Bitter Brown Boy
Latinos for Trump
The snowfall was still fresh as I walked through New Hampshire, knocking on doors before the Democratic Primary in February. My canvassing partner was a Colombian born student who started his studies abroad, but decided to finish his education in the U.S., now participating as an active member of the Harvard College Democrats.
In an election that has contested what it fundamentally means to be American, the afternoon was more than simple civic duty. It felt more like an attempt to survive in and protect the America that insists it is for all, including us—two Latino men with immigrant backgrounds.
The Language of Academia
I sat at home with my feet on the kitchen counter, a bad habit that my mother has hated since I was in high school. My mom walked into the room, scolding me for the transgression. I laughed, obliged, and could only focus on how good it felt to be home after my freshman year of college. My brother and father walked in a little later, joining me around the counter.
We dove into a discussion. I can’t remember what it was about. It could have been about the presidential election, the history of rap music and its relation to "Hamilton" the musical, or whether or not casting the founding fathers as people of color was an unfair rewriting of history. The topic that particular afternoon didn’t matter much. The important part is that it was intellectually challenging, as all of the conversations between the three of us have been for as long as I can remember. My family, unknowingly, was the first group to prepare me for the environment at Harvard—for classroom discussions of readings, political arguments in the library, and all the rest of the daily conversations that require me to challenge and defend my peers.
Black and Brown Bodies
The feelings of pain, and then exhaustion, did not have time to settle before I was forced to add another name to my list. I hadn’t even finished this article when I learned Philando Castile was shot after being pulled over for a busted tail-light. Although I knew it would hurt like hell, I watched the video. And it did hurt. I hurt for the child in the car. I hurt for Castile’s girlfriend,who prayed that he wasn’t dead, hoping his life would not end as another innocent black man, brutalized.
Where does the pain come from? Every time I see another hashtag, another death, the pain is still jarring as ever, and it isn’t simply because I’m empathetic. All my empathy should have run out by now. The pain is stemmed in fear. It is realizing that while the focus has been on the fact that black men are far likelier to be killed by police than white men, I cannot feel safe as a Latino man because my place in this country is in so many ways the same as my black brothers and sisters.
Between Two Worlds
Before this summer, I’d never had a four-digit balance in my bank account. I’d managed to earn a couple hundred dollars that I burnt on books and dorm supplies during the first few weeks of fall semester, but that’s as close as I’d gotten. The rest of the year, I got by scrubbing toilets in the couple of hours I could find scattered beneath papers and in the cobble-stoned cracks between club meetings.
I started my trip to Manila with a full bank account thanks to an internship grant I got through the Harvard Office of Career Services. There’s been an unusual freedom in being able to grab a takeout meal or Uber around Manila—two luxuries I avoid during the school year. Here, I can enjoy them without a second thought because I know the money’s there for me.