Your parent wasn’t who you thought they were?
Dr. Paulette Bethel joins us again on the revelation of a Not Parent Expected (NPE) from a routine ancestry DNA test and the resulting trauma model she developed.
“There are gonna be days when people either decide to take a commercial [DNA] test for fun and have this discovery or they begin to learn because they get contacted by someone who has made this discovery and saying, ‘Hi! I took a DNA test and apparently you’re my half-sister or half-brother.'”
“So I recognize now that it multiplies in terms of complexity when you have this kind of surprise experience.” she says.
From the Third Culture Kid (TCK) “where do I fit” question, to nature vs. nurture and Hispanic vs. Latino, we go through it all in this episode!
Listen to the podcast by clicking below!

ABOUT Negra Como Soy, a segment of the “Destinations with Doni” Podcast
There’s the story of who we are as individuals, what we know and walk with, and the story other people create in their minds about who you are. We’re here to set the story straight… Negra, como soy: I’m Afro-Latina is a show that explores the intricacies and flavors of the AfroLatin experience throughout the Spanish colonized world.
We understand that the direct translation is “black like me,” in the feminine. Again, often life is about interpretation, and we’re here to help expand those interpretations, in this corner of life at least Join Doni Aldine and Rhonda Coleman as they celebrate foods, dance, clothing, language, and customs of their own cultures and others from the diaspora.
Doni Aldine, MBA, is a globally mobile Afro-Latina and first-generation American (U.S., Trinidadian and Costa Rican Adult Third Culture Kid) who, by age 19, lived in & identified with seven cultures on five continents. As Editor-in-Chief for Culturs Global Multicultural Magazine, Aldine is passionate about creating community for cross-cultural populations. She has extensive global experience in communications, media and marketing for organizations both large and emerging. She has presented around the globe as a keynote, at conferences, at major universities & in major media outlets as an expert focused on communications, entrepreneurship, marketing, branding & cross-cultural identity. Aldine also developed university curricula for global culture identity and is on faculty in Journalism and Media Communication at Colorado State University.
Dr. Rhonda Coleman, DAOM is a cross-cultural Third Cultural Adult. She grew up in New Orleans, LA bu t and identifies as Afro-Honduran. Dr. Rhonda is a doctor of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (Traditional Chinese Medicine), Registered Trainer of the NADA Acudetox Protocol, columnist for CULTURS Global Multicultural Magazine, public speaker, and active organizer promoting health equity. She currently teaches Nutritional Health and Acudetox at Arizona School of Acupuncture & Oriental Medicine; and runs a private practice, Blacupuncturist, in Tucson, AZ.