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sheywrites · 6 years ago

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No Guidance - DrakeFreeEdit

Every acceptance speech I’ve ever heard has had the same framework, the same template. No matter the achievement, the same structure followed: a slight swell of humility succeeded by sudden but smooth bed of self-aggrandizing compliments, quickly switching to the eloquent story of hardship and perseverance. Next come the long, expansive stream of acknowledgements. The supportive team of people that helped propel them to success, almost always cultivating in that very achievement. At top of that championing list of people always to be found two constants, some omniscient omnipresent religious figure, and a mom. The mother that drove to all those soccer practices, pushed them to join ballet before they could barely stand. The mother that came home from working three jobs to check homework and sew halloween costumes. Olympic acceptance speeches, graduation speeches, even mock yearbook quotes all start out the same for the most part. God, effort and talent, then the relentless support system. Now, what of all the children that didn’t have that kind of guidance, that couldn’t afford that type of support? Naturally we think of the success stories and the pioneers. The gymnasts that were driven countless hours of practice and had private coaching, or the equestrians with the horses and the gear the stable, riding time. On the other hand, longingly somewhere sits a child staring aimlessly in front of a television set. With the hunger and desire to draw, or act, or photograph, maybe with the talent to design silhouettes the eye has yet to see, but unheard and tool-less he sits.

I grew up in New York City, in The Bronx. Until I was six years old when my mother married a man that quickly joined the military and relocated the family. The early nineties are hazy memories of happiness; nostalgia wrapped recognizance of the quintessential latchkey kid. Snapshots of a chubby, fizzy haired gap tooth kid sitting on an apartment floor surrounded by fashion magazined pilfered from neighbor’s coffee tables. Never the good stuff never a Vogue, never a W, never Elle, never Cosmo or even Glamour. Those were exclusively for when I wandered off and had a few sacred minutes alone, glossy eyed in the grocery store magazine aisle knowing better than to ask for a magazine that cost the same as a pack of chicken. No, my life was colored by best and worst dressed lists in the back of National Enquirers. The foray

of colors and bamboo earrings of my neighborhood, the rare glimpses of the working women dressed to the nines when I would get to go into midtown with my mom on the train to her retail job. My most prized possession, a four page hand-drawn sketch book put out for the spring collection at the tiny faux chain boutique she worked at. I would sit for hours on the scratchy carpeted floor and flip back and forth through those four pages. Mesmerized by the thin long-limbed models dressed in Parisienne style pastels: beautiful, graceful, encompassing. Other snap shots fill my memory too. Flashes and sound-bytes come back in waves. The uncomfortable feeling coursing through my little six-year-old body as my mother sternly drilled into me in our native Spanish, “Sheila dreams are for sleeping and for those who can afford luxuries, I came to this country to work and give you better, brighter opportunities. You don’t have time for dreams, you have to study hard and choose a career that will be fruitful and productive, get you out of here, do better than me.” Still vivid are both occasions. In first and third grade, when teachers and administrators begged and pleaded with her. Her daughter gifted naturally bright beyond her years urgently needed to be skipped ahead a grade after extensive testing and exceeding scoring. Teachers noticing her boredom and being lightyears ahead of classmates. “No! No! Not my little girl she’s too little! The big kids will pick on her who will be there to defend her?” Both times, stubborn and closed-minded she wouldn’t hear of it. Years and years of lackadaisical parenting and half efforts ensued under the guise of “long hours” and “work fatigue.” Unopened acceptance letters, unreturned scholarships, missed gifted programs, interests and opportunities ignored or unexplored.

Even as my fingers glide across the keyboard now, my thoughts wander back through time and doubt starts to creep in. Questions, fear and self consciousness will always be an immense battle. With so many success stories projected and blasted constantly in our faces the battle to quiet the noise, the whispers intensify, the scenic route longer more difficult to navigate. To ignore the almost constant hissing murmur in your head, “well if you were naturally talented you wouldn’t have needed any support.” The relentless buzzing “there are so many people doing all the things you want to achieve before you, younger than you, why can’t you?”

The balancing act trying to perpetually ignore these deterrents. With memories of days sitting in a parking lot long passed pick up time. Avoiding eye contact with every teacher, administrator and staff member walking passed with worried judgmental look in tow. When the mental measuring contests start I try to quiet the noise remembering days growing up without basic cable. Asking to go to a friend’s house to watch Red Carpets: The MTV Awards, The Grammy’s, The Oscar’s: anything I could consume. Never missing a carpet or a look, but never actually watching an award show until well into adulthood. Vividly remembering the feeling of watching parents bring flower bouquets, camcorders and signs to graduations, step up ceremonies and simple band concerts; I wouldn’t know what happens at sports games, soccer moms, football moms and PTA chairs take time and effort. Point being of course some people come out of the womb prodigies, natural born stars. Us mere humans find our talents and abilities through trial and error, hard work and dedication. Society teaches us from the time we are taught our first words that our beacons, our manuals, our guides are our parents. Unconventional upbringings and adversity color the stories of our lives and make up the fabric of humanity. In finding yourself, without manuals or examples or guides extra time and mistakes should be allotted. Time to take the scenic route, time to do things on our own. Time to find our own talents and develop ourselves. To be our own champions and one person support systems. This process will come with more mistakes, longer timelines, but lessons that are priceless.

All those acceptance speeches have something else in common. Usually after the humility and before the acknowledgements, quietly sandwiched in there is a story of personal growth. A great obstacle overcome, hardships faced, the pain the strife no matter how great or small it may seem to us receiving the message, the person up there who lived it at one point swore they might not have made it. Undoubtedly life has already been long and difficult, in my case more than a few would describe as unjustly challenging; but I always say we are all dealt with our specific obstacles to mold us into who we are. Through everything I have always turned to fashion. Clothes, fabric, patterns, colors, and accessories forever my refuge. Never

too busy or too preoccupied to answer a FaceTime and style a friend for free or give quick redecorating tips to someone that needs a change on a budget. No matter what happens or how far life may lead me, I will forever be that wide-eyed frizzy haired girl pouring over stolen looks on the itchy carpet floor. 

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sheywrites · 6 years ago

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hermanito ...

The little body struggled to climb the bar stool next to the phone on the wall, but with so much practice, so much repetition, it became a familiar dance, “Hello, no my mommy isn’t home yet call back at 6 when she’s off work, I’ll help you talk to her,” the squeak of a child’s voice annoyed with the familiarity of his script. Her voice echoed between his ears as he hung up the phone “no me dejes caer el telefono!” Gently he placed the receiver back on the hook, teetered his little body on the stool and hopped down, message diligently memorized, waiting patiently until end day for his mother to get home.

It’s a scene all too familiar to any immigrant child; the translating for your parents on the phone between teachers, standing directly between them and any adults, interpreting any weird American mannerism. The memories of being tiny state diplomats go as far as our memories can form. If you ask any first-generation immigrant, a huge nostalgic smile will cross their face, eyes lit with wonder as they begin to recount stories of their early beginnings. But just as curiously, this only seems to be an amazing feat when it’s done by immigrant children of white decent. Recently I saw a headline about the Royal grandchildren of England. It read “Little Charles already speaks two languages before two years old!’ I immediately thought, “am I being sensitive or doesn’t every Dominican toddler I know also do that?” This might be the type of thinking that leads to anti-immigrant thinking against immigrants of color. We see a large discrepancy in the difference in immigrants accepted from European countries than we do from immigrants accepted from countries of African descent. Not to mention we have never once heard our administration call for a border wall with Canada.

The rhetoric created that immigrants “steal our jobs” doesn’t apply to doctors or scientists, or curiously enough it is widely unknown that undocumented citizens can make minimum wage as well now. Alaska has a program which pays its citizens to populate a certain part of the territory. States like North and South Dakota have populations less than a million people, so arguments of overcrowding would be senseless. Federal income tax widely report that undocumented citizens rarely go without paying taxes. When immigration reform was brought to the national stage it under the pretense of security, that undocumented citizens might be here under the radar committing violent offenses and had to be removed, but we have seen children torn away from their families, lost, misplaced, families separated, toddlers put on trial to defend their citizenship and legitimacy in this country. What can only be described as a bad SNL skit was seen playout in a courtroom in Texas as kids as young as three were paraded on the stand and questioned into tears about their legal status. The truth is, the Obama administration deported a record number of adults in its duration at 2.5 million people between 2009 and 2015 earning him the name “deporter in Chief.” At the inception of his administration, Trump made it abundantly clear he would make it his business to repeal whatever legislation he had to, to topple this number.

Let’s take a second though, be fair. Play devil’s advocate right because laws are laws and things must be done a certain way. What happens to these children when they are sent back to these foreign countries they’ve never been to? These countries the American government insist these children from and they must “immigrate back from the correct way?” I’m glad that came up by the way, the correct way to immigrate here takes several thousand dollars and about 8-10 years on average, if and only if your application is approved, which we spoke about earlier, is less likely to be approved or accepted if you are poor from a country of African descent, but were getting off track. We were talking about what happens to the children; because they are children after all right? Children like Iowa teen Manuel Antonio Cano-Pacheco, who was only 19 when he was deported from Des Moines to Mexico right after graduating from high school, and was only alive for a mere three weeks afterwards. Manuel had been a DACA recipient (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program) but had his status terminated for a misdemeanor offense and a speeding ticket.

This isn’t a piece to make you feel bad for the kid arguing with his mom behind the counter at the bodega. Or to be a little nicer to the kid running his parent’s counter at the neighborhood chino’s restaurant that’s open late with the extra crispy chicken wings and the homemade iced tea that’s not too sweet. It is a piece to put a little less pressure on your little cousins and your younger siblings because that’s just Junior to you, but that’s a bilingual, translating, culture bending little genius you have there and you don’t know that kind of prodigy in the making you’re raising and it’s a little rougher than it used to be.

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