[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to Immigration today. I'm Elizabeth Trifonis. And today we're breaking down policies, stories
[00:00:05] Speaker B: and issues that matter.
[00:00:06] Speaker A: You're watching NOW Media Television.
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Welcome to Immigration TODAY with Elizabeth Trifonis. I'm Elizabeth Trifonis. Every immigrant journey carries more than dates, documents, decisions, titles and politics. It carries memory and it carries history, separations, cultural identity, and quiet details that can disappear if no one takes the time to preserve them.
My guest today is Isabel Zumel. She's the owner of Pamana Limited, a Colorado based grant and life storybook writing business. Let me rephrase that a little bit. A Colorado based grant and life storybook writing business.
She's also a longtime friend of mine who was originally in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which is where I'm coming to you from afternoon. I'm very excited to talk with her about what she's doing.
Isabel has spent decades helping human service nonprofits, individuals, families, organizations to secure funding and to tell their stories and to get those stories out into the public where it matters, where we can maintain that shared history, memory and connection.
Today, she joins me to talk about why stories matter, how they shape belonging and how they help communities be seen.
Isabel, I'm so excited that you're here with me today and this conversation and joining us with immigration today.
I think where I want to start first, you really do have decades of working for humans and immigrants and families. But I'd like to start really with your family's story and how you've come to be in Jackson and here doing the work that you're doing.
Where did your family start in this journey?
[00:02:02] Speaker C: I think my family's journey in the United States started in the San Francisco Bay Area.
My parents came in the mid-60s, right after the 1965 immigration laws changed.
They came on the heels of some, some previous generations who were involved in more of the manual labor type of industries and also in the military.
And that's how they got to the United States. And so my parents decided to move to the Bay Area so that they could find really a community that was familiar to them.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Coming to the Bay Area, then in California at that point in time. What was their experience as they relate to you like as coming in as immigrants in the 60s at that time,
[00:02:56] Speaker C: you know, it was an adjustment, for sure. I would probably characterize it, having spent a lot of my professional life working with immigrants, that they had a fairly easy and straightforward route that I think no longer really exists. Unfortunately, my parents came as professionals.
My father was an engineer.
The way he tells the story or he told the story he passed away was that there was a lot of focus at that time with engineers to be supporting the race into space and that they needed engineers from other countries to help build and maintain the infrastructure in our country.
My mom was a dentist.
She made some decisions about not practicing dentistry because she really wanted to have a family. And I've actually uncovered some really interesting documents and letters between correspondence between my mom and her father back in the Philippines who was encouraging her to pursue dentistry.
There were some things, I think, within the dental association that might have made it easier for her to get her license.
Having come from the Philippines and largely being educated by professors who were from the United States, even while she was in the Philippines.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: When your parents made that journey, we're displacing whole life from a culture in the Philippines to a very different culture in the Bay Area.
Do you recall if they felt welcome at that time when they arrived and were setting up their new life in the Bay Area?
[00:04:43] Speaker C: They certainly felt welcomed by the townspeople and sort of like second third cousins who had already established a presence in Oakland, California.
So I grew up in the suburbs of the East Bay, but I consider my childhood partially growing up in Oakland because that was part of our community.
So they certainly felt welcome there.
I think when they came, there was a lot of.
A bit of surprise by a lot of people by their fluency in English, despite the fact that they had accents, which seemed to be more of an issue. Interestingly, later in the 70s when that was really called out. But I think in the 60s, it felt a little bit more welcoming.
Perhaps that's how they paint the picture. I know sometimes the way our memories work, there are things that we want to remember that we do, and then there are things that we really don't want to remember. And those memories just sort of dissipate by choice. But I would.
It was pretty welcoming and spending time in Oakland, spending time in the suburbs.
Early on, I think in my life, before I was 10, I would say there was a sense of welcome.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: At some point, you leave the Bay Area, you find yourself in rural Wyoming and with your family. As I understand your husband's also an immigrant. And is he a first generation immigrant as well?
[00:06:27] Speaker C: He's first generation from the Philippines. Another very interesting story. Story. He didn't move to the United States from the Philippines. He actually moved to the United States from Nigeria. So backstory there.
But yeah, he was the one that trekked out to Wyoming first, and then I followed him, you know, about four or five years later.
We sort. We settled there. We had our. Our child there.
My daughter, who's now 20, grew up in rural Wyoming, which is again, quite surprising to anybody who talks to her that she is from Jackson.
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Coming in as sort of an immigrant community. And what's rural or I guess predominantly Caucasian and a lot of Eastern European, as well as our immigrant population is here.
You did so much work, and you continue to do work with the immigrant families.
What of your projects? I know that you were with libraries and resource centers and all sorts of organizations.
Why did that drive you or why were you inclined to want to be involved with those organizations?
[00:07:42] Speaker C: I've always felt an affinity towards service, and I've also felt an affinity towards immigrant communities.
I think largely because of my family background.
And it wasn't necessarily by design that I ended up doing a lot of grant writing or working in the immigrant communities. It just happened.
I just always seemed to be placed in those situations.
And so there was a growing familiarity with what that culture was like, even though they were different cultures. Say youth from Central America, Mexican American youth coming out of gang violence, Russian senior emigres, you know, Chinese Americans, and monolingual Chinese speakers in San Francisco's Chinatown. Worked with quite a few different groups.
Also had the chance to work with Filipino immigrant groups as well. So I think I've just found myself gravitating towards immigrant communities, regardless of where I have been or where my life has placed me. Right now we're based out of Aurora, Colorado, and that was really by choice to be in a very diverse immigrant community. It feels like home to me.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: I get a lot of people because I'm originally from Southern California, and I've been in the interior of Wyoming here now for 20 years. And I still get people asking me, really, are there immigrants in rural parts of America? We talk a lot about the borders. And I guess. Would you agree that what's happening in border towns and border states, although much more concentrated, is actually happening in our communities and our spaces, in the interior of the country and our spaces.
What was it like? I guess, for Malaya?
She's a born US Citizen. I guess she's third generation, technically speaking, or maybe there's not really designation for her. How was her experience in rural Wyoming?
[00:09:59] Speaker C: It was interesting and challenging.
We often got. Our whole family got misidentified quite a bit.
The largest immigrant grouping in in Jackson, Wyoming, are Latinos, and largely from a few specific towns in rural Mexico.
And so I think whenever they saw somebody who was non white, they always assumed that we were Mexican.
So she, she got mistaken a lot. It even started in kindergarten when she was doing, you know, the, the normal kind of screenings and such. And the person who was doing her screening automatically started speaking to her in Spanish. And she was really trying to be compliant and answering the best she could in Spanish. And then they realized, wait a minute, she's not a Spanish speaker.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:10:58] Speaker C: That was basically her introduction to the formal public education system as a person of color in rural parts of the United States.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: I want to take a break here for a bit and then when we come back, I do want to talk to you about your role in grant writing for organizations, what you're doing right now with the Life Story books and continuing to do grant writing because we know of course, that in politics or headlines we lose track of the story.
And the work that you're doing now seems to be really reflective of that story to, I guess, preserve the dignity and identity and to preserve that for the future and our connections with our history and how we move forward.
So at this point I'd like to take just a short break and when we come back, want to hear all about your new limited Colorado based and what PAMADA means.
And we'll be right back.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more insight, context and useful information about immigration law and life. Stay with us on Immigration today. And we're back. I'm Elizabeth Trifonis and this is Immigration Today on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the conversation.
[00:12:20] Speaker B: Welcome back to Immigration TODAY with Elizabeth Trifonis, of course, I'm Elizabeth Trifonis.
Stay connected to this show and to every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand anytime you like.
Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and Spanish. If you're on the move, catch the podcast version at www.nowmedia.tv.
from business and news to lifestyle culture and beyond, Now Media TV is streaming around the clock. Ready whenever you are.
I'm here now with my friend Isabelle Zumel. She's the owner of Pamana Limited or ltd. And I want to shift a little bit from her personal introduction to hear about what she's doing in grant writing and telling people stories and live picture book storytelling.
So, Isabelle, when we left off, we were just talking a little bit about your family and I know that you have a history of writing grants and, well, resourcing so many organizations, not just in Wyoming or Jackson, but really internationally. I know your work's taken you to Mexico quite a bit to help organizations there. But for people who might not know, what does it mean to be a grant writer? What are you doing for people that are utilizing that resource?
[00:13:42] Speaker C: You are telling stories.
You're putting together facts and figures in a way that's going to be compelling and that's going to move funders enough for them to want to support you.
There's a lot of focus right now in terms of grant writing with objectives and metrics, and you're going to hear those types of words over and over again. But really what I found is that being able to capture the human story that supports those numbers and those statistics is really important and be quite impactful.
If organizations have the opportunity to speak one on one with funders, oftentimes those are the stories they want to hear. They already have what they need written to be able to present to their boards they want to hear. How does this look like on the ground? Who are the people that we're helping?
How will our funds continue to advance the missions of your. Of the organizations?
[00:14:49] Speaker B: I would venture to guess because in your history here in my area, there were, I mean, how many organizations have you sat down and written grants for over your career? Would you even have a ballpark number?
[00:15:03] Speaker C: I would say it's definitely over 20, and I'm probably under counting.
I have done my fair share of pro bono work.
I have to keep telling myself, you don't always have to do pro bono work. But yeah, and I would say a lot of that has been sort of formal. You're a 501c3 nonprofit, you're applying for a government contract, you're applying for a foundation or private funder grant.
But some of it has also been coaching young people who are writing their applications to go to schools or scholarships.
I had the fortune of helping one of the young women that I mentored for five plus years.
She graduated from the University of Wyoming and she went on to law school at the University of New Mexico.
I had kind of lost touch with her and out of the blue I get this text. She's like, isabel, help me. I'm writing my essay for entrance into law school and I almost burst into tears. I'm about to burst into tears now. But she finished law school, she has her law degree, she's practicing, she's amazing. So I think the organizational pieces are. They feel like big wins when you're able to get them, but it's really kind of being able to help these young people advance in their life and reach whatever aspirations they have that's equally as important. And oftentimes more heartfelt.
[00:16:44] Speaker B: I always often say that we are well resourced. There are the resources there. You've got to figure out who has them and how to attract them and get in line for them and tell that story to convince the person with the resources to support your endeavor.
But that storytelling piece, and really having organizations that are looking out for our families and our communities and our immigrant populations, being well resourced, connecting that application, that grant with that organization is profound. Now you're working with Pamana, and I hope I'm saying that right. Pamana Limited. You're limited.
Say it again for me.
Thank you. I know I had the ascento different.
What does that word mean?
[00:17:32] Speaker C: Pamana is a Tagalog, Filipino word. And it means inheritance. It could mean heritage, it can mean legacy. And it made a lot of sense for the story writing, but it also makes a lot of sense for the grant writing, whether it's your a legacy of creating something for the community or matching the funder who wants to have their legacy associated with a particular work.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: How did Pamana come to be? Where was its birth?
[00:18:06] Speaker C: I would say its birth is very personal.
It really started with my mom.
My father passed away.
Oh, gosh. It's going on three years now.
And my mom was just going through a lot of different transitions after my father passed. She was diagnosed with dementia and had a pretty difficult move to Colorado in her 80s.
That's not easy.
And so I was trying to figure out a way that I could have a connection with her.
And I just thought, let's do your life story. It was something that my daughter had requested.
She felt, I felt. We felt a lot of regret that we hadn't written the story of my dad.
And so it was by the request of my daughter so that she had a sense of who her family was, where we came from, what our journey was.
[00:19:10] Speaker B: How did you endeavor to collect that information?
What would you just sitting and talking or explain the process?
[00:19:20] Speaker C: It was a lot of sitting and talking and interviewing.
Oftentimes, if there are mementos that can be used to prompt somebody's memory, those are really, really powerful.
My mom has a treasure trove. My family has a treasure trove of just photographs, like boxes and boxes and boxes. And so that was one of the places that we started. And I talked with her about how she wanted to present her story, what were the parts of her life that she wanted to have as chapters.
And it was so interesting because the story doesn't begin with her. The story starts with her family.
We're fortunate to have photos of her grandparents on both sides going back into the early 1900s.
So those are in her story.
[00:20:21] Speaker B: Wow. And in collecting these, you put together a life story picture book for her, is that right?
[00:20:30] Speaker C: I did, I did.
And I think because our family has collected so many photos, I think some people may be more interested in approaching their life story a lot more with narrative. And my mom really felt like she wanted to approach it through pictures and through photographs.
And I think that it, it turned out really beautifully.
It was something that she, that reflected how she wanted to present herself
[00:21:06] Speaker B: there.
[00:21:07] Speaker C: There were, there are so many pictures. And it's, it's so interesting because in some ways it also started to capture my life story, my sister's life story. So we, we have a starting point if we wanted to continue to, to do that for our family.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: With your mom, I wonder, and as she's coming into tort, you know, I guess we're all going to have our end of life. Not to be morbid, but that's the reality.
Has she wanted to go back to the Philippines? Does she feel that that's still her home after all these years?
[00:21:44] Speaker C: I. She does. And I think, I think part of that has to do with the culture of care in the United States versus the culture of care that she remembers in the Philippines.
I have to admit, Elizabeth, I have had my mom move into assisted living and now she's in memory care.
And there's quite a bit of guilt that I felt for moving my mom into those facilities because I know culturally that's not the way we do things.
Your family members are supposed to live with you, but her conditions are beyond what I am available to provide. She needs 24 hour care.
And so she's recalling the community of care that she had seen from the Philippines growing up, seeing her elders age and really just having the constant companionship of somebody.
And she's talked about it in terms of going back for that.
She's talked about it in terms of going back for the tastes and the smells and the foods that she misses so much. Even though we're able to cook those pieces here, it's just not the same.
But I think she also knows it's not, not realistic.
[00:23:19] Speaker B: It's fascinating. It's been decades, decades of her being in the United States and having still those connections to her native country.
Must be really hard, not only for our immigrant population to pick up and move to completely different culture, to just try to survive in completely new systems.
But then of course, always having that longing really in your heart that there's this other home that's still.
[00:23:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: Reachable anymore.
[00:23:51] Speaker C: Interesting because my my parents spent more of their life in the United States. My husband at this point in time has spent more of his life in the United States than out of the country. And yet they still feel they are from their home country.
And I think part of that is the beauty of holding onto your culture and your traditions and some of the values that you bring with you through your travels and immigration. But I also think it's a consequence of even though we are United States citizens, we are still not necessarily viewed that way.
I still get complimented on my English native speaker and I was born in the United States. But
[00:24:44] Speaker B: that's really what makes our immigration population and our population in the United States. So from my perspective, very magical and diverse and interesting and creative. And I don't want everybody to be the same. That's one of the things that's always been so interesting to me and why I like to be in the immigration work as well.
But I think it's clear in talking with you, Isabel, that when we can resource good organizations and good projects and our immigrant populations and families, we can do that because we're listening. And we can do that with honesty, integrity and that human quality.
I think for our organizations that are serving families and immigrants, getting to understand their actual backstory and their right. Every culture has their own sensitivities and their own way of communicating and living and thriving that we can maybe in listening to the real human story, get to a point where we have community sustainability, you know, and then that legacy of your mother, for example, and your daughter being able to review that legacy and to hold on to those memories moving forward.
We are going to take another short break and when we return, I want to talk about how you were how you were listening with the archiving sort of was how you did the investigation, how some other projects you might be looking at for, I believe, a friend of yours mother and who's out of the country, I understand, and how you might be helping her with that.
Some things you might have learned about dealing with memory care and investigating somebody's memories or collecting those memories. And we will be right back.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more insight, context and useful information about immigration law and life. Stay with us on IMMIGRATION today. And we're back. I'm Elizabeth Trifonis and this is Immigration TODAY on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the conversation.
[00:26:49] Speaker B: Welcome back to IMMIGRATION TODAY with me, Elizabeth Trifonis. And we're talking with Isabel Zumel about her organization.
Both doing grant writing to support organizations, to have well resourced community based organizations that help our immigrant communities and our community. I sometimes dislike saying immigrant community all the time because that seems to imply that there's a separation. But in our communities and in talking about Isabel's new projects and, and life stories that she's telling for people and I'm never going to get it right, so we're going to keep repeating it. Pamana limited in Colorado is a fascinating organization telling life stories. And Isabel, we were talking about how you were able to collect information from your mom's life. And I'm curious more you were listening and talking with her, but how are you piecing together photos and history and checking out, even with her memory, I guess, her difficulties with the dementia, how are you able to actually craft a real truthful story?
[00:28:02] Speaker C: Yeah, I want to say first that the story that the person tells is the story. It's the real story. It may not be completely historically accurate, but it's still their story.
But in the case of my mom, it was interesting because she couldn't. So she was born very around the time of the Japanese invasion in World War II.
And I came across actually an old book of hers, a baby book. And there was one entry, my mom's first outing, her first outing was actually picking up and going up into the mountains and leaving town to escape the Japanese.
And she had certain memories of dates. And because that was such a well documented time frame, I was actually able to adjust some of the dates because I could find when the invasion happened in the Philippines, you know, when her, when her baptism was, and kind of piece all of that together.
So if, if there are moments that you can leverage in terms of finding the actual history, you can work on making some of those dates and sequences a bit more kind of historically, historically accurate.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: I like that you say that though the story that that human being wants to tell is the story, that's what they want their legacy to be.
I think that's really beautiful and honest.
When you presented, I guess I presume you presented the storybook to your mother, what did she think?
[00:29:48] Speaker C: Oh, she was so excited.
She was so proud of it.
And this was a bit heartbreaking.
She said she was naming off people that we should send it to, relatives, some of her friends, et cetera, et cetera. And then she said, can you send it to Mrs. Rhea Lubit? And I said, who's Mrs. Rhea Lubit? She goes, she was my English teacher at Colegio de Santa Isabel, which was her school that she went to primary through part of high school in Naga City in the part of the Philippines that she was. And she said, can you send it to her? I said, mom, I don't know if Mrs.
Is still alive.
And she said, well, just send it to the nuns, just send it to the school because I want them to know that their alumni did well.
Wow. Yeah. That we did okay in the United States.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Wow, that's amazing.
And presume that your daughters viewed the book and, and read it as well. What did she think?
[00:30:54] Speaker C: She is hilarious. Kind of. She, she saw a lot of herself in my mom and, and she was like, oh my gosh, like certain things where I just.
There are certain mannerisms that she has that she could see through the stories that I had captured.
There are certain ways of thinking, certain things that she worries about. She doesn't know why she worries about. She read my mom's story and she's like, oh, I understand.
I think there may be something in our genetics or something that, you know, she didn't have a base of to, to fall back onto. Why is she like this? And now she's able to see some of that. I'm actually able to see some of it in myself too. It's pretty interesting.
[00:31:45] Speaker B: Well, now there's this thread from native country throughout the generations into the United States. And it's woven together and held together by the pictures you collected and the stories that you've heard. You're doing this for, as part of your company and for people who are interested in collecting their family history.
I know that you have one. We were just talking about one that is based out of, I guess, La Paz, Mexico. And how are you able to do that for people when they're afar in that fashion?
[00:32:17] Speaker C: My first project, of course, I'm just going to make it extremely challenging.
We're going to lean on the beauty of technology to really try and capture that.
And you know, I think there's a process where I'm going to ask
[00:32:37] Speaker B: the
[00:32:37] Speaker C: mother of my friend to start collecting a series of photos and I'm going to use those photos as sort of prompts to try and really pull that story out over zoom using technology.
And probably bilingual.
Her mom is bilingual. I pretend I'm bilingual.
My Spanish is good enough.
I think we'll be able to capture that. And when I think about her family and her children, her children have been dispersed in the United States. She's got children in Canada.
And so her family legacy is going to continue in, in English speaking countries. And so I think really trying to work on having her story written in English and Spanish is going to be meaningful not only to her and the family, extended family in Mexico, but also the family in the United States and Canada and in the future in the United States and Canada that may or may not grow up speaking Spanish in
[00:33:46] Speaker B: the next generation or so again, weaving those threads between the continents through the generations and the photos. And it's, it's really beautiful because I think when our immigrant population has taken that sacrifice to move and uplift itself and then to assimilate. Right. Those are not all absolutes. We don't just leave one thing behind and completely take on this new place. We obviously are a mixture and a, you know, a melting pot of those places. And that passes through the generations. Capturing that with photos, I think. Right. The immigration situation these days often seems to just be about numbers. And I know that right now we have 75,000 people per month in detention in the interior of the country. That's not including the borders. The administration is interested in approximately 3,000 deportations per day. And these numbers can be really flat in black and white. And then we start talking about your mom's history and your daughter's history and where we originate from and how that is melted together.
The story becomes these are human beings that we're moving around.
I do want to take a break and then hear more from you about how you dealt with some of the memory care and how you were able to again prompt those memories. You might have any suggestions for people on how to do that with their loved ones or any pro tips for care.
And also I want to find out how people can get a hold of you and to present any kind of project or grant project that they might need assistance with because again, as you said, it's all about telling the stories of real, actual human beings and having them be well supported and resourced. And we'll take a break and be right back.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: We'll be right back with more insight, context and useful information about immigration law and life. Stay with us on Immigration today. And we're back. I'm Elizabeth Trifonis and this is Immigration Today on NOW Media Television. Let's continue the conversation.
[00:36:05] Speaker B: Stay connected to Immigration TODAY with Elizabeth Trifonis and every NOW Media TV favorite live or on demand and anytime you like, Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and unlock non stop bilingual programming in English and in Spanish. If you're on the move, you can catch the podcast
[email protected] TV. It's from Business and news to lifestyle, culture and beyond. Now Media TV is streaming around the clock.
Ready whenever you are.
I'm back here with Isabel Zumel, my friend and a person who worked for decades and still works for decades, supporting organizations, helping them write grants to be well funded and well resourced and talking about her organization, Pamana Ltd. It's based in Colorado. Although she was recently telling us about how she's doing this internationally to put people's stories together for them and utilizing technology to do that.
I'm curious Isabel, for people that might want to do this on their own, obviously they can reach out to you and seek assistance from you. But how should someone go about archiving? Are there any tips or tricks or tools that you might recommend?
[00:37:24] Speaker C: Yeah, I think we're in a bit of a golden age of life story capturing.
Doing some simple searches online you will find a treasure trove of different types of surfaces that are available applications that can help people capture life stories through audio, through video, through, through written folks who can do it basically on their own, maybe with a little bit of assistance from some of the pieces that have been developed that you can use to capture the stories.
I do have a family friend.
I was talking to the widow of this person and his story was actually captured before he passed away. He passed away, he was Filipino, also passed away from Alzheimer's and it was the granddaughter who had found something online. So they were able to capture the story and they are getting requests from relatives in their hometown in the Philippines to have that story sent to them.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: So is there one favorite resource that you like? You have a go to website or service or app that would be your best place to start. Does anything come to mind really comes to mind?
[00:38:51] Speaker C: I really do think if you understand what you want to capture and how you want it presented, those services are out there and a number of the services are actually quite very reasonably priced. So I would say depending on how much energy and effort that you want to put into it personally versus having somebody facilitate and do that for you, those price differentials are there between the more hands on service versus the self service.
But the fact that the self service is there I think is, is wonderful and I really do hope that people take advantage of them.
[00:39:33] Speaker B: With Pomana Limited is really that word of legacy and inheritance and preserving, you know, the challenges and sacrifices and hopes of our, of our family in doing that work and with your mother. You touched on this a little bit with that dementia piece, I think, I think you would say you learned Quite a bit about how to deal with that, navigate that.
Do you have any advice for folks that might also be dealing with that? As certainly all of our parents and ourselves, of course, are going to continue in this process and aging and growing older.
[00:40:15] Speaker C: I did a little bit of study and coursework in something called reminiscence therapy. And there are many different. There are many different ways to approach it.
Some people approach it with. Or some ways to approach it is really looking at life review and making sense of your life. And some is really just about capturing the stories.
My leaning right now, what I'm able to do is really capture the stories.
But in reminiscence therapy, it's the use of certain types of props that can help trigger good memories, things that people want to remember.
When I was doing some of my coursework, it was fascinating. There were people who had been prima ballerinas and they had lost their ability to speak because their dimension had progressed so much. When they heard the music of Swan Lake, she started doing the movements that she remembered, looking at the sensory pieces, being able to have those sensory pieces. Sometimes it's the smell of certain types of food.
I think probably, maybe perhaps the most accessible is really around the visual and the photographs, but it can be auditory. It could be tapes of old music.
It could be clips of films from that particular era that you can use to really sort of catch those memories. And I think from what I understand with dementia, it's really the shorter term memory that gets the most compromised first.
The pieces that are very, very far back in your memory tend to stay more intact.
You'll notice, and I did notice this with my mom, that the stories that she really wanted to focus on were the ones from her childhood all the way through her early 20s mostly, probably because those are the ones that are still the most intact. And it was surprising to me, and it was surprising to her, the level of detail that she was able to remember.
There was a sense of actually a sense of pride that she was able to remember those particular details far back and tell some stories that I hadn't heard before.
[00:42:33] Speaker B: Well, it must have been very grounding for her also to not only be able to hold on to that part of the memory so clearly, to be able to relay it and to have it reflected back to her in this beautiful life storybook as well as the legacy she wants to be remembered as.
And I. I've heard that before too, that really in crafting someone's life story, that the she's going to remember the nuns and the English teacher more than maybe what you all did for dinner last night.
But isn't that beautiful that that's the point in getting her story, her story down?
One thing I'd like to maybe ask, and you can decline the question if you'd like, of course, but do you have any advice for patients in dealing with trying to listen to someone's story or just trying to adjust with an older parent or an aging parent that's dealing with dementia and needing that memory care?
How do you keep the patience for yourself?
[00:43:40] Speaker C: I think it really is about the love you feel.
You know, if you really feel the love for the particular person or, you know, this sense of closeness or sense of relationship, you're going to want to hear their story.
And I think what people may encounter that may feel frustrating is that they'll tell the story again over the same story over and over and over again.
And just let them.
Just let them do. And remember that that's the part of their story that has a deeper meaning for them that maybe we don't understand. And they may not, you know, have the capability at that moment in time to explain it, but just know that that's. That's their story. The fact that they're going to engage with you and share with you is. Is something.
Is something very beautiful for them. It's something very beautiful for the person who keeps the patience to listen and
[00:44:42] Speaker B: to honor that maybe the actual detailed facts is not the point of the connection.
[00:44:48] Speaker C: And like I said, you know, the things that are very. That you really remember, far from that, for my mom, it was. It's the smell of foods. It's part of the reason why she wants to go back to the Philippines.
And those smells, those are. Those are what matter to her.
Can I add a little bit more about language?
I have my mom. My mom is completely fluent in English. She has an accent. She's completely fluent in English.
But I've noticed that she's started to speak to me more in Tagalog. She addresses me more in Tagalog than she ever used to.
And so I have actually brought on a family friend to visit her a couple times a week so that they can speak in her native language. And he brings her food. It's quite lovely because I know that that's important to her and I know that she doesn't want to lose that. She's said some things to me before about losing language, whether it's forgetting how to say something in English and then nobody's going to understand her or forgetting a couple of the native languages that she speaks in the Philippines and so trying to find that bridge so that she has access to both.
[00:46:03] Speaker B: That's fascinating because she's spent more time in English over the decades being in the United States and being a fluent English speaker. But it goes back to your point with really having that nascent core memory of the first language she learned being Tagalog and finding comfort in using that again and holding on to that.
Isabella, how do people get a hold of you and Pomana limited out in Colorado and how.
What's the best way to get in touch?
[00:46:32] Speaker C: Yeah, I think just look for my website, it's Pamana Ltd.com so that's spelled P A M A N A L T D dot com. That's probably the best way. I have various ways that you can reach me from that site.
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Thank you so much, Isabel. I appreciate you sharing the story about your family and your mom and the projects that you endeavor. And thank you so much for all of the grant writing to, well, resource, I mean, countless community initiatives and groups that you've helped over the decades. And obviously, I think it was just a couple of years ago you got our hero award of the community, which was certainly well earned. I know you're one of those people that really does so much behind the scenes to support everybody and we're so grateful for you. And I'm going to make myself cry, but I'm not going to do that.
I do want to thank you, Isabelle, for joining us and sharing all of what you're doing again for our community and to really tie in the idea that when we're talking about immigration today, on immigration today, we're talking about numbers and statistics and processes and immigration judges and deportation, but at the end of the day we're really talking about the human beings, their stories. We cannot forget that the human beings are really what is behind and impacting policy.
The end of the day, policy has real life practical implications and the stories that we tell and the way that we support each other, it absolutely matters.
Thank you.
