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Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
Lifestyle
Lisa Boone

With humor and Xanax earrings, she fearlessly puts Latino mental health on display

LOS ANGELES -- “I felt anxious before I came here today,” Rosa Valdes said as she arranged her Educated Chola T-shirts, totes and mugs inside the Cafe Girasol coffee shop in Boyle Heights. “Just because I take anti-anxiety medication, it doesn’t mean it’s gone.”

While friend and colleague Beth Guerra, a brand strategist she met at the Los Angeles Economic Equity Accelerator & Fellowship program at Cal State L.A., offers support and helps soothe her nerves for a photo shoot, Valdes takes a deep breath and forges ahead.

Valdes is used to living with anxiety. In 2018, the 33-year-old entrepreneur was diagnosed with a generalized anxiety disorder that left her with insomnia, little appetite and migraine headaches.

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