Dear Alyssa,

“When a woman has to be made invisible, it is because she is powerful, and her presence reverberates, touching everything in its path.”

When I read this quote I immediately thought of you. When you recently moving from Long Island to North Carolina, you told me you felt out of place. Most of the high school you are now enrolled in is full of students who identify to be as white. Being that you are a mixed chick, you’ve said it’s hard to feel connected to these people who don’t identify with our culture- our culture as Caribbean women. I feel for you and I think as you get older you will realize that you aren’t just your appearance but you’re mind and soul are what make you shine compared to the others that see you as “the other”. You may be “the other”, the “new girl” but you are the new girl who is beyond her years and understands societal issues that people who don’t have the same identities as you do not understand. They can’t put themselves in your shoes. The place that you feel you have in this community allows you to be a powerful outsider. Someone who can actively listen and reflect on people’s actions and words. In my opinion, that’s a great thing!! People who aren’t like you and me, don’t have that ability. We have the capabilities to see what others don’t. We can see who thinks before they speak, and who doesn’t. We can see who chooses their words carefully and who just talks out of their asses. When you tell me you just want to leave the school and come back to New York, I fear for you. I fear that you won’t stick around to educate your fellow classmates of the role that you play in this community. You must stay. You must stay and tell them how their actions and their words have an impact on you! This will give you power over others. Your suffering and loss in these situations that you experience gives you the power to tell people your story and share how it can change their perspective of the outsider’s situation. Being the outsider or “the invisible” isn’t a bad identity. It’s empowering. I want you to realize you have this power and find that power within you because you can use it to do so much. You have no idea Alyssa. Your experiences in North Carolina can help educate people. The state that you live in, the environment you live in is such a political change from how you lived in Long Island, New York. You definitely already know this because you see it in school. You see how kids dress with their “Make America Great Again” hats supporting Donald Trump and all the hatred he stands with. I encourage you to step out of your comfort zone and describe your hardships you’ve experienced in your community with the open ears of youth and even your parents who can learn from your heart ache.

All my love,

Sophie

When I was younger I wanted so badly to be a man, I did not want to be a woman that everyone tells what to do or how to act. In my home I was free to be as “machona” as I wanted to be but as soon as I stepped out of my house I felt unprotected, I felt pointed out, I felt minimized.

I have two brothers that I love with my life, I am the middle child but my mother sees me as the big child because of my attitude. As a child I only had amigos hombres because I was always out with my brothers. I played soccer with them, I was the referee in many of the games, I was one of them and I felt great until I started noticing the gaze of the neighbors. I noticed in their face the expression of worry and listened how they talked about me and my parents: “how their parents let her be with so many boys” and the inevitable “she should be with girls playing dolls”. I hated that about me, I HATED BEING A WOMAN, I hated so much, not because I didn’t like dolls because I love them but for the small talks, for the roles that they already had for me.

One day I was crying because my mother didn’t let me go out with my brothers, she didn’t want that people talk about me. That day I felt minimized, I felt less but the same day I felt great. My brothers had a talk with me, they told me that I always will be invited in their games and that I should never cry because of the chismes “ellos no saben lo que hablan”.

Since that day I never cry for being who I am: A WOMAN.  I am still learning about myself and I love it. Right now for me being who I am is power, is a poem, is everything.

Dear Liza,

I want to start this off by saying I love you! Pero let me tell you why not only because you are Puerto Rican but you are POWER and Strength.

When I hear, you say the world politics my brain lights up because I cannot believe that me and you have a lot in common. I understand being the struggle of being part of a group especially when I consider black. People tell me all the time how can you be black if your Latina and then my Puerto Rican family calls me Gringa. I want to write a poem to you and this letter goes to you for memory.

Ohhhhhhh Liza,

Garcias por tu Pay y tu Máy for making the decisions they did

I know it was NOT easy but I appreciate you

Ohhhhhh Liza,

Where we come from everything that is true, we say wepa
we get pissed, we say cono
we laugh, we say que estupido
when we play, it’s a classic game of dominoes
when we love, it’s always a say of te quiero
No one can take that way from us

It may be the same of color as the u.s.a., but do NOT get it twisted
it may be a colony but the u.s will never take away our wealth
wealth is not all about money, it is what being Boricua and what that means to us means to us.

Your parents,

I am glad you learned about YOURSELF

Young Lords

I hope I could meet you

Your vibe and empowerment I hope for that one that enlighten me!

Puerto Ricans are just as equal we are not any different,

The women in our culture are NOT Putas,

The men in our culture are NOT a waste

Being in the streets from 1:00PM till 7:00PM was normal to me. Coming from a poor neighborhood in the Dominican Republic where there is not much to do at home, we used to entertain ourselves differently. As a child, playing outside with friends, going to the esquina and watch other people play, or just going to a neighbor’s house and talk about whatever topic came to mind made me happy. I never lived with my father because he moved to the U.S when I was two years old, but he would go to the D.R. every end of the year for a month just to spend time with us. Everything was perfect when he traveled. But coming to the U.S I had many encounters with him about “Tu eres la hembra de la casa, you should be home.” Meanwhile, being younger than me, my brother was always encouraged to go out, explore, never help me with the chores at home (because it is a womxn’s task) and be a “Man.” We have to move out of this neighborhood (176 Street in the Bronx) because I do not want my daughter near these Blacks. He would repeat that to my mother everyday after work. At the moment I did not understand what he meant by it. But as I grew up he kept saying “Novio negro no, tienes que mejorar la familia.” 

Pero nunca me deje influenciar. I never let his beliefs influence me on my role as a womxn. Nonetheless, who I should mix myself with. Now, he is happy I didn’t.

My testimonia to Alchemies of Erasure:

I resonated extremely with the idea of being invisible because as a Latina woman, I am marginalized and often depreciated. My mother has always pushed education on me because unlike the privileges, entitlements, and chances I am stripped of because of who I am, nobody can ever rob me of my intellect. I have worked so hard to be where I am today. I have had to push past the stereotypes, stigmas, expectations, and limitations that this authoritarian society has put onto me. I knew that if I wanted to be released from the grips of society’s chains, I would need to do so through education. It is true that “when a woman has to be made invisible, it is because she is powerful, and her presence reverberates, touching everything in its path” (p. 167). I believe that because I have seen it with the many powerful women in my life: my abuela Mimi, my Titi Vivian, Titi Cookie, Titi Millie, my cousin Jessie, my cousin Elyse, and especially through my mother. These women have impacted my life in one way or another and have helped me become who I am today through their endless support, encouragement, and most importantly, through their incessant love. “Whether by her beauty, her spirit, her intellect, her capacity for loving, her conscious witnessing, her creative rebelliousness-called-madness, her liberating laughter, her voice-seeking-truth, her difference, she has not gone unnoticed” (p. 167) If not for them, I would not see the beauty within myself, understand the power of my intelligence, know the differences between right or wrong, nor understand the importance of lifting others up and loving others. I may be invisible to the world, to those who choose not to see me, but I know who I am and I know the power I hold. I think the hardest part of being invisible was trying to convince myself that I am worth so much more than stereotypes and negative connotations. I am an educated Latina woman, a learner and lover of life, someone who loves to laugh, I am a published poet, I love to write, and I love empowering others who have not yet escaped their invisibility. “The fearful ones will do anything to destroy what makes them cower” (p.167) Have you seen the news lately? Sally Yates, first a powerful woman, then the (now former, seriously?) attorney general, fired because she declined to defend something that she believed is and IS wrong. Are we supposed to silence our voices for your merrymaking?  Angela Merkel, first powerful woman, then Chancellor of Germany, no handshake from Mr. Not My President. Are you afraid you might actually get a brain and some sense through a handshake?  All I can say is, my invisibility has been forced onto me, but I have been fortunate enough and privileged enough to not succumb to any negative impositions placed onto me by those who still do not consider me, or my brothers and sisters to be 100% percent human. I will not be subjected to the ⅗ standard of my humanness. I am a whole being, an entire entity, an intelligent woman, a person. I ask that people open their minds and burn the invisibility cloaks; this is not a never-ending exhibition of Harry Potter, this is life. Be seen, be heard, be strong, be you.

Testimonia

Do I believe in you?

Being a kid that was always afraid of the world I used God as my shield to protect myself of the bad things. My mother taught how to pray, how to be good christian and how to see church as my second home. I am 19 years old now and I can say that religion is not the path that I am following.

When you came from a latino family, you know that you only have two choices: or you are a christian or you are a “muchacha del diablo”. When you are a kid the only thing that you do is follow, you follow what others do and say, you don’t want to be nothing related with the diablo because that is bad and you know it.

God was my shield back in the time because I used to be scared, I didn’t know of what I was scared until now. I WAS SCARED OF GOD HIMSELF. Religion was used on me as an oppression system, where he rewards you if you are good, and he punish you if you are bad. Being a kid and be scared caused me problems, I get to anxious of simple things because “bad things were coming”. My father notices that I was anxious and he asked me what was happening to me, and I didn’t know my answer every time was “I am scared”. My father never believe in God as a superior power, but he was the one that teach me to believe in myself and not to be afraid of future bad things, that the only thing that you need is to be a good person and not to harm anyone. Little by little I understand it and I was not longer afraid of being outside, I was not longer afraid of the darkness, I did not longer believe in the diablo.

Until today, religion is used as a system to scare people. People still believe that in order to be a good person you need to believe in something, otherwise you are not complete. Society needs to understand that religion is good to use if you want to teach someone to be a spiritual person or to search in their soul, but it is not okay to use it to spread fear, specially on kids.

As Martha Quintanales, I grew up and I use education an science as my guide.  I still think in God as a superior power, but he is not my answer for everything  anymore.

Arisleyda Dilone’s short documentary Mami, Yo y Mi Gallito was very interesting to watch. What stood out to me the most during the film and discussion was the concept of identity. Although I am not intersex, I was able to relate to Arisleyda Dilone. Her relationship with her mother was what really brought this relationship out. Her mother discussed what it is to be feminine in the film. To her, it meant looking pretty and wearing makeup. It was the stereotypical idea of a girly girl and it fit all of societies standards. My mother feels the same way. Every time my mom would find me wearing men’s clothing she’d tell me, “Mija, esa ropa es para barones. No te miras bien con eso puesto.” Contrary, every time I’d walk downstairs with my makeup done and a dress on she’d say, “Wow, mija! Te miras bien bonita. Eres igual a mami, ¿no?”
I identify as a woman, but I don’t seem to understand why I have to fit into the societal norms of what it is to be a woman. If I like the way a certain article of clothing looks, it doesn’t matter to me whether it meant to be for a boy or girl. The same goes for behavior. Having to be passive, sensitive, emotional, or caring just because it’s what my gender is supposed to do is absurd to me. Hearing Dilone’s experience with gender norms and her mother’s opinion on it was very relatable and interesting to think about.

Caridad Souza’s story “Esta risa no es de loca” reminded me of a discourse that is very common within Latin American families. And how elder generations do not associate Europeaness with the times of conquest and colonization, but to whiteness or betterment.
For example two daughters of the same family married to two drunks one from Salvadoran descendant and one from German descendant, somehow the believe is that the parents of this daughters would always be more satisfied by the German descendant drunk son in law than by the Salvadoran descendent one.
I am pretty sure this happens in every family, how grandparents are always happier when you bring someone home who is lighter skin than darker skin.
The bright side is that younger generations embrace diversity and want all to be a part of the community.

Happy family