Thoughts following Election Day

 Let me clean off my glasses, 'cause I'm about to write. This morning the sun shone for me. For all of us. There are so many wonderful and awe-inspiring things happening all around us.  

I have been thinking about this, little by little, but consistently, since I was a kid teaching swimming lessons and lifeguarding for a community center in a small town. My mom was the organizer of the program. I never knew how much my mom did for the community; she was never on a committee. She was never on a board or part of politics. But in that learn-to-swim program, they always demanded she report the color and race of each participant. She, never once in those 20 years, gave in. Because, guess why? That's none of these particular people's business, my mom would say. These kids were there to swim. Period.

The other day, the daughter of a former professor of mine reposted a thread about the "Latino vote" having always been (sorely) misrepresented, misunderstood, and underreported. The author wrote the word monolith to describe it. I started hearing it on the news as well. And this topic kept pushing me. Kept poking at my brain. I started to think about so many experiences I've had with "Latinos" telling me they do or do not identify with being white and how confusing it is, annoying it is, uncomfortable it is, unmatching it is, to fill in these particular stupid ass, old-ass paradigmatic boxes on questionnaires. The words don't match up with reality. (I understand that this topic doesn't have to do with color, per se, but what one, as an individual, with totally unique experiences than another "Latino", represents.)

My husband has taught me a lot about his experience of being "Latino" in the U.S. He and I look a lot alike physically. But, wait: he's from Venezuela and I'm from the U.S. However could that be? (My long-awaited return of the New York sarcasm.) He tells me about all the crazy-ass men--and in very rare occasions, women--in construction who tell him, in confidence, their deep, dark racist secrets. And he's always asking himself "Why are they confiding in me if I'm who they are talking about?" It's so curious. 

And why are they telling him? Because, while they hear his accent in English, they totally brush off that he is "different." To them, they are the same color: white. They have no idea how different they are on the inside, and what different experiences they have lived. They have no idea how their immigration-bashing is being spoken to a real-life immigrant...not even a U.S. citizen. Even though he tells them very directly that he is an immigrant and non-U.S. citizen. It's so curious*.

(*Side note, but an important note, here that I am in no way implying that it's only white Americans doing this to immigrants, but underlining how this conversation is indeed moving me, changing me, expanding my mind. I, too, have been told, on more occasions that I can count that I am "different" from other (white) Americans, in the sense that I care about the person that I am interacting with, who happens to be from a different country. I've been told that, presumably because of our mutual respect and understanding, I appear to be "one of them." And I have received confidence because of these interactions. This always stung a bit as I know so many U.S.-born citizens like me in the sense that they, too, care. A lot. And that there are so many beyond belief. These people just haven't met yet. Until now, it's just the news that separates them.)

Why else do I think these guys in construction confide in him? I think because they like him. They got to meet him in person. Smell him next to them. (Not just their soap, but their stinky-ass farts, too. Sorry, Baby.) Look in his eyes. Share snippets of life. It's actually pretty easy to like people once we get to have these experiences. We just need to do it. If these same guys in construction could really see how they genuinely like an immigrant, a non-U.S. citizen and match that with their political preferences. I know, from the deepest parts of me, that this is truly complicated to let go of fears as well as build up an equal education, have your mind blown overnight, over a decade, a lifetime, without proper systems in place to support just that. It involves so many people to provide a nourishing place and resources for those things to happen, amongst so many other factors. And media, as long as it's around in it's current form, that is willing to go this mile.  

Anyways, let me get back to what continues to blow my mind. The monolith of the "Latino vote" in the U.S. We can totally apply our lack of understanding, our lack of proper representation, of proper reporting of voters by finding new ways of getting rid of these boxes that seriously are holding us back. Just the thought of realization that the "Latino vote", like the "White vote", the "Black vote", the whatever vote, being far more than Latino being ONE type of something, anything. It is teaching me, and reinforcing for me, how generalizations are so limiting. 

I have always, and increasingly, had "radical" stances on nationality, citizenship, and so on. That's one of the reasons why I like working in immigration, reading about immigration, talking to immigrants, studying the documentation of immigration and genealogical background that my grandmother provided me as well as doing research on my own. 

I have always, and increasingly, had "radical" stances them. As in, they're a bunch of malarkey. Yes (moaning and eye-rolling as I write and imagine that I am having an in-person conversation), I believe in them. They are "real" in the sense that we, in 2020, are 100% defended by them, are judged based on them, accepted and denied by them, imposed violence upon because of them and protected from violence by them. They legally justify injustices. BUT, they are also monoliths in the sense that they imply that, under X nationality, I/you/he/she/it/we/you all/they am/is/are ONE type of something. Mouth/Handfull, I know. But I must write.

I understand that there must be people who've already written about my current state of wokeness/intellectual orgasm, but I am wholeheartedly proud and unashamed to say that I care so much about myself and all the people I know and don't know...and that I want to know more and more and more so that all these boxes keep melting before my eyes. It feels good and right to see people and hear people for who they are and who they say they are. 

Knowledge is power. It is powerful. It is orgasmic, I have to say. And it makes me want to keep going and moving and growing and to take everyone along with me. To hold my neighbor's hand during a pandemic and skip along with them toward knowledge, together. Because I need my neighbor to tell me who they are. And they need me to tell them who I am. And, I am confident that, when we meet, we'll like each other. We'll smell each other's scent, look into each other's eyes, and share snippets of life. It's actually pretty easy to like people when we get to have these experiences. 

The Black Lives Matter movement and seeing voter suppression this year has prepared me to get to where I am today. I thank my lucky-ass stars that BIPOC shook my sleeping conscience up. Everyone is teaching me that the systems in place are wholly inappropriate and do not foster opportunities to have these experiences of exchange. Instead, these systems have cut us off from having opportunities to genuinely share life's snippets and support one another in seriously defining experiences and rather caused a headache of work to do in terms of getting together and getting to know one another so that we can do what I presume will come naturally: like each other, and support each other in this great journey.

Today, my feeling of a headache of work actually feels more like an orgasm that makes me want more and more and more and to keep moving forward. 

Thank you!