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The Black Tax, Brown Tax, Utang Na Loob

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Release Date: 08/07/2026

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

First of the 90-Day Black Tax Series There is a number most of us have never written down. Not because we cannot do the math, but because writing it down makes it real. In this solo episode, Simone opens the first installment of a ninety-day series with a topic she has carried personally: the black tax, the ongoing financial responsibility so many of us hold for family and community back home, or family who followed us here and never quite landed the way we did. Simone walks through what the black tax actually is, the phone call, the tuition, the medical bill, the funeral, the moment saying...

Simone on Speak Harmony Podcast - "Are You Lost In Translation?" (Ep. 224)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

I recently sat down with Sharon Thompson and Dr. Sharon Reid on the Speak Harmony Podcast to talk about something most of us carry quietly — the self we translate away just to feel acceptable in a new place. We got into what "lost in translation" actually means. It is not the word that gets lost. It is the self. The version of you that was shaped by a particular soil, a particular faith, a particular way of understanding respect, time, and belonging — and what happens when you land somewhere that runs on entirely different, unspoken rules. From there, the conversation moved through third...

Cafecito Cultural Interview: Are You Lost in Translation? (Ep. 223)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

In this episode of The Immigrant Experience in America, Simone W. Johnson-Smith joins Rosa Bel and the Cafecito Cultural community of educators for a conversation on what actually gets lost when we cross a border: "Are You Lost in Translation? How Culture Shock Shapes the Core of Our Identities." Drawing from her own journey as a Jamaican immigrant and 15 years in U.S. federal service, Simone unpacks why culture shock is not a single event but a slow identity negotiation, one that can quietly reshape a person over a decade or more if it goes unnamed. This conversation explores the three stages...

Machan Taylor - The Voice Behind the Legends

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Before she ever stepped onto the world stage with Pink Floyd, Sting, Foreigner, Pat Benatar, George Benson, Michael Jackson and more, was a little girl relocated from Japan to suburban America, carrying the lifelong ache of not fully belonging anywhere. That experience of being wrenched from the life and culture that was familiar to her, growing up in a deeply dysfunctional family, with an American born father who cheated on her native Japanese mother and came home from work each night drunk deeply scarred Machan for decades. She struggled to find her identity, struggled with...

MaChan Taylor (Episode 222) - Part 3

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe to our YouTube Channel: Listen to more episodes on: 💼 Apple Podcast: 💼 Spotify: 💼 Amazon: 📱Support our Patreon: 📱Connect with Simone! 💼 Website: 📱 Follow us on Social Media: 💼 LinkedIn: / simonewjohnson 💼 Instagram: / theimmigrantexperiencepodcast 💼 TikTok: / theimmigrantexperience 📱 Share your story with us: 💼 Disclaimer: The Immigrant Experience in America podcast is produced in my personal capacity. The views and opinions shared by me and...

MaChan Taylor (Episode 221) - Part 2

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

MaChan Taylor (Episode 220) - Part 1

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Ukranian Migrant Using AI to Build a Business - Dima Negodiuk (Episode 219)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

In this powerful episode of The Immigrant Experience in America, Simone speaks with Ukrainian immigrant Dima Negojuk about his family's extraordinary journey from war-torn Ukraine to rebuilding their lives in New York. Just days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Dima's young son was diagnosed with a brain tumor. When war broke out and hospitals shut down, the family faced two battles at once: a devastating war and a life-threatening medical crisis. Forced to leave everything behind—including their business, home, and financial security—they arrived in the United States with only two...

Mental Health of Immigrants | Neither Here Nor There (Episode 218) - Part 3

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

In this powerful episode of The Immigrant Experience in America, Simone W. Johnson sits down with Dr. Leide Porcu, psychotherapist, psychoanalyst, and author of Neither Here Nor There: A Guide for Immigrants and the Therapists Who Walk With Them. Drawing from her own lived experience as an immigrant and decades of clinical practice, Dr. Porcu unpacks the emotional and psychological realities many immigrants carry but rarely name, identity fragmentation, suppressed distress, and multilayered grief. This conversation explores why immigrants often feel unseen in their mourning, how cultural...

Mental Health of Immigrants | Neither Here Nor There (Episode 217) - Part 2

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

More Episodes

First of the 90-Day Black Tax Series

There is a number most of us have never written down. Not because we cannot do the math, but because writing it down makes it real. In this solo episode, Simone opens the first installment of a ninety-day series with a topic she has carried personally: the black tax, the ongoing financial responsibility so many of us hold for family and community back home, or family who followed us here and never quite landed the way we did.

Simone walks through what the black tax actually is, the phone call, the tuition, the medical bill, the funeral, the moment saying yes overrides our own goals without us ever deciding it should. She names the same pattern as it shows up under different words in different cultures: the brown tax in Latino households, utang na loob in Filipino families, a debt of gratitude that never quite finishes being repaid. Different words, the same weight. She is direct about what this is not: not a discipline problem, not a character flaw, not something unique to people who are bad with money. It is leftover survival math, arithmetic that made sense once, in a different country, under different pressure, and never got updated for where we are standing now. She also draws a distinction worth sitting with, between giving that is freely chosen and giving that has quietly become extraction, and is honest that untangling the two is bigger than one episode.

This episode is for the immigrant professional who has never once written down the actual number, the ones with two degrees and a title on the door who could not tell you what they have saved for their own future, because the number has never been asked out loud. It is the opening of a ninety-day arc that will stay on this exact topic across the show, the newsletter, and the coaching, not identity in general, not culture in general, this specific weight and what it takes to build wealth without losing yourself or the people you love.

About Simone W. Johnson-Smith Simone is the founder of Thrive Abroad and The Bridge Concepts, LLC, a Jamaican-born American intercultural strategist, coach, and former U.S. diplomat. She is the International Impact Book Award-winning author of Decoding America & Coming Home to Yourself: The Immigrant Experience, available on Amazon and everywhere online globally, and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#BlackTax #ImmigrantFinance #DecodingAmerica #ThriveAbroad #ImmigrantExperience #FirstGenWealth

Already carrying the weight of this conversation? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit, a free starting number and three scripts for the conversations that get hard. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Want to go deeper, on your own terms, at your own pace? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief for weekly insight on this exact topic across the next ninety days. → thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute legal or financial advice. For guidance specific to your immigration status, consult a licensed immigration attorney. For guidance specific to your financial situation, consult a licensed financial professional.

First of the 90-Day Black Tax Series

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