For
many young boys of color who grow up in the inner cities, the hood, the ‘ghetto’,
or the slums as some would say, it’s hard to see beyond the city limits.
At
least that is how we are socialized to view our surroundings. I am a Latino, I
hail from a single-mother household, living below the poverty threshold, a
product of the public school system, a statistic we often hear about those who
look like me, and I belong to multiple marginalized groups, and still I
persist.
This
isn’t a blog about how my success means that everyone has the same opportunity,
I realize that while I put in a lot of work to get to where I am now, I also
recognized I was lucky to have folks enter my life who made sure I realized
that there was more to life than the street corner.
Being born premature meant I was
frail in the eyes of my mother, she kept me sheltered. I couldn’t dream of being the next big rapper,
despite being talkative, I was afraid to speak up so I kept my lines of poetry
hidden inside a journal. I couldn’t dream of being the next big athlete because
my crippled legs kept me on the sidelines, as the other kids got to play.
I was
encouraged to read by my teachers, my academic performance granted me entrance
into specialized academies, and later my talents would get me into the city’s
only performing arts high school. See my journey through the public school
system was only made possible because I had educators who took pride in their
work and invested in me.
From the streets I saw what drugs
could do to a dream, I saw how hanging out too long on the street corner made
you a hot target for murder, I saw how the bright city lights blinded folks
from seeing beyond the city landscape.
I knew
I didn’t want my zip code to determine my ‘life code’—I didn’t want where I
came from to determine where I would go in life, or what dreams I would decide
not to follow, or just how far fetched I would allow my mind to wander as it
began to develop goals that seemed impossible in the eyes of many.
This
past Saturday I did a workshop presentation at Harvard—yes, Harvard, a first
generation college student got to do a workshop presentation at Harvard and
tomorrow I will be giving a keynote address and performance at New York
University. I decided my ‘life code’ would be that no matter how difficult or
what obstacles would form before me, I would continue to walk on my path, that
I would continue to live for my purpose, that I would aspire to inspire others
to do the same and that I wouldn’t allow anyone to take away my ability to live
my truth.
To
persist in life means to keep going despite having every valid reason to give
up. To persist in life means to believe in the impossible of dreams and not
allow them to be deferred. To persist in life means to embrace every aspect of
your identities, no matter what they might be. To persist in life means to see
the world beyond the city you were raised in.
Progress
only came because others before us persisted that change was needed, they
fought for it, they kept pushing for it, and they were not willing to settle
for second-class citizenship. From birth I had to fight to stay alive, growing
up I had to know what streets to avoid late at night in order to avoid putting
my life on the line. I had to fight through a broken education system and
then I had to fight to get into college because brown boys like me who graduate
high school with a 2.4 are not expected to make it…then again we aren’t even
expected to make it out of high school.
I
fought to live my truth, to create the kind of life I could be proud to claim
as my own. Now in my fourth year in college, as my career truly begins to
unfold before my eyes, as my dreams begin to take flight, I am more thankful
for my zip code because where I come from shaped me into the person I became
and where I came from inspired me to persist, that despite the odds, I wanted
to see more of the world…and my sightseeing is just beginning.
I hope you too find the courage to persist, to go beyond your zip code, to travel your path and to discover yourself and the world in a whole new way.
