Transcript: Navigating Mainstream Reflections 
From Cultural Leaders 

JACKI CHERNICOFF: Good afternoon, or good morning, everyone, 
depending on where you're joining us from today. Thank you for 
joining our virtual session, Navigating Mainstream-- Reflections 
From Cultural Leaders. 

For those of you who've joined us before, welcome back. And for 
those of you who are joining us for the first time, we're really 
glad you're here. My name is Jacki Chernicoff golf with the Center 
on Victimization and Safety at the Vera Institute of Justice and 
the National Resource Center for Reaching Victims. 

With that, I want to turn things over to Olga Trujillo, who will 
introduce herself and the panelists for today's discussion. Thank 
you. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Thanks so much, Jacki. So hi, everyone. My 
name is Olga Trujillo, and I live in Star Prairie, Wisconsin, which 
is a town of about 500 people. And I'm going to turn to my co-
presenters first, and then I'll introduce myself further after that. 
So, Jeigh, do you want to start us off, tell us a little bit about 
you? 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Sure thing. Hi, I am Jeigh Billingy. I currently 
reside in Chattanooga, Tennessee. I am a master's of social work 
and a licensed clinical social worker. I work with populations that 


are navigating severe and complex trauma and PTSD, and I work 
in the community to teach how to use trauma as a base for 
information with integrating in culturally specific and aware areas. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Awesome. And then also, Jeigh, I wanted to let 
folks know, to if you wanted to say anything more, you've 
recently started your own organization and work in a mainstream 
organization. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Yes. Yes. I've worked in mainstream 
organizations for, I say, going on 12 years now. And I recently 
have started my own practice, and I'm very excited. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Awesome. Cool. And then we have one of my 
favorite people in the whole world, Jorge Vidal. You want to 
introduce yourself, Jorge? 

JORGE VIDAL: Sure. Thank you, Olga. Saludos. That means hello 
in Spanish. I just wanted to welcome everyone. I'm really 
thankful that you have joined us from all the corners of the 
United States. It feels like a very diverse group, so I'm really 
thankful for being here with us. 

My name is Jorge Vidal, like Olga Trujillo said. And I work at 
Caminar Latino, and that's a national organization. Well, it's an 
organization based in Atlanta, and there's a national arm called 


Lupe, L-U-P-E. And that's the national arm for Caminar Latino. 
And I am the director of training and capacity building. 

And the reason why we created this space is just from experience 
navigating mainstream as a cultural leader doing programmatic 
work, but then also as a national TA provider now with Lupe. And 
I'll share a little bit more as we go through, but I think that's kind 
of the beginning pieces that I would like to share about myself. 
And I'm saying hello from Fort Lauderdale, Florida. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Awesome. And I'm Olga Trujillo. I have been 
working for a really long time. Let's see. I graduated from law 
school in 1988. Oh, my god, that makes me feel really old. And I 
worked as a lawyer in private practice. I've worked at the US 
Department of Justice, and I've been a consultant for 20 years. 
And then I have worked with other mainstream organizations in 
the domestic violence and sexual assault field for the past 10 
years or so. 

And again, I live in a really rural area, and that's a little bit-- I 
like to let people know that, because there's a little bit of 
experience being a person of color in a rural area. So that's 
always fun, too. All right, so I wanted to kind of let you know a 
little bit of what to expect from our webinar today. 

What we're going to do is actually have a discussion about our 
experiences working in mainstream organizations and also 


working in culturally specific organizations, at least Jorge and I. 
And then Jeigh, I think, a little bit behind your starting your own 
organization as well. So we're going to do this through discussion. 
I'll ask a few questions. I'll kind of moderate the discussion and 
then also jump in. 

We were very deliberate in naming this webinar. It was important 
to us to talk about navigating mainstream organizations as a 
black, indigenous, or other person of color, as opposed to 
thriving. We went back and forth talking about it. Because I think 
I'll just say, from my personal experience, the place where I feel 
like I've thrived is in an organization that I helped to create that's 
culturally specific. 

But then, in all the other organizations that I've worked, I've 
navigated the mainstream landscape and then learned a lot and 
built skills that I needed and that I use now quite a bit. Oh, and 
there's one other thing I wanted to mention, just because it's part 
of my identity. I also live with dissociative identity disorder and 
do a lot of work around trauma. So I have a legal background as 
well as have a significant mental health disorder and have 
learned and brought into my trainings how to move through the 
world with the idea. 

I'm going to bring that into our discussion today as well, because 
there are other people I know that have mental health issues or 
disabilities that try to also maneuver through and navigate 


through mainstream organizations. So our first discussion 
question is, how would you-- and I'll go to you first, Jeigh. Wait a 
minute, Jorge, is there anything-- 

JORGE VIDAL: Yeah. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: You can tell, like I'm going to miss something 
here. 

JORGE VIDAL: I also wanted to provide some context, too, I think 
a larger context. Because I think from personal experience, as we 
have been sharing that we've been navigating mainstream for 
some time now, and then also from experiences of friends who 
are also in the movement working in mainstream, and then us 
national TA providers, holding space for folks is a recurring theme 
that we have been hearing over and over that I think unites all of 
this narrative. 

And it's that we are performing a way of being to survive in 
systems that are not built for us. And so what we wanted to do is 
give voice to that and also recognize that there has been hurt. 
And when we recognize that, as Olga mentioned, sometimes it 
may look a little messy. And he may not be linear, and there may 
be triggers along the way. 

So I also want to put that out there, because I think we need to 
have this conversation in a way that we are mindful of our 


triggers, we are mindful that there has been harm done. But we 
also want to give voice to that. And so I say that because I know 
with everything that has been happening, especially the distance, 
George Floyd, it seems like sometimes we're jumping on the 
wagon. But a lot of us have been working around these issues for 
a really long time, and it's something that we have felt and have 
brought into our conversations. 

So I wanted to say that, because there's a larger context to this. 
And so it was just a perfect opportunity to bring it and have this 
discussion. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah. Thanks, Jorge. And I'm always reminded, 
too, because I've been working for so long and I had to navigate 
so much of my career in mainstream, I have become kind of way 
more analytical and I've lost a little bit of that feel that is a little 
bit part of my culture. Jorge compliments my work all the time, 
because he's still able to be in his heart. So, anyway, thanks, 
Jorge. 

OK, so how would you-- Jeigh, so I'll come to you. Tell us a little 
bit about your experience working in mainstream organizations. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Yes. And I also kind of want to just added a 
little bit, too, to kind of what Jorge was saying, because I 
definitely resonate with that. The bandwagon experience that 
some of us have shared and some of us might feel like we want 


to help and we want to be present, but a lot of this is new for a 
lot of folks, right? Like if I can be honest, the Juneteenth 
situation, for example, coming from a Black American experience, 
a lot of us didn't know what that was until recently. 

So I share that, coming from a mainstream experience where-- 
and to share a little bit about my history, too, with that. I grew 
up in Southern California in a very diverse environment. My 
family is from the Caribbean islands, and they immigrated to 
America in '70s-ish. My family is very educated. They lived the 
American dream to come get an education and climb up the 
socioeconomic status ladder. 

But they've always believed that handouts are not a thing, right? 
And so coming to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where things are not 
as liberal and often there's a very different-- like just the cultural 
experience is different from Southern California. Coming into a 
place where I'm working in a mainstream headspace, coming with 
my open background that all things are possible, and then 
working with individuals who have been navigating themselves, 
coming to terms with what the history has been, I would say that 
that experience has been eye-opening for me as a learner in my 
own skin, if that makes sense. 

So there's a layer to the experience that's not just my personal 
experience as a person who identifies as a black woman of color, 
right? But my own personal experience, just as a human, 


navigating my own coming of age and coming of identity through 
the lens of my employment experience. And I really think that is 
something that needs to be highlighted. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah. Thank you so much, Jeigh. And let's take 
a pause for just a minute as our interpreters switch out, and then 
I'll come back to you. OK, cool. So, yeah, that is awesome. 
Thanks for kind of laying that foundation, because I think that's a 
really good thing for people to know. That experience of growing 
up and watching what your parents had to navigate as well as 
what you're navigating influenced all of us. So I really, really 
appreciate that. 

I want to turn it back over to you to see what else kind of like 
your experiences have been, given all that. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: And I will say I like to speak very openly and 
very transparently, so if anyone has any questions or if my 
statements, again, may sound triggering or insensitive in any 
way, that is not my intent at all. So please feel free to just reach 
out and respond. That is definitely open. 

So if I can speak, when we talk about the cultural lens, obviously, 
I am navigating life as a black woman, right? But oftentimes, all 
of us who are, in some way, intersectional-- whether that be 
culture or sexuality or experience, intersectional in any kind of 
capacity-- we often get lumped together. And so coming into a 


mainstream experience in a place that was unfamiliar to me with 
a rationale that was unfamiliar to me-- which is fine, right? Like 
we all grow, learn. 

I had to learn that maybe my coming of age and identifying, hey, 
I'm Jeigh, but coming of age of that and identifying as a 
professional, the developmental pieces that some of us just 
experience, in the mainstream, I realized that at least it felt that 
there were a lot of things that were expected of me that were 
underspeak, that were not necessarily outlined. 

For example, during this experience, I had the opportunity to-- I 
was requested to share my black experience as a support to my 
organization, right? I was very excited to share, but I felt a little 
uncomfortable, because if I hadn't had the opportunity to share 
and then I had a concern later, my fear was that my employer 
would say, well, I gave you an opportunity to respond and you 
chose not to. So that's that on that, as we say. 

Or in other jobs, I had another experience with another 
supervisor who was black, and so there was an understanding, 
supposed, that myself and that supervisor would engage in the 
same way. But we were very different. And so going through that 
experience, it became very tumultuous. And I ended up having to 
seek different employment because of the way that I present 
myself, and she did not believe that was the way that a black 
woman in this area should. 


And again, I'm speaking very specifically from my black 
experience, because I believe that that's a place of power that I 
can speak from. But I empathize with many different experiences, 
as that has been part of my learning and coming of age and 
amplifying voices. 

But I feel that there are others who can also relate to being the 
only token item in a room, whatever that may be, and not 
wanting to not take advantage of the opportunity to share, which 
was my thing. But also, at times, feeling disempowered to 
actually share my true thoughts or actually be truly present 
because of the backlash or the perception or the idea that I was 
only in the room to check a box. And that my education, my time, 
my experience, none of that mattered, because I was here as a 
diversity hire. And being told by other colleagues to my face. So 
things like that have been some of the things I've navigated 
through in my coming of age in the mainstream. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah. Really, when we were preparing-- this is 
Olga. Oh, which, by the way, folks, I just want to remind you, 
Jeigh and Jorge, because I keep forgetting as well, is to say our 
names first and then talk. So this is Olga. And when we were 
preparing for this webinar, I was pointing out that we're kind of 
different generations, right? But some of our experiences are still 
the same, which is super interesting to me. 


So having been that, quote unquote, "diversity hire"-- or when I 
got into law school, the letter that I got tucked in with the 
acceptance was from the diversity program at the law school. So 
it was very clear to me that I was someone that was checking a 
box, too. And that was a long time ago. But still, we still feel this 
way quite a bit. So Jorge, tell us a little bit about your experience 
working in mainstream. 

JORGE VIDAL: Yes. I also want to say that, Jeigh, thank you for 
starting and naming the discomfort that we may feel hearing our 
experiences. And I just want invite-- I don't know who's in the 
room, if there are leaders who work with the mainstream, there 
are mainstream organizations or cultural organizations. I know a 
few belong to cultural organizations. We just invite folks to sit in 
the discomfort and see what comes up for each one as you're 
hearing the stories. 

Because we can easily disconnect and say, you know, that's not 
me. But I think through all of our identities, we all have identities 
of power. And we're also empowered by our identities. So it's 
really important to say that even though I am a gay man and 
Latino, there's a lot of privilege within my identity walking into a 
room, right? So I present masculine. I'm light-skinned Latino, so 
there's privilege within my identities, right? 

So I think it's really important for us to also sit in that and say 
like, hey, I'm feeling discomfort. Where is that connected to? 


What's coming up for me? And just feel your body. I think that's 
really, really important. 

And I also want to say that when we were asking this question 
around how does it feel to navigate mainstream systems, I think 
about not just one system, as an immigrant, but I've navigated 
five, six different systems of mainstream, right? Thinking about 
my vocational system. So just coming into a space and you're an 
immigrant Latino, and you come into America with four different 
names. And they tell you, hey, that's not how we do it in 
America. We're going to need you Jorge Vidal, but your name is 
four names, right? 

So how does discrimination happen from the day that you arrive 
in the US? So we have to name those things, right? And then you 
know being forced to kind of pledge allegiance to the United 
States without understanding. And then the absence of your 
culture, the absence of leaders that look like you, that represent 
you. And that also is tied up in the medical services, when you're 
seeking help. There's not ways that you can communicate. 

So not, again, being validated of who you are coming into a 
space, right? And so what happens is that we normalize these 
systems to be the norm, right? So we believe that this is how it is 
in America, that in order for us to participate and thrive, as Olga 
says, we have to let go of who we are to come into this space. 


And along the way, we kind of empower ourselves, and we say, 
hey, that's not the way that it should be. And it happens in the 
same way as the nonprofit. One of the things that I really thought 
about when I got into social work was, hey, it's going to look 
completely different. We're all about social justice, and we are all 
about healing and all of that and human rights, right? That's what 
we say. 

But it doesn't really happen that way, right? There's some blind 
spots in the work that we do. And the way that it shows up is 
they're presenting ideas that are eurocentric, counseling 
techniques that doesn't reflect who we are and how we hold 
space for folks. I mean, I know a lot of Latino leaders and people 
of color who have navigated social work, and we know that we 
just have to learn, memorize, check the box, like Jeigh says, 
graduate, and then adapt. 

And that's really how it has been also in nonprofit for me, in 
mainstream, is that we enter. We know that there's a language. 
There's a way that we write. There's a way that we speak. 
There's a way that we stand front of the room and that we have 
to perform a certain way in order for us to be seen as credible 
leaders in the movement, right? 

And so I am mindful of that. And I think what Jeigh speaks is to 
what I also felt, being tokenized as Latino, as a gay man, as an 
immigrant person. I always call it kind of the Moses kind of effect, 


right? So they bring you in, and they have this expectation of, 
hey, now that you have come into this space, I want you to 
bridge in all of your folks to come into our space. 

And what Jeigh speaks about is I am a Latino, I'm Peruvian and 
South American, but I cannot-- and I need some work around 
Caribbean folks, right, learning their culture, learning the ways 
and the norms to bring people in. So there's a set of expectations 
that you come in as a Latino that you're going to bridge people 
in, but you still need to learn their culture, right? And so there's a 
time of learning that we're not allowed to have in those spaces. 

I think it also gets exhausting, I think, in many ways, to over-
explain yourself and plead your case that there's harm that has 
been caused. And I love the National Queer and Trans Therapist 
Network. They say that healing justice first must recognize that 
structural violence have caused harm, grief, and crisis and 
trauma and further cycles violence of oppressed people. 

And so we have to first recognize that this structural violence has 
caused harm, right? And so pleading our case over and over and 
over that we're being harmed is harmful to us, right? And so the 
way that sometimes it shows up in conversations is we bring up 
our complaints, and we bring how we feel. 

And you usually, let's play the devil's advocate conversation, 
right? Let's hear the other person. Are you sure you're feeling 


this? So it kind of sounds like gaslighting in many, many times, 
no? So I think it's important to recognize how it shows up. 

I think there's also a trigger, because I was kind of saying from 
the beginning that we navigate so many systems, and all the 
systems have harmed us in so many ways, that we are in the 
employment, that trigger that we feel in the moment is connected 
to a legacy of triggers. That has been my experience since I came 
to the US. And it is hard to speak about it in a way that makes 
sense to folks, right? 

So when something shows up and somebody is policing the tone 
of my voice or policing the way that I speak or the way that I 
present myself, that's going to be triggering to me. And the way 
that I'm going to kind of come into that space is I'm going to 
disconnect. I'm not going to be myself, right? And so we're losing 
trust in the system, right? 

So I think that's kind of like the beginning stages of it. Because I 
think that what happens, a lot of times, is when we start kind of 
doing the unharm or unlearning in creating new spaces. We move 
to action really quick. It's like, how do we repair? But we don't 
allow folks to speak their truth. And I think for us to have 
healing, we have to speak and name the harm that has been 
placed on folks in order for us to move forward. 


And I'm not saying to sit with the harm and let's attack the folks, 
because we all belong to a system that harms all of us. But we 
have to really name it in order for us to move forward. When we 
say and discount those harms and say, hey, you know, we're 
really sorry about the harm. OK, let's create another way of 
being. We're minimizing the pain and the trauma that has cost. 

And so what we say is, stay with it. Let's work through it, and 
then let's move forward and not move so quickly into action. So 
I'll stop there, Olga. I know I said a lot. But I just want us to kind 
of create that moment to speak up. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah. This is Olga. So thanks so much, Jorge. 
There's so much there. So I wanted to just bring in there's been 
quite a few comments in the chat of people really appreciating 
the thoughtfulness behind how we named the webinar, how we're 
thinking about it. And then, also, someone wrote that they have 
never felt so understood as they have in the last 30 minutes of 
sitting here and listening in this webinar, that everything that 
they've been fighting for has been validated for them. 

So I just wanted you all to know this. So I wanted to bring in my 
experience a bit as well. So I grew up in Washington, DC. My 
mom was from Puerto Rico. My father was from Colombia. And I 
very vividly watched my mom experience the treatment of people 
reacting to the fact that she spoke English with a Puerto Rican 
accent. They had trouble understanding her. The ways in which 


our names were constantly mispronounced or even joked around 
or anglicized in order for us to fit in better. 

And in a lot of different ways, either through direct comments or 
body language or the way people rolled their eyes when they 
would hear my mom at the grocery store or when she applied for 
benefits or at school when she would go to meetings with our 
teachers, all those ways, I watched and I took it in, as well as 
watching my mom taking it in and what she did with it. I was a 
big study of my family, in large part because I grew up in a really 
abusive home, which is how I developed dissociative identity 
disorder. 

And when you experience trauma, you're constantly watching, 
observing, and planning, basically, for safety, right? So I took all 
this in, in a home where there was so much violence. The impact 
of the way that my mom was treated was so much so that the 
two words that I heard the most when I was growing up was to 
enunciate and to assimilate. So when there's a home where 
there's so much violence and those are the two things that you 
hear parents saying to you over and over again, it gives you an 
idea of the way that the racism that my mom experienced-- it 
shows you how much that affected her. 

And so I was taught to not value my culture. And I was taught 
more to not let people know that I was different, because 
different was less than. And so that's how I moved through the 


world, which is I'm going to enunciate and I'm going to 
assimilate. And the problem with that is that I have been 
successful in navigating mainstream. 

I went to law school. I graduated. I passed the bar. I worked at a 
large law firm, where I made a lot of money and hated the work. 
And then I went to the Department of Justice, where I heard 
things about who I was as a person put to me that I really didn't 
know what to do with. 

Like I remember working in the Deputy Attorney General's Office 
in the early 1990s, where I was told that the best thing about me 
was that I was a Hispanic that didn't act like a Hispanic. And this 
is by somebody that was mentoring me. And I listened to that, 
and that feeds into I'm not supposed to act the way a Latina acts. 
I'm not supposed to sound like I speak Spanish. I'm not supposed 
to-- you know. 

And I move through the world now really feeling other than 
people, because I'm not white, even though my mom wanted us 
to be treated as though we were white. And at times, I feel like 
I'm not Latina enough because of my mom's internalized racism 
and how she then filtered that to us as to not being good enough, 
as well as the trauma of abuse happening in Spanish. So there's 
lots and lots of layers into who I show up with in my work. 


And I know lots of other people that experience this as well. So I 
know I say I have DID. Actually, let me take a minute now so we 
can switch interpreters, and then I'll come back to this. 

OK, thanks so much for that. So I know I say I have DID. So if 
you don't know what DID is, it used to be called multiple 
personality disorder. And I want to make sure that-- so I walk 
through the world at the intersections of being queer, Latina, a 
person with DID, gender nonconforming. So I feel other than 
most of the time. 

But I felt like I had to be one way at work and another way with 
my friends. And then there was my friends that were white and 
then my friends that were people of color. And the place that I 
felt probably the most at home was with my friends that were 
people of color. And it took a long time to even feel at home 
there, but I felt more accepted. I felt like I could be myself. 

So when you're somebody that has DID, it's really easy to go 
from being very mainstream to being more Latina. When you're 
in those work environments, you are just focusing on the work. 
But people around you are actually very focused on how you 
represent. I was reminded of that over and over again in the 
sense that-- so, for example, the person who was mentoring me 
who said to me that the good thing about me was that I was 
Hispanic that didn't act like Hispanic, that was a very powerful 
thing to hear and not really know what to do with. 


The other thing is I had lots of people who I worked for-- this is 
mostly at the Department of Justice, at the time-- that would 
often call me the name of other Latinas that worked in the 
agency, even though I didn't look at all like them. I was 30 years 
old, and there was a 56-year-old woman named Inez that ran the 
civil rights section of our agency, and I was the general counsel. 
And the Assistant Attorney General often referred to me as Inez. 

I didn't look like her. I wasn't anywhere like her. But I was a 
Latina, and she clumped us together. And that's how I knew that 
over and over again. So these subtle things all kind of build and 
build. And it affects who we are and how we represent, how we 
show up in organizations. And it's, again-- and I'll turn this over 
to you, Jeigh. But it's what Jorge said about gaslighting. 

And I've been talking about this a lot more lately, because I've 
been seeing this more. And this is hard for anyone. But people 
who have experienced trauma-- which is people who grew up in 
homes with trauma, but also Black, Indigenous, and other people 
of color in the US have experienced trauma because of racism 
and how it's built into our systems. 

So what happens is we come with all of that. And you don't really 
know about it, necessarily, if you're working with us. But the 
things that you say and do, when those things don't match up, 
then that's triggering for us. So it's not that people are 
intentionally trying to do things poorly or do things in a way 


that's not trustworthy. It's that we say a lot of things and then we 
do other things, and we don't always pay attention to that. 

Or we want to be that way. We all have our best intentions of 
wanting to be very open, wanting to adapt to the people who 
work with us, wanting to be the best supervisors, managers, co-
workers. But you might ignore something or not do something or 
not step up and say something, and that is really powerful for 
people who have experienced trauma, either because of racism or 
trauma or lots of other stuff. 

So, Jeigh, I know that you had some thoughts as well from the 
conversation that we're having, so jump in. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Yes. So much truthiness. I love it. Two things 
that, Olga and Jorge, you both have shared that I really wanted 
to highlight, one thing was something that Jorge had said, which 
was the trigger we feel in the moment is triggered by a legacy of 
triggers. And the word legacy really resonated with me, because 
there's a history, an intentional, perpetuated history, in the 
concept of the word legacy. 

Now, when we think about what legacy is and we talk about 
developmental stages in sociology and in therapy and clinical 
places, we get to a stage in life where a lot of us want to say, 
what is my legacy? Oftentimes, our grandparents, those of us 
who are late 50s and beyond, often can find themselves in a 


legacy-building stage. What have I made of my life? Retirement 
age and beyond, right? 

The other thing that Olga had shared that I thought was really, 
really meaningful was that there are lots of layers as to who I 
show up with in the workplace. And I think these two concepts 
are very, very important. I just have a few points I'd like to hit, if 
that's OK, that really just spoke to me. 

All of us have spoken today on the model minority myth. I'm sure 
some of us know the history of how that came, with some Asian-
American students who kind of coined the term as they were 
fighting during the civil rights time and how that's kind of 
evolved. Actually, there's a lot of Black American and Asian-
American animosity in coining of the terminology, because often, 
the model minority myth has been used to discredit Black 
communities. 

However, all of us who are considered minorities or BIPOC-- 
which is not necessarily an all-inclusive term when we talk about 
minorities, but that's a whole other concept. When we talk about 
those spaces and the model minority myth, the idea is that, hey, 
you are articulate. If you are highly educated, if you are-- and 
I'm translating this here-- over-performing, we're OK with you 
being here. 


And again, this is not necessarily the intentional headspace, so 
please don't hear that the idea is that people are intentionally 
creating these spaces. But because of stereotypes of how one can 
achieve and succeed, sometimes unintentionally, that's 
perpetuated legacy of what it means to show up with layers as a 
minority or otherwise intersect individual-- intersectional, sorry, 
individual in our communities. 

The other piece of that, then, is the microaggressions. Because 
again, I like to believe the best, so I do not assume that people 
who are leading the workspaces or those of us who may not be 
but are interacting in the workspace, in whatever capacity we're 
in, are intentionally trying to create a place of harm. However, we 
all have very-- whether or not we partake in the media culture, 
we're all inundated with tons of ideas of what a thug is, for 
example, or what ghetto means, for example. 

These are things that are inundated with songs, music, billboards, 
right? So these things can create a space where we can have a 
microaggressive climate towards each other and towards people 
who trigger this idea within us, that this person is-- they haven't 
pulled themselves up by their own bootstraps, or one day they'll, 
fill in the blank. This idea that they're constantly vague. There's 
an us/them constantly performing, achieving. 

So we end up saying things like, oh, you're so articulate. Or 
unintentionally referring to somebody as the name of someone 


else who's also whatever that person may be. It may not be 
intentional, but because we have not created a culture of being 
present and being mindful as we interact, oftentimes these 
microaggressive climates can reiterate this legacy of 
generationalized and systemic trauma that now is causing a 
mental health response in that person. 

But because those of us who show up in multicultural, 
intersectional spaces are considered strong people, we are 
assumed that we are just going to keep pushing through. But 
keep pushing through is really, really, really-- it's coming from a 
place of survival. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: I wanted to jump in here for a second, Jeigh. 
This is Olga. Because what happens is that in a mainstream 
organization, when that happens, when a person of color is 
triggered because of something that they're hearing or a way that 
they're being treated that feels like stuff from the past, that 
they'll have a reaction and then be blamed for that reaction, as if 
there's something wrong with them because of how they reacted. 
Because people aren't being open enough to see the impact of 
the things that they're doing. 

And that kind of being cognizant. So then a person of color is 
then ostracized or seen as the problem. And I know Jorge has 
something he wanted to add as well. Jorge? 


JORGE VIDAL: So many good things I wanted to add. Jeigh, 
thank you for that, putting that context, too. Because I think 
what happens-- and I think one of the comments I was just kind 
of reading-- I did notice the chat box-- is this gaslighting, right? 
And it's very true, it is also non-verbal, because sometimes-- I 
don't know how to describe that look. When you're explaining to 
someone that this is happening to you, and there's a look that 
they give you that you already sense this person is not believing 
or I have to enroll this person or I have to teach this person. And 
where do I start? 

Do I unpack and make connections for the person to understand 
and see what I'm sensing in that moment? So when you start 
beginning to explain or having that moment, it just becomes, 
again, exhausting, right? And that moment becomes really 
exhausting. And when you're triggered, you're no longer able to 
have a linear thought, a linear way of talking to somebody to 
make sense. 

So when you're not having those linear thoughts or explain it to a 
way that a person can understand within a mainstream, what 
happens to what Jeigh says, right? You're being discounted. So 
it's not just the toning of our tone, but also policing the way that 
we speak and how we speak. And that's how it shows up, right? 

And so when we have one model person of color kind of moving 
up the ranks, the system is also creating ways for us to not work 


together, for us to kind of fight against each other. Because then 
it becomes the conversation, oh, Jorge, he's acting all white, 
because he wants to be part of the in group, right? 

And so it is not us that we're fighting, because that's the one 
thing that often comes into our conversation and into our space, 
right? It's like, why are they fighting? Why are the Blacks and 
Latinos-- no. And I think one of the questions that we're going to 
be talking about, too, is how it shows up in cultural spaces as 
well, right? It seems like we're fighting one another. It's because 
the system has created this myth that in order for us to survive, 
we have to kind of play these rules. And when we do play the 
rules, there's some people that are being left behind. 

And so in that fighting that battle and our triggers, we are 
blaming each other for it, right? But I think that's the work that 
has to come as a community healing, where we kind of have to 
see that we're all in the same struggle together. There's no way 
that we're both being discounted, right? 

And I also kind of want to say that what Jeigh's saying, that 
nobody's intentionally harming, but we're all capable of harming. 
And it's really important, that distinction, because I think, again, I 
am a male that often work in women's spaces. My maleness 
shows up in spaces. And if I don't pay attention to the way that I 
take space, the way that I show up, and the way that I'm taking 
credit or not giving credit to women for teaching me all of this 


stuff that I have learned along this path, I am harming women, 
right? I'm harming them, right? 

And so I'm always kind of noticing the way that I am showing up 
in spaces. So, yes, my intent is not to harm, but I am capable of 
harming, because I have identities of privilege. And I have to 
always kind of think about that. And when we see that 
sometimes, I think it becomes very kind of reactive, when we 
name those things and say, no, no, that's not me, and I'm not 
trying to do that. Again, then we go into this conversation of 
gaslighting, proving our case. And that constantly creates those 
moments, right? 

I wanted to say other things, but I think that's-- I'll leave it there. 
I think I'm going all over the place now, Olga. Te lo paso ti. I'll 
pass that over to you. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah, yeah. That's awesome. And I'm going to 
go back to Jeigh, because I know I cut you off, Jeigh. But I 
wanted to touch on something that you mentioned. And then I 
just want to kind of-- oh, I'm going all over the place, too. 

So I have a list of things that I'm writing down, because in about 
five minutes, I want to turn us over to strategies. And what I 
want to do is I want to have strategies for the people of color who 
are working in mainstream organizations that are on the call, but 
also for people who are not of color but work in the mainstream 


organizations and are trying to learn, OK, so what does this 
mean? I might find myself in some of this, and what does this 
mean for our work? How do I do this? 

And I remembered the thing that I wanted to point out, because 
you were raising you're a man working in women's spaces. So I 
wanted to call out something that I have struggled with for a 
really long time and haven't known what to do with that, which is 
I'm a light-skinned Latina. I am a citizen. I'm a well-educated 
Latina that doesn't make people feel uncomfortable, for the most 
part. 

And so I am asked to be in spaces that my darker skinned sisters 
are not always asked to be in or the people who speak with an 
accent or people who present differently are not asked to be in. 
And I know the impact of that is that I'm, again, doing that kind 
of, quote unquote, "model" minority. So I just kind of want to call 
that out. It's something I'm struggling with as well, and I have 
some ideas for other people who might find themselves in those 
shoes as well. 

So, Jeigh, I want to go back to you, but one second. Let me just 
check, are we due for a interpreter change, or am I premature? 
Oh, in about four minutes. OK, in about 4 minutes. All right, 
Jeigh, go for it. 


JEIGH BILLINGY: Well, I do have one thought that I really wanted 
to bring up, too, to your previous point. There's just so much, 
again, juicy, juicy, good stuff here. I, too, am taking notes, 
because I'm like, man, this is so good. But you mentioned when 
you're with your friends and people you're close to and even 
other people of color, sometimes it's more comfortable in certain 
capacities. 

I'm not sure-- and please pop in and correct me if this is a term 
that's applicable as well-- but in the Black community, we call it 
code switching. Like you switch up the code. So when I'm with 
you, we going to talk about, you know what I'm saying? We got a 
code. But when I'm in a professional environment, there's a place 
and a time to employ the appropriate diction and to share. 

And to some extent, we all do this as a part of just engaging and 
being comfortable. But a lot of us who are model minorities have 
learned to code switch as a means and a mechanism for survival. 
Otherwise, we are excluded, whether it be accent or the ways 
that we talk about certain things. Like you were saying, Olga, 
enunciate. These are things that we've all been told to do. 

And I just really want to highlight that as another layer of the 
trauma, because again, this identity. Who am I, and what am I 
bringing-- what makes me great in my performance? What do I 
bring? What skills do I show up with? And those pieces, I think, is 


just really, really meaningful, I would say, to highlight. Thank you 
for letting me share that. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah, yeah. And I was hesitant. The reason I 
was hesitant to say it is because code switching is totally what I 
was talking about, but because I have DID and I have different 
parts, when I talk about switching, it might be from one part to 
another part. So that's why I decided to describe what it was 
instead so that it wouldn't be confusing, and then I get all 
confused in what I'm saying at the same time. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Makes sense. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah. So if it's OK, I want to switch us to some 
strategies. Does that feel too premature? Are we ready for 
strategies? Oh, and then let's do an interpreter change now as 
well. 

OK, so what kind of strategy-- let's talk first about for people of 
color that are in mainstream organizations. What are some 
strategies that have supported your work or that you would 
recommend in retrospect? So I'll go back to you, Jeigh. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Yes. I always love-- I'm a don't talk about it, be 
about it kind of person. So I love this part. First, one of the 
things-- and I would start off with strategies. A wise, wise man 
named Jorge once told me that if I am in a position-- and I'm 


paraphrasing what I had taken away from that conversation. But 
if I am in a position where I feel that I am second-guessing 
myself, that's inappropriate. Just cut it right there. 

Because if I am being gaslight to think that, for some reason, my 
expertise, my knowledge, my showing up is inaccurate in some 
way-- and it may be, but I should have a safe space to feel. And 
I'm kind of adding to this now. So if we're talking about strategies 
for the person, one, don't second-guess yourself. It's OK to fail, 
and you should have a safe space to fail, to learn, and to get back 
up without feeling like there's retaliation or unsafe experience 
financially, socially, emotionally, mentally. 

The other thing that I would say to the person-- I'm going to say 
a few things for the person and then a few things for leaders and 
organizations. Stop, drop, and roll. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Let's do the person first, and then we'll come 
back and do leaders, if that's OK. 

JEIGH BILLINGY: Awesome. Absolutely. OK, so staying with the 
person. This is a theory that I have created and I use in my 
practice at SUSPIRE to teach just self-awareness, and I call it 
stop, drop, and roll. A lot of us have learned that when it comes 
to fires, right? If you are ever on fire, stop, drop, and roll. 


So to stop and just pause. What's going on around you, push 
pause. Listen to the narratives, the stories that are being told. 
The second thing, drop. Drop into your feelings. What are you 
noting? Where in your body do you feel what's happening? Just 
drop into that presence, that awareness. 

And then roll with it. Roll with what is organic to you. Roll with 
what is normal to you. Roll with what is ideal to you. Another 
thing that I say often is say it and we'll clean it up later. I 
understand that there can be repercussions. I'm not saying be 
irresponsible. But functionally, most of us got into the 
employment space because we had some sort of capacity, right? 
So if we're trusting that piece of ourself that's developing, as life 
is a journey, then if we can stop, drop, and roll with what feels 
right, what's the next best thing, ideally, we can find a place and 
a position of self-empowerment and to speak truth to power, 
because we are leaning into what is organic and what is true and 
what is part of what has been revealed to our way of being. 

Also, be honest with yourself and be honest with what's around 
you. Come to the table. It is OK to come to the table. It is OK to 
sit at the table. It is OK to eat at the table. And when I say the 
table, I'm referring to the collective opportunity of having a voice, 
of being able to share your thoughts equitably and intentionally, 
to be in purpose on purpose. I think that is what I would say to 
the individual. 


OLGA TRUJILLO: Awesome. It's funny, I have very similar things, 
saying them a little bit differently. But I'm going to go to Jorge 
first, and then I'll come back and kind of close up that little 
section before we go into helping leaders. 

JORGE VIDAL: How can I follow that, Jeigh? It's so good. I know. 
Well, I first kind of want to step back a little bit before kind of 
going into offering-- because I recognize that we are doing a 
webinar, so we're moving fast. But this healing process takes a 
long time for us. And it takes a long time for us to even be in a 
space to be OK to talk about it, right? 

For me, with George Floyd and all these conversations around 
racism, allyship, it kind of triggered me a lot. Because I think for 
me, who have experienced racism and oppression in different 
ways, I was never believed. Or I was always kind of double-
guessing myself, like this happened. Somebody said that, right? 
These things actually happened. 

And when you leave a situation like that, there's always a place 
within you that you don't believe that actually happened. You 
accommodate it, you make the bed, and then you say, you know 
what? Actually, I don't know that that happened. And so I always 
start, when I do this work with other friends or leaders or even 
myself, first I affirm that I believe you, what your experience are 
valid, and this actually does happen, right? 


Because I think that's the one way that we are so discounted, 
that our stories are not visible. They're not validated. And so I 
always start with that idea that I hear you and I see you, because 
I think that's really, really important to kind of name, right? 

I think the other piece for me that is really important is that we 
don't all have the luxury to leave places. I started as an outreach 
worker, and I moved up in different ways. And in the beginning, I 
couldn't leave. I couldn't. I had to survive in that place. But I 
started to learn how to do safety planning within a mainstream 
organization. And the way that I did that was I started learning 
the lingo. I started learning the way to move in and out of that 
place. 

And for me, what I found the most useful and I still used today 
and I have learned around is the power of relationships and also 
how to create a family bond with folks outside of mainstream. 
Because I think the way that abuse-- and all of you know, 
because you work with survivors in some case. The way that 
abuse happens and stays alive within you is that they isolate you. 
And it's the same way that I think it happens in systems. They try 
to isolate you, and they try not to form connections, right? 

And the way that we do that sometimes is, for example, in 
conferences. Think about the people who actually attend 
conferences. There's a process for you to attend. They select the 
people who you have to attend. And so, in that moment, we're 


robbing the opportunity for us to be connected with other folks. 
So what I have learned always is the fact that there's 
relationships that I have that I could use to kind of seize other 
opportunities. So there's power relationships. 

And I always have found family and mentors along the way that 
has helped me to survive in places that I didn't think I was able 
to survive. And that kind of gave me a buffer within this system. 
And then it gave me an action plan to say, OK, the next few 
months, I'm about to-- where's my exit strategy within two 
months? 

I would also offer changing kind of the narrative. Because I think 
Jeigh kind of talked a little bit about code switching, right? Now it 
kind of adapted-- and I love this, from the Latino Project. I went 
to a webinar. And I was thinking about it because I think this is 
really powerful for us to think about it. Code switching could also 
be a power for us, right? Because we have learned to navigate 
and learn four different languages. 

Like I could speak Spanish. I could speak English. I could throw 
you some bilingual. And then I could kind of do some professional 
stuff along the way. And I could sprinkle it all over the place. So 
how do we code switch is also kind of power for us, right? 

And so I think of like what are my superpowers that connect it to-
- I'm not into superheroes. So I'm not one of those guys that love 


superhero and grew up with superheroes. But I love the idea of 
superpower as how we talk about the work. I know you love that, 
but I can't connect to it. I didn't grew up with it. 

I think it was that hypermasculinity that kind of turned me off, 
you know? And I didn't have gay superpowers. Like there was no 
gay superpowers that we can kind of talk about, so I was like, no, 
that's not for me. I did love the outfits, but not the actual shows. 

But what I will say is, for me, the superpowers, enhanced senses. 
Enhanced senses, for me, is really important, because I am, 
through all of my identities-- like being a survivor, being 
immigrant, being a Latino, being gay, all of that-- has given me a 
sense of enhanced senses to recognize where I am not safe. And 
that's really powerful for us. 

So I can now go in with a person, and I could just tell by the way 
that person is performing, acting, talking, or even bringing me in 
that this is not a safe space. I could walk into a space and say, 
this is not safety for me. So then, in that moment, I take care of 
myself. So enhanced senses is really important. It's a 
superpower. 

Shapeshifting that we talk about is also a superpower, because I 
think that we have been able to be adaptable in many ways, 
right? So I'm a gay man that have worked with men, usual, 
heterosexual men, so I had to shift the way that I actually am in 


those spaces in order to survive. And I see that as a way of 
adaptability now. Because I've moved in five different states. I've 
worked in Puerto Rico. I worked in Florida. I worked in DC, in 
New York. 

And that adaptability has been really helpful for me to be in 
different places and bring allyship in those different places. 
Forcefields, like superpower has this forcefields that they create. 
And I always think about that. I'm like, actually, if I really think 
about it, my ancestors have been giving me forcefields since that 
day that I was kind of born, right? They put me in this protective 
layer of my worth and my customs and all that stuff, right? 

And I think about that because I think that I've been able to 
create forcefields along the way that I never really talked about. 
And it's hard for me to talk about it, because I'm just making 
sense of it, right? And so I think about that. But that's definitely a 
superpower for me. 

And then, also, the flight. I think we always think of flight as like 
the response to stress. But I think what's really important is when 
you start knowing your self-worth and accepting that there's not 
only one way of doing these things, you say, you know what? 
There's a different way to do it. And my superpower's to leave 
this place and create a different place. Create my family, be with 
family who believe, who believes me, believes in a different way 
of doing this work. And we're going to create this ecosystem that 


is culturally responsive, that affirms diversity, that welcomes 
diversity and is not afraid to be in rooms with people who are 
diverse, right? 

And so I think that's a really, really superpower that I have 
adapted from being a survivor, right? So, for me, the way that 
I'm kind of framing this conversation-- and I would love, if 
anyone is interested in the way that I kind of talk about 
superpowers, I would love to talk about it and give it more 
information. But that's the way that I see it. I've been able to 
change the narrative on the way that I talk to myself, and that 
removes the shame on me and places that shame on other 
people. 

And that's really powerful for us. You know it. As survivors, we 
always think that it is us who created this situation or it was us 
that put ourselves in this situation. But when we remove that 
conversation, it gives us power, right? So I will leave it there, 
Olga. 

OLGA TRUJILLO: Yeah, that was awesome. This is Olga. You're 
both-- really, this information is just awesome. Yeah, yeah, I 
totally want to snap my fingers. So I feel like it's almost time for 
a interpreter change. Am I right? Am I pushing you guys, by the 
way? I don't mean to. 


OK, got it. OK, not yet. So I love the way, Jorge, that you 
described the superpower. Because of course, I love-- and it's 
because I have the idea-- I look at the idea as a superpower. 
Most people will look at it as a disorder or this big challenge, and 
it's challenging, too. But because I was able to, by creating parts, 
survive a really abusive home. 

And that has been my gift, quite honestly, for moving through the 
world from job to job and building a career. So I just have to 
show you Mr. Incredible, once again. Part of the reason that I 
love that action figure so much is because The Incredibles was 
about superheroes that were also, in their saving of people, 
creating damage. And lawyers then started suing them. And 
because I'm a lawyer, I identified with that kind of. 

Anyway, so the other thing that I wanted-- I just wanted to add a 
couple of things. So one is-- and this really has been said by 
both. I'm just saying it a little bit differently. One is don't expect 
that you're going to stay in one place for a really long time. 
Because if you do, it's awesome. Perfect. Great. But be strategic. 

When you work in a mainstream organization and you're a person 
of color, you want to pay really close attention to what's going on 
around you. Like Jorge said, and Jeigh as well, is don't second-
guess yourself. Because we are innately listening to what people 
say to us and watch what people do. And when those two things 
don't match up, that's what feels like gaslighting to us, right? 


When people say something, and in their minds, they may think 
they're doing them, but in our observation, they're not 
necessarily doing them. And that can build over time and get to 
be really difficult to work with. I like the advice that Jeigh gave 
that I'll just say again is advocate for yourself, right? And so I try 
to do it-- I try to advocate with love, meaning I try to go in a 
place-- I try not to bring things up until I'm not angry. 

And I'm not trying to say that you shouldn't bring things up if 
you're angry. But it just works better for me, because then I 
don't second-guess myself. So I wait till I'm not angry anymore 
or till I have a handle on the anger, because then I'm more 
focused in what I say. And so then I can advocate for myself. I 
can't stay working in an organization if I can't call out the 
inconsistencies or the lack of trust that's happening, because 
people are saying one thing and doing a different thing. 

In some organizations, I haven't been able to do it, because it 
didn't feel safe to do it. And it wasn't that anyone said anything 
to me. It's because I was watching and listening. And that's the 
forcefield piece that Jorge talked about, meaning that when 
you're in an organization, you're taking everything in. And you're 
figuring out what you can do and can't do. Who can you get close 
to? Who can't you get close to? What can you say? What can't 
you say? 


So you're creating, basically, that forcefield of how do I survive in 
this organization. So those are all things that people of color do 
very, very naturally, because we've had to our whole lives. And 
we don't even think that we're doing it anymore. We just do it. 
And so the ways in which you can be strategic is figure out what 
it is that you can learn from this organization. 

So there's skills that you bring to your work that you know how 
to do. And there are some things that you don't do very well. And 
so find ways, while you're in an organization, to build up that 
capacity to do some of the other things that you don't do as well. 
Because you're going to take your really well-developed skills 
that you were hired for and the skills that you build up to the 
next place that you work at. And then you're going to have even 
more to advocate for and more ways of talking through. 

The other thing is I'm going to-- I'm not really sure how to say 
this, but I'm going to say it kind of carefully. Try really hard not 
to burn bridges. I'm going to be really transparent. This has been 
really hard for me, to not burn a bridge. Because I also have such 
a hard time seeing when people are saying something and doing 
something differently. 

And so, oftentimes, I have to bring that up. And in some cases, I 
haven't done it very gracefully, and I have burned bridges. And 
those bridges really kind of haunted me. One, I'm not my best 


self when I do that. And two, people get really mad at you, and 
they don't--