The Immigrant Experience in America (TIEIA)

Michelle Doan was born in Vietnam in 1970 and left at nine, on a thirty-meter fishing boat carrying more than three hundred people. Her mother traveled with six children, and the younger ones could not swim. After about a week at sea and a year in a refugee camp in Thailand, the family was sponsored by St. Patrick Catholic Church in Burlington, Ontario. Michelle later moved to California, became a U.S. citizen, and in 1998 started Emani, a vegan cosmetics and skincare company for acne-prone, sensitive and hormonal skin. In this episode of The Immigrant Experience in America, she tells Simone how a childhood of survival became the foundation for a business.

The conversation moves between the boat and the boardroom. Michelle describes selling sweet buns in a camp market at nine years old, cold-calling beauty stores out of the Yellow Pages with a product her own skin could tolerate, and an unpaid $80,000 in invoices that ended her first clothing company. She talks about the "ugly duckling" voice that followed her through high school, why she spent her first decade in North America wanting to be less visible, and what changed when she turned fifty. She also takes on Simone's question about the Black Tax: what it looks like in Vietnamese families, why arriving empty-handed to visit relatives is considered rude, and how her family sends money home when floods hit.

In this conversation, Michelle and Simone talk about:

- The crossing: a fishing boat, a night swim to shore in Thailand, and a mother who sewed gold into her children's sleeves to trade for housing in the camp - Arriving in Canada in 1980: bloody noses from the cold, a pile of donated coats on a dormitory floor, a first taste of bacon and spaghetti, and a church sponsor who met the family at the airport - Moving to California in 1985 and never leaving - Starting Emani in 1998 and going fully vegan by 2008, before it was fashionable - Why her Korean lab partner's fermentation process, not a Vietnamese tradition, became the science behind her serums - The ugly duckling voice, and why Michelle says the quality of our thoughts equals the quality of our life - Giving back: sending money to Vietnam after floods, and Emani's work with Dignity Not Despair supporting refugees with daily essentials - Assimilating first, reconnecting later: her annual trips to Vietnam and wanting her children to see it - A hard year for small business: a soft economy, tariffs and tougher e-commerce, and how Emani is using AI tools for back-office work - Her advice to anyone starting over: learn the language, be humble, and do not take things personally

THE CULTURAL FAUX PAS MOMENT Teased by boys in Burlington as a new arrival, Michelle did what any kid who had watched enough Bruce Lee movies would do. She pretended she knew Kung Fu. They believed her, and they ran. Hear how a stereotype became a survival tool, and what she says about leaning into her culture instead of away from it.

WHO THIS EPISODE IS FOR

- Refugees and children of refugees, and anyone whose family started over with almost nothing - Immigrant founders who built a business without an MBA, a network or family money - Immigrants who spent years trying to blend in and are now finding their way back to their roots - Anyone who carries a harsh inner critic and wants to hear how another immigrant learned to quiet it

ABOUT THE GUEST Michelle Doan is the founder and creator of Emani Vegan Cosmetics, a minority-owned small business that makes vegan makeup and skincare for people with acne, sensitive and hormonal skin. Born in Vietnam, she lives in Southern California.

Emani: https://emani.com Amazon: [add Emani Amazon storefront link] Facebook and Instagram: [confirm exact handle: E-M-A-N-I] Dignity Not Despair: [add link if Michelle wants it included]

ABOUT THE HOST'S BOOK Decoding America & Coming Home to Yourself: The Immigrant Experience (Revised Edition, 2026) by Simone W. Johnson-Smith (first edition: International Impact Book Award winner)

Print: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HN8X225F Audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated; also available through Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo and Spotify): [add audiobook links]

#TheImmigrantExperienceInAmerica #DecodingAmericaFauxPas #ImmigrantStories #RefugeeStories #VietnameseAmerican #BoatPeople #ImmigrantFounder #VeganBeauty #SmallBusiness #BlackTax #ThriveAbroad

------------------------------

WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE?

New to the U.S.? Start here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Already established, and Michelle's story about sending money and support home hit close? Start with the free Black Tax Boundary Kit: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html Then, if you want to build your plan together, apply for a free Chemistry Call: https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068 Weekly reflections on culture, money and belonging: The Thrive Abroad Brief on Substack, https://thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-immigrant-experience-in-america/id1595952623 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3mGh6jXRtwFf4QCkwNFYPg Amazon (book): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HN8X225F Patreon: [add Patreon link] Website: https://thebridgeconcepts.org LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonewjohnson/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimmigrantexperiencepod/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Got a cultural faux pas story of your own? Share it in a 15-minute Cultural Faux Pas Moment: https://calendly.com/theimmigrantexperience/15-mins-faux-pas

Want to share your immigrant story on the show? Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

This podcast is for storytelling and education only and is not legal advice. For questions about your own immigration case, please consult a licensed immigration attorney.

Twelve weeks ago, Simone started this series with a number most of us never write down or even talk about. In week twelve, the last of this stretch, she does three things: walks you back through where the series has been, widens the circle, and extends an invitation.

She gives you the thread in case you joined late: the number that is never written down, honoring your mother and funding your future in the same breath, the system nobody explained, the two cups, your real number, and the four conversations that follow. The line between obligation and manipulation, which is a hard line to draw when you love people. A room in Alpharetta where about twenty people told each other the truth. The five-year cost of staying stuck. And last week's look behind the Immigrant Wealth Code and who it is not for.

Then she widens the circle. She will keep calling the series Black Tax, because it is the name many of us grew up hearing, but she knows it is not the word every family uses. Some call it family obligation, some call it what we do for home, and some never gave it a name. In a 2023 Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) and Los Angeles Times survey of immigrants, 65 percent of Black immigrants and 52 percent of Hispanic immigrants said they send money to relatives or friends in their birth country at least occasionally. The name changes from one family to the next. The weight does not.

Then the invitation: Simone is opening the founding cohort of the Immigrant Wealth Code, the first cohort. She is taking eight founding members, and the cohort begins Saturday, November 14. Over six weeks, you meet live on Saturdays at 10:00am ET for 75 minutes. You also get support between sessions in a private Skool community, a one-on-one closing session with Simone, replays of every class, and a signed copy of the Revised Edition of Decoding America. The work starts with the weight, not the spreadsheet, then builds your real number and your security number, then writes the words for the conversations that make the plan real. She teaches it as education and is not a licensed financial advisor.

She also repeats briefly who it is not for: anyone who wants to be told to stop giving, and anyone looking for investment or tax advice. It is for high-achieving immigrants, first or second generation, who love their people and are tired in a way a raise did not fix. Simone closes with her faith and the idea at the center of this series: you can love your people and still plan for your own future. Those two things belong together.

This episode is for anyone who has followed the Black Tax series and wants to know what comes next, and for high-achieving immigrants ready to look at their number and learn the words.

Two ways to begin

1. Apply for a Chemistry Call before Saturday, November 7. One real conversation about where you are and whether the Code is the right fit. If it is not, Simone will tell you and point you to what is.

Apply here: https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068

2. Join The Giving Plan Live, free. Build your real number and write your first script with Simone, live. Saturday, October 24, 10:00 to 11:15am ET. Live only, with seats capped at 25.

Register here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/masterclass-registration.html

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 in print on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-America-Coming-Home-Yourself/dp/B0DMWQ1GLR/), and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio. She is also host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#ThriveAbroad #BlackTax #ImmigrantWealthCode #FoundingCohort #FirstGenImmigrants #FamilyObligation #DecodingAmerica

New to the U.S.? Start here: thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Not started yet? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first: thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief on Substack: https://thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: https://thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonewjohnson/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimmigrantexperiencepod/

Facebook: @simonewjohnson

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

In 2023, Simone decided to stop: the doing, the chasing, the traveling, the fixing, the rescuing, and the saving. She opens week eleven of the Black Tax series there because she owes you a plain answer to a plain question. You have heard her talk for ten weeks about the number, the conversations, and the cost of waiting. At some point you are allowed to ask, and then what?

This week she takes you behind the scenes of the Immigrant Wealth Code. She starts with what it does not do: it does not begin with a spreadsheet, because the spreadsheet was never the first problem. The first problem is the weight. She shares what Pew Research Center found in its 2026 report: 71 percent of Black immigrants in the U.S. had given financial support to family in the past year, compared with 58 percent of U.S.-born Black adults, and among Black adults who gave, one in four said it significantly hurt their own finances. That research measured giving, not guilt, but if you have lived it, you can fill in the rest.

From there, Simone walks through how the Code is built. First, naming the clash as normal: sending money home, covering a sibling, and answering the call at midnight are acts of love shaped by cultures where family is the safety net, carried into an economy that was never built with us in mind. Then the mechanics, which she keeps light on purpose: your real number (what you give, what it is for, and what it costs you), your security number (the amount that lets you sleep at night), and the difference between provision and accumulation, stewardship and stockpiling. Then the conversations, including what she calls weaning with dignity, where the love stays and the pattern changes slowly. Underneath it all is her faith: the wealth you build is not a betrayal of where you come from, it can be the fruit of it.

She is also direct about who the Code is not for: anyone who wants to be told to stop giving, anyone looking for an investment pick, tax strategy, or legal advice, anyone who wants the numbers without the conversations, and anyone for whom this month is about survival. If you want the numbers without the conversations, she points you to the Giving Plan Workbook. If this month is about survival, she points you to the free Black Tax Boundary Kit and invites you to come back when you have room to breathe. She teaches this as education and is not a licensed financial advisor.

This episode is for high-achieving immigrants, first or second generation, who love their people and are tired in a way a raise did not fix, and for anyone who wants to know what the Immigrant Wealth Code actually is before they ever get on a call.

Saturday, October 24: The Giving Plan Live Want to see how Simone teaches? Join The Giving Plan Live, a free working session where you build your real number and write the first script for the hardest of the four conversations, live, with Simone. Saturday, October 24, 10:00 to 11:15am ET. Live only, with seats capped at 25. Register here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/masterclass-registration.html

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 in print on Amazon (https://www.amazon.com/Decoding-America-Coming-Home-Yourself/dp/B0DMWQ1GLR/), and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio. She is also host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#ThriveAbroad #BlackTax #ImmigrantWealthCode #FinancialClarity #FirstGenImmigrants #DecodingAmerica

New to the U.S.? Start here: thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Want to start with a conversation about where you actually are? Apply for a Chemistry Call: https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068

Not started yet, or this month is about survival? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first: thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief on Substack: https://thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America

Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: https://thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonewjohnson/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimmigrantexperiencepod/

Facebook: @simonewjohnson

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

Sara Fashandi left Tehran, Iran, in 1977 as a teenager to study in the United States. Her mother, a seamstress who had married at fourteen, had a vision of educating all seven of her children. Sara's oldest brother, Mohsen, went first in 1973 with $300 and very little English, and he eventually brought five of his siblings to the U.S. In this episode, Sara tells me how that family story became two books: Message in a Matchbox (2022) and From Tehran to Tomorrow (2026).

We talk about growing up in Tehran in the 1960s and 70s, a father who was a cobbler, and a mother who taught sewing and would not teach her daughters to sew. Sara shares the story Mohsen waited decades to tell: three nights homeless in Washington, D.C., sleeping in a park across from the Greyhound station. When she asked why he never told her, he said, "some stories you just don't tell." We also talk about what it costs the person who goes first and the family who waits. Sara's family went almost a month without knowing whether Mohsen had arrived safely, until a blue aerogram came in the mail.

We also get into the gap between learning English in school and understanding it at full speed, what it means to feel American and Iranian at once, and what it feels like to become a foreigner in the land of your birth. And Sara brings two Cultural Faux Pas stories that still make her family laugh.

If your family sent one person ahead, or you have been meaning to ask your parents or grandparents for their arrival story, this one is for you.

TIMESTAMPS

0:00 Welcome and meet Sara Fashandi

0:41 Leaving Tehran for Ohio State in 1977

1:51 A family reunion contest and how Sara became a writer

3:58 Her father the cobbler and growing up in Tehran

6:14 European fashion, loud gatherings, bingo and poetry

8:32 Two seamstress mothers, one in Iran and one in Jamaica

11:03 Message in a Matchbox: Mohsen's childhood

16:48 Three nights homeless: "some stories you just don't tell"

18:21 How Mohsen brought five siblings to the U.S.

21:59 Her mother the motivator, her father the quiet support

24:52 What writing the story taught Sara about her family

27:08 The sewing classes that changed the family's finances

29:40 Arriving in the U.S. as a teenager: missing her parents and the language

33:29 West Virginia, Ohio and Midwest weather

36:20 Getting a student visa in the 1970s versus today

40:34 How the siblings stayed close

46:33 What it costs the person who goes first and the family who waits

51:23 The blue aerogram

52:18 My aunt, the first in our family to come

56:07 What Sara hopes readers take from the books

59:35 Feeling American and Iranian at once

66:31 Third culture kids and the 300 million of us

70:39 A foreigner in the land of your birth

71:43 What Mohsen would want you to know

73:52 The Cultural Faux Pas Moment

74:24 Story one: the phone call and the elevator

79:38 Story two: the uniform mix-up

82:36 Where to find Sara and her books

87:07 Giving back

About the Author: Sara Fashandi is the author of Message in a Matchbox, a multi-award finalist memoir about her brother Mohsen's childhood in Iran and the sacrifices of a mother determined to give her children a better life, and its sequel, From Tehran to Tomorrow, which follows Mohsen to the United States. From Tehran to Tomorrow on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Tehran-Tomorrow-Sara-Fashandi/dp/B0H5T81QW5/ Sara's website: https://www.sarafashandi.com/

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 24: The Giving Plan Live Already established, and Sara's story about family sacrifice and obligation hit home? Join a free working session where you build your real number and write the first script for the hardest conversation, live, with me. Saturday, October 24, 10:00 to 11:15am ET. Live only, seats capped at 25.

Register here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/masterclass-registration.html

Want to start with a conversation about where you actually are?

Apply for a Chemistry Call: https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068

New to the U.S.? Start here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief: https://thriveabroad.substack.com

Decoding America & Coming Home to Yourself: The Immigrant Experience by Simone W. Johnson-Smith is available in print on Amazon and as an audiobook on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers.

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Website: https://thebridgeconcepts.org

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonewjohnson/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimmigrantexperiencepod/

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

#TheImmigrantExperienceInAmerica #DecodingAmericaFauxPas #ImmigrantStories #IranianAmerican #PersianAmerican #ImmigrantMemoir #ThirdCultureAdults #ThriveAbroad

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

The Immigrant Experience in America

Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Share your story with us: thebridgeconcepts.org/podcast.html#share-your-story

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.

For five years, the idea of writing a book for immigrants sat at the back of Simone's mind, nudging. She didn't write it. Nothing was broken enough to force the question. She tells you that because she knows what five years can hold when nothing looks wrong. Staying stuck rarely arrives as a crisis. It arrives as a normal month, repeated sixty times.

This week, Simone talks about what it costs to wait. Not to scare you, just to wake you up. After weeks of talking about "the number," she puts one on the table: $500 a month sent home, handed to a cousin, or covered for a sibling, with no plan behind it and no agreement on what it's for. That's $6,000 a year. In five years, $30,000. She isn't saying you shouldn't have sent it. Some of it was love, and some of it was exactly what someone needed. She is saying that when the number has never been written down, you can't tell which was which. And that's only the part that shows up on the statement. The other cost doesn't have a column: the conversation rehearsed in the car and the shower and never had, the account you keep meaning to open, the version of you waiting for a calmer season to begin.

She also tells you about "Dana," a composite of several women she has sat across from. Dana sends money every month the way her mother did, without ever discussing it. Five years in, she has been promoted twice and is more tired than the day she started. Nothing has gone wrong. That is the whole difficulty: no single moment announces itself as the one to act on. If you're doing that math in your head right now, this isn't a verdict. You did what love and loyalty asked of you with the information you had. A wake-up isn't shame. Shame says you should have known. A wake-up says now you do.

This episode is for anyone quietly running the numbers on what they've sent home without ever writing them down, and for anyone who keeps telling themselves they'll deal with it "after the holidays" or "after things settle down."

The Giving Plan Live Already established, and the financial piece resonated? Join The Giving Plan Live, a free working session where you build your real number and write the first script for the hardest conversation, live, with Simone. Saturday, October 24, 10:00 to 11:15am ET. Live only, with seats capped at 25. Register here: https://thebridgeconcepts.org/masterclass-registration.html

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio. She is also host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#ThriveAbroad #BlackTax #ImmigrantExperience #FinancialClarity #DecodingAmerica

New to the U.S.? Start here: thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Want to start with a conversation about where you actually are? Apply for a Chemistry Call: https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068

Not started yet? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first: thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief on Substack: https://thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music Support the show on Patreon Visit: https://thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonewjohnson/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@theimmigrantexperience Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theimmigrantexperiencepod/ Facebook: @simonewjohnson

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

On June 27, about twenty of us sat in a room in Alpharetta and asked each other one question all evening: are you lost in translation? Simone had run the event in her head a dozen times, the panel questions, the timing, the logistics. What she hadn't planned for was how the room would answer back.

On the panel, Dalkeith Thomas talked about something a lot of the room recognized, walking into the U.S. school system with no map for it. Not the curriculum. The culture underneath it. The different assumptions about discipline, about what it actually takes to get a room of students to want to participate instead of just showing up each day. He said if someone had warned him what he was walking into, the strategies he'd actually need, he would have started differently. Nobody had warned him. He had to learn it by living it.

By the time the room reached the closing moment, the Declaration Collection, where each guest chose one scroll, one word to carry out of the room with them, "I Belong," "I Am Rooted," "I Have a Voice," it stopped feeling like an event Simone was hosting and started feeling like a room testifying to itself. Here's the part that undid her: nobody picks their word. The scrolls are drawn at random, one by one, and as each person read theirs out loud, she watched the room landing, again and again, on exactly what that person had carried into it. She wasn't expecting it, but she teared up watching it happen.

Nine weeks in on the Black Tax, the number, the scripts, the difference between obligation and manipulation, and all of it is still theory until a room full of people sits across from you and says, mine too. Sip & Share was the proof that this isn't just Simone's story. It's the room's story.

This episode carries the series into its final stretch, and for the first time it comes with two ways forward: apply for a Chemistry Call, one real conversation about where you actually are, or join the free live working session Simone is hosting next month, where attendees build their number and their first script together in real time. Registration is open now and capped, so it's worth not waiting too long.

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#SipAndShare2026 #LostInTranslation #BlackTax #ThriveAbroad #ThirdCultureSuperpower #DecodingAmerica

New to the U.S.? Start here → thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Sound like your own week, your own family, your own quiet exhaustion from translating yourself all day? Apply for a Chemistry Call, one real conversation about where you actually are. → https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068 Or join

The Giving Plan Live, a free working session where we build your number and your first script together. Registration is open now and capped. → https://thebridgeconcepts.org/masterclass-registration.html

Not started yet? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief. → thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

There is a difference between giving and being drained, and for a long time Simone could not tell you where one ended and the other began. In week eight of the Black Tax series, she draws the line.

She opens with the image she's returned to throughout this series, two cups, one pouring into the other, running dry if nothing ever pours back. In collectivist cultures that's supposed to be the whole point, everyone gives and everyone's cup gets refilled somewhere down the line. It works, until it doesn't, until you're the one always pouring and can't say exactly when your own cup went empty. Simone shares that she didn't grow up hearing the words self-interest or boundaries, and that giving from a collectivist mindset toward people operating purely from self-interest doesn't make you generous, it makes you prey. From there she brings in a story from her friend and past podcast guest Stella Leaburn, who described being the go-to person, the one everyone calls first, simply because she did better, and who sent money for years to cover a relative's school fees only to find out it was funding a second house. Stella's line is the one Simone builds the whole episode around: a lot of the time, they will try to make you feel guilty. That is emotional manipulation. Simone draws the distinction plainly, between giving that's actually needed and gratefully received, and giving that's become someone else's excuse to stop trying, and names what it looks like when someone would rather you work yourself into the ground than adjust how they live. She's direct that when you stop, the other person doesn't stop living, and that a pattern repeated over and over eventually stops being their problem and becomes yours. This is also the one week in the series where she uses the word boundary on purpose, defining it not as walling off the people you love but as naming clearly the difference between a need and a demand.

This episode is for anyone in this series who already has their number and is starting to notice how often guilt shows up disguised as obligation. It's a direct, unflinching episode, and one of the more personal turns the series has taken.

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#BlackTax #GivingPlan #EmotionalManipulation #ImmigrantFinance #DecodingAmerica #ThriveAbroad #FirstGenWealth

New to the U.S.? Start here → thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Learning to tell the difference between a need and a demand? Get The Giving Plan Workbook, including this week's module on naming manipulation for what it is. → thebridgeconcepts.org/giving-plan-workbook.html Not started yet? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html Ready for the fuller plan, built around your specific number? Apply for a Chemistry Call. → https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068 Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief. → thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

You have the number now. In week seven, Simone moves from the math to the words, the actual language for the conversations that come up again and again once someone starts trying to live differently with what they've learned.

Simone is direct about the gap between knowing and doing: having the number does not automatically give you the sentences, and she's held a real number in her own head while still saying yes to something it couldn't afford, simply because she didn't have language ready that felt like both love and honesty at once. She walks through four distinct conversations, each requiring different language because each is actually asking something different underneath. The first ask sets the pattern for every ask after it, and it's where the number gets used for the first time, not as rejection but as information. The repeat ask carries its own guilt, the sense that consistency of love requires consistency of amount, which she names directly as untrue. The extended family or community ask often isn't about money at all, it's about a role or an assumption from someone who barely knows the real situation, and needs less explanation and more clarity, since over-explaining reads as guilt and guilt invites negotiation. The hardest of the four is the ask disguised as an emergency, because urgency short-circuits the pause that would otherwise let someone check their number first, and telling a real emergency from a learned pattern, in the moment, under pressure, is a skill nobody hands us on the way in. She closes by pointing listeners to the Giving Plan Workbook for the actual scripts, and teases a live session coming soon, the first of its kind for the show.

This episode is for anyone who has the number from the last two weeks and is still missing the words to use it out loud. It sets up the close of the second month of the series and previews a live format the show hasn't done before.

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#BlackTax #GivingPlan #ImmigrantFinance #DecodingAmerica #ThriveAbroad #FirstGenWealth

New to the U.S.? Start here → thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Ready to learn the actual scripts? Get The Giving Plan Workbook, real language for the four conversations that come up again and again. → thebridgeconcepts.org/giving-plan-workbook.html

Not started yet? Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Ready for the fuller plan, built around your specific number?

Apply for a Chemistry Call. → https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068 Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief. → thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Pitch your story to us: https://form.jotform.com/262255221488054

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.

Jason DeSouza, Esq. is the founder and lead trial attorney of D'Souza Injury Lawyers in San Antonio, Texas — an intentionally lean, thirty-person practice focused on oilfield, trucking, and serious-injury cases in the smaller South Texas communities that bigger firms often overlook. Born and raised in Toronto to Indian immigrant parents, Jason moved to the U.S. for law school, met his wife (and now firm CFO) on the third day of orientation, and built a career and a citizenship that were never guaranteed — he wasn't even a U.S. citizen when he founded his firm in 2015, and spent years navigating a green card system that offered no real certainty. This conversation moves through the layered pressure of being a child of Indian immigrants expected to become a lawyer, doctor, or engineer, and the quieter rebellion of choosing personal injury law over the corporate track his community expected. Jason talks candidly about a formative early case — a Mexican immigrant dishwasher hurt on the job, dismissed as replaceable — that became the moment he understood exactly why he practices law. He also speaks to the real, present-day resistance he faces representing oilfield and trucking workers in small Texas counties where he's been made to feel like an outsider for doing exactly that, and to what it actually meant to become a U.S. citizen in 2018, not for sentiment, but because he wanted the right to vote in the country he'd built his life in. This episode is for immigrant professionals carrying the weight of proving a sacrifice was worth it, for anyone who's had to separate what success was supposed to look like from what it actually means to them, and for anyone building something meant to serve the people other people overlook. Learn more or reach Jason directly: search DeSouza Injury Lawyers online, or find the firm on Facebook and Instagram.

New to the U.S.? Start here → thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Ready to build your real number? Get The Giving Plan Workbook, the full picture of what comes in, what goes out, and the honest number that makes it sustainable. → thebridgeconcepts.org/giving-plan-workbook.html Not started yet?

Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Ready for the fuller plan, built around your specific number?

Apply for a Chemistry Call. → https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068 Want the conversation to continue weekly?

Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief. → thriveabroad.substack.com

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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Share your story with us: thebridgeconcepts.org/podcast.html#share-your-story

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.

Last week's question was whether anything was flowing back into your cup. This week, Simone gets specific about the number underneath that question, the one most of us have never actually written down in full.

Simone draws a clear line between a starting number and a real one. The Black Tax Boundary Kit gave listeners a rough sense of what leaves and what stays, real and enough to begin with, but a real number means writing down everything that comes in, not the version said out loud at gatherings, and everything that goes out to family, including the parts that stopped getting counted because counting them felt disloyal. She names a pattern worth sitting with: we round the number in our own favor without meaning to, not from dishonesty but because the real number is uncomfortable, and rounding is how we avoid sitting with it, whether that means underestimating what we give or overestimating what we can actually afford to keep giving. Her core claim is direct: a plan built on a rounded number is not a plan, it is a guess wearing the clothes of a plan, and guesses tend to fail exactly when the pressure is highest. She walks through what building the real number actually involves inside the Giving Plan Workbook, income, recurring support, the one-time asks over the past year, personal savings, and the honest gap between what is being given and what can be sustainably given without a person's own future going to zero. She closes with a specific instruction: once you have the number, do not act on it right away, sit with it for a day, because it is not a verdict on how much you love your family, it is information.

This episode is for anyone who has done rough math on the black tax before but never let themselves see the full, honest number. It sets up next week's turn toward the actual conversations, what to do once the number is known.

About Simone W. Johnson-Smith 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 in print on Amazon, and as an audiobook (ElevenLabs-narrated) on Spotify, Barnes & Noble, Rakuten Kobo, and other major retailers via InAudio — and host of this podcast, reaching listeners in over 100 countries.

#BlackTax #GivingPlan #ImmigrantFinance #DecodingAmerica #ThriveAbroad #FirstGenWealth

New to the U.S.? Start here → thebridgeconcepts.org/newcomer

Ready to build your real number? Get The Giving Plan Workbook, the full picture of what comes in, what goes out, and the honest number that makes it sustainable. → thebridgeconcepts.org/giving-plan-workbook.html Not started yet?

Get The Black Tax Boundary Kit free first. → thebridgeconcepts.org/black-tax-boundary-kit.html

Ready for the fuller plan, built around your specific number?

Apply for a Chemistry Call. → https://form.jotform.com/261967575607068

Want the conversation to continue weekly? Subscribe to The Thrive Abroad Brief. → thriveabroad.substack.com

The Immigrant Experience in America Subscribe on YouTube: youtube.com/@theimmigrantexperience

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music

Support the show on Patreon Visit: thebridgeconcepts.org

Follow along: LinkedIn | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook

Share your story with us: thebridgeconcepts.org/podcast.html#share-your-story

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.