us about some of that research that I just talked about the immigrant families of Middle Eastern communities during the 911 and how do you think that's kind of lying to what's going on right now?

Sure, Joe.

Yeah. So basically part of the project which was really the books, let's say, which were really initiated during COVID we said okay, we're home, we're we're doing telehealth, but we want to do something in addition said how do we harvest all our various experiences to say something that might be helpful to immigrant populations that captures both their challenges and their resilience and allows maybe for them to understand a little bit more how to get ahead as well as informing people who work with immigrants, agencies and other folks, attorneys, and you name it, to say, okay, here's how we maximize the potential for immigrants. Something that you don't hear about in the news, as you said, very often these days. And that really is what prompted the books. In terms of our group for immigrant settlement and assessment. We're basically doing. We had previously done a bunch of needs assessment in the community, both Middle Eastern community and out in the Imperial Valley with the Latin American community there. And so we said, okay, well, we've got the academic piece, we've got the on the ground experience. What would be most helpful? One of the things we thought would be most helpful is to develop a measure that looks at key dimensions of immigrant success and to formalize that into something that can be taken by immigrants and can yield kind of a portrait of what their needs and circumstances are so that that can get individually translated into a service plan for them. So again, it's very individualized. If Dolores came in and took it, and then I came in and took it, we might have very different results. And so it can be more custom made in terms of services to what people actually need. On the broader, on the organizational level, if people track the cumulative data from what's going on within their confines, they can say, okay, well, people who come to us for services tend to have a lot of needs along these lines, but not as much. There's some, but not as much needs on these other dimensions. So we can take our budgets and kind of distribute them according to what we're seeing on the ground as to who comes to us and what it is that we really need to accomplish. Those folks.

If I can add, a lot of this comes from our previous experience in terms of doing community assessment, like with the Middle Eastern community, post 9 11. But also we've done community needs assessments in the Imperial Valley. For example, in El Centro, we did a project called Trinicas a few years ago in terms of mainly immigrant communities in the Imperial Valley. So then the measure that Joe's talking about, but in addition, the books, going back to the conversation about the books, we came up with a series of three books that really addresses the dimensions that we think the research, historical data, being in the trenches in community and in clinical practice, really outlines what leads to successful integration. So why the books? Two main aims. Number one is to inform, because I think information is power. I mean, like your podcast, you inform people, you help them understand, and that gives them information to navigate systems and structures that they have More agency so that so to inform people, but also to advise on how to maneuver certain things. So that's what the three books are about. And in that context, going back to the resilience, really help people identify those aspects of community and the culture that, that they really need to embrace and do more of. And the things that could be tweaked or adopted in some ways learn how to do that in a way that's successful not only in the short term to navigate and I'll use the word survive current climate, but also be able to move forward. So have the short term, but the long term game in mind. You know, you use the word resilience and I tell my patients all the time, you can't have resilience without going through crap or stuff. Right. And life is going to hand you difficult situations. If you can navigate that and survive it and come out at the other end, you're going to be stronger for it. If you can learn to appreciate the skills and the lessons you've learned and be proud and grateful for what you accomplished in the process. And I think if there's a gift in these troubled times is that we're going to be stronger and smarter as we come out at the other end, and I'm sure we will. When will that happen? Well, hopefully sooner than later, but I think in the meantime, those of us who can be out and help support individuals in our community to do that, then we will all benefit from it.

Can you identify what you talked about, some of the factors that lead to successful resilience or integration right now? Or what aspects do successful people who are going through tough times have more than others? Is there things that you've written about that you say, you know, someone who comes out through a very difficult situation, especially an immigrant, has this around them or that has this mindset or has these resources available that they do better than people who don't have those?

Right. So, Joe, you want to talk about the collectivism aspect?

Yeah. So basically there is. Culture is obviously multi dimensional and some things are going to be more difficult if we don't adapt to the right, most effective way to do. But there are also a lot of cultural strengths that we can harness and build on. There's something called the Latino paradox, and it's basically thought about as a paradox because first generation Latino populations, in terms of health and well being and so on, tend to do better or at least as good as the local population. So then that seems counterintuitive because if they're facing all these additional Challenges, how come they're doing reasonably well, you know, even compared to local groups. One of the things is that, you know, culture, traditional culture brings with it a number of different strengths. One of which might be, let's go with Latin American populations, which is also true for Middle Eastern populations, some other groups that they tend to be a little bit more collective. That, and what that basically means in English is that they, they tend to see the whole rather than a more individualized society like the United States, which tends to be more corporate, compartmentalized and so on. So being able to really grasp the big picture has certain advantages. You can see where the connections are, how to use those connections, and it brings with it certain, let's say, level of safety and security and well being to have your community around you and feel like that's a way to get support. And so we want to, we want to harness that. At the same time there in terms of educating people, there's also a piece that says, okay, there's fatalism and things like that that go away from I really have control over my well being and way of being and so on. So how do I make this happen? Well, we can train people to say, for example, we're living in a very complex society in the United States and well, in other parts of the world too. So while we, it's great to see all the connections that sometimes we have to parcel out which path we take in order to get to where we really need to go. In the healthcare arena, it may be that the common perception is that you go to your primary care doc who takes care of everything, but primary care docs can't take care of everything. You need specialists to get the full range of services that you may really need. And so the adaptation may be that okay, we need to have the whole, but we also have to understand that there are specializations which we can go to that are going to kind of maximize our bang for the buck, so to speak. And I think that certainly goes to healthcare. It also goes to economics. I think you've made the point that if somebody goes to kind of a jack of all trades where the person is everything from financial advisor to notary public to, you know, healthcare promotora to whatever, then you may not, you need to have a pro to get to in order to really get ahead. And so that's an example where there's a collective piece, but there's also a point where some education can come about, about, you know, here are the systems that are available to you and here's how you can get to where you really want to go.

The way it also, like, for example, clinically. So I do a lot of trauma work. I do see a lot of immigrants in my private practice at different stages of success and integration and also generational. But in terms of immigrants, when you. When you're dealing, for example, with trauma, okay, Often what happens in the general population with trauma is that people who go through some really bad experiences can develop as a way of coping, a sense of entitlement, like, well, you know, life isn't fair. Look what happened to me. And now, you know, everybody else has to take care of me. With immigrant communities, it's not so much, you know, there's not the expectation. Regardless of what I went through, life is what it is, right? There's an acceptance. And you can say, maybe that's fatalism or whatever term you want to use, but there's this notion that you have to work hard if you want something, right? So then if you can also help them work through the trauma, then they don't fall into this. Sometimes people get into trouble with trauma where they feel entitled or they come across as entitled because they're angry and they're hurt and they're scared. With immigrant communities, that looks very differently. But part of my job is to help them identify those things that are trauma. I'll give you a very classic example from my practice. Somebody will come in and they. Not that long ago, I had somebody who worked at a big box store for a long time and was going to be offered a better position. But this person felt that he just can't learn English. He can't learn English. He's tried. He's gone to ESL classes, English as a. And it ain't going to happen. So I can't learn English. I can't get this promotion. Well, what happened when he tried to go to the English classes? He was distracted because of where they set him in the classroom. He was hypervigilant. He would have intrusive thoughts. So there was some trauma experiences that got in the way of that. Once we work through the trauma and we help him, we help them understand. It's not that you just have to accept that you can't learn English. There's these other things going on that you've been dealing with. And now that you've come to therapy and you're not crazy, we're helping you do better, then you can apply for that job that you want because you feel more confident in your English skills. Skills. So that's how all those things tie in together, right? And learning to navigate, understanding the cultural beliefs, those that are helpful and those that are not that helpful, understanding where they come from, but how to tweak it and how to adapt it to that individual, then that strengthens the individual, but also community in the process.

Interesting. You know, the, the. When it comes to trauma, you know, a lot of immigrants that came from other countries, whether they came from, you know, at one point when it was in El Salvador or Colombia or Mexico, you know, they came from very. From countries where they did not trust their governments, they did not trust their financial institutions. Right. They come to the United States like my parents or other people that have been here, maybe undocumented, but they've been here for 25, 30 years, their whole lives. Some people were born, you know, in Mexico. They brought them here when they were two years older. Now, you know, professionals who've worked really hard were told that there's an American dream. You save your money, you buy a house, you go to college, you get a degree. And then all of a sudden, now we're back to we can't trust the government right now or certain institutions because they're changing the rules. And there's a sense of. When I was dealing with a lot of people back in the barrio, where they were just really hard workers, and I love that Latino paradox where it's a collective and they all help each other out, but there was still a sense of hopelessness and helplessness, meaning that they were going to work hard their whole lives. And they kind of had that fatalistic attitude. You know, this is my lot in life. This is, you know, and yada, yada, yada, and this is. And so they saved enough money, but not for their future, not for retirement. It was just kind of her survival. I'm seeing that right now psychologically, everything that's going on. And because you guys have studied trauma, just kind of interesting whether you think your work is going to go, what's happening right now. There's some parallels to going back to some, like, third World countries where the government's also changed the rules whenever they wanted to. Right. I wonder if there's going to be any kind of trauma where there's going to be more helplessness or hopelessness, and maybe that American dream is not there for them any longer. I, I don't know what's going on, but I'm. I'm, you know, I'm in the Bibles right now. I, I feel the energy is, Is just denser. It's darker as you know, you know, I was born and raised here when some of the best schools. I'm a US citizen and I'm walking around with also my passport in my wallet and, and I see the, you know, the laws are being changed all the time. And I just had a, I had a person that I met with yesterday who is a high level executive at a Fortune 500 company who was detained at the airport coming through from Mexico City and a business and whatever. And again, born and raised here as well. It based on your prior experiences of seeing trauma, are you seeing any parallels with that? Do you think that's going to change things at least within the Latino community? What are your observations on some of that?

Let me say something to that, Louis. And then as the. Then Joe can add his own perspective. So one of the things that happens with trauma, our brain changes, right? We know this, this is what we've learned most recently. And one of the things is hypervigilance, right? You really pay attention to your environment. Well right now, because of the trauma and the reality of what's going on, people are really paying attention to their environment. A of lot, a lot of the work that I do with members in the community is to do an accurate assessment of the facts. But also who are you getting that information from? And really discern from an internal locus of control how to understand what's going on, because I think that's really important. One of the biggest challenges I had with the Latino community during COVID was that they were getting other public health information from WhatsApp and there was a lot of stuff that was inaccurate and scary and really not that helpful. So then I think it's an opportunity that while people are part of trauma, is really being hypervigilant in their environment. Let's figure this out. But let's do it through the right filters that empower us. And I think those of us who have platforms that can help guide that perception because information is only useful through the lens of which is perceived, right? So it can be fatalistic and ideals, mi o que vasar or it can be, okay, so this is how it's going to work. Let's figure out how do we make turn this to our advantage, right? What do we use out of this that can help us survive right now, but also help us in the future so we can kind of guide that process, understanding how some of the trauma works. And then we can. You know, I talk a lot about narrative in my practice. There's the story of what happened to you and then the story you tell yourself and you tell other people about what it means. Right. So we can help write. We can't change what's going on to a certain extent, but we can tell ourselves about who we are in that process. Right. Are we going to be the survivors or the victims?

Absolutely. And, and thank you for stating that. That is so positive and that's what people need to hear. Because right now what I don't want is I don't want people to feel that they're helpless or hopeless and that there are things that they can continue to do and be successful and focus on a better outcome and focus on what their responses should be versus reacting to what's going on and saying, what can I do to, to help my family? What can I do to help myself? Right. I've seen, you know, I've been putting information out right now and saying, well, listen, for some people that are here that are undocumented and you can have businesses here, I've got clients that are outside of the United States who own businesses, who own property, and they can legitimately have the businesses and own them through an entity and we can restructure and all of that can be done. But the problem is that some of the people that are here who are right now undocumented are not still doing it. It's feel like they're, they've almost been paralyzed by what's going on and they're. And, and the information and they don't know where to get the information. They don't know who to trust at this point right now. Right. But there are a lot of wonderful things that, and a lot of organizations right now that are putting out some great information. And so hopefully we'll pass that information to you.

So if I can just add something.

Absolutely.

Conversation. We really went through something somewhat similar after 911 where we did a needs assessment with the Middle Eastern population. And the similarities were that suddenly everybody who wore a hijab, in other words, the head covering for the women, was automatically a terrorist. And so there were a lot of the FBI's chasing after us. And Tom of that was very legitimate. You know, that was real. But there was also a certain amount of, okay, let's see how our friends are and let's see how we can survive this. And this doesn't work all the time. But as we've kind of alluded to, what doesn't kill you does make you potentially stronger if you handle it in an effective way. And so it's not the first rodeo in terms of people Feeling like the rest of the world, at least in the United States, is after them for illegitimate reasons because some of the people who came over here were escaping the kind of terrorist activity that was going back home. So now you're here and you're suddenly lumped in with your persecutors and the bad guys back home, and I can't feel the goodness, like, what the heck's going on? This is the opposite of me. And if you, if you could carry that forward in the current political climate, I see some commonalities. You know, there's a lot of misinformation floating out there. And when we really, for example, know that, you know, based on stuff that criminologists have put out, immigrant population actually have lower crime rates than the general population. That's a whole thing. And we need to understand that when the migration caravans were happening, the immigration system, in other words, the government system, was overwhelmed by. Because there's only so many people that fit in the courtroom. But at the same time, society, larger societies, ability to absorb that number and get benefit from that immigration, both for themselves and the immigrants, that's a different story. So we need to have a better picture of the whole situation in order to be able to really say, okay, now we know how to deal with this effectively.

Let me just add another point back to what you said a minute ago, Louis, about, you know, educating people, even under the current reality about what's still possible. I think that goes to a broader point, and I think a lot of what's going on right now externally is. Can potentially divide us as a community, us and them. Right. And if we don't allow that to happen by supporting each other, by, you know, giving information like what you just described in terms of telling people how to navigate current circumstances, then we will want. One of the strengths is that we are a united community, that we don't allow other folks to divide us because it goes against the divide and conquer. And that's going to help our resilience as a community. Community as we come out the other end.

Well, you know that. But what a wonderful point you make there. Right? It is. I hadn't seen where again, I go back to. I. I don't want to make this political because it's, It's. It is what it is. Right? Just. I just kind of figure out, okay, so this is. These are the events that are going on as a community or as an individual or as Latino. How am I going to behave? How am I going to respond to this? And what's the outcome that I want, but I haven't seen in such a long time where there are Latino families that are divided, some that believe in what's going on, where, you know, you've got Latinos who were born and raised here, but from immigrant parents who are supporting the current administration still, which is, you know, again, at this podcast, I'm not going to say good or bad at this point, but the problem is that I'm seeing for the first time, division in families because you voted for this person or you voted for that person, or you voted Democrat, you voted Republican, and they're not talking to each other. And this is within their. Our own Latino community. And I go back to. They are kind of. We are kind of being divided, right. By whatever ideas and mindsets and whatever. So it's just a little bit more complicated that I've seen in the past. And I just wonder, you know, again, I go back to, you know, you're more on the unfocused on how do you unite these people for a greater cause? I don't know. Can you. It becomes really complicated. And, you know, we don't have a lot of time left. And I kind of want to start answering. I would love for you guys to start answering these questions not almost as professors, but as now individuals that are seeing this, because now you are in Southern California, you're in Chula Vista. No. And. And you're seeing how the race. And. And there's people that, you know, like, for example, we have family members that are even. I've got one family member that of my wife's side is who works for ice. Right. And now nobody wants to go to the party because somebody's there. And. And I'm thinking, okay, so how do we overcome this? How do we work?

Yeah. Not to minimize the pain that's real within. And. But also I think part of it is to educate people that where does the scarcity mindset come from? And is it even true? Is it one of those harmful beliefs? Right. That is not just specific to the Latino community, but, you know, in greater society, that if I get more, then that automatically means you get less. What does that. Is that really true? And does it have to be. A lot of what I do in my practice is to help people. Even when there's division, it's not either or. Some decisions are either or. But a lot of it is how do you do the. And. And. Right. How can this be true in a space and this also be true? And find the common theme that's Focused on the solution and not who to blame. And when you start having conversations at that level, there's a little bit more ability to listen from a more what's in it for me perspective versus trying to blame somebody else. What do you think, Joe?

So.

I think, yeah, we need to find some common ground, as may not if we're going to argue politics. Chances of getting to that common ground is at this point, given how entrenched people are, is very difficult. So then the question is, are there other points of commonality that you can focus on that we can agree on that can lead to some success, let's say, as a family unit, what can we do as a family unit to thrive? Whether you believe in the current administration or not? I have a client right now who feels very vulnerable, and we spent a good part of the session with him being angry at that component within the Latino community who voted for the other guy. And it's like, how the heck could you do that given where you come from? And his language is not fun, quite as polite as what I'm using right now. And I understand all that. I'm, you know, I look like a garden variety white guy and I'm carrying my own global entry card around for the first time ever in the, you know, the 70 plus years I've been in the United States. Oh, that's not a good thing. And I'm not minimizing the fact that some of the stuff that's happened politically is completely wrong and out of control. But that said, I think we do need to find common ground in those areas where we can negotiate things to everybody's benefit and that can increase some of the cohesiveness that we may have lost by talking about politics on the dinner table within the family unit. And, well, you're on this side and you're on that side, so. So now you're the bad guys and we'll never meet again.

Because certain things that are real, that lead to success not only through trauma, but in general don't have anything to do with politics. You know, how do you, in a current situation, find things to be grateful for? Right. And keep those things that are still helpful alive, even when things get rough? Actually, that's when you need it more, right? How do you stay optimistic? How do you remain grateful? How do you remain grounded in what's important to you, but then also make choices about how public you want to be about certain aspects about yourself and how does that serve you or doesn't? And be mindful, but also strategic in that context and give each other grace and permission to navigate that.

Yeah, you know the interesting part right on social media. Social media is double edged sword. It's bad and it's good at the same time. I'm watching a lot of people because I'm posting a lot of stuff on social media, especially TikTok and I'm watching people who have been deported and saying, hey, I'm making a life. This is what you, if something happens to you, this is where you need to go. These are where all the resources are. But you know what I'm having, I'm enjoying what's going on. I'm, you know, it's like not as negative as I thought it was going to be. My life is right now, the quality of life has become, is a better. I was stuck in this place where I was always in fear and yada yada, yada. And so there's a lot of great information, there's a lot to be grateful for and that's what I want us to focus on. We're nearing the end and you've shared some wonderful information and with all your experience, I would love for you we're going to shift a little bit. And one of the things that I always call this wealth gap warriors because there are people in this universe, in this world that can always decide to take different routes to different paths to success. And some people choose success. What becomes financial success or making a lot of money. And you know, you, you guys as, as, as, as professors, as doctors and the work that you do, you're not going to go out there and you're not going to be multimillionaires, but you're going to do, you're going to be financially successful. But how right now, what would you say based on your life experience for young Latinos or young immigrant professionals who are creating, coming out of college or graduate school or getting their PhD can find that level of meaning and work in their life. Do you guys, would you have any kind of advice that you can give them? You know, because I think that what, what I'm seeing with a lot of young kids coming out of college, when I say young, it could be an mba, can be a master's in, in psychology, it can be a PhD. They want their work to have purpose, they want their work to have meaning and sometimes. But they, they choose a career path guiding them towards what they think is going to create more financially. SEC Financial Security. What based on looking back at all, at your life and all the different decisions you've made, what Advice would you give somebody like that?

So I'll. I'll just speak for myself, and then Joe can say what. What he thinks. Don't be afraid to dream big and don't listen. Stay away from naysayers. I don't care who they are. I mean, I'm this poor kid from Piero Negros, Coahuila, and I've presented in conferences in London on immigration. Right. The work that Joe and I are doing is about immigration on an international stage. So how did I get here? Well, there's been a lot of hard work, a lot of stubbornness, but I also believed in what I was doing. Now, did I have it all panned out? Specifically every step of the way? No, But I. I knew what was in my heart, and I followed it, and I didn't let anybody tell me otherwise. The other part of that was that I allowed. I allowed myself to learn from other people. I always tell my patients, there's some lessons we have to learn ourself, but if you can learn vicariously from other people, you know, don't covet what somebody else has, learn from them. Right. And a lot of successful people are willing to take you under their arm and mentor you. Don't be afraid to seek out other experience and other wisdom, even from people that don't look like you. You know, you're not betraying yourself if you seek out information and expertise from people that you can learn from and be open to that. And in that context, allow yourself to dream and don't put limits to what you think you can accomplish. What do you think, Joe?

Well, just for the record, I'm still counting on the multimillionaire thing. No, I haven't quite given up on that yet. However, I understand probabilities being a person as well, and I don't know that, you know, maybe I'll do a data set of winning lottery numbers and see if there's really a random effect or if there's some pattern I can determine. But that aside, I think part of being rich, if you want to call it that, is doing work that somehow you think is meaningful. The kind of. The goal when we came out here was, well, we're going to have the boutique practice in longer and see all the rich people and have the mansion next door. Well, when we got here, it was somewhat of a different scenario. And to be honest, educational experience included some, let's say, biases, particularly towards the lowers. And we used that and said, okay, how can we attack this in a way where we can make a difference? Where we can find our niche with work that is really interesting and meaningful and seems to make a difference. The clinical practice has been one or two people at a time. And part of the book idea was that now we're saying, okay, is are there other things that we can do to influence the world on a little bit broader scale so that we can say, okay, yeah, the one person, two person, three person thing is cool. And that really informs us. But, okay, let's use all of those experience and say, let's do something constructive and figure out both in terms of, for example, doing a measure that allows people to be potentially more successful, or at least have that success easier, accessible and more streamlined to get to where you want to go and just kind of informing the broader population as well that, you know, immigration is international. In our books, there's almost as much about the EU and UK as there is about the United States. So, you know, we're reaching for an audience where we can have maybe a little bit of a broader impact. And just in terms of professional satisfaction, that's a piece of the equation.

Fantastic. Well, I'm honored to have been able to speak to you both today. Seriously, it's an honor. Immigrant Psychology. Heart, Mind and Soul. Immigrant Concepts. Life Path to Integration. Immigrant Health. Enhancing Integration and Global wellness by two wonderful, real people who've been in the trenches, who've done the hard work, who have wonderful insight. Please, Dr. Joe and Dolores, tell us how people can find your books, how they can reach out to you, where they can find more information about the work that you're doing. Let us know.

Sure, Joe.

Okay, let me go ahead. And where can you find the books? Like everything else, you find it on Amazon. It's being distributed pretty far and wide in places I've never heard of before. Sending out books for sure. Walmart Online, Barnes and Noble Online. For professional people who want to use this to get into the bookstores, there's something called Ingham Sparks. There are a whole variety of different outlets. Every time I send out a book, then pretty soon I get like, well, it's been accepted by this. And there's this whole long laundry list of different. So basically you just have to get the title and see where all it's available. I found it the other day in some Harvard library that I didn't know about before. And so, yeah, the distribution system has been pretty, pretty wide. And the other piece that we did, given our international focus, is, well, you know, from celebrity, that we have it in Spanish, all three books in Spanish. We also have it in German because in, you know, Germany took in over a million immigrants from North African and Middle Eastern countries during Angela Merkel's time. And we also have it in Arabic because that's another big chunk of the population that tends to migrate. So there's an effort to reach as many people as possible and hopefully make a difference.

Congratulations. And how do we find work, the work that you're doing?

Give us our website.

Okay, Give us your website information and then we'll have it linked on. But go ahead and channel this.

Dolores, your website, yeah, it's immigrantscreening.com needs to be updated a little bit. But yeah, that's. And in, in that scenario, we have a number of different things on the website, including past projects that we've done. They're available free to download. For example, the projects that we mentioned in the, in the Imperial Valley and here with the Middle Eastern population. That whole thing, both of things are on available online just to download and take.

You can download the PDF of both of those reports of the work that we've done. And also there's a tab on our website called Romo Books and that there's another way you can access the books.

Yeah, fantastic.

Yeah. We also have a link to the academic journal articles that we've done. That kind of goes to credibility, I think. I'm not sure how many people outside academia ever read those things, but, uh, if we want street creds, that's another way to try to make that point.

You've got the street cred, that's for sure. Any, Any last parting thoughts? I mean, you know, we, we've, we've run the gamut here. You know, like I said, I focus on, on building wealth, but I know that that money is just an aspect to live a better quality of life. And having money allows you to see a professional like you. Having money allows you to have good health as well. Having money allows an. Gives you access to stuff, anything that you want to impart. Any last thoughts?

I'll say this, I'll go back to gratitude because I think a big part of what I'm grateful for is the opportunity to talk to other people. Right. Like yourself, and have conversations about things that we care about, even if it comes from different perspectives or different expertise. But I think thank you for allowing us to have this space with you and to have the conversation. Right. Hopefully more conversations about the work that we're doing, the work that you're doing, because that helps each other, but also helps our community at large.

Joe, my walk away is that I think the point that we made previously about trauma being able to impact a lot of things that other people might say, well, I just can't do it. I'm too dumb. I'm too this. I'm. To that trauma is treatable. So it's not like, you know, with my Somali patients, for example, have little education, but they've also been through a mess. And then they come and say, well, I'm trying to be a citizen. I can't pass the test. And it's not that there is a lack of basic mental capacity. It's just the trauma is getting in the way. It's distractibility. And if you can't pay attention to something, you can't remember it. And the good news is there are treatments for trauma. And so if we can emphasize that, that there are solutions to problems which may sound insurmountable to the person experiencing them, then I think, you know, that's. That's my gratitude in terms of doing this work. And like Dolores, I also appreciate you having us on and the work that you're doing. And maybe we can talk about some other things we can do together later on. Absolutely. And, you know, that's. I think that's great. Thank you for the thoughts together.

Yeah, no, thank you for those thoughts. Trauma is treatable. Everyone who's listening to us. Wealth Gap warriors is a podcast to showcase the wonderful people nationally doing work to help us at all different levels, to help our communities out underserved communities. And I am so thankful for both of you, for all the work you've done. And again, I know not how complicated and difficult and time consuming it is to write a book, but you've written three, and I bet that there's another one coming down the road. I can also see it. I can see it in the brains that you guys thinking about what's going on. So thank you guys and thank you everybody for listening to us. And we'll see you at the next Wealth Gap warriors podcast.

See you soon. Bye.

Thank you. Thanks a lot.

Bye.