Motherhood, Money + Meritocracy with Joanne Ramos

Aurora: Hi, Joanne. How were you?

Joanne: I’m well.

Kelly: So can you share with our audience, can you share with our audience who you are and what pronouns you use?

Joanne: So my name is Joanne Ramos. I am the author of The Farm and I am she / hers.

Aurora: Can you talk to us a little bit about your journey and, in essence, your work?

Joanne: So this book is my debut novel. It’s a book that I started writing when I was already into my 40s. But the ideas behind it are ones that have obsessed me really for most of my life. And those ideas were really rooted in the sense I’ve always had of having to straddle worlds, whether it’s being someone born in the Philippines who grew up in a small town in Wisconsin in the 1970s, or being a financial aid kid at Princeton University, which was jarring not not only because it was the first time I was really exposed to the East Coast, but also to things like class or people who never had to have summer jobs and could take every amazing unpaid internship on offer. Friends who sort of took for granted the great privilege that they had in a way that I just really wasn’t used to growing up how I did. And then also working on Wall Street after college is one of the few women there. And in one firm is private equity from the only woman that they’d ever hired. So there was a stew of ideas that ended up feeding into The Farm when I finally did sort of muster the bravery to look my childhood dream in the eye and start writing it in my 40s. And that became The Farm.

Kelly: So when was that dream of being a writer? Like take us back.

Joanne: Well, I always loved writing. I mean, I got my first diary when let’s say I was six years old. It was after my first communion. And I’ve kept a diary ever since. And I wrote for The Economist after I after my stint in finance, when I finally felt that I’d paid off enough college debt to give writing a go. I sort of tiptoed into writing by getting a job in journalism just because at least that would pay the bills versus trying to write a book. I guess it was really steeped in me, whether because of the particularities of my family or the immigrant story, that I should be practical. And and it just never seem practical to me to try to pay rent by making up stories until much later in my life.

Aurora: Yeah. I mean, so, so much of what you just articulated I can relate to as a product of an immigrant parent. And that’s actually what I love – I think we’d love for you to just share with us a little bit about your journey.

Joanne: So I was born in the Philippines and my family moved to Wisconsin when I was six. And the town that we moved to was a smallish town on the shores of Lake Michigan. And there weren’t very many Asian families in that town. And what I do remember is driving up to our our new home. And we lived in that home my entire childhood until my parents saw the place 7 years ago or so. But our members, as well as brand new subdivisions where they got the grass is newly laid and everything was flat, flat, flat in front of every one of the aluminum sided houses that looked the same. There was a tree plunk there. It was a tree that was like a spinley tree because it was just brand new. And I don’t know why I remember that image. And I think you can draw all kind of metaphors about the fact that we had to start all over. But that is really what I remember from my very first days in Wisconsin. And it was a great childhood in many ways. It was a childhood where I was very cognizant without knowing I was cognizant of the fact that I look different than everybody else. My little sister and I went to a big public school for elementary school. And there were two other brothers there. I think they were Korean looking back, but I’m not sure. And everyone always thought we were part of the same family because we were the four Asians in this big, huge school. And so people would assume that we were together.
And so, you know, it wasn’t – I think I’m also a very sensitive person because I feel like my siblings didn’t all feel is acutely how different we were. But I definitely did. And the comfortable part was that my dad’s family lived only about 30 minutes away and they were part of a tight if small Filipino community in their town. And that’s where we would spend most of our Sundays after church or holidays or big family birthdays. And so was this funny sort of dual childhood where I grew up, both feeling pretty different from everybody else, but also part of something bigger. For college I wanted to move on and move up. And I think that was very much how we were raised. I wrote a piece months ago about how I feel like we we never thought we were going to stay in Wisconsin. And because my parents never really wanted us to stay in Wisconsin, they were very much on the up and out. There’s always and then bigger next year, next and work hard and get that next bigger thing. And the whole American dream story, which I really try to interrogate in my book, was very much for my parents. So anyway, I got into Princeton University and – I got very complicated feelings about that time. I don’t think it was Princeton persay. I think any of these types of schools on the East Coast, I would have had the same types of qualms. I just recently I’m not yet done with it. I’m reading aloud Michelle Obama’s book with my daughter about how Michelle Obama writes about Princeton, articulated so many things that I haven’t really revisited, but I definitely felt back then, too, which is just stuff like the codes that you don’t understand when you’re not from the East Coast and you didn’t really understand class, right. When people ask me where I “summer.” I didn’t know that meant. I didn’t know was a verb yet. But people didn’t spend all four seasons where they were from or or this unpaid internship thing, which I think is ridiculous, though. Yeah, right. Cool summer jobs. Most of them were unpaid. And yet it floored me at first as I don’t get it. Who can take these while everyone can take them? All my friends too, took the jobs at magazines or on Capitol Hill, or none of those jobs pay. Or if they pay, they pay a teeny bit of money. Nothing I could do. So just stuff like that was very new to me.
And I think the funny part about not having as much money about other people is – and it’s not funny I mean, strange – is that there is some kind of shame associated with it or some diminishment. Like who cares in the end that I didn’t know what the words summer meant, but I felt it. I felt badly. I felt left out. I felt diminished in that party. And I felt like I would never fit in with these people who ended up, by the way, being some of my best friends. And that’s another thing that I think I was interested in interrogating. And why is it that there is shame associated with not having as much? And I do think that is related to this whole false story of meritocracy. I think they’re very linked together. And then from Princeton, I had a lot of debt. I also really wanted to know how business works and how the world worked and to make money. And so I went I got a job on Wall Street. And after Wall Street, I got a job in high finance and a private equity shop in Boston. And that was a job that really sort of blew up in my world in the sense of seeing how the other not even the other half other 1 percent lives, because not only was I the first woman to be hired there as an investor, but it was really a place where if you liked finance, you would love this job. We had an in-house masseuse whose sole job was to give us massages if our shoulders were tight and we had – we took private jets everywhere and helicopters and had a private chef cooking all of our meals like it was a really –

Kelly: Wow.

Joanne: – eye opening experience for me. And honestly, the wealth as much as being the first woman there because there were women who worked there. But the women were all more on the administrative side, on the support side. And then I was the first investor to be there. And that was an interesting dance.
And then from there, I you know, I don’t want to get so into the weeds my story. But it just I finally left finance around that time and decided because I’d paid off enough of my college debt at that point that I could at least try to get closer to writing if I dared. And so I first looked at the business side of media. I was still too scared to completely leave the path of finance where I wouldn’t have to worry about money for me or my family, really. But then when those jobs didn’t either work out or appealed to me, then I decided I would try to get into journalism. And that was actually looking back. A great thing to do at the time was a really, really, really hard decision. I remember calling my parents and kind of breaking the news to them that I was going to stop working in business or finance and try to write about the things that I had been doing in business and finance for a lot less money.

Aurora: How did that go?

Joanne: Well, you know, it’s funny. I turn 45 now a year right before the book came out. And my husband gave me the most beautiful speech, very much based on emails he’s found because we’ve known each other forever. And one of the emails he found is from my dad responding to that talk that we’d had and saying to me, “you’ve got one life, live it. We’re so proud of you. Go for it.” You know, you know, right stuff to pay off your debt, but like, try it. And so they were actually supportive in a way I didn’t expect, because for them, I mean, it was also their ticket, right? If I dance. Oh yeah.
Enough to worry either. And they were just so great. They’re so great. So, I mean, the stereotype, the stereotypical story would be that they would be mad that I left, you know, this path of more secure money to try to me. But they really they really supported me
And then once I got a job at The Economist, which is a whole story into itself, because I couldn’t get a job forever. And I was temping on the side and I harassed the bureau chief for a year. I called him or emailed him for a year every week until he agreed to give me an interview. And he actually came to my wedding. We became friends and he said he told that story about me. He’s like, there’s this annoying woman every week when I call or email me, that’s to come and see me. And after a year, he broke and let me in and then gave me an interview. And then I got an unpaid internship there right before I turned 30. So that, you know, and that led to finally a job and a staff job with the economists. But the whole that whole ordeal wasn’t wasn’t easy because I didn’t have any written experience or clips.  But really, the genesis of the Farm is all of this stuff. 
But especially when I started raising my three children in New York and I was I worked full time at the Con, missed my first part time with my second. I stayed home with my third by the time I had my third child. And we had had nannies helping us along the way when I was working. And it occurred to me at one point probably several points. But really one day really, really occurred to me that the only Filipinos I knew in my day to day orbit in Manhattan were domestic workers, were nannies, housekeepers, baby nurses. And, you know, since Princeton, I’d really question began to question this whole notion of an American meritocracy that my parents definitely believed in. They definitely believe that if you work hard and you’re smart and you know, you play by the rules, you’re gonna make it in this country. And at Princeton, that definitely wasn’t true for a number of the kids there who just got in for other reasons outside of strict merit. And it was definitely not true in the case of these other Filipinos. I knew because they worked harder than really anyone I knew. Many of them work seven days a week. All of them were mothers who became my friends. Many of them had lost their kids back home in the Philippines. They were working their asses off. And it wasn’t the American dream wasn’t working for them.
And so that really is the trigger that helped all of these sort of disparate ideas I’d been having coalesced. And it was not just meeting them as also being a mother myself and real a mother with privilege. Right. And both economic and otherwise now.
And realizing that my kids had not just a leg up, but like many, many, many legs up from the kids of the nannies that I knew through no merit of their own. And you know, again, I’m part of this crazy generation where people are buying two thousand dollar strollers and playing Mozart to their fetuses and or only organic food.
Michael, what’s so wrong with a pop tart? I don’t know. That’s how I grew up. But, you know, like it’s gotten to the point where everything’s for the best of these kids. And so that that that made me think even more about what it means, what inequality means. And this crazy parenting in a world where supposedly you make it in merit. And if you don’t make it, I mean, what’s the what’s the opposite of meritocracy if you deserve the success because you earned it? What does it mean when you’re not successful? I say successful in quotes like having money. It means that you must deserve that, too. Right. And that’s that’s and that’s really rooted to some of the that shame. I was trying to figure out why I felt at Princeton. I think it’s because this story puts too much of the onus of success or failure on the individual when there’s so many systemic and other reasons why one person makes one person does it.

Aurora: So many things are running through our mind Right now, I mean, I cannot tell you how parallel so many of the things that you’ve articulated, Joanne, are parallel to my personal life, but I’m going to back us into those questions. But I think first and foremost, what Kelly and I would love. Can you sort of share for our audience sort of a review of what the book a review of The Farm.

Joanne: So if you imagine the most luxurious spa that you’ve ever seen, that would be the farm. The farm is technically called Gold Noakes, and it’s located on 260 of the prettiest acres you’ve ever seen in upstate New York. And the women who stay there get everything. I mean, gourmet meals for every meal. Private massages, private yoga instruction. And they don’t have to pay a dime. In fact, they can make enormous amounts of money potentially as long as they commit to staying there for 10 months. And all they have to do in exchange is agree to be monitored 24/7 and take really, really good care of themselves and be completely cut off from their daily lives because all these women, their surrogates and they’re carrying the babies of the richest people in the world. So that’s the setting for the farm. I tell the story through four different narrators, ranging from May You, who is the very ambitious businesswoman who runs the farm to two of the hosts hosts or what the surrogates are called. And then there’s a fourth character. Her name is added to Evelyn, and Ate means big sister in Tagalog, which is the language of the Philippines, which is where I’m from. And she is this much older baby nurse who works in New York City. She’s pushing 70. And she is someone who’s hustling after the American dream. Hasn’t seen her kids in decades. And it still hasn’t – it still hasn’t happened for her yet, but she still believes it.

Kelly: It was thrilling when we were first told about the book and we kind of got a brief description of it. I was like, oh, this sounds salacious. And I was totally enraptured by it. Page after page. And it almost you when each character and each theme build up this like a heart and intrigue and then this like, oh, my gosh, like, wow, this is part of a bigger picture in our society. And there’s so many themes that we could go through. And the overarching questions that I love how you ask are like, who? Who are we as people and what do we cherish and how do we see others that are different than us.

Joanne: Well, you know, it’s funny. The book has been called by many reviewers and a lot of the readers that I’ve come to meet through social media or otherwise as a disturbed feminist dystopia novel or and or The Handmaid’s Tale of 2019. Those Mary Claire quote quoted, My UK publisher plastered it on subway ads for a time when my book came out in May. And while it superficially, I can see why I write that it’s about women and pregnancy, both of them, and about a woman’s lack of control of her body. The questions that initially drew me into this story were actually not about surrogacy at all. It started with the American mythology of the American dream and layering that with motherhood and inequality and what all of that means. One thing that I really am interested in, and I think one big difference between Handmaid’s Tale and my book is that the women at Golden Oaks, a.k.a. The Farm, all went there willingly. Right? They weren’t forced to be there. It’s not like in The Handmaid’s Tale where they are under duress. They are they have to live with these, you know, wealthy people and help bear their babies. The women, Golden Oaks, like many people in the world today, don’t have very many choices, really don’t have any power. And yet willingly I put willingly in quotes, enter onto these free this free trade. And one of the basic precepts of economics is what you learn within the first few weeks of econ lol is that capitalism is based on free trade and every free trade. is mutually beneficial. Is the word they’re mutually beneficial because both parties came to the trade willingly. And what I want to ask is when inequality and the power differential is that big, can you really say that these free trades are willing? That both sides had free choice (1) and (2) in a time when more and more and more of our life is being pushed into the private sphere, meaning that the market sphere. When? When in the wake of a withdrawal away from religion or other sort of ethical systems, I feel like our new ethics is what the market will bear..And are we okay with that? Do we look around at the world we have today, which is the queue of choices of what the market will bear? And do we feel good about where we are? And maybe some people do. I do not feel so good about where we are.

Aurora: That’s one of the biggest questions, right. You know what the market will bear and assuming that all playing fields are level right exact. And the reality is, is that the playing fields are not level. And you know and I know that this is one of the challenges, you know, with that old adage up or just pull yourself up from the bootstraps. Okay. Yes. If I actually had straps and if I actually had boots.
Joanne: Right. Again, it’s just putting everything on the individual in a way that is not only unfair, but it’s not even true. Like the basic premises of these stories that we tell ourselves to justify what’s going on are just not true. Right. And this is definitely a digression, but I just feel like we’re doing it every possible way. I was at going to literary festival and I was in the Harrisburg train station and the Amtrak was delayed. And I was watching this big TV screen that was on mute probably so little kids around didn’t get scared. But there’s this huge sign on. It said take, take flight, take cover, take action. And it was a whole thing. I was reading the subtitles about how, you know, we can’t really stop shooters. Why? Because we won’t pass gun control. We can’t stop shooters. They may come. Let’s tell you how you handle it. If a shooter comes and I was sitting there thinking, watching this whole video because I was interested in about what I should do in case a shooter came at any point in my life. But thinking where we got into a place where the individuals left to fend for herself with her security, with her health care, with everything, with with her kids futures, nothing. What kind of social contract is it when when most of the population doesn’t have any net? I don’t know what kind of social contract that is. It is. Our social contract is the one that we’ve cumulative cumulatively chosen maybe by not paying attention. I don’t know. But but I it’s that that I wanted to explore. And so I actually don’t agree that the book is, as it’s been called, a dystopian novel in the sense if you believe a dystopia has to be in the future. It was never meant to be a very futuristic book. It was meant to reflect where we are today, pushed forward just a few inches in hopes of putting, you know, telling a good story that got people to get swept along by it, but come out the other end and say, ha, that made me feel really weird. And why did that make me feel weird? Because nothing in it really made up.

Kelly: Well, yeah, and there’s no closure to it, right? There’s no American dream. Happy ending per say. Per say. And I’m not going to give any details away of the book. But I do love the idea of of how you use non closure in it that we’re exploring here. We’re asking the questions and we’re opening a can of worms and we’re not necessarily gonna put all the worms back in the can. Right. And what hit me, one theme that hit me. And when you say the sort of rags to riches American dream, that’s I was under the impression from the white American dream side that that’s how life was. That’s how I grew up. That’s how my dad came from, quote unquote, nothing to something. And it wasn’t until very recently that I realized that would not have been the case if he weren’t white. And I loved that moment. And in the book, where you have one character, a privileged white woman who’s one of the hosts, and she’s under the impression that this is this meritocracy and that we’re all in to help each other. And there’s this moment where she realizes it’s a game and she’s a cog in it. And it’s never going to get better for her. For her, anybody else, and especially these women who have a lot less than her. And that sickening gut punch feeling is something that Aurora and I try to gracefully and without shame kind of on earth from. A lot of her listeners and from myself, because Aurora is was the Antem Jane of the story and I see myself in the Reagans and Lisa’s says of the story of either knowing it’s a game and working the angles or not knowing it’s a game and trying to do my very best. Quote, unquote.

Joanne: Now, that’s interesting. I will say, though, that as a Filipina, I completely believed in and my parents definitely believed in the idea that you could pull yourself up by your bootstraps here. And there is enough truth in the story, or rather, I think we lionize the people that it works for enough that you can make it believable to a lot of people. And I have to say, most of my relatives in Wisconsin, not most, but many, still believe that even though the facts I would be a lie that even maybe for some of them, I don’t know. It’s a handout. I haven’t thought about it deeply. Not, but it’s the idea that you you have the the the token winners out of your group. I am now one of the token winners, I guess, of, if you like it is Filipinos who come here. And so that then makes it seem possible for others. But the question would be. OK. So one person made it out of how many. Does that mean that it’s really possible or does it mean it’s possible for very few and those very few become the good Asians or whatever that good, good immigrant who’s done good and who almost masks a more systemic problem.

Aurora: I think you’re actually spot on, Joanne. And I think that that’s a lot of times while we’re sort of hailed as the example. And I also think that that’s a lot of times where we have to articulate that we are a small percentage of a small percentage. And my biggest fear is that in our current day, America and with the dynamics that you talk about as it relates to meritocracy. I personally perceive the reality is that the gap continues to widen. And so while everyone continues to point at you or me or others that have made it, quote unquote, the reality is that the percentage is getting less and less with people that sort of can cross that abyss. And to your point, there’s no net there’s no sort of structures that in many cases were depended upon, whether those were religious structures, community structures, social policy structures that provide sort of that that nudge that support or that protection as you are trying to toil your way out of an economic reality that just becomes harder and harder in today’s America.

Joanne: Inequality is just factually at levels we haven’t seen since the days of the robber barons. And the question is, if we’re are we really OK with that? I mean, clearly, a majority kind of seems to be because of our president. But I don’t know. I think a lot of people just don’t really. Maybe we’re all busy, right? Maybe just don’t question about enough. And maybe if we just thought about it a bit more and more people would get in the act and something could change. Well, it’s the whole idea that it’s the people who stay on the sidelines who hold up the structure.

Aurora: But that’s the beauty, right? That’s the beauty of your book. Right. Because in a very engaging and using Kelley’s term salacious way, you bring characters to life that ultimately hopefully get people to sort of look around. Right. Because I –

Kelly: And in the mirror.

Aurora: – because I would agree with you. I don’t think people are maliciously opposing a structure. I think people are unconsciously upholding this structure because I’m not sure that enough people are looking around.

Joanne: Yes I completely, completely agree with you completely. This is a much more personal thing. But the book straddles commercial and literary in a way that is can be great and can be a little awkward. Right. So some of my talks are in front of literary crowds who like an. Vancouver recently a literary festival where I’m there with people who are upper Pulitzer Prize and Man Booker Prize and stuff in my book is a lot more commercial in those books and so it feels weird to be on those stages. On the flip side, I’m on stages with often other women writers who are more commercial. And then I’m hoping that my book is is entertaining, but more than entertainment.
Right. I was trying to say something through it too. But the hope is by making it readable and accessible and in a way kind of fun or salacious, as you said, you’re almost enjoying the ride. And you. I’ve definitely had readers say to me that I’ve met at these talks:I came out the other end and I felt so uncomfortable. I felt so uncomfortable. Your book made me feel so uncomfortable. Your book made me feel. Or your book made me think that maybe I didn’t ever really know the Mexican housekeeper raised my kids for twelve years.” So I had dozens of people say that to me and I can’t give anyone absolution for anything. All I say is, “I’m so glad that it made you think.” Or for the women, it’s usually women who say to me, it made me uncomfortable, I love to ask, “What parts of it made you uncomfortable?” Because in fact nothing in the book fundamentally is made up, right? It’s not only that there are surrogacy facilities in the Ukraine and other places, although they’re not luxury, but the whole idea that that starting in utero, these babies being carried by the host get an edge on life is. Yeah. The same as the fact that my children in utero had an edge on life because I now am an edge very educated woman with economic and other means. Right. And so I just made it sexier. But all that stuff exists already. And I’ve had some really great conversations with readers who were like, “well, I didn’t think about it that way.”

Aurora: But I think, Joanne, you are unlocking the ability to move into an uncomfortable conversation in a slightly comfortable. So as we are running around in our worlds unconscious. Right. And I’m gonna give just a simple example and I’m going to take us back to the college example that you talked about.
I now look at my children and having dropped off my daughter at a phenomenal school on the West Coast, when we went through the college touring process, I was so emotional and most people thought most to most people’s perceptions. They thought I was emotional because of the fact that I was nearing the point of dropping off my daughter at school. And actually, while that was part of it, what was much more emotional to me was walking through a lot of what you called out was very emotional when I read the same section in Michelle Obama’s book around being at college. Right. I didn’t have the parents that gave me the tips and tools. Right. I didn’t have the parent that said go to the bursar’s office and see if you can negotiate, you know, 30 more days on the next payment that’s due for your college. Right. Go to, you know, the student services center and. Ask for guidance on how to present your interview or what are the clothes that you need to buy to go to your first interview. Right. These are small, simple, simple things that we know that I certainly didn’t get any guidance for that. Now, when I look at my daughter and I look at my son, oh, my God, we’re arming them. We’re giving them this entire leg up. But at the same time, I am struck with the emotion of all the kids out there that don’t have access to this information. And it’s not written down anywhere. Right. It’s just the guy in it. It’s all the code.

Joanne: It’s all it’s all it’s coded.= So I agree with you. But even just that is creates a huge any collapse. Let’s say some of my friends who are nannies who who don’t know to tell their kids that. And even if I tell them to tell their kids that they don’t feel confident in saying it correct. Nor do they feel they deserve to tell it to their kids. And so that inequality isn’t because anyone’s bad or good or better or not, but it’s just there because of the differential in and just education. It’s and knowledge of the world, you know.

Aurora: And I think that’s the part that becomes very hard for people to to unpack, our collective complicity in the code. Right.

Joanne: But I’m not sure how you get around that.
I mean, well, in the sense of like people are going to people will tend to want to help people that they know more. That’s just how humans tend to be. One thing I do for my kids every morning – my are just a little younger, is I say to them what teacher are you going to pick to talk to you today? Mm hmm. And they are all like I was very painfully shy when I was younger. And they’re all different gradations of shy. But they do it now. Every other other other other time, I tell them. But they do it. And it’s me trying to inculcate in them the fact that when you get to know someone well, one, you are allowed to speak to authority figures. You’re not lesser than they are. They just happen, have authority over you. You advocate for yourself, which I never was taught. But then also when you get to know people and they they like you and people like you, things tend to work better for you. These to be that person. Is it, that I’m complicit in something? Is it that the teacher is complicit in something? Cause the teacher tends to like the kids who try to get to know them? I don’t. I don’t think so. But it’s. But there is that knowledge gap.

Aurora: Yeah. It’s a huge knowledge gap. So one of the things that you also share it is that you have a lot of of your readers, me and many of them being moms, sort of asking themselves the question about their relationship with the nannies. I’m going to assume most of them are minority nannies or support or domestic women or men that they have in their households.

Joanne: This is very basic. But one thing that I have been guilty of in the past, I don’t do anymore. And I notice a lot of people I know say it is “My nanny, she is part of the family, or our housekeeper she’s been with us x years, she’s part of the family.” And what I’ve started to say, I’ve started not to say that because I realize is it’s just not true, because if something happened and I and I wouldn’t fire a member of my family. My I don’t mind if a family member is very, very tired and just doesn’t do any work and help me out for a few days. Or maybe I do mine, but I yell at her and, you know, whatever. It’s like different with family. It’s not. No matter how much you love the person working for you, they’re not family. And and maybe it’s more honest to say, I love the person working for me and I’m a great employer to her. And so I pay her well and I give her personal days and is often vacation. And I help her with her health benefits. And she’s not part of the family. But I do my best so that she is happy and proud to work here and I really care for her. And that’s I’m just because I feel like the mask of family can somehow sometimes mask, not abuse is too strong, but letting the lines blur in a way that benefits the boss. Oh, but they’re family. So does it matter to ask them to walk the dog to a better whatever it is? And I also think it can send confusing signals where the person working there who already often, at least for my students, doesn’t feel that she has a lot of agency to demand, a lot feels while I’m part of the family and I love the kids and they love me. So it’s OK if I’ve worked late three times this week or. Right. And so it’s a funny balance. I say that I’m the worst employer in the sense that I don’t know how not to befriend people who I’m around. If they like and they don’t like me, then it’s out of my control. But in general, I’m curious about people. I like them and it does complicate things. But it’s the only way I know how to be. You know, I’ve had friends tell me you get too close. And then later, you know, I’ve lent people money and I’ve got involved their kids. I don’t know how to do it otherwise. Maybe the best way is to be totally professional, but then you lose out on a lot of richness, too. I think we have to just be OK with the fact that it’s a complicated relationship and to be a great employer who who also loves the person working there. It’s not black and white and the lines are fuzzier, but at least it gives you a goal to be as fair as you can be.

Kelly: Yeah, there’s there’s just so many themes. There’s everything from America being the double edged sword of, you know, are you young, are you strong, are you rich versus are you old, are you feeble? And, you know, people in America, they hide those old people, people away. It just, you know, seeing the youth in it and seeing the elderly in it. There’s so many intersections.

Kelly: Just the culture, especially now that I’m 46. You know, it’s funny. This is a writer who I start I came into fruition in my 40s and everyone has the list. It’s not just writers, but New Yorker has that 30 under 30 in the business magazines have 40 under 40. I’m like, what about the 70 under 50? What about the rest of us who are late bloomers? Because we kind of swerved along the way. I mean, why do we have to make it so? Yes, I think I put that in there to some degree because I mean, I’m like, I’m getting a late start, guys.

Aurora: Is just such that such a great segue, because one of the things that I certainly kept thinking about as I read the book is, OK, which one is Joanne? And I actually I don’t I’m going to let you answer. But I I really kept asking myself throughout the entire book.

Joanne: Yeah, I did. Yeah, I didn’t. There’s no one character that is fully me, but I definitely was feeding my experiences and thoughts about things into all of them. So for May Yu is the woman who runs the farm. And there was a time right out of college when I was very ambitious in a way that all this also resonate with me in Michelle Obama’s book, how she went straight into corporate law and her brother went straight into finance. And then and then she found out through doing it that she wasn’t where her hand was. I mean, mine was – my path was a little similar. And since it went well, I had a lot of college debt, too. But but it was I kind of needed to learn how to make money and know that I could do it to be able to say, yes, I’m not that ambitious in this way and this is not what I want to do. But I had to go there first. May Yu is still there. She still really loves it. But so there were things that were very much drawn from my younger self that I put into it May yu. A lot of her – not struggles, but the dance she dances being one of the few women are really the only managing director at Golden Oaks or Holloway, which is a conglomerate that owns this farm, was very much, I think from my experiences in finance and and and the stricter and harsher standards that women are held to and so that a lot of that find its way into me, you have to say a lot of my new like my adult self, at least the questions I ask myself, being now a person of privilege who is very cognizant of all these issues and what is the right way to be and what’s the right thing to teach to my kids? And walking the walk when I teach it to them and all that kind of stuff is very much in Reagan, which is why when some readers and reviewers have called her some avatar of white guilt, I take out the white. I think it’s more her questions are as a person of privilege, she sincerely wants to do right. And and she just doesn’t know how. Right. And and is still blinkered in a lot of ways how she sees the world. But I find I have a lot of similar questions. And I’m now in a world where I feel like you know, how much does philanthropy help? Is it okay to not really think about the bigger issues in the world, but you give money to your on the model and a museum and whatever? I mean, maybe that is OK. I have a lot of questions about that for myself that that would make me feel that I was doing as right as I could be doing. And so those a lot of those questions and is helping, really helping and how much of charity is makes lucky people feel better about themselves while they live in a world that is deeply unfair. A lot of those questions are mine that I wrapped up in her and I used Reagan to be able to explore a lot of those questions. And then for Jane and I, I just know so many women like them both from my childhood and spending time and my with my dad’s family. And then in New York, knowing so many of these women who work in domestic work and then their stories, I fully lifted the story about the Filipino couple who brought over Saigon, Dina, who is a Filipino and basically and trap her is we have family, friends. My family did both doctors. So they made good money. And they there was a housekeeper. I remember always in the house, they got out of jail on the path. I don’t even know five years, eight years ago, because they had never paid her. And so they were jailed for slavery. So that’s a long real story.

Kelly: Yeah, the description of the disparity of living in a dorm like really tenement like conditions to the point 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 percent or life, I mean, it keeps you reading. It’s so intriguing. And either world I knew like that your insight or your description’s incredible.

Joanne: Well, the dormitories in Queens, those are real. And I’ve known a number of Filipino women in domestic work who live in those dormitories because you can save money by renting a bed by the half day, depending on if you work the night shift or the day shift. And for the landlord, because when I heard the prices that my friends paid, the landlord is making it right. If you’re still paying for hand bucks a month for a box, for half a day’s use of your one court, and in one room there are five bunk beds, meaning ten beds. That is making so much money in his room or woman, I don’t know who the landlord was. And then now that since the book has come up, I heard from readers in Hong Kong, it’s all over. And so a lot of the countries abroad with a migrant workforce have these dormitories, which are a lot bleaker apparently than what we have in Queens.

Aurora: So it is again, that’s not made up. Kelly and I talked about the fact because I’m quite familiar with those dormitories in migrant way of surviving, living, you know, coming from a migrant Mexican community myself. So. And I think that’s, again, back to your point. I think that’s the beauty in this. Kelly said that was completely something that was not on her radar screen, not something that she could even imagine or think of is a way the way of life between window.

Kelly: And I had no idea that existed. It’s amazing to just have really I had no idea. And to this day and exists right now, it sounds like something that was like old fashioned and back in the day in my white mind.

Joanne: I didn’t know. I have to tell you, because in Wisconsin, where land is cheaper, we didn’t have there weren’t those sort of dormitories. I did until my friends told me here in New York, I didn’t know that either. And then when I talked to my friends abroad, like, yes, they’re everywhere in Hong Kong no one can afford. There’s so many Filipino and other worker migrant workers in Hong Kong. It’s a very expensive town. So and very I mean, dormitories were not nearly even this space in Queens all jammed in there.

Kelly:I’m so and I’m so really anxious to ask you. But what is next for you, Joanne?

Joanne:Well, until very recently, I was only writing things related to the book. You haven’t asked her a lot of communities or articles for different women’s and other magazines. And so I just don’t have the space for it. But a few weeks ago, I started working on something. You know, I think how it worked for the farmers that had all of these ideas. And I tried to find stories that would let me air them out. And I wrote for a year and a half every day really bad stuff and nothing was working. And then I came upon the idea of a baby farm. And so right now, that’s where I am. I there’s certain ideas that are starting to obsess me. And so I’m starting to write my way into them. But that I don’t think I’ve anything good yet.

Kelly: I’m a 40 year old obsessively reading your book. And if there was like a, you know, Babysitters Club series that went off on all different tangents of all these different characters, I would be, you know, at the day it came out or to preordering it or whatever on Amazon and getting it as quick as possible and audible. I mean, I just finished it and wanted more, more, more, more, more.

Joanne: Oh, well, thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I don’t even know. I got to tell you, it’s funny. I was talking to a writer I met recently who said that I should write the next thing in the vein of this one, because I now have a base of fans and it’s important for my brand. And I don’t want to blow you just do you read a brand? And so my next thing may be totally different. I really don’t know yet.
I just hope that it’s something true and that it’s a good read that makes people think right. But I don’t know that because that I’ve been asked if I would write ever a prequel to add to or a sequel or something like that. And I would tell you, I actually love these characters and I could someday see it. But because I’m so new, this is such a new career for me. I want to try something really different. Even at the risk of alienating fans, because I don’t know. I don’t I think entertainment is great. It’s not what I’m going for. I’m hoping to go for something entertaining. That’s true wherever that takes me. So while we’re sure my agent may not be happy here.

Kelly: We say ditto to that.

Aurora: Well, wherever it takes you, we will be on the front lines eager and excited because we cannot thank you enough for bringing these characters to life in a way that would not only interesting and page turning, but I think fundamentally to the intention that you had, which is to make us think, to make us examine, to make us look deeper into the relationships and and also to the realities of our world. So one of the things that we always ask our guests before we wrap up is, you know what? What would you what would be your call to action? What would be your opt in requests for those listening and hopefully those who have had the privilege of reading your book?

Joanne:At the most basic, it would be to really try.
Someone said to me that in this group I’m part of a sort of a political group, that he is to be a much more conscious about how he enters a room, who’s there, how he’s presenting himself. And that sounds very blurry and fuzzy and maybe a little Lucy, Lucy. But I think I think it matters. I think some of the reason this is a little bit of a digression, but very recently I ran into my freshman year roommate, one of one of three from Princeton, who really intimidated me. If she’s listening to this, you did, Naomi, you did intimidate me because you’re from a world that I didn’t understand. And she had read my book and she said to me. And she and another roommate who went to boarding school and also was from a world that scared me. She said, we feel so badly. We had no idea that you were born in the Philippines, that they’d read my book. And I love my book. And they understood the themes and they felt terrible that they didn’t see me, that they didn’t see me right back then. And this could seem like a very heartwarming story. It wasn’t not a heartwarming story, but it was uncomfortable for me because I don’t know. I just don’t really feel like going back there to that 18 year old who felt. So unsure about who she was and everything, everything, really, actually. Everything in my life I was unsure about then and trying to fit in, but not even knowing what world I was trying to fit into. Like it was all very confusing, but it was a great talk because I said to her, I don’t know that you did anything wrong. For sure. Because I don’t think that I was ready to let people know that I was an immigrant to this. I was trying to fake it till I made it at Princeton. I wasn’t wearing myself on my set, my heart on my sleeve about how I felt about things. But I do think that if both she and I had been a bit more conscious about how we walked into a room and who was there and how we were presenting ourselves, and that the person across from us might have a different story, just that openness that maybe we wouldn’t have lived together for a year and not know each other at all. At all. I mean, we’re I’m 40. We’re 46. We finally had this conversation. It was great, but it was strange. And and and it made me think a lot about all those intangibles that you can’t legislate into action, but different ways that we can in our own small way, see each other more and make those connections. And just being a little kind to someone who comes from a different place from you, I may not have the privilege. You may feel insecure, who may feel she doesn’t belong? That if I entered the room to see that in someone and make that person feel a little welcome, you don’t know where that goes, what that could change. Exactly. And so that would be my very long winded and very long call to action.

Aurora: That’s absolutely beautiful. Thank you, Joanne, for taking the time to connect with us

Kelly: Thank you.

Kelly: Uh Joanne!

Aurora: You all couldn’t see but I was crying rivers talking to Joanne.

Kelly: I know, girl.

Aurora: There’s something about that connection, you know? She and I both saw each other – that connection is inexplicable.

Kelly: It was really special to be a witness to that.

Aurora: So if you haven’t already, pick up a copy of the Farm, go and read that book! We’ll have a link in our show notes.

Kelly: We want to hear from you — catch us on Twitter, IG and Facebook @theoptin and let us know your thoughts about today’s episode. What’s your relationship to your babysitter, housekeeper? Are there any relationships that you’re interrogating after this episode?

Aurora: And make sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts… it really helps so much.

Kelly: Music is by Jordan McCree and The Opt-in is produced by Rachel Ishikawa.

Aurora: Talk next week.

Kelly: Bye.