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The Black Tax: Whitewashed (Ep. 226 - Week 2 - 90-Day Black Tax Series)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Release Date: 08/17/2026

The Black Tax: Honor Your Mother and Fund Your Future (Week 3 of 90-Day Black Tax Series)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Honoring your roots and funding your future can feel like a choice between two competing instructions. In week three of the 90-day black tax series, Simone makes the case that they were never actually in competition, even though it can feel that way when the phone rings and the math does not add up. Simone traces the belief back to something nobody taught her directly, a feeling absorbed in the space between what was said and what was implied, in the quiet math of every dollar that left before she asked whether it should. She widens the lens beyond her own culture, naming how this shows up...

The Black Tax: Whitewashed (Ep. 226 - Week 2 - 90-Day Black Tax Series)

The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Has anyone ever called you that? In week two of the 90-day black tax series, Simone unpacks what happens the moment you try to change a pattern you have already named, and the specific word that tends to show up right when you do. Simone traces the accusation back to a clash she names directly, the collision between a collectivist, communal cultural dynamic and the individualistic boundaries needed to function and stay whole while living abroad. She is careful to separate the pattern from the people in it, naming that most of what gets asked of us is asked out of real need, and most of what we...

The Black Tax, Brown Tax, Utang Na Loob (Week 1 - 90 Day Black Tax Series, Ep. 225)

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...

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Simone traces the accusation back to a clash she names directly, the collision between a collectivist, communal cultural dynamic and the individualistic boundaries needed to function and stay whole while living abroad. She is careful to separate the pattern from the people in it, naming that most of what gets asked of us is asked out of real need, and most of what we give, we give out of love, while also naming a harder truth, that some of what circulates are stories built to extract money while the person abroad quietly absorbs the cost in their own health and peace. The core of the episode is a piece of timing she wants listeners to actually notice: nobody calls you selfish for the first nine years of saying yes, the word tends to surface exactly once, in the exact moment you say something different than expected, and that timing is not a coincidence, it is information. She is honest that she has not fully resolved the harder question underneath it, telling the difference between a boundary that protects something real and one that is avoidance wearing healthier language, and names that changing will make people around you uncomfortable, so finding real community, coaching, or therapy to support the work matters as much as naming the pattern itself.

This episode is for anyone who has been met with silence, a look, or a missed phone call the moment they tried to do something different than what was expected of them, and needed to hear that the accusation is not proof of wrongdoing, sometimes it is only proof that something is changing.

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 host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#BlackTax #Whitewashed #ImmigrantFinance #DecodingAmerica #ThriveAbroad #FirstGenWealth

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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.

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