00:00.00 alifeinruins Okay, we're here with Dr Margieerrado and we I saying there right again. Sorryer ratto. Okay I got to get that hard t in there I guess I want to ask you? How did you find us or did you find my my page first I can't I agree. 00:03.74 Dr_ Margie Serrato Said Lato stick it. 00:16.11 Dr_ Margie Serrato Instagram algorithms probably because I have anthropologists is like 1 of the things in my in my header. Ah so it's like oh you must like anthropologists too. It's like yeah, ah. 00:23.55 alifeinruins Yeah, okay, well yeah, we started messaging cause I asked you a question about something or you you asked me. But yeah, you were very was up. 00:33.10 Dr_ Margie Serrato I I think it was partly like you know the the anthropology side but then also when I look through the the things that you talk about and the things that you do I'm like oh this is you know this is really fun and it's something that I you know can appreciate but the other part was I think you actually had mentioned something about mental Health and so I think that that's. 00:43.83 alifeinruins Yeah. 00:52.90 Dr_ Margie Serrato You know that that was it was multiple layers of of connection there. Um that yeah that we we got talking about? yeah. 00:58.98 alifeinruins Yeah, and I immediately like kind of like you were saying those people pointing out about you. It was I could just easily just not trauma dump on you but just I could just express myself and you were like yeah totally and then you just threw your stuff at me too. And yeah, so I would agree you have that quality. Um. And I think I mean obviously it makes for a good coach and what you do, but I would say it makes you a anthropology makes you that way too where it makes you a good anthropologist I would say. 01:27.47 Dr_ Margie Serrato I Yeah I And that's kind of one of those things that as an anthropologist one of the things I always mention to fellow anthropologists is you're a good person and I can tell you're a good person because you're in this field and I say that because this is just one of those fields that you don't go in because. 01:46.51 alifeinruins Right? nope. 01:46.61 Dr_ Margie Serrato You think you're going to be famous you you get get rich. You get you know like now that any of those things is bad. What I'm saying is more like the things that drive people to anthropology are things like social Justice wanted to make the world. A better place. Wanting to understand others wanting to deepen their empathy like they're of or wanting to learn answer a ah question an existential question that they haven't that is important to them and they haven't figured out how to answer and then we learn that oh this is. This is a potentially good place to do it in this field. So from the start a sense of curiosity and a sense of wanting to understand fellow human beings I feel like is such an overlooked.. There's such overlooked qualities that are very. 02:37.97 alifeinruins A. 02:43.38 Dr_ Margie Serrato Common in our field that doesn't mean that they're that every anthropologist is an awesome human being. They might have started off that way but sometimes they forget that because Academia will ruin you but so there's definitely like you know, but but what if we all if. 02:51.32 alifeinruins Yeah, have met some dicks. 03:03.14 Dr_ Margie Serrato And this is something that I've been talking to anthropologists in in conferences lately if you actually sit with the very basic question of what drew me to this field and you understand that part of why you're you're miserable or you feel like you're not you know, fulfilling your purpose as an anthropology. Um, if you understand that is because you've come far far away from that important thing that you started with you can at least start going? Oh I see where my path shifted and where it shifted away from the things that actually meant something for me and that really matters not just in our field. That matters for anybody like understanding your purpose and knowing how to identify that I know that that's it might to a lot of people I feel like it seems so like spiritual is it's not like we all have a purpose on this Earth We. All we all have something that makes us unique and beautiful and and. We matter all of us every single one of us matters in this world. It's just that not all of us understand why we matter and not ah all of us have learned unfortunately that we matter right? Family dynamics teachers in school. 04:11.31 alifeinruins Share. 04:18.32 Dr_ Margie Serrato Bullying like any number of different things right? can really mess with your sense of self and your sense of worthiness and therefore your sense of like mattering and therefore your sense of. 04:31.90 alifeinruins Worth yeah. 04:34.57 Dr_ Margie Serrato I'm ah meant to do something important in this world and if you don't feel that then it's hard to look at your life and go well this is actually what matters about my life and this is what matters about why I'm here on this earth why I'm here in this moment. Um, and so you don't then dig into it. And I will say that for me, it really wasn't until ah the past like five years that I dug into that question of real like meaning like what actually matters about what I do what what matters about who I am um. And we we. We'll talk a little bit more about that because this this is also from a being. Ah so so trigger warning on on this one which is I just I need to come this is the label that it have to come with all the time as like trigger warning because of being physically assaulted at my last job as a postdoc. Um. 05:25.20 alifeinruins Okay. 05:28.20 Dr_ Margie Serrato So I like before then so the the reason why I went to anthropology was because again like all these dynamics about gender like all my life I was told you're a girl you can't do that. You're a woman you can't do that. You're the women shouldn't be in the military like so I'll start with like when I was in Columbia while I was a me adine. And again I was like about 10 years old listen I have always like loved soccer I'm Colombian like soccer is a national sport like it is you know it's worse to say something bad about like Columbia Soccer than it is to say about some bad about you know your mother. So like it's really like deeply ingrained in this sense of nationalism and patriotism. 05:53.66 alifeinruins Right. 06:07.97 Dr_ Margie Serrato Ah, being colombian is is it' synonymous with being a diehard soccer fan and so because I was in that environment right? like I I like playing soccer and I was really good at it I'm tall for a colombian but I was also like just fast because I was lanky and um and. Really I was like pretty much the only girl in my neighborhood that played soccer. It was all boys and I basically was allowed to play soccer until I got better than the boys and then people started complaining and then my grandmother was like yeah you're not you're not supposed to be soccer girls don't play soccer and then when I wanted to get into soccer like after being here in the Us. 06:37.63 alifeinruins Well. 06:44.37 Dr_ Margie Serrato My dad would say the same thing like oh soccer's not for girls and then I like that was really hard for me when he said it to my sister this was like after I had married and left holmes when he said that to my sister which was like fourteen years later probably I was so livid I was like there is just stuff I I definitely. Ah, very first time that I ever yelled at my dad because I'm like you're so repeating the same crap that screwed me up that took away opportunities from me that that I could have had um because of like nothing other than like ideology nothing other than your. 07:16.68 alifeinruins A. 07:20.57 Dr_ Margie Serrato Silly little belief that you know girls shouldn't play soccer girl you girls shouldn't do this women should do that. So yeah, absolutely and so military was another one so because so I I finished school and all the. 07:26.70 alifeinruins Ingrained Indo Europeanopean You know what's it called Patriarchy. Yeah yeah. 07:39.71 Dr_ Margie Serrato Traumatic stuff with my mom's family came back to the us. So I did we we moved to California at that time I've lived like all over like the East Coast and and and in California so um, moved to California which is where where my mom was at the time she had remarried so I met my dad who's like. 07:58.79 Dr_ Margie Serrato Siinor he's my dad when I say my my dad or my father that's way I mean um, and so we you know moved in we you know finished I finish all the way up to like eighth grade there and then we went to Columbia to where my dad was born and raised which was book with that. So the capital. Um, of Columbia and we moved over there didn't have any friends which is kind of like the story of my life because I was moving to a new place and I was new. You know a new person in a new place all the time. Um, and so when we when I finished college there all right sorry finished high school there. Um, it was. 08:25.76 alifeinruins Yeah. 08:35.96 Dr_ Margie Serrato Very apparent that I was not going to be able to go to college over there because most of the colleges in Columbia They used universities are private and my parents just didn't have the kind of money that is required to you know, get an education there. So my mom was like yep we don't have that problem in the us let's go back so we went back and we came back to the Us. And um, the thing about and this is like a source really sore spot for me right now with the whole affirmative action cases. Um I wouldn't have been able to go to school if it had not been for affirmative action programs and programs aimed at recruiting minority students. And students of low socioeconomic you know status and so I started school started a community college I got a Pell Grant which is what allowed me to go to school and when I went in I actually thought about let's go what I want to do. 09:26.88 alifeinruins A. 09:33.62 Dr_ Margie Serrato So I first went in as a premed because my mom had always said that she wanted a doctor in the family and so you know I think at that point I was just like oh I want to make my mom be proud right? Which is what a lot of us. Do we want to make our prayers proud and we just don't realize that that's not the best reason to go to college. Um seriously like. 09:48.63 alifeinruins Yeah I learned that too. 09:52.28 Dr_ Margie Serrato Seriously like so many of us do that because we again that we're we're conditioned to want to make our parents proud. We're conditioned as human beings to want to belong in what what is the smallest kind of like unit of belonging. It's your nuclear family. Um, and so we we we. Also get validation or not from that dynamic right? So it was in my very first semester I was already enrolled and then I realized oh I didn't want to I didn't want to go to at school I'm doing this for my mom. Yeah, okay, we're not doing that. So I started looking at what do is it that I want to do and the thing that came up for me was I'm always struggling with this cultural dynamic of being born in the United States with this like ideals. Even though we know it's an illusion of gender equality. Um, and then. 10:30.23 alifeinruins Yeah. 10:47.85 Dr_ Margie Serrato Constantly being told that I was not allowed to do things because of my gender and so it's like okay well this is about how people believe like what people think so I went into psych ah because that's the that's the field that I was familiar with that I thought I could learn these things and I ended up going into psychology that was my major. As an undergraduate and I did 2 tracks childhood development which I'm so glad because it allowed me to understand a lot of things about my own childhood. But also how the things that we do as adults affect kids in ways that are. Generally really detrimental and we we really have to be cognizant of that the other track that I was on was abnormal psychology and I loved it because I love learning about how these how different psychologists came up with the different theories ah with or without you know drugs. Ah Freud. 11:44.80 alifeinruins Ah, ah, abnormal Psychology I'd never heard of that. 11:45.68 Dr_ Margie Serrato And um and um, abnormal Psy Yes, and so it's really like it what I got out of that was understanding that the things that we might find abnormal to think of like mental illnesses. For example, the things that we find abnormal. 12:01.18 alifeinruins Um, okay. 12:05.14 Dr_ Margie Serrato At 1 time in like human history are completely actually normal. We just didn't understand them at the time so things like hysteria things like even ah you know like psychosis things. There's a lot of different things that we. 12:12.23 alifeinruins Okay I understand. 12:21.20 alifeinruins Autism. 12:21.96 Dr_ Margie Serrato Yeah, Autism it like so many of these different things these were these were or are Abnormal. There's this,. There's this idea though that underlies all of that that there is such a thing as normal. That there is a status quo that there is a you know we should all fit in this little place and anything outside of that is not normal and it's bullshit. But the thing is like we we have learned for so many different things about humans. 12:55.34 alifeinruins Yeah. 12:57.50 Dr_ Margie Serrato We have learned that we're all supposed to fit that's Conformity. We're all supposed to Fail. We're all supposed to follow the same rules. We're all supposed to act the same. We're all supposed to you know, have this so clearly Understood. Um and generally agreed upon norms. And rules and beliefs and things that you know we're so we're supposed to all fit into the same little hole and that's. 13:22.57 alifeinruins So like a large amount of the population falls into what we would call like neurotypical but the Neuro divergency is totally fine as well. Yeah. 13:29.84 Dr_ Margie Serrato Exactly right? but and so and so that's kind of that I Really like that we're we're in a place especially with social media and just being more interconnected. Um with so many different you know people in the world. There are so many different fields and. 13:39.99 alifeinruins Yeah. 13:47.76 Dr_ Margie Serrato Um, that we're understanding that actually like the the neurotypical doesn't mean that we're normal it just means that this is just how your brain operates and how your you know body has adapted to things or that you know whatever I feel like that is very also deeply immersed with um ableism right. 13:59.70 alifeinruins Um. 14:04.85 Dr_ Margie Serrato Ah, which I've I've been learning a lot lately that thanks to social media on on a lot of these things of like being able to reflect on my own ableism just because of what I learned growing up right and unlearning that has been a huge part of like just who I am in general but um, but. At this stage of like understanding within the context like I said of like abnormal psychology and the things that I learned what I got out of that really was these things are are not because people are normal or abnormal. It's because of what we understand at that time so you know in in anthropology we know that they're like historical context makes. All the difference in what we perceive and what we understand about human beings and that matters in everything. Um, so I did those 2 tracks. But what was interesting is when I had to take my first social science elective for my undergraduate degree I had ah had 2 options I had sociology or I had anthropology. 14:45.95 alifeinruins Absolutely. 15:03.35 Dr_ Margie Serrato And I had no idea what anthropology was and so my academic advisor was like well this like yeah exactly I know I'm like we're here to like evangelize ah about anthropology. Um, so when I asked my academic advisor I said what is anthropology just like oh is that the study of cultures and this like. 15:04.76 alifeinruins No one does. 15:19.60 Dr_ Margie Serrato Oh that is so cool because I love learning about people from other places I um, so I at this time I was in Orlando going to you know as as an undergrad and um and I worked in the hospitality industry so I was on international drive which is literally like the the longest like tourist like road in the whole world. Um, and as ah as a result was I just being in the hotel industry like I was constantly seeing people from different places and I absolutely loved it. I loved being exposed to different people who dress differently who eat different things who speak differently like because the thing that I really just got out of that was. Just all want the same thing. The truth is that there is so much more shared human experience that we over so overlook because we're constantly stuck on how we are different how we look different how we think differently how we eat different things how we believe in different things. And we we we get so hyper focused on that that we forget what actually matters which is like what makes us what make what? what makes us more alike what makes us alike. That's what matters and so I really got got that out of just being in the hotel understanding like my own dynamic and like how I I I my own perspective on things. 16:26.15 alifeinruins Yeah. 16:35.66 Dr_ Margie Serrato So when she said like the study of culture says oh my gosh. This is so exciting like I get I get actually have a class on this. This is pretty cool and what's interesting is like I took at the very first day of my first anthropology class which was a general anthropology class. Um I felt like I was home. 16:53.40 alifeinruins Yeah. 16:54.85 Dr_ Margie Serrato I had this very clear sense in my body of like ah I have arrived This is what I meant to do and and you know like every time I tell this story like. 17:02.89 alifeinruins I Felt that too Actually it. 17:10.41 Dr_ Margie Serrato That feeling resurfaces right? It's really easy to recall that feeling because it was so profound and different and distinctly like just it's in every cell of my being just knowing that I was exactly where I needed to be the. 17:28.76 alifeinruins Um, yeah, my anthro 1 on 1 class like I just sat in there and like just the the syllabus when she went over it my brain like there was like an itch in it that was finally scratched that I was like this is what I want to learn? yeah. 17:29.49 Dr_ Margie Serrato That and that matters. 17:45.99 Dr_ Margie Serrato Yeah, yeah, and and I and and a lot of people who accidentally stumble on anthropology like us. Um, that's what they get. It's like nobody knows about but anthropology. But the people who are fortunate enough to stumble upon it. Um. 17:46.50 alifeinruins Um, glad you experienced that too. 18:02.30 Dr_ Margie Serrato We we have that we have that experience because it's the thing that we realize where you know it's It's a discipline is the feel where we realize that we can get answers to what matters and and that is. 18:15.81 alifeinruins Yeah, ah. 18:18.94 Dr_ Margie Serrato Really important. Yeah, yeah, and I wonder how many engineers or or or you know like people at other in other fields I wonder. 18:20.71 alifeinruins I would say for sure for you know ourselves and for humanity itself. 18:36.54 Dr_ Margie Serrato They ever get that I I It would be a really interesting like study or at least like poll to like to to see do they you know people who are in the field that is that is right for them. Not the field that their parents will not the field that society says which is so Limited. You know are like the ones where you're going to be successful and you're gonna you know, have a you know employment for the rest of your life and you have security like all these different things. The people who are actually in the fields that they are called for. Do they experience that or not and I would be very interested to kind of. Ask that question and see is is is this is this singular like to certain fields particularly the humanities or is this something that other people experience in other ways. 19:27.24 alifeinruins I'd imagine if you invented a new casing for an Energizer battery that was sold at Target. It's not the most reporting thing to do in the world. So I would agree. 19:38.56 Dr_ Margie Serrato Ah, but but when you go into the degree. You don't go into it thinking. This is what you're going to make right? It's more like the bigger picture of all of it. So for example I never. 19:44.80 alifeinruins Ah. 19:49.99 Dr_ Margie Serrato When I was sitting there feeling like I was home I at that point I had no idea what I was Goingnna do for research for my ph d I didn't even know that I was gonna get a ph d I don't it. It wasn't like the specifics of what was meant to come of it. It was more like whatever I'm meant to do it's gonna come from this. Place is gonna come from the perspectives that I'm gonna get from this is gonna come from the things that I learn about others through this through this field. The tools that I'm gonna get um which some of them were intuitive but they were also. 20:23.80 alifeinruins Ah. 20:26.70 Dr_ Margie Serrato They were also I feel like more refined or certainly they were made more complex by the process of being trained as an anthropologist. 20:38.19 alifeinruins It like you now had a lens in which to like look at things you wanted to examine. Yeah. 20:43.56 Dr_ Margie Serrato Yeah, so like anthropology for example, was was a first and this wasn't until grad school so you know much later in life. Um, the first time that I took ah like a feminist anthropology class which was was my with my doctoral advisor. Um, so like 1 of the first like weeks of the semester and she talked about. Like the things that we take for granted that are that we're inculturated with and so she said for example, like you know women are supposed to have kids. She's like I have want nothing with kids I don't want to have babies I don't want and and honestly that was really confronting to me. That was the first time that I ever heard a woman say that she doesn't want to have kids now if you look you know, look back on like my own lifetime be being catholic being like being colombian being like be it being a woman that what? what do we learn? We're supposed to be baby makers. We're supposed to like love. 21:31.40 alifeinruins Um, right. 21:39.39 Dr_ Margie Serrato Babies and want to have babies and want to nurture and women are nurturing. No fuck. There's women who don't who are not nurturing and there are men who are and but but it's what we learn. 21:45.74 alifeinruins Yeah. 21:51.59 Dr_ Margie Serrato And the thing is when you end up being if you are naturally one of those women who wants nothing to do with babies and there's nothing wrong with that gosh I don't want women women who don't want to have babies to go and have babies because that's what they're supposed to do because it is a life's worth of regret. Doesn't mean that motherhood can't to teach you things you might enjoy it or whatever you're just doing it for the wrong reasons and and doing things for the wrong reasons is is is never a good thing but it was to me confronting my own. Unconscious biases was really helpful and I was in a I was in ah in a field where that is what we actively do and we actively go through the process of like trying to understand where that comes From. Maybe more at a cultural level than at a personal level but to me I certainly took that as like this is a personal responsibility too like I have to understand when these things come up why they're coming up. Um, Ableism was not one that I had to Confront at that time because I didn't really have any any courses that. Related to that So that was one where like this has been a more recent kind of part of my own growth is confronting my ableism and understanding like what are the things that I that I think I know or the things that I you know I I grew up learning what was right? versus? not so like mental health. For example. 23:14.64 alifeinruins Ah. 23:21.62 Dr_ Margie Serrato Has been like 1 part of that of understanding my own mental health and my own mental health struggles. How what was the onset of all of those things but then also physical disabilities as well. Like there's this great social media her day her her name is samantha. Ah. 23:25.70 alifeinruins Sure. 23:39.52 Dr_ Margie Serrato Her her tag is ah a disabled icon and I learned a lot from her and from another one that's called blind dish latina both of them have dynamic disabilities. Um or actually Samantha has dynamic disability so she uses a wheelchair but sometimes she also like walks but she has like chronic you know illnesses and so she has. You know and and and the way that people perceive like when she's walking um versus you know when she's in a wheelchair if people see her walking after she's been a wheelchair. They'll tell her like oh you're faking it and and it made me realize like I think at one point in life I would have thought the same thing because this is what we learn. 24:18.40 Dr_ Margie Serrato But learning through her of like oh this is this is so it's it's just it's just been a getting uncomfortable with ourselves is so important and part of it is because we get we have to constantly every day make it a practice to. To question what we think we know or believe and more importantly to understand is this just something that I learn or is this truly what I believe on my own and and examine that very critically, it's a practice. We learn to do that in graduate school but you can. 24:39.60 alifeinruins And. 24:56.61 Dr_ Margie Serrato Do that in a lot of different ways without going to grad school. 25:01.20 alifeinruins Yeah, ah so on that note, let's end this segment go to the commercial break and let's talk about grad school and some other things.