For centuries, communities across Latin America have relied on curanderos — healers who rely on indigenous tradition — for their physical and mental health. Will mainstream American health ever embrace it?
For centuries, communities across Latin America have relied on curanderos — healers who rely on indigenous tradition — for their physical and mental health. Will mainstream American health ever embrace it?
Today, we examine the subject. Read the full transcript here.
Host: Gustavo Arellano
Guests: L.A. Times utility reporter Karen Garcia
More reading:
Some Latinos don’t trust Western mental health. That’s where curanderos come in
Curandera’s spell may soothe your soul
Bringing medicine from the village into the public eye
Gustavo Arellano: Rates of mental illness are on the rise across the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that every 1 in 5 people will experience it within a given year. But mainstream talk therapy doesn't work for everyone, especially if your culture looks down on it like Latinos. Hate to say it, but the stigma around one of us seeking mental health service is real. But we also have an alternative, traditional healing methods, and more and more people are seeking them.
Gustavo Arellano: I'm Gustavo Arellano. You’re listening to “The Times: Essential News From the L.A. Times. It's Friday, April 7, 2023. Today we look at curanderas and curanderos, healers who draw from Indigenous traditions to treat not only the mind but also the body and spirit.
Gustavo Arellano: Karen Garcia is a reporter on the L.A. Times’ Utility Journalism team. Karen, welcome to The Times.
Karen Garcia: Gracias.
Gustavo Arellano: So before we really get into this, we should probably offer some definitions for listeners. So, when people talk about traditional healing, what do they mean in general?
Karen Garcia: Traditional healing is practiced by folks who are guided by their ancestors, their elders and sometimes generational teaching. Sometimes it's a mix of all three. And their service is to heal people, specifically the people in their communities. So this method of healing is focusing on the whole of the person, the mind, the body and the spirit. But the philosophy behind curanderismo is that diseases aren't just caused by physical factors, but also social, emotional, environmental and spiritual ones. So they look at this entirety of a person because they believe it's all interconnected. If you have maybe like a stomach ache or something, but you're also feeling stressed, well you can't heal one thing without the other. And these healers that are approaching the whole of the person are usually approached by people that either don't trust traditional Western medicine or have felt that their needs weren't met by traditional Western medicine. And that could be because they felt that they weren't heard in the clinical setting, they felt that maybe they were seen, but their issue wasn't entirely fixed. And so their trust is lost over time. And they're looking for an alternative.
Healers typically practice from their home or community spaces, and they make house calls as well. But a home office is the most common workspace for a healer. And it's not your typical clinic setting. So there's no white walls. We're not looking at fluorescent lighting. It really is a spare room. Sometimes it's a room in the back. And it's a homey setting. It's chairs that are close together. So it's like an intimate conversation that you can have with your healer. There might be a desk, maybe not. There are also the tools that they're going to use. So you might see candles, you might see a copal. It is very much an inviting, and I would say, vibrant setting.
Gustavo Arellano: So among Latinos then, when we talk about traditional healing, what are we talking about? Like, what do the actual practices entail?
Karen Garcia: Well, there are different types of healers that fall under the curanderismo umbrella, and there are parteras, there are midwives, yerberos who work with herbs and then there are curanderos that heal the mind, body and spirit. But each has their approach to healing according to their cultural or Indigenous teachings. But what makes them so special is that specifically the people in their community trust them.
Karen Garcia: The community gives them credibility that their work has helped them in some capacity, and then they spread the word of their work to others. And so whether that's a yerbera that uses specific roots and herbs to make a tea to treat diabetes or even an ulcer. It really just depends on, again, their traditional or Indigenous teachings.
CLIP: We also will use our herbs, the different colors to represent the flowers and the medicines that we use to heal.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, I think the one thing that non-Latinos know about curanderismo, at least, is like this tradition of wiping you with an egg, then breaking the yolk. I know I've seen it in bad Hollywood movies. Uh, is that curanderismo?
Karen Garcia: The use of the egg is only part of it.
Clip: Esa es el blanquillo o huevo que se conocen para la limpia espiritual
Translation: This is the egg yolk or egg that’s known for its spiritual cleaning.
Karen Garcia: A limpia is a spiritual cleanse that removes negative or stagnant energy from a person's body. And that limpia, or how curandero conducts that, really depends on the person and their needs.
So the egg can be used to remove the bad energy away from the body. It is a lot of intentional movement, from one section of the body. Usually from the top to the bottom or wherever that negative energy is permeating the body. A limpia could start with prayer, asking for guidance and clarity at the start of the session, and then from there the healer starts a burning of herbs and copal in a smudge bowl and moves that around the body to get it ready for that session.
(A clip of a man speaking in Spanish)...The concept of the egg is that it is the largest living cell. And this can absorb the negative energy, or the negative vibrations of the body.
Karen Garcia: But other tools can be used for that too. Specifically a healing feather or a crystal. But with each tool, the curandero or curandera moves with intention, it's not just the physical that they're working to move the energy away from, but it's also the spiritual that they're in tune with. So they have a sense of where that negative energy is hovering over the body, and how to move it out.
Gustavo Arellano: So where do these traditions come from? The roots of curanderismo?
Karen Garcia: But there was a slight change when Spain colonized Mexico in 1519, the existing cuanderos had to implement European practices of healing. So whether that was using specific herbs or incorporating specific spirits or saints into their practice, that's when they had a mesh, a mishmash of what people use today.
Practicing healers say that the healers before them adapted to survive. So it wasn't necessarily that they were excited to incorporate these new teachings, but they did it because they wanted to continue serving their community.
Gustavo Arellano: Did your family ever, uh, take you to curanderos?
Karen Garcia: I never experienced a curandero, or spiritual healer, but I have extended family in Jiquilpan, who have talked about getting limpias and ridding themselves of bad energy in their bodies. But my parents were more about taking me to a doctor and whenever I needed something, let's make a phone call, let's make an appointment. So I kind of missed out on that.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah, no, I, I ask you because my mom would take us to sobadoras, you know, they're kind of like masseuses, but kind of not, like, not exactly a chiropractor. It's always hard to explain it to, uh, non-Latinos. But that was it because my mom looked down on other types of healers because, you know, frankly, she'd say, son, “de diablo,” they're from the devil. And that's a stigma that I've always seen thrown against curanderos. Uh, like that there's something dangerous about them. Did you ever hear that?
Karen Garcia: Definitely. Curanderos have had a bad rep. There's been so much stigma against them, especially with communities that are very religious, whether it's Catholicism or Christianity. But they were almost seen as brujos, as witches, as people that were, like you said, dealing with the devil, but that's not it.
Gustavo Arellano: It's interesting you say that because traditionally at least that's what both of us encountered within our community, but I'm also seeing more of an embracing and acceptance of curanderos in recent years, especially among younger Latinos. Why did that shift happen?
Karen Garcia: I think this generation of Latinos and Chicanos are reconnecting with their cultural practices that might have been passed down to them, maybe skipped their generation and they're learning new things and part of that is learning about spiritual healing and how that can really help their health, their mental health, or just getting a counseling, a guidance service.
TAPE: I am a woman who is afraid to say depression, I am learning the uses of rosemary oil. I'm trying not to be embarrassed about my Spanish, divided country girl, girl who washes herself with poems and finally gets to the therapist. Lucky that of 50 counselors I'm assigned the one who is also a curandera, who tells me, Ariana, it is OK to not know the names of your ancestors, to have lost the specifics the Western world would have you believe that only what is written is true. We never really lose, we never really lose our ancestors. Do you feel them in the room with you now?
Karen Garcia: And for many of the interviews that I've done, the clients that saw a healer, they saw them because they felt a connection, a cultural and a human connection that they felt lacked in, whether it's the therapy office or doctor's office. And that's why they sought out their spiritual healer.
Gustavo Arellano: We'll be back after this break.
Gustavo Arellano: Karen, so to highlight curanderismo, you followed one for an entire year and you met, of course, a lot of people along the way and talked to a lot of folks, but your focus was on one woman, Grace Sesma. Who is she and why her?
Karen Garcia: So I found Grace when I was searching online for practicing curandera.
Grace is a Mexicana Yaqui whose ancestral roots are from Sonora in Baja California.
Karen Garcia: When she was a teenager up into her 30s, whe said she was visited by spirits of her Indigenous grandmothers who urged her to return to the ways of the ancestors. And before her healing work, she founded Mana of Imperial Valley, which was an organization promoting advocacy and leadership of Latinas and Chicanas. She was also an admin of a psychiatric program, and she started a consulting practice specializing in PR and cultural competency.
She realized that she wanted to continue helping the community in a different capacity. And so she started her apprenticeship, um, with a curandero in Tecate, Baja California, and really started to begin to understand that healing of the whole person, that philosophy.
Karen Garcia: Grace is now a practicing curandera in Alpine, Calif., and Colorado. She gives talks about curanderismo. She's trying to advocate for the acknowledgement of curanderismo, curanderos in the medical and mental health communities, because it is not widely accepted, especially in the U.S., she's doing it with the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine, a global community of medical professionals that are working toward holistic health. So she shares her work and what curanderismo is with this community so they can push out that message to the rest of the medical field.
Gustavo Arellano: So when you're hanging out with Grace, who was going to see her? Who are her clients?
Karen Garcia: So I'm really grateful that Grace allowed me to observe her work for three days in Alpine, Calif. And what I found, as many of her clients that came to see her in those three days, identified as Chicano or Latino. But Sesma says that people of all races and ethnicities, religions and gender, reach out to her for her services.
Karen Garcia: Her home office, which you can get to by going through her side gate, is a really sun-lit back room, that has a table, two blue comfy chairs that are really close together. She's got a turquoise dresser that holds all her tools for her sessions, which include, like, feathers, her candles, but she's also got a lot of colorful artwork on the walls. So it's a very inviting and warm space. And the minute you come in, she welcomes you with a smile and open arms. She's ready to heal, to help.
Gustavo Arellano: I’m sure since mainstream doctors or therapists aren’t referring new patients to Grace, that's why she's doing the advocacy work that she’s doing to legitimize curanderismo. So how is Grace finding new clients?
Karen Garcia: A lot of her clients hear about her through word of mouth, but people also find her online. People find her when they hear her after a talk, when she attends protests or speeches, and people talk with her and realize that she has this healing capacity and then they seek her out for her services. And they see her for various things, PTSD, nervios, which we call panic attacks, susto or trauma, depression, and even spiritual counseling.
Karen Garcia: One of the clients that saw her over the three days that I was observing was Roberto Camacho, a Chicano journalist who freelances for news outlets throughout San Diego County.
And he told me that he sought counseling from Grace to clear his mind and body of self-doubt and negative thoughts. At the time he was making a lot of life-changing decisions like moving out of the state and applying for jobs in a completely new area. And he needed to just clear himself of the worry that comes with that. And he found that solace with Grace.
Gustavo Arellano: Had Roberto tried, quote unquote regular types of therapy, like talk therapy before he went to Grace?
Karen Garcia: Actually, he shared with me that he and his partner both identifying as Chicano and they followed their cultural practices of seeing a spiritual healer. So to be honest, no. His gut instinct was to see Sesma first.
So this is not something unique. Data continues to show that Latinos do not seek out therapy or mental health support at the same rate as other racial or ethnic groups. The CDC collected data throughout 2021, and those numbers have shown that the rate of Latinos seeking help have been pretty static over the last few years.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah. And that's a weird thing because we talked about the stigma around curanderismo, but there's also the stigma about just seeking quote unquote regular mental health.
Karen Garcia: Yeah. So stigma around traditional mental health still prevails in the community. It's still, oh, you're loco If you need mental health services, maybe you're weak. You know, I don't need that. I'm strong. I, you know, I can, I can shove that away, but it's also that people that are seeking mental health services aren't finding a connection with therapists that maybe don't understand their culture, that don't understand their family dynamic.
So they often decide not to seek services because they don't feel heard, seen or understood. But also there's that stigma with curanderismo because it might not align with your religion. You think that curandero is a bruja or a witch, you don't necessarily understand that it's not about witchcraft, it's just about connection of the mind, body and spirit, connection of understanding, you know, your body, your whole body works together. So there is a lot of stigma surrounding both. But there are some Latinos and other Southern Californians who aren't necessarily connected to Latino culture or Indigenous culture that turned to curanderismo because they felt their needs weren't met because they felt that they weren't heard in a traditional clinical setting.
So they feel some type of connectedness to a healer that understands them, who gets that, that their family isn't gonna understand why they're there, why they feel that their heart is hurting and it's not real pain, but it's a mental health issue.
Gustavo Arellano: When you were there with Grace, what were other people telling you about, like, their experiences with her or just curanderismo in general?
Karen Garcia: So the consensus that I heard from her clients was that they were happy with the amount of time that she spent with them and not just that, but that she was listening to what they had to say. A lot of her clients say that they felt called to or connected to Grace on a spiritual level. And so when they walk away from a conversation with her, from a session with her, there's a calmness that they're gonna go out into the world and continue on with their life, or there's a calmness that they can now tackle whatever challenge they had, or that they're facing. Creating this safe space so people can share whatever their mental health issues are, whatever their burdens are, allowing them to really express themselves and give them guidance or give them a limpia and they can continue on with their lives.
Gustavo Arellano: How did a typical session go, at least the ones that you saw.
Karen Garcia: So a typical session goes, and I'll talk about Roberto Camacho's session. He told me that this was the second session he was having with Grace.
Karen Garcia: It started with the smudge bowl.
And as she had herbs, and copal inside, and she moved it around his body to bring good intention to that session. And she asked for guidance. She prayed, and when it was done, they both took breaths and went inside her office and they had their platica, heart to heart.
And he talked about what was on his mind, his struggle with looking for a job out in that new area. What the move was gonna mean for him, and during this time, during this heart to heart, not only is Grace listening and offering advice, but she's also sharing experiences of her own, which made that session, and all her sessions, are unique.
Karen Garcia: It's not just listening to the client offering advice or prescribing next steps, but really it's that connection. She's sharing her experiences, letting them know that they're human. This happens. You're not alone. And so after they talked about it, they reviewed what he was gonna do and they went outside to end their session. And she ends it with a limpia as well. And so she brings out that tool, the smudge bowl, and she brings out whatever the client brings, whether that's stemmed roses without the thorns so that she's not hurting them as she's sweeping the bad energy away. Or it can be rosemary. And so she uses that to, again, brush away all the negative thoughts, energy, and give Roberto a clean slate to go into this next stage of his life.
Gustavo Arellano: More after the break.
Gustavo Arellano: Karen, like we said earlier in the United States, non-Western medicine, there's always been a stigma attached to it, looked down upon, seen as especially not legitimate, Nowadays, what are the views of the mainstream mental healthcare system on curandera practices?
Karen Garcia: You know, Alicia Torres, who is a faculty member of the College of Education at the University of New Mexico, he told me that a big part of this resistance is, you know, not taking the time to understand or learn about curanderismo. It could also be because it conflicts with a medical professional's religious beliefs. It also could just be that they think that curanderismo is hocus pocus, but there are a lot of factors as to why it's not widely accepted. But those have to be the main three.
Gustavo Arellano: Yeah. It's interesting because at one point what was once seen as traditional healing methods from Asian societies, like acupuncture or even something like yoga, you know, stuff for mental health or just, uh, holistic healing, it was also once ostracized, but now it's mainstream. What is it about Indigenous methods from Latin America to heal that make it harder to legitimize for them?
Karen Garcia: It's really difficult to definitively measure the medical benefits of spiritual healing. And there is almost no data on that. And Western society does rely on studies and research for legitimacy. So it is really hard, I think, for a lot of people to accept it or want to validate it because there is no data.
Gustavo Arellano: So are people trying to get data to legitimize curanderismo?
Karen Garcia: The Universidad Intercultural del Estado de México, that’s in San Felipe del Progreso, is working with another university in the country to study how acupuncture and traditional healing herbs have synergy to treat some diseases on the patients that visit their program, they offer a bachelor's in intercultural health, um, a five-year degree program that focuses on four healing methods, Mexican traditional healing, Chinese acupuncture and psychosomatics and conventional medicine. Students that earn their degree then work in clinics, in hospital settings alongside doctors. So I actually spoke to a recent graduate of the program, Vanessa Carrillo Sarmiento, and she now works at a hospital in the town of Santa Ana Nichi in Mexico. And it's a population of nearly 3,000 mostly Native Mazahua people. And she wasn't met with name calling, but she wasn't entirely accepted by her colleagues.
Karen Garcia: So she really had to work hard to educate her colleagues of her traditional massage work, her holistic approach to caring for patients post-surgery. Not only did she have to educate them, but the people that saw her, she had to, you know, explain what her work was, how she would help them. And she talked about how difficult it was because there weren't very many patients seeing her, if at all. And it was really that educational piece of sharing her work that helped her peers understand what she did, and eventually led them to refer patients to her. And once those referrals came in, word of mouth referrals between patients started happening. And that's what made her experience worthwhile.
The program director at the university, Rafael Colin, said something that really stuck with me.
TAPE: We're gonna revolutionize the world of healthcare in Mexico.
At the end of the day, Colin says that their work, their holistic work, it doesn't need to be legitimized, it just needs to be respected and permitted.
TAPE: It's two separate things. Having curanderos and having the, these health professionals, they're separate things. Mm-hmm. Even though they coexist and in, in the university, they have, like, a community where they exchange knowledge. Mm-hmm. They're separate kinds of, of knowledge.
Gustavo Arellano: Do people want curanderismo to be legitimized? You know, because then if it becomes legitimized, does it rob it of its power, you know?
Karen Garcia: It's interesting that you bring that up because Sesma said she was interested in the work that the Universidad de México is doing, but she's worried about that. Just that, of it being…
Gustavo Arellano: Like, co-opted, you know.
Karen Garcia: Yeah, and of the government having a say in what is taught or how it's taught.
Gustavo Arellano: So finally, Karen, where do you think then that traditional healing, like curanderismo, is going to go? Like, will it ever make into the mainstream of mental health care?
Karen Garcia: So I'm bringing it back to Alicia Torres from the University of New Mexico, who talked about countries like India and China, where modern medicine has merged with traditional medicine and the potential that their clients get to choose one or the other, or both for their healing services. And when he went to the Universidad in Mexico, with his staff, he saw that traditional medicine and these holistic practices were working hand in hand to heal people. And he decided when he left and was returning to the U.S. that he wanted to do the same.
TAPE: This is what we need to meet the needs of those that are uninsured, especially those 11 million immigrants that live here. The only time they go to the hospital is when they're really sick and they go to an emergency room, which is overcrowded and understaffed.
TAPE: And so the goal of it is to take the ancient knowledge. Mm-hmm. Uh, that's traditional in Mexico and, and medicine that has been going on for years, mm-hmm, and has demonstrated it, it's effective. And so it's about making it, uh, to professionalize that.
Karen Garcia: And it's similar to California and other states where Indigenous leaders are pushing for Medicaid reimbursement for traditional healing services that are beneficial to tribal members and their mental health.
Karen Garcia: At the end of the day, Sesma says she doesn't have the skill set of a physician, for example, but a physician doesn't have her skill set, so she poses a question, why can't they work together for the benefit of the patient's whole wellbeing?
Gustavo Arellano: Karen, thank you so much for this conversation.
Karen Garcia: Gracias a usted, thank you for having me.
Gustavo Arellano: And that's it for this episode of “The Times: Essential News From the L.A. Times.” This episode was produced with the support from the Solutions Journalism Network, through its health equity initiative. Madalyn Amato and David Toledo were the jefes on this episode. It was edited by Jazmín Aguilera, and Mark Nieto mixed and mastered it. Our show is produced by Denise Guerra, Kasia Broussalian and David Toledo and Ashley Brown. Our editorial assistants are Roberto Reyes and Nicolas Perez. Our fellow is Helen Li. Our engineers are Mario Diaz, Mark Nieto. Mike Heflin. Our executive producers are Jazmín Aguilera, Shani Hilton and Heba Elorbany and our theme music is by Andrew Eapen. I'm Gustavo Arellano.
We'll be back Monday with all the news and desmadre. Gracias.