Lisann Valentin | Generations Living Vibrantly

Lisann Valentin began her family history journey by exploring why her Puerto Rican great-great-grandmother was called La Irlandésa, or “The Irish One.”  Along the way she discovered the things her ancestors were known for “had nothing to do with their careers, it had everything to do with how they showed up vibrantly in their life.”    She uses the inspiration of their lives to support her own dreams and how she shows up in the world.

About Lisann:

Lisann Valentin is a professional actor, a best-selling author & 5th generation shaman.

Through every career change, this multi-hyphenate has leaned on the legacy of belief her family inspired within her. From Wall Street to red-carpets, her lineage led her to intuitive coaching where she seamlessly helps empathic leaders within the corporate world and entertainment industry.

You can see this film and television actor recurring on the Netflix series Manifest, or you can learn more about her coaching practice at LisannValentin.com

 Website: www.LisannValentin.com
Instagram: @LisannValentin

Get your free workbook, Success is Found in Your Roots, at heathercmurphy.com/successworkbook

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Transcript

LisannValentin | Generations Living Vibrantly

Episode 63 – Stories in Our Roots

[00:00:00] Heather: Hi Lisann, thanks for joining me today.

[00:00:03] Lisann: Thank you for having me, Heather.

[00:00:05] Heather: Would you just given a little introduction about yourself, please?

[00:00:08] Lisann: Sure. I'm Lisa Valentine and I'm a professional storyteller. is that enough? Would you like me to go further?

[00:00:16] Heather: well, where are you from?

[00:00:18] Lisann: Yeah, sure. I'm from New York City, but back and forth to Puerto Rico, all while growing up and currently. I currently am an actor on a show called Manifest that's airing on Netflix. I'm also an author, which is actually something that I love to do to tell stories whether it's written the written word or like we're doing today, and I'm an amplifier. So I'm a coach on multiple levels and storytelling has everything to do with that because I get to hold space where people tell me their stories.

[00:00:51] Heather: That is wonderful. Well, can you start and tell us the story of how you started becoming interested in learning about your ancestors?

[00:01:00] Lisann: Sure. So in my Puerto Rican family, my grandfather was like the patriarch of us all and he, he helped raise me. And so I refer to him as Papito and he would talk about his grandmother who helped raise him. And she was a renowned healer in Puerto Rico, but they called her la Irlandesa, which meant the Irish one. And I just didn't understand, I was like, So wait we're we're Puerto Rican, but she was Irish? How'd that happen? And there was no context. Other than that, she had Irish heritage. And, and I had so many questions about like the plant medicine she used and why. And was that really her job job? Or like what did no one, it was just like, the stories that they told about what made someone special and wonderful had literally almost nothing to do with what they did for a living.

So she was a homemaker and when people did come to her and that was her profession, I imagine, or at least it was her call. They learned about the plants that would help them. And so my grandfather would teach us about the plants that he learned from her and all the really mystical things that also had nothing to do with the, on the surface level, which we were Catholic. We're all super Catholic, but all the mystical stuff had nothing to do with it apparently. And there was, again, no context. So I started researching.

I wanted to know who she was. And I also was really interested in my grandfather's last name because the other curiosity is that Millayes, or in Spanish, Millayes, is not a common name in Puerto Rico.

They always ask, even my mom growing up, who grew up in Puerto Rico, was asked where'd that name come from? You, where are you guys from? So I started searching and I think this was, maybe Ancestry existed or had just was a nascent station, um, stages of existence. I was using, like, whatever there wasn't even Google. I don't think that I was using whatever search engine was available. I was using, started looking at Millayes to find her right this my, my grandmother, my two times great grandmother who was known by the name, Juana. Which again, for context in Puerto Rico, like everyone has a nickname that's not their given name.

So like, what was her real name? Do you know what I mean? There were so many mysteries here, Heather. So interestingly enough, I found so many records leading to France, leading to Spain, leading to different parts of the UK, where the name Millayes is originated, which again, how did it get to Puerto Rico? So this was, this was let, this is the mystery that led me on the journey that has taken me I would say decades.

[00:03:30] Heather: that, that is great. Tell me more about your grandmother or your grandfather's 

[00:03:37] Lisann: grandmother. 

Yeah.

Yeah. 

[00:03:39] Heather: Yeah. and how you learned about her and put together the pieces to some of these, all these questions that you had.

[00:03:46] Lisann: Well, so with her, he said that he apprenticed with her. Right. Even though she was raising and he was working and he was writing out, he would say the recetas, so the prescriptions for people. And so then I would ask, okay, so she was from Puerto Rico? Yes. I was like, okay. And your mom, her daughter, was also from Puerto Rico. Yes. Um, but we're also Spanish. Okay. Wait, so they were born here or not? No, they were not born here. and I was like, okay, please explain. Like, and the thing is what I learned in this process of asking not only him, but other Puerto Ricans with similar stories was that in Puerto Rico, there was a fear to say that they were not aligned with, basically American culture.

So once, um, the US took over Puerto Rico from Spanish rule there was an allegiance made that you'd sort of like withdrew any affiliation with Spain, and now you are American by way of Puerto Rico. And even on documents, they wouldn't say they wouldn't talk about their indigenous roots. They wouldn't talk about their African roots.

Um, this is something all I had to learn later. So in asking questions about her and getting really evasive responses from my grandfather I started talking to other Puerto Rican people and asking about their heritage. And so what I learned about my grandmother, my two times, two times, great grandmother, who went by the name Juana, um, she had Irish heritage by way of her father who came to the island of Puerto Rico. Her mother was Taino and Spanish. So she was both. So again, all Puerto Ricans are Spanish, Taino and African and a bunch of European mixes. Right. So I learned, I learned that about her. I learned that her name was not Juana, that it was definitely a nickname, but there's no documentation.

Like the road stops with like the birth certificate right of her daughter. That's it there's no more. And then I learned that what she was called, what her gift was, was boitio , which is an indigenous culture of the bataino that's, their shaman. And so that was her role. That's her, culturally that was her role. And that was her role that her daughter learned and did not practice.

Other than like some divination and what my grandfather did learn through apprenticeship. And he had like all the gamut of all the Claires, but that, again, wasn't his job. So he actually was a train conductor until he was injured and then he came here to the mainland and, and worked at a luggage factory.

And throughout this process of like trying to understand her, I started understanding something really interesting about my family. All of these people had these other quote unquote jobs. They were just like, they had a call and then they had a job or multiple jobs and all of them. So starting with my two times, great grandmother helped all these people, but she was homemaker on paper. That's what, that was her job at death homemaker. And then her daughter who was a flamenco dancing, cigar smoking, guitar playing Christian. Right. So she was like super involved in the church, but like, you know, wild woman, she was, she had a heavy role in the church, again, homemaker, but performer.

She was a big time performer and she loved to play. And my mother would tell me stories about her, about she would get upset if they didn't let her perform on the radio. Like that was her day to perform and how dare they, you know, she had a temper and like what she was super Christian. So I don't understand the sort of duality right of selves.

And then my grandfather. With his call, how he showed up in the world, but he was a train conductor and he also actually used to flip houses in Puerto Rico. And then he worked a luggage factory here and then finding, um, a book at his death of the people that he helped that came to him for like mystical help.

And he would just jot down notes. and I said, oh my God, look at this like legacy of love he left behind with his gifts. What I learned about tracing her and then her daughter. And then my grandfather was that a lot of that was in me. I had so many careers and so many different calls. And even though I grew up in a society where we say you have the one job, you go to school, you buy a house, you have 2.5 kids, you retire somewhere warm, and then you die. And that is the life well lived. Well, the legacy of love left behind by my family has shown me. You can do all the things you can do them all at once. You can do them all at one at a time. None of them define you. Only the call on your life can truly define you. So what Juana was known for was not her job. What the people that proceeded her were known for also had nothing to do with their careers. It had everything to do with how they showed up vibrantly in their life. 

And I think that's something that like runs through my veins. And it made me really excited to say in a search to figure out whether or not how much Irish heritage we had, or like, what part of Spain are you from? And when did they get to the island? What I really learned was when did they get to find out who they truly were and step into that role so that I could do the same. 

[00:08:42] Heather: So, how has that affected your sense of identity?

[00:08:46] Lisann: It helped me understand the performer part of me. Um, it helped me understand that this is sort of like outside of just me being me and a sovereign being also saying that this performer trait runs through my family. So the Millayes name, when I was searching online, I found it in the ancestry of a painter and poet named Sir Everett Millais.

And in his family tree was a Millayes in the, in the 16th century spelled the way we spelled it. And I was like, ah, maybe there's a link! Who is this guy? Right. And he was like a poet and, a painter. And he had all these ideas of how he wanted to tell stories. He wanted to mix music with art and poetry. Like a music video in the 17th century, what he really wanted to create. Right. And like, I, I saw how it kind of fell apart. It wasn't working how these like live sketches combined with like perform some orchestra. I was like, what this guy was like ahead of his time. And he got me really excited now, whether or not I could ever do the link to really see if our trees connected in the 15th century or not, it wasn't even the point. It was sort of like, it got me really excited to see what other performers were in my family. I found out that I had an uncle who was part of Ringling Brothers, he was an acrobat. I had an uncle who, uh, was a film director. Again, nobody talked about this until I started digging.

Okay. So many people were renowned musicians. Now I'm not a musician, but my sister is, and I mean, they played multiple instruments. One of them, my grandfather's brother, he played, I think at least seven instruments and had a band that toured over the world. And I didn't get to hear these little nuggets to learn more about me until I started diving in.

Right. And so what I learned about myself was like this creativity, it's more than just a hobby. It's the lifeblood. And we learned a lot about that in the pandemic, how the arts really help people find joy, again, escape sort of like the everyday reality sometimes, or just dive, dive deeper into it, to see that the reality can be beautiful and it can be fun. And there can be joy in the quiet in the, in the beauty of just creating. That especially hit home these past two years because to see that it ran in my family, that it didn't just start with me, that there was something always under the surface that all these people, they paved the way for me to live loud and bold and they did it at times that maybe it wasn't, it wasn't that exciting to be, you know, a circus performer. Do you know what I mean? or like might have been rough being a musician on the road most of the year. 

But what I also got to do was connect with lots of people online, through social media who were also searching our name. And found so many relatives again, outside of like a specific platform. Like we created a Facebook group, we stumbled across each other in Google searches and it was like, oh, let's create a group. Let's, let's talk about it. Let's share the stories of what we remember as we put the pieces together. I feel like I did a big circle around your question, but I hope I land good.

[00:12:00] Heather: no, that was great because, well, some of the things that you mentioned is that stereotypical what success life is, and that you didn't know the depth of your family history until you started asking those questions and it stepped away from necessarily a stereotypical, but for following your passion and following your heart and that has allowed you to live even bigger that way.

[00:12:29] Lisann: Yeah. I, I think like, I mean, it took me a long time to, to really say, you know what? I make the rules. Who makes the rules for me? Who says I have to do one thing? Look, I I've been a, an elementary school teacher. I've been an attorney. I'm a film TV actor, an author. Like I I've done so many things and my spiritual heritage has been a part of it. And however, that evolution of that is for any of us, I think is always part of how we show up in the world. But looking at all the tiny pieces that make this huge quilt of a life is something that comforts me, literally every day.

[00:13:05] Heather: Yeah, I was looking at your website and one of the first paragraphs you have under your About page is that, kind of summarizing, is that understanding that heritage has played a role in your life, even though you didn't realize it until you learned about it.

[00:13:22] Lisann: Yes. Yeah. It's like in, in retrospect, right? You're like, oh, this had everything to do with it. Everything. We walk around thinking that we're alone. And I, I forget, I think it's a Maya Angelou quote. She says, "I come as one, but I stand as 10,000" and that's true for all of us. It's true for, I really firmly believe that it's true for all of us, because we don't necessarily have to see the 10,000, but we are, it.

Like we got here because of the blood, sweat, tears, happiness, joy, love that was emitting in this plane of existence before we got here. And I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for their lessons that I've somehow been able to learn and say, I'm gonna stand on my own two feet and show up this way because I've got 10,000 people behind me that did the same thing.

[00:14:10] Heather: And it's not that you have to be them or that you have to be a certain way because they lived their life a certain way, but you can see that inspiration and pull those parts that resonate with you and use it to amplify your own life.

[00:14:25] Lisann: Yes. Yes. And that's the most important thing, right? Giving myself permission to live it the way I wanna live it. show up the way I wanna show up because listen, this girl is not gonna be an acrobat in no type of circus. Like there's no way. I can do a cartwheel, that is that right. And I don't have to go move into a rainforest and learn about plants, at all. I don't. Like, I'm really happy that my succulent is still alive. Like, I'm good, but, but it is nice to know that there's a fountain that exists that if there is knowledge or information that I need, that I can tap into that source within me and say, okay, I can do this. This challenge, I can face it. If there's a new opportunity. I can say yes to it. I can open or close a door. And I don't know, I feel supported in that. I hope everyone that does journey into this space feels the same. Either they feel an evolution of self or family that they feel like a chain breaker in their, in their generation, or they feel like they are amplifying the steps of those that came before them on some level.

[00:15:28] Heather: Yeah, and I think knowing those stories gives us even more power to choose how we move forward. Like we can amplify those good things. We can get rid of the things that we see. Oh, this is generational. It's not just my parents that pass it on to me. I can make a difference in my family moving forward.

[00:15:49] Lisann: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think when I think about things that, that seem generational, there was a story about marriage that I think was generational. It was like, um, don't get married until you lived your life. I was like, what does that mean? Wait till I die to, to get what did that mean? But the story was for the women in my family was like, marriage kind of was a death sentence.

You needed to just do everything you wanted to do before you were gonna get locked up and like have take care of house and home. And I chose not to feed that story, right. Now, I'm not married, but I've been in with my partner for many, many years. I won't say it cuz I don't like to divulge my age. We're really happy. and I think that I got to define that for myself, how I wanted a partnership to look and not dive into perhaps the stories of old. And I think that for women, iden women who identify as women in the past anyway, like that was a challenge. Marriage was either the end or the beginning of something, either some type of freedom, but you forsook something else for it, um, based on gender roles or societal norms. And that was very present in my family, I think for a very long time. So I'm happy to be like a change maker in that way. I didn't succumb to like traditional marriage, but, he's my partner and I'm super happy to be with him. And it feels like freedom. It doesn't feel like locked down the way I was told. I mean, that's kind of like a superficial example, but I think that's there, you know.

[00:17:19] Heather: Yeah, I'm gonna shift a little bit. You mentioned that you took a trip to Spain and had some experiences with your family history there. Can you tell us about that?

[00:17:32] Lisann: Yes. So we went to Spain on a whim. We got some super cheap tickets and we decided just let's go. We had like two weeks to go and we just took off. Then I decided we, so we went to Madrid and my mom was like, this place feels so familiar. This place feels so familiar. And I was like, it, it feels like Times Square. Like, it just feels like a busy city that looks beautiful. It was like, okay, let's go to Seville, because I'd heard that there was a street in Seville named for Millayes. The spelling is Millares in Seville. Again with all my research names change, spellings change and so I understood that. So I wanted to go to Seville and I wanted to see what the flamenco was like, cuz my mom knows how to dance flamenco. She learned from her grandmother again, my grandfather's mom, and I wanted to see what this was about like in person. So we went and we took the train to Seville and it was just, it just happened to be Holy Week. We totally forgotten that it was Holy Week. And for what that means for Catholics is like, there's usually like some type of like really intense festivities, like a, a march, and we were in the middle of that. And we were at a, a table. It was like a fair going on and people walking with great devotion, very close to each other. And so I was sort of struck by the devotion of these people and these getups that were sort of startling. I'd never seen it before.

And I was like, what is this? And then we're trying to buy castanets at the table. So my senses were like off the chart, there's so much happening. And my mom starts using the castanets in front of the person who's selling them. And she goes, "oh, you're from the south of Spain." And she goes, "well, no, I'm Puerto Rican." she was like, "yeah, but the way you're playing that's from here. That's not a typical way to play a castanet." And I was like, I knew it. I knew it. You see, knew we're from here. And so like, you get these little, like winks all over the place, like confirmations, like you're getting closer and I'm getting tingles.

When I went to Seville, it looked familiar. It felt a lot like Puerto Rico with the palm trees and the warmth. But the streets felt like, I don't know, they felt like home to me. So my mom was so in love with Madrid, but I was so in love with Seville. And, so that was the wink that we got. And my mom was super happy showing her how she played. My mom to this day will stand up and show you like you wanna dance flamenco, let's go. And she's trying to do it. And like, I can't for the life of me. She's 72. She like rocks it. She loves her flamenco. Um, but it's her tie to her, to her grandma. So it was nice to get the confirmation.

[00:20:03] Heather: In what ways are you using your family history in like your professional or how you interact with other people?

[00:20:13] Lisann: I mean in multiple ways. Right? So it was like a spiritual life coach. I definitely used that. My, my heritage is everything to do with that because like, That was my weekend, right? Like Saturday was very much like psycho development, divination, plant medicine. It was all like, oh, and then let's make dinner and have a meal.

So all of that, that was sort of the undercurrent of my life now has risen to the surface. But in other ways there's always been this, whether I was practicing law or I'm acting I'm Puerto Ric. and that is just a part of who I am. And so that representation of self of not just the macro, which is my heritage, but my specific lineage, my family is ever present.

I always wanna honor them. So when I step out and I do interviews as an actor, like. The fir when they to ask about my hair, just like I'm proudly Puerto Rican. I was born in New York, but that, that, that has always been the thing that like the cloak that I wore, I'm Puerto Rican. And it's something that I mention often because I think having a beautiful representation of what it means to be, uh, Latina is important to me and is important to other people who share that heritage. And it's especially important because in the next two weeks here in New York City, we're celebrating, it's the, um, International Puerto Rican Day parade. And so like that's a big deal.

And, being as part and part of the diaspora here in the mainland, there are people that have lost the cultural identity of the island. And, and it was my parents. My mom especially really wanted me to have that. And that's why we went back and forth to Puerto Rico all the time. And I, to this day, like I just got back last week. And the land calls me. When people say they're homesick, it's like, I'm not sick for a home or a person I'm sick for the earth and the ocean and the sun and the sky, like I need, this is what I need.

And I carry that with me in everything that I do, honestly, like there isn't a day that goes by that it's not something that I talk about. So maybe I'm not saying it on lines on the set, but when someone wants to get to know me, that is what they they're gonna know that I'm Puerto Rican.

[00:22:15] Heather: Mm-hmm

[00:22:15] Lisann: Yeah. 

[00:22:16] Heather: Well, thank you so much for sharing your family stories with us. How can people get connected with you if they'd like to?

[00:22:24] Lisann: Uh, my website is my name, lisannvalentin.com and across social media, @LisannValentin. 

[00:22:29] Heather: great, and I'll have links to that in the show notes. Thanks again for being here.

[00:22:34] Lisann: Thank you Heather, for having me, it was honestly my pleasure to talk about my heritage.