Meet Pamela Rosario Pérez

We were lucky to catch up with Pamela Rosario Pérez recently and have shared our conversation below.

Pamela Rosario , looking forward to learning from your journey. You’ve got an amazing story and before we dive into that, let’s start with an important building block. Where do you get your work ethic from?

My grandmothers. I would like to personally highlight my paternal grandmother, Maria Decena, lovingly known as Mami Nonosa.

In my community, it is common for parents to move to cities to find work and financially support their families. In the meantime, their children are raised by grandparents, extended family, and village elders back home. Such was the case for me.

I was raised by an incredible village of hard working, humble, resilient, deeply spiritual men and women in the Dominican countryside. I learned about working the land, consistency, and punctuality from my grandfathers; but I learned about determination, civil disobedience, and community organizing from my grandmothers. My grandmothers, their sisters, and my great-grandmothers were all cycle breakers and iconoclasts. Women with strong characters and an even stronger sense of purpose. They always found a way to speak truth to power in order to uplift their communities and forge paths that had never been walked before. I am incredibly lucky to have been raised by matriarchs.

Although my grandmothers were all fearless, Mami Nonosa was the boldest. In an era when talking about sex was taboo, my grandmother Maria “Mami Nonosa” Decena was known to teach comprehensive sex education, financial literacy, and women’s health classes. Defying social norms and mores, she taught recently engaged young women how to: advocate for their needs, establish healthy boundaries with men, create secret emergency funds, and escape to safety when relationships turned violent. She constantly risked her safety to do what she felt was right for the community. What I found most impressive is that as busy as she was, she always made time to celebrate life. Being grateful every day was her way of life. Her prayers were expressions of joy and gratitude rather than pleas for divine intervention. She taught me how to care for my community and walk the earth with no fear, but most importantly she taught me how to live life to the fullest.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

When people ask me what I do for work I respond with, “Afro-Indigenous liberation.” This is my mission at both my real estate brokerage firm and my wellness nonprofit. I strongly believe that freedom hinges on our ability to self-determine and reclaim our narratives. To do that, we must first acknowledge the systems that keep us mentally, spiritually, and economically oppressed. Only then can we take control of our lives and embark on a path of financial, physical, mental, and psychospiritual wellbeing.

Healing our past in order to intentionally design our future is what we specialize in at Yaou Yaou Wellness. At Yaou Yaou, my family and I support individuals who wish to overcome substance and behavioral addictions by leveraging Afro-Indigenous teachings and healing practices. All our offerings are rooted in land-based traditions passed on to us by our elders, traditions that are still used by tribal communities in the Amazon, Africa, and the Caribbean today. What I love most about our small nonprofit is that it is a family practice. I am deeply grateful and fortunate to help people recover from drug abuse, heal childhood trauma, and forge new paths for themselves alongside my mother, grandmother, and other relatives. Learning from them every day is something I do not take for granted.

My real estate brokerage firm is my first baby. I launched Rocena Real Estate Strategies a decade ago after overcoming homelessness. I graduated Harvard University one day and found myself without a home the next. College did not prepare me for the harsh realities of life in the USA. I experienced the consequences of being financially illiterate first-hand so as soon as I could, I founded a practice aimed at improving financial and real estate literacy in historically disenfranchised communities so that others would not have to suffer as I did. We recently partnered with another woman-owned real estate consulting firm, Invictus Real Estate Partners, to increase our impact in the community. Together, we have been able to double down on our mission of supporting people of color on their path to financial freedom by forging lucrative relationships between Black, Indigenous, Asian and Latinx real estate investors and institutional lenders.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

Looking back, there is no doubt my career has been shaped by three family values:
Gratitude, tenacity, and knowing.

These three values come alive for me when I live my purpose. One of my elders, Papa Moughenda, never fails to remind me that “Life is the greatest gift.” He taught me that my purpose in life IS to enjoy it. In our Bwiti tradition, that is every person’s purpose: to enjoy life and not take it for granted. Applying this teaching is simple. Instead of starting your day by thinking of all the things you are dreading or mad about, start by expressing gratitude for all the things life has given you for free–no matter how insignificant you think it may be. “Thank you Creator for my knees!” is something you will hear me say since I use them quite often when gathering leaves for treatments. The sooner you start the day by counting your blessings, the sooner you will begin feeling grateful and pursuing your dreams tenaciously. This simple exercise reminds me of how fortunate I am, despite the setbacks or hardships I encounter, and it helps me navigate life knowing that the universe is conspiring to see me win.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I’m currently leading a multinational effort to open indigenous-led wellness centers around the world. We are supporting construction projects in Gabon, Zimbabwe, and most recently in the Dominican Republic. It is time for the world to return to land-based values and remember that we are nature–that we are all connected. We must relearn how to exist in harmony with Mother Earth and take care of each other if we want to experience authentic joy.

Haiti’s national motto “L’union fait la force” is a personal maxim for me. There is strength in numbers, but even more so in unity. I do not believe it is possible for collective liberation efforts to survive without community, alliances, and partnerships. For that reason, I am always looking to learn from and join forces with individuals and organizations who are passionate about equipping historically disenfranchised peoples with the tools they need to succeed. I want to work with people who understand that our collective wellbeing is directly linked to the health of our most vulnerable populations. Over the next decade, I hope to forge new partnerships that will allow me to further my mission as well as pass the baton to the next generation of leaders. If you ever wish to connect, you can reach me at [email protected]

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