I don’t understand how my mother ever let me leave the house. Her faith in God and other people must be that strong. I know that if I was raising children in a country where they were the minority, where their skin color made them stand out, immediately, the moment they walked out the door…well, I don’t know if I would have ever let my children leave the house.
I spent a lot of my childhood afraid. At home, we felt safe, of course, but that was at home. As I got older, though, I heard more and more stories about families like ours attacked in their homes. Women…mothers and daughters…raped as acts of violence against not just them but as warnings to all of us, those who were different. Men kidnapped at gunpoint as a means of extorting money and to satisfy a sick need to punish everyone like us. Boys killed on the street because of physical characteristics outside of their control. These things happened, and as I grew into a young man, my parents shared more and more of them. We needed to understand what we were up against, what kind of danger we were in simply because of what we looked like, the language we spoke.
When I was a small boy of maybe eight years of age, I got lost after getting off the school bus. We were still relatively new to the neighborhood, so I got off at the wrong stop. I knew was my address, but I could not find my street. I wandered for a while, slow dread rising inside me. I panicked when an aggressive dog in the street barked at me and started coming my way. I ran. Dread turned to terror. It seemed like the streets were deserted because I didn’t see a single person. If was just a labyrinth of roads, twisting and turning in ways I didn’t understand. I burst into hysterical tears. I walked for what seemed like hours to my young mind.
Then, a man approached me. I don’t know what he was really thinking, but I froze in terror. He was very different from me. His skin was a different color than mine. He spoke to me, but I could not understand his language yet, not entirely. He took a few steps closer, and I lost my shit.
That’s when he took a step back, and his entire demeanor changed. He must have understood how utterly terrified I was because he gave me my space and spoke to me more slowly, with compassion. Then I understood: “Where do you live?” I told him the street, not the home number as I’d been trained. He pointed. “That way,” he said. “Just walk that way. You will see it.”
Later, after I found my way home, I thought about that scary, different man. Different, I came to realize, does not have to be scary.
Over the years, I learned the language, the culture, and the customs. I learned to temper my own difference in an effort to fit in better. I made friends, had a few romantic relationships, and figured out how to navigate my world. But, always there was fear, just under the surface. The truth of the matter was that they weren’t different, I was different. It was their country, their culture, not mine. I was never allowed to forget that.
My parents knew a family that were burglarized, the wife and daughter both raped. Another family experienced a botched carjacking. Another man was kidnapped at gunpoint as he got out of his car to open his garage. A young man at my high school was shot dead in the street as the result of an altercation with another teenager. A group of friend witnessed a hit and run and watched the victim die in the street as the car that hit him sped off. I lost count of the number of times my school bus was attacked: rocks thrown at the bus; bus windows smashed with bricks; a man reached through an open window and punched a girl…a girl…in the face while the bus was stopped. For 11 years, we simply lived with these things.
When I turned 18 and graduated high school, I returned to the United States. For the 11 years I spent in Mexico, I longed for few things more than to simply return to the United States. Home. My country. Where I belonged.
It didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t really belong here, either. I faced violence when I attended university in Miami, Florida. It was the early 1990’s, and Miami was a cauldron of racial tension the summer I started school. Although I spent only a semester in Miami, I witnessed racism aimed at black Americans, discrimination against Hispanic Americans, and, more intimately, was the victim of what we would now refer to as a hate crime because I proudly wore a flag around my neck that some local thugs confused with the Cuban flag. In Miami, the only thing worse than a black person is a Cuban, at least in certain parts of the city. At the end of that semester, I left Miami and did not return for over 20 years. Those few months in Miami caused me a lot of pain. It kept me away.
That pain was born in large part from confusion. I was confused. So confused. I grew up in a country, Mexico, that resented me and did not want me there. I was discriminated because of my skin color. When I returned to what I thought was my home, the United States of America, people seemed to resent me and did not want me in their community. I was discriminated against because of my ethnicity. Foreigners rejected me; my fellow patriots rejected me. I did not know how to react. I did not know what to think. I did not know how to feel.
I still don’t know how to feel.
I don’t know how to feel about my past and this present moment in my life as an American. My skin is white. I can hide in plain site. I walk in the room and maybe I’m Greek or maybe I’m Italian. Maybe I’m just a guy with dark brown (and graying) hair and, when the sun shines bright, olive skin. It’s easy to not notice me. I blend right in. Eyes sweep past me and focus on someone else, maybe someone who is black. Definitely someone who is black…
So I hide.
Hiding is painful.
On paper, though, I cannot hide because my name is undoubtedly Hispanic. Even my middle name screams “Mexican.” But I’m not Mexican. Remember: they didn’t want me? Besides, my family comes from somewhere else.
My blood is Boricua.
My island is Puerto Rico. I never lived there, but, right now, it is clear to me that this little Caribbean island is the only place I can truly claim as my own…and that can truly claim me. I would fit in there. The language, the food, the music, the people…the very earth of the island itself is familiar to me. I could buy a house, move in, and just fit in. Yes, the island is a cauldron of racial tension. There is extreme poverty. Black skin and white skin and brown skin clash regularly. There is violence. Nobody is really safe. However, there, more than anywhere, there is a vital piece of me that belongs. My story would weave easily into the larger tapestry of the island. Those are my people.
This planet is covered in places where people feel they belong. Some places are far more dangerous, some places are far better off. All places, though, especially those with other humans, are flawed and full of risk. We are hardwired to seek out “same” and keep our distance from “other.” People say hatred and racism are learned. This is true, to an extent. We are taught who to hate, what to hate, but the wiring for hatred? It’s there at birth. It’s primal. It comes from fear. It comes from an instinct to seek protection from our kin, our kind.
Love is there, too. We are wired to love. Our first love is family, the essence of “same.” But we can also learn a greater love, and this is the point I wish to make. Love is in the wiring, but it is learned just as much as hate. Our jobs, then is to teach love. Love family. Love same. Love the tribe. Love the village.
And “other” because this is where the power, real power comes from. Love in the face of difference. Love in the face of hatred. Love in the face of hatred. I once heard a question asked of a Tibetan Buddhist monk who spent over 20 years as a prisoner of the Chinese government. The interviewer asked, “What was the one thing you feared most during the years you spent in prison?” His response was immediate, “I feared losing compassion for my captors.”
Compassion is love. If you want to know what you can do when you sit in a position of power and privilege, I think the only real answer is to love. When you are angry at injustice, love. When you are furious at racism, love. When you want to tell someone off because of how ignorant they are, love. Love and choose a better path.
I used to think that the best thing I could do for my teams in the workplace was to inspire and influence so they could innovate. For years, the words embedded in my email signature were simply: Inspire. Influence. Innovation.
There is a better option: Inspire. Influence. Love.
Beyond fear, beyond anger, beyond hatred, there is love. When other emotions burn out, there is love.
In all things, love is the only path.
Illuminate Possibilities 