By Valeria Fernandez, Center for Health Journalism, December 22, 2020
Like many therapists, Lu Rocha uses breathing techniques, meditation and yoga in her practice, but she also asks clients about their personal beliefs: “What stories have you heard about in your own family, your own community, what did they do for healing?”
Some tell her that they pray with a rosary. Others, from parts of Latin America, say their grandmothers used to rub an egg on their bodies to ease headaches. They believe the egg absorbs negative energy. Rocha gets it — her parents are from Mexico. She also gets what many of her clients have faced — years of the Trump administration’s tough immigration policies.
“When I was 5 or 6 years old, I walked around with my birth certificate because raids always happened and pickups with the immigration always happened,” said Rocha, who lives in Chicago. “But this is different this time; these past four years is trauma just about every week. And my people are tired, my people are sick, my people are dying.”
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