Juan Pumpernickel Epstein meets MEChA

Juan Epstein, my first hispanic jewWhen I accepted the offer to present at a radical Chicano conference this past week, my first thought was: oh crap, now everyone there will know I'm not Dominican enough. I don't speak Spanish, my Jewish nose  makes my olive skin look more Ashkenazi than Latina and most importantly, I have never felt totally at home when I visit Santo Domingo. This is less about the fact that no one there seems to look like me, but also, because when I'm down there (ha), I feel just how American-brand a queer I am. I didn't know if it was right for me to go and present for students about sexuality when I am so often at odds with my own Hispanic experience. So, selfishly, I decided to go for myself.

Sin Cadena's (Without Chains) was a conference on sexuality and identity put together by MEChA, a radical chicana/o student organization. The day was a collection of workshops and panels kicked off with a commencement speech by Philadelphia's LGBT liaison Gloria Casarez. Students came from all over America to discuss what is was to be young, sexual, thinking folks. I was excited to see what would come of the hour we were given to present.

Together with my friends from Galaei, (an amazing organization dedicated as much to pleasure as it is to sexual health) we put together a workshop, which would be a self-run situation. We all agreed that we wanted to stay away form defining anything about sex- a topic as slippery to get into as a diaphragm. Instead, one of my colleagues suggested we do a fishbowl. This is a facilitation game in which a question is asked to a small group for discussion and folks listening can join by tagging someone else out. She thought it might be good to start with the question "do you ever not feel latina/o enough?" It was a staggering moment. After I crapped my pants, I remembered the lesson I keep having to learn over and over again: everyone struggles with feeling like not enough. For those of us who have strong cultures pulling us in different directions, it’s hard to sometimes feel the smooth blend that all those cooking/culture metaphors refer to. Sometimes you’re less a melting pot than a rock sitting in a bowl of porridge… sometimes the rock is porous, sometimes it is a porridge rock, sometimes the rock is a guy named sue. Wait, sorry, I was taking life seriously again.  But suffice to say, sometimes a mixed experience is merely a fractured one that, in turn, becomes it’s own whole experience.

During the fishbowl, I awkwardly acknowledged not feeling like enough. And I didn’t disappear into a puff of smoke and shame. In fact, I stayed in the fishbowl speaking to these bold and articulate students. I was struck by what one person said after he tagged in on the question “what does queer mean to you?” I had discussed ScrewSmart’s blog uproar around the idea that someone straight could be queer. This guy agreed with the sentiment and went on to liken it to his own understanding of what it was to be Chicano. He said that at a certain point it stopped being about where you were from and became how you politically aligned yourself. My mind was officially blown. Maybe this was a new umbrella term that I could actually begin to own as my own. One that was malleable as, well, as porridge. A global word that could encompass as my own experience as a true whole as opposed to a part of a fractured sum. And so this is me, Juan Pumpernickel Epstein, chicana-at-large, saying thank you to all the brave young thinkers who present us with the words that get closer to being seen.