Growing up, Jeo was never very close to his dad. As an adult, he wants to know him better, to learn about his past and have a real relationship with him. But it’s hard to get him to open up. And, an expert in adolescent development in immigrant communities helps explain the disconnect.
Featured Expert:
William Perez is a professor in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University. He received his BA in psychology from Pomona College and his Ph.D. in Child and Adolescent Development and Educational Psychology from Stanford University. His research focuses on the social and psychological development in “emergent adults” (ages 18-29), how immigrants, first gens and later generations acculturate into American society and the impact on family dynamics, as well as the experience of undocumented immigrants. He has also written about how parents can talk to their kids about immigration . Learn more about his work and research here.
If you loved this episode, be sure to listen to At Home, Being an Adult is Testing Parental Limits, and When Helping Leaves You Feeling Bad After.
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Juleyka Lantigua-Williams:
Hi, everybody. Today, I’m speaking with Jeo. Jeo wants to be closer to his father, but it’s proven difficult to get past cordial greetings and light check ins. Jeo doesn’t know much about his dad, his life back in El Salvador, his extended family, or what it was like for him to come to the U.S. And whenever he’s tried to learn more, his dad can’t seem to open up. Let’s get into it.
Jeovany Rodriguez:
My name is Jeovany Rodriguez. I am 28 years of age and I am a CPA working in an accounting firm. I am an auditor and I prepare financial statements for a living. And growing up, I called my dad dad, and I called my mom mamí. So, with my mom, I was her boy. I talked to her about pretty much anything except guy stuff, but I told her everything else, and you know, I respected her also, so if she raised her voice or if she was disciplining me or whatever, then I respected that, as well.
My dad, on the other hand, I never really opened up to him and he never really opened up to me, and we’ve tried in the past to talk or whatever, but it never… We never really gelled, I guess, for lack of a better term. But me and my dad are very similar. We’re both hardheaded, we’re both… We can be stubborn. He has a very specific way of going about thinking of things. I have my own ways of thinking about things.
I never really told him about any milestones growing up. Driving, I learned through driver’s ed. To be very honest, I had an extremely difficult time talking to women. I don’t know if it… I never had a girlfriend growing up, so I never told him about something like that, nor would I ever tell him about any feelings that I had. If I couldn’t even talk to him and say hi, or have a conversation with him, I wasn’t gonna tell him about any of these things. And then puberty, I learned everything through friends and through Googling things, but never through my dad, unfortunately.
I always felt like if I told my father any of these things, he would judge me. I would be doing something wrong. I would be… I need to be doing things better. I need to… If I’m inside playing games, I should be outside doing something. If I’m spending too much time outside, I should be inside studying. It should… I felt like it was never enough for him.
So, at a young age I never… He never praised me for anything that I would do. He would expect me to do well and that was sort of the expectation. Whenever my father would hit a milestone in his life, or get a promotion, or whatever that may be, he wouldn’t tell us these sort of things and I would kind of learn back end, through my mom. My mom would tell me about these promotions, or even simpler things like how he grew up, how he was raised, things like that.
My father was about 20 during the civil war in El Salvador. So was my mom. They’re both about the same age. They talk about that era kind of like… It’s hard to say, because right around that time they left to the States, and that’s probably why they left to the States, but they don’t exactly go into details. The most that I’ve heard my mom say about that era is that she said it was very scary. This is from my mom’s point of view. I don’t know my dad’s point of view.
And I’ve always kind of been scared to ask, honestly. To not have to open that Pandora’s box. I’d like to be able to just go up and talk to him, and I’d like my relationship with my father to be basically the same as my mother. I mean, I know he cares a lot, and I know that he loves me, but he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t… I guess it’s a very machismo sort of thing, or I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ve always wanted that same care and thoughtfulness from my father that I got from my mother.
And in a way, I also understand him, because growing up he didn’t have a father. So, for… How can someone who didn’t have a father be expected to raise two children? And I think about it and I’m very grateful that he supports, and he’s always been there, but I’ve always also missed the fact that I’ve never been able to speak to him. Not even son to son, just person to person.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, at this point in the conversation, I asked Jeo if he ever thought that maybe he’s putting all the responsibility of creating a nurturing relationship between them solely on his dad.
Jeo: Yeah, I can see how I would put being nurturing side on him. So, lately I’ve tried to talk to him. I’ve tried to be more open with him. Tried to delve in a bit more. And I will say one thing. I moved out in 2015, and when I moved out from his home, I was able to speak to him a lot more clearly, much more openly. It was most night and day. It was extremely surprising. Even if it was over the phone, I felt like I got a lot more accomplished when I was out of his roof for a year than when I was back. And I moved back largely in part because of him and something that was going on with him.
And in that time, me and my brother have tried to talk to him more, tried to open up more, but there’s little things that he says. There’s little things that he does. It’s still very much we’re not up to par with what his expectations are. We’ve tried. And obviously I want to move out, because it’s time again, but more than anything, the reason that I am doing it if I’m being very honest with myself is to try and rekindle something with him, as well.
Lantigua-Williams:
Honestly, there was so much I wanted to understand in the dynamic between Jeo and his dad. What father figure was Jeo comparing his father to? What prevented them from sharing more about their lives as adults? How did Jeo come to expect that his father should be the most responsible for their relationship? Again, as adults. So many questions, so I had to call in an expert.
William Perez: My name is William Perez. I’m a Professor in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, and I am a migration and education scholar who writes and conducts research about the immigrant youth experience in the United States.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, you heard Jeo’s story. What did you hear?
Perez: What stood out to me was I think the contrast between the two cultural models of parent-child relationships. His father has a particular notion about how parents relate to their children in terms of emotional expression and the kinds of things that demonstrate that bond, and his son has a slightly different version of that. And to me, that spoke to the very different experiences, the socializing experiences that they had. His father growing up in a country where those norms, those cultural practices are different from American sort of cultural norms.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, does your research give us some sense of why that difference happens between them?
Perez: Yeah. Absolutely. So, there’s a lot of the research that looks at sort of the developmental pathways for youth from immigrant households. So, this includes youth that were themselves born outside of the United States and youth that were born in the United States but are children of immigrants, so their parents and grandparents were born abroad. What it shows, and particularly for youth whose families are from Latin American origins, the way in which parents express their love, and especially fathers, there is a gender dynamic here. And Jeo I think highlights that dynamic. He says, “My mom is much more loving and expresses that emotional bond very clearly and explicitly,” compared to his father.
And that speaks to kind of the gender kind of layer of this in that in Latin American cultures, and in Asian cultures and other cultures around the world, the way in which fathers express that bond, that affection for their children, is by providing for the family. By working hard, monitoring their behavior, so kind of discipline and that… The emphasis isn’t on that emotional expression, but rather on being the provider. And so, there isn’t a lot of investment necessarily in kind of nurturing that emotional bond.
But what we do know about immigrants when they go from country A to country B is that as soon as they arrive they begin to acculturate. And so, I hear a little bit of that story towards the end, where he said, “You know, now that I’m older,” and he’s in his late twenties now, things have started to change. And to me, that speaks to the acculturation process from his father. His father kind of acculturating to more typical American norms about parental expression. Particularly fatherly expression of affection.
Lantigua-Williams:
So, let’s dig a little bit deeper into that, because I think part of this is that maybe the first gens, especially folks who have not had the opportunity to travel back and forth to their parents’ home country, might not have the context, might not have the cultural competency to understand why their parents behave in a particular way. So, what are some of the key things that let’s say people who are slightly younger than Jeo, maybe people who are about to go off to college, or in college, or in high school, who are starting to notice the dynamics between them and who want to improve the dynamics between them and their parents, what are some of the key things that they should know to better understand why their parents are the way they are in terms of this particular part of their relationship?
Perez: Yeah. No, that’s a great question. I mean, one of the things that I and other scholars who study this emphasize is the importance of biculturalism. If you provide the opportunities for young people to develop a bicultural orientation, then they have the ability to look at their relationship with their parents through that lens, and understanding that they might have particular notions about what that relationship should look like and the dynamics of it, but that understanding at the same time that their parents might have a different one based on their socializing experience.
With that insight you can find a common ground that can facilitate the process of acculturation on both sides. Acculturation of the parents to kind of be more open to new ways of relating to their children emotionally and otherwise, and children being much more understanding and perhaps patient with their parents as they try on a new way to engage in this parent-child relationship.
And so, for kids that have that opportunity to go to their countries of origin and visit family during summer breaks, vacations, those experiences nurture that kind of orientation. And they begin to make these connections and understand, “Oh, all this time I resented my parents for not being more like my friends’ parents, but now I understand why. Now I see where they’re coming from.” And with that insight, they can then begin to find ways to build a kind of relationship that they find gratifying.
Lantigua-Williams:
I want to talk to you specifically about the role of trauma, because in many instances, parents who have come to the U.S. have come fleeing either civil war, or famine, or a huge economic downturn, or gang violence, drug-related violence. In Jeo’s case, the civil war in El Salvador. And so, I wanted to ask you about what your research says about the role of trauma and traumatic experiences of the parents impacting their relationship with their first generation American-born children.
Perez: Right, and that’s a great question because in the case of Central American migrants during the armed conflicts, so folks that immigrated from starting in the late 1970s all the way up to the mid 1990s, they were affected in very profound ways by the trauma that they were fleeing from. There’s a whole generation of both men and women, mothers and fathers, who the trauma really impacted in a very profound negative way those bonds that they had with their loved ones, parents and siblings, and that trauma then certainly has an effect in the way that those individuals are able to develop sort of those bonds with their children.
Lantigua-Williams:
Okay, so in light of all of this, first the need to establish a cultural context for their parents’ experiences, and then obviously a need to respect, I guess would be the word, or at least acknowledge that there is a reason for the difference in approaches, what else would you recommend for first generations who are grappling with what they’re perceiving as distance when it comes to their parents?
Perez: I mean, at the end of the day is dialogue. Being able to talk to each other. But again, if that’s not something that’s been modeled to you, it’s not… If that’s something that you don’t see as an example of other families around you, then it’s not gonna happen on its own. One of the things that I particularly appreciated in studying this topic is that at the community level, there’s been a variety of efforts, and there’s this whole field of community-based psychology. Creating opportunities for immigrant families to come together to have a structured dialogue to learn about these cultural differences that may exist, but also, and especially in light of the unaccompanied minor phenomena that we’ve seen in recent years, a focus that includes also the role of trauma.
Sometimes they’ve been referred to as healing circles, and they’re really kind of these kind of structured peer counseling almost conversations, where that topic is engaged to facilitate this kind of rekindling of parent-child bonds if trauma somehow has undermined parents’ ability to develop emotional bonds with their children. So, to talk about their immigrant experience, coming to the U.S., adapting to a new language, new culture, new way of doing things, new lifestyle, as Jeo mentioned, we never talk about the war, right? It’s a taboo subject.
But often times when done in those structured ways, the discussion of taboo subjects, even there are circumstances where even fathers find it very difficult to tell their sons, “I love you,” or, “You’re my whole reason for coming to the United States, and taking the risk, and providing an opportunity for your future success.” These healing circles provide sort of that structure, that safe space, to be able to do that and to demystify kind of the misconceptions that parents and children might have about each other.
Lantigua-Williams:
All right, Will. Thank you so, so much for coming on and sharing all this wisdom with us.
Perez: My pleasure. Happy to talk with you.
Lantigua-Williams:
All right, let’s recap what we learned from Will. Use your bicultural powers. Understand you may be looking at a situation with a different lens than your parents. How we first gens, and second gens, and third gens show emotion, how we respond and engage with others, it’s all based on completely different cultural norms, so be mindful, because we can easily misread our parents’ behavior, emotions, and intentions. Be patient. As parents become Americanized themselves, it may become easier to engage with us as their grown children, but it might take a few beats before everybody finds a good stride. And remember, there’s help. Healing circles, peer support groups, Facebook groups, and other spaces for inspiration and support. There’s probably a few apps, too.
Lantigua-Williams:
Thank you so much for listening and for sharing us. How to Talk to [Mamí and Papí] About Anything is an original production of Lantigua Williams & Co. Virginia Lora produced this episode. Michael Castañeda mixed it. Micaela Rodríguez is our founding producer and social media editor. Cedric Wilson is our lead producer. I’m the show’s creator, Juleyka Lantigua-Williams. On Twitter and Instagram, we’re @TalktoMamiPapi. Please subscribe and rate us on Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, Spotify, or anywhere you listen to your favorite podcasts. Bye, everybody. Same place next week.
CITATION:
Lantigua-Williams, Juleyka, host. “Still Yearning for His Father’s Love.”
How to Talk to [Mamí & Papí] About Anything,
Lantigua Williams & Co., November23, 2020. TalkToMamiPapi.com.