 of Belize.
Cryptocurrencies have gone mainstream, minting billionaires around the globe. But this get-rich-quick fever, paired with a lack of government oversight and regulation, has created the perfect opportunity for scammers. In this episode, van Zeller embeds within a crew of crypto “rug-pull” scammers, who show her how they make millions of dollars in mere weeks.
Van Zeller probes the growing popularity of bare-knuckle fighting. On a journey that takes her from the blood-shedding mecca of Thailand to underground fights throughout the U.S., she explores the allure of these violent, sanguine bouts and how they’re inflaming a larger push to bring bare-knuckle fighting to the mainstream.
TRAFFICKED WITH MARIANA VAN ZELLER is produced for National Geographic by Muck Media. From Muck Media, Executive Producers are Mariana van Zeller, Darren Foster and Jeff Plunkett, who also serves as Showrunner. From National Geographic, Bengt Anderson and Sean D. Johnson are Executive Producers.
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Award-winning and critically acclaimed National Geographic Content, part of a joint venture between The Walt Disney Company and the National Geographic Society, creates and delivers riveting stories and experiences in natural history, science, adventure and exploration. Inspiring a deeper connection to the world, the content studio reaches 300 million people worldwide in 180 countries and 33 languages across the global National Geographic channels (National Geographic Channel, Nat Geo WILD, Nat Geo MUNDO), National Geographic Documentary Films, and direct-to-consumer platforms Disney+ and Hulu. Its diverse content includes Emmy® Award-winning franchise Genius, series Life Below Zero and Secrets of the Whales, and Oscar®- and BAFTA award-winning film Free Solo. In 2022, National Geographic Content was awarded eight News and Documentary Emmys, in addition to Life Below Zero’s Emmy win for Outstanding Cinematography for a Reality Program, it’s sixth Emmy overall. For more information, visit natgeotv.com or nationalgeographic.com, or follow Nat Geo on Facebook,Twitter, Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn.
TRAFFICKED WITH MARIANA VAN ZELLER is produced by Mariana’s Emmy-winning production company Muck Media. Muck Media also is producing Science Fair, The Series for National Geographic/Disney+, based on the Sundance Festival Favorite feature documentary Science Fair. Muck’s diverse productions include the critically acclaimed documentaries American Pain (CNN Films/HBOMax), Mucho Mucho Amor (Netflix) and the animated short documentary The Originals. Earlier this year, Muck also released the series Menudo: Forever Young (HBOMax) and went into development on its first scripted project El Fixer.Cover Image: Mujer by Melissa Maldonado-Salcedo 2021.
Learning that I was an empath changed my life. It wasn’t that this label gave me meaning or purpose; it just simply explained “me.” As an artist, being sensitive is celebrated and somewhat necessary to create. In academia, emotions and feelings should be kept at bay, especially if you’re a woman, mainly if you identify as Latina. After all, chances are, you were raised on telenovelas, superstition, and many rules about your body that wore heavy on your heart and made you feel gaslit by the world.
 Growing up in the Latino Pentecostal church, everything that suggested the esoteric or any form of mysticism was immediately branded as sinful and therefore was repudiated in the same way as ouija board, magic, and psychics. At this risk of essentializing, I think we Latinas have a bit of “witch” (bruja) in our DNA. I had to reason at a very young age about who I was and what I was supposed to become when I (eventually) grew up (in America.) I had to reject the supernatural and science equally. After all, I could pray away a cold and know better than ever sitting my purse on the floor or walking under ladders.This felt like growing down.
Up until my fortieth birthday, I felt like I was still waiting to “adult.” Then, all of a sudden, the pandemic forced me (and the world) to pause. So, I was in an endless loop of looking back to move forward, sitting in my subjectivity and mourning. Judith Orloff, who, in addition to being an empath, is also a medical doctor. In many ways, because of this “credential,” she is taken (more) seriously when she provides empirical receipts that empaths are wired differently. She explains that Empaths have a highly reactive neurological system, and as such we don’t have the same filters that other people do to block out stimulation. However, this impotence to “block out” noise really does depend on the scenario because I learned how to write while sitting in the loudest bar in the Village. This gift (or superpower) developed because I sat in church for hours and hours as a kid, and therefore had to daydream about the days when I no longer had to sit in a pew to appease my family. I actually learned to sleep with my eyes open, which has come in handy.
Consequently, we (empaths) absorb into our own bodies both the positive and stressful energies around us. Orloff describes, “We are also sensitive that it’s like holding something in a hand that has fifty fingers instead of five….We are truly ‘super responders” (Orloff 2018:2). Could I apply my anthropological research methods and theories to make sense of the first half of my life, now that I was at a critical turning point…forty. Is this a crossroads?
TURNING POINT OR CROSSROADS?
In your thirties, you learn to keep your age a secret. If you’re still in school like I was, it helps also give the perception that you’re younger (or that you’re deferring growing up.) Birthdays can become triggering because you fear that your best years are behind you, or at least, this is what you’re led to believe. I remember when I applied to get my marriage license at City Hall, the clerk looked at me and asked, “are you willing to give him the best years of your life?” In his view, I had more “life” to live (as a single person.) Hence, you are made to feel humiliated when those years are over because forty is the expiration date for beauty, pleasure, and success and it is socially imposed and policed.
I thought to myself, at least I feel moderately accomplished (on paper.) I had checked off many exclusive boxes and defied many statistics that systemically did not favor me (or those who look like me, come from where I come from, and who sound like me.) Sharkey and Sampson note, “The impact of violence is not limited to the communities where it is concentrated. Violence exacerbates urban inequality by altering social life in the most disadvantaged communities, creating an added layer of risk that amplifies the effects of economic and racial segregation (Sharkey and Sampson:321). Interestingly, a woman’s worth is socialized even before a fetus is born into the world, and this is why women of color pay the highest price for every failed policy.
We are believed to be less, paid less, and all this while doing so much more. Unacceptable.
By the time I turned forty, I had a doctorate in anthropology and completed three Master’s which only means that before that I do not remember my life outside of a classroom. Also, despite all my education, I know I still have so much to learn. On the heels of my forty-first birthday, I am rethinking the lessons learned four decades prior.
 I did not grow up playing with dolls. Mothering did not appeal to me until I fell in love, which happened for the first time at twenty-three. Yet, it is the role that matters most in my life. I have already outgrown most of my vices and broke up with alcohol (it was a complicated relationship.) I am in active recovery. I tend to resist most things that take time and focus away from what I love to do because after Covid-19, I feel being present is vital to surviving, and living is essential to thriving. Yet, I self-consciously reject routines that leave no room for improvisation. I am not satisfied living vicariously through social media posts. Is this what a midlife crisis looks like? Orloff clarifies that “…empaths can have many emotional issues going on simultaneously, which can be overwhelming for them and their partners….”  Centering yourself and processing issues and emotions has to be part of a daily ritual that only now I understand is necessary (Orloff 2018:97). It is not a luxury to rest, refuel, and recalibrate. If you do feel like it is, then a hard reset is crucial.
Recently when I look in the mirror, I can now see my mother’s face clearly, and she comes through on her own and distorts my reflection. My mother has always been big on optics and upholds the honor and shame systems that privilege other people’s opinions about your life. In Spanish, we call this condition el que diran. If you suffer from it, it never