Transcriber: Flavia Guina Reviewer: Leonardo Silva
So there's a feeling within the Mexican immigrant community
that we are living in two worlds:
the American world
and the Mexican world.
It's some sort of borderlands.
You see, I never understood that a human could be illegal
until I came to the US
as an undocumented immigrant from Colima, Mexico, at 8 years old.
Spanish is my native language,
and suddenly, I was thrust into a world of English.
In elementary school, I spent a lot of time being angry
for not being able and not knowing how to ask for certain simple things,
like,
'May I go to the bathroom?'
I would pee my pants often.
Imagine how I explained hat to my parents.
In middle school,
my friends, all young boys, would form a circle in the early mornings,
before the sun had warmed our bodies,
before the morning dew had evaporated into mist.
Two at a time, we would take turns catching the bodies,
bare-knuckle boxing,
hitting each other in the torso until someone gave up.
Those of us that didn't want to participate
were kicked out of the circle.
As a middle schooler, I wanted to be part of this group.
Now, I was already the immigrant kid that didn't know enough English,
I wanted to be accepted and liked.
I also noticed that the bad boy demeanour was rewarded,
and that's what we are taught as boys:
to be aggressive in the face of adversity,
to be this mountain of strength,
rugged and unclimbable,
to be this rolling thunderstorm,
striking the ground to prove our validity as men.
I wanted to be recognised,
respected,
admired,
revered.
I wanted so much,
so much,
to be feared.
But I was only 70 pounds, skinny, and I bruised easily.
It didn't matter how hard or how fast I swung my toothpick arms.
I always gave up first,
and therefore, teased by my friends,
my dreams and aspirations
to become this Aztec warrior with flames for fists crumbled,
very quickly, y'all.
In high school,
I was a varsity athlete taking AP classes,
but I hesitated to look at colleges
because I didn't have a piece of plastic with numbers on it
that would allow me the same rights as my American-born peers.
You see,
I pledged allegiance to the flag every single day in grade school,
but now this country didn't want to support me?
Luckily,
after 10 years of waiting,
I received my green card just in time
to attend a small, private university in Oregon
as a resident of the US
and not a foreign student.
There, I was one of about 30 Latinos,
in a school of 1,800 students.
I felt like I had immigrated all over again.
(Laughter)
I felt like wind with no resting place,
like ashes with no fire,
roots with no earth,
water with no shoreline.
I kept yearning for home, y'all.
My first year there, I was at a party,
and I remember being upset,
and visibly frustrated and vocal about a situation -
I think I was trying to reenact my failed attempts
to be this Aztec warrior from middle school -
when one of my friends,
one of my white friends turned to me and said,
'It's OK.
It's the Latino blood in you.
Latino men are feisty and hot-tempered.
You are spicy!'
(Laughter)
In my case, everybody stood in silence.
And I was shocked,
for two reasons.
One, I didn't expect a friend to put me into this box,
and two, I had never heard that stereotype,
at least not that clearly.
But I believed them.
I went through my college career believing what was said that day.
Any sign of aggression, it was just 'in my blood.'
You see, if water can trickle down from the mountains into the ocean
without anything to stop it,
how could I change?
I figured that if my peers believed this stereotype to be true,
they would understand
that I couldn't do anything about my aggressive behaviour.
At the same time,
I also wondered if their opinion would be any different if I were white.
And that's the burden for us brown boys:
we do not get the benefit of the doubt.
You see we are pushed into this box that defines us,
that hurts us.
And yes, patriarchy, sexism has always hurt women.
It has always been used as a tool
to keep women in their place, subservient to men.
And here I am,
a recipient of privilege for being male,
an unknown enforcer of patriarchy,
and also stuck in a stereotype for being brown.
But growing up alongside the men in my family,
and in my community,
I began to realise that we are more than the stereotypes.
My brother, y'all, he's tall,
he's loud,
has tattoos all over his body,
but he was never in the gang, though.
Most of the tattoos are to commemorate significant events in his life,
like the birth of his children
and the passing of our grandparents.
He goes to work every single day at 4 in the morning,
comes back
and is not afraid to sing lullabies to his children.
He asks me questions about love.
Sometimes I answer them.
Other times, I feel awkward talking about love to another man.
He is the epitome of what it means to be strong,
delicate
and vulnerable.
My uncle,
he's reserved,
but he's a lighthouse to many of us.
He's a teacher and a professor, a mover and a shaker.
He gets made fun of, every single day,
for being feminine.
He was warned by my family to be careful after our gay cousin was murdered.
My other uncle is also reserved,
rarely shares his emotions,
but he has built houses from the ground up,
houses he will never be able to afford,
no matter how quickly he works or how early he arrives at a job site.
Both of these uncles,
I can trust that their hands
will nurture me,
not hurt me.
My stepfather,
he gives really, really awkward side hugs.
(Laughter)
But he cooks, though.
(Laughter)
He's a pretty good cook.
He also takes care of his two tiny chihuahuas
when they are sick.
He mashes up their food,
massages their muscles if they are sore.
He plants flowers, tulips and rosebushes, around the house.
He may not be the most communicative of men,
but I know exactly what he is saying when I look at his flowers.
He is what is means to hold on to your beauty,
despite what society tells you.
You see, I like to believe
that he is having the same internal struggle as I am.
The planting flowers around the house and giving them to my mother
is his way of standing up to all the stereotypes about us.
You see,
people have been quick
to point to my culture and label it as 'machista,'
patriarchal, sexist.
Because of where I come from and how I look,
people have deemed me an outsider that denounces the humanity of others.
But machismo does not have to define who I am,
who my people are.
These stereotypes,
they're not in our blood.
We have learned them.
We can also dismantle them.
The following poem is for all the men
and for all the women in my life
who encourage me
to break the stereotypes,
every single day.
It's also for my students,
for all the brown boys who, like me,
struggle to believe that we are beautiful.
We are beautiful.
The poem is titled 'For Brown Boys.'
For brown boys who come and go.
For brown boys who walked out,
like my father.
For those who stayed to pick up the pieces,
like my stepfather.
For us, brown boys.
For us, fatherless children,
trying to fit the shoes of men we have never known.
I know.
So many battles go unrecognised.
No purple hearts pinned to our chest.
Just tattooed life stories engraved in arms,
callous hands from all the work put in,
bruised knees from getting back up when we get knocked down,
stretch marks on backs from being forced to grow up way too fast.
I know
that the balance of providing and loving
can be such a dubious task for us, brown boys.
For us, brown boys,
trying to hide behind beards and moustaches,
trying way too hard to be as hard as possible,
caught between body bags and survival,
caught between macho ideals and proletarian revolutions.
Look at how
we confuse passion for violence.
Look at how we romanticize guns over a love affair.
We, brown boys, are so full of contradictions.
For us, brown boys,
who have been taught to be cautious of a tender touch,
like when she caresses my back.
I cannot help feeling uneasy.
Even in bed,
let your guard down, brown boy.
We don't always have to be in fight-or-flight mode.
We deserve to be loved.
We deserve to show love.
We don't have to look for affection in the bottom of shot glasses.
We cannot drown our pain.
Trust me,
it will learn how to swim.
Sorrow does not have to be a burden.
We make mistakes,
but we are not the mistakes, brown boy.
Who told you self-love was a battlefield?
Who turned your throat into a shotgun?
Who taught you how to fight, brown boy?
I once heard someone say that for us, dark ones,
the act of ...
(Inhales and exhales deeply)
breathing is rebellious.
Remember,
they were the ones that called us savages.
They were the ones that desecrated our family tree.
They turned us into thugs.
They told us women were inferior,
and some days,
some days I want to shatter the image in the mirror,
I want to break every last piece of my mother out of my smile.
I know you too get tired of choosing between your hopes and your demons,
of trying to hold the ends of the world keeping them from falling.
I know that you don't want to crumble into pieces, brown boy.
We do not need street corners
stained with candle wax,
decorated with flowers and pictures of you.
We need you alive, brown boy.
Remember that trees let go of themselves in the fall,
endure the winter so that they can bloom beautiful in the spring
and provide shade in the summer.
Brown boy, we need you alive.
So let every embrace you give set off a revolution.
Let every kiss you give become the trigger to your throat
to heal with words.
Let forgiveness become the pin to the grenade of your heart.
Explode delicately,
smash the shot glasses on the floor,
fireworks announcing the new you.
Let yourself be loved.
Watch how much we can grow.
Let every man that has walked out of your house
become a reason for you to stay.
Use these hands to help your children count,
to help them learn their ABCs, brown boys.
We are not explosions waiting to happen.
We are enough just as we are,
so let us believe that we are beautiful, brown boys.
Let us commit the most rebellious act of them all.
Let us
love
ourselves.
Thank you.
(Applause) (Cheers)