Season 4, Episode 4, Rebecca W. Walston, TJ Poon, and Danielle Inter-Cultural Conversations

And this week you're going to listen in on a conversation between myself, Rebecca Wheeler Walston, and TJ Poon. We're all part of a project we've been working on together for over a year now. And, and as part of that project, we're exploring the Latinx experience in, in this time. And so what, what we're doing in this conversation is kind of fleshing out, like, what does it mean to have an intercultural conversation in with the primary lens of Latinx culture?

Rebecca Wheeler Walston:

Specializing in advising non-profits and small businesses. Specialties: providing the legal underpinning for start-up nonprofits and small businesses, advising nonprofit boards, 501c3 compliance, creating and reviewing business contracts. Rebecca lives in Virginia, has completed Law School at UCLA, holds a Master’s in Marriage and Family Counseling, is also a licensed minister.

TJ Poon:

Danielle (00:12):

Welcome to the Arise Podcast, conversations on faith, race, justice, gender, and healing. And this week, uh, you're going to listen in on a conversation between myself, uh, Rebecca Wheeler Walston, and TJ Poon. We're all part of a project we've been working on together for over a year now. And, and as part of that project, we're exploring the Latinx experience in, in this time. And so what, what we're doing in this conversation is kind of fleshing out, like, what does it mean to have an intercultural conversation in with the primary lens of Latinx culture?

Rebecca (00:52):

Right? It it reminds me what that, um, the, the, the, uh, Latinx woman who we saw this weekend. I don't know, I'm not sure I remember where she's from particularly, but how she was talking about how, like in Spanish, the, the wording is different. Therefore, what I interpret or what I metabolized right, is different. That was brilliant.

Danielle (01:18):

Mm-hmm. . Okay. I love what you just said, Rebecca. And then tj, I'd like you to hear your thoughts on this, but part of what I think I'm hoping for in saying this is a space for you to even come in and, and say, like, in the African H and American experience, here's where I resonate. Mm. But here's where I don't resonate if you don't resonate. So I, I think this wasn't outright said in the African American experience about the psychological lens, but I do think it was implied and it was there. And so I think this is a chance for us to collaborate and hopefully pull people together despite differences. So that's something I'm wondering about, but I I didn't wanna just throw that out there in the moment.

Rebecca (02:11):

What do you mean by a psychological lens?

Danielle (02:14):

Because in the Western European format, pretty much the only person of color I read, and the only person of color I read from a psychology standpoint was re men. Mm-hmm. , every single other person in literature was white, white female, white male philosophers, European philosophers here and there. Someone Spanish, but white. And what I'm saying is that European Americans don't own healing practices. And oftentimes what I've learned in the space of a psychological lens, I've found it in my community that has a far longer history and with different language. And, and so even when we talk about like alignment, I mean, doesn't that sound like Dan Siegel to you? Doesn't that sound like Shar to you? Yeah. But they aren't citing as techs and South American indigenous peoples. And I, I have no doubt that that is likely found in African American communities as well. And so I, I wanted to give the participants, at least La Latinx participants and hopefully bridge some gaps here and have people know, like, I'm not just stepping into a healing practice that is made by European white men. This is a, this healing practice. Actually, European white men, like a lot of things took it and they reworked it in their culture, which fine, but we also own part of that history. We own part of the way we heal. This is not original to it.

Rebecca (03:59):

That's the part where I feel like, again, like throwing an accusation that such, such as white is, um, among other things, it is problematic because unless you've done the research to, in what you're telling me is that the very origin of something that you're, you're discussing actually came out of European culture and only outta European culture, then the statement is just outright inaccurate, right? Mm-hmm. . And in some ways, you a