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Ode: Growing up Latino in Iowa with ‘white eyes,’ brown skin

Lorenzo Sandoval
Ally Karsyn

I am a Latino.

Like each of you, I have studied self. I have wanted to know: Who am I? What is the purpose of my life?

In my particular case, as I experienced the early phases of my life—as a boy, a college student, a young man—as I experienced these phases I found that much of my reflection on identity was grounded heavily in seeking the approval of other people… white people.

Why? Because I concluded early on that being a Latino in the United States was a problem. By virtue of being alive in this country, I was a problem.

The origin of this perception was mostly my own doing… with a little help from my parents.

Among the non-material gifts my parents gave me when I was young boy was a second pair of eyes… the eyes of white people.

You see, my parents—especially my dear mother—would warn me every time I ventured outside the home that I was not to be too loud, not to disrespect teachers or authority figures, not to ask for seconds in someone else’s house, not to be presumptuous, not to appear dirty or disheveled.

So, what is unusual about that? Parents commonly conveyed—and still convey—those admonitions to their children.

True. But, to the long list of admonitions, my mother would unfailingly add this coda: “We don’t want people saying anything bad about us because we’re Mexican.”

Consequently, I reached conclusions about my identity and formed a somewhat limiting worldview. I internalized a set of restrictive behaviors. No need for the parents to be around to scold me. I handled that job myself.

I now had a second pair of eyes, crafted from the raw material of the constant repetition of those warnings, warnings, warnings. I peered at myself through those eyes and saw very clearly that I had a veil of brown skin. Despite the fact I was born in the United States, despite the fact that I used an Anglicized name—Larry Sandoval—and despite the fact that I could not speak Spanish—I could say only a few words and phrases, but with an American accent—I was a Mexican.

For a person of color, this awareness, according to W.E.B. DuBois, the great sociologist and civil rights activist, this awareness is the first of two major life-altering experiences.

My second life-altering experience…well, before I share that story let me say that as a teen-ager, despite my low self-esteem,  I possessed a measure of self-confidence that propelled me toward and supported me in the world of high school theatre. I played all kinds of white men. No brown veils in my little world of theatre.

Away from stage activities, I would go to football and basketball games and movies and pizza parlors with my friends—none of them were Latinos.

Now we come to my second, DuBoisian life-altering experience.

It was the summer of 1967—a very hot summer. My friends and I decided one sunny day that we would go for a swim. Our group leader, my best friend, suggested that we all go to the swimming pool at the new private club to which his family belonged. None of us drove, so we all walked there.

What a sight we were, with snorkels, swimming goggles, rolled up towels and a teen-aged, outsized load of pent-up energy. I remember lots of boasting about the fancy dives we would make.

When we arrived at the club, which sat a distance from the main highway and was hidden by woods, we walked by the busy pool which was enclosed by a high chain-link fence. I saw a number of the in-crowd kids there. In retrospect, they were a breathtaking sight: tanned, beautiful teen-agers, communicating with confident body language that they knew their power and relished their privileges.

Of course: they would be members of this private club, I thought.

My friend, the member of the club, addressed the pool manager and introduced the rest of us as his guests. As we began making our way in, the manager said,

“You all can go on in.” Then, indicating me with his thumb, he said, “Except him.”

My friend wanted to know ‘why.’ He repeated his question several times. Each time, the manager would only say, “Because he just can’t.”

It was an awkward moment. There was silence. We had made such a long trek, and we all really wanted to swim. I told the rest of them that I could sit on a bench outside of the fence and watch them swim. To this day I am so glad they resisted the idea. But, I saw the confusion and disappointment in their faces. I persisted.

“It’s OK,” I said. “Go on in. I’ll just watch you guys.”

After a bit of back-and-forth, convinced that I was going to be all right, they slowly entered the club.

I did watch my friends for what seemed an eternity. I was literally on the outside looking in. My best friend dedicated his dives to me. Standing at the edge of the diving board he cried out to me, “This one’s for you, Larry.”

Life-altering experience number two.

What happened to me is exactly what happened to DuBois in his youth. He wrote: “Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like [them perhaps] in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil.”

Nobody had yelled a racial epithet at me. Nobody had struck me.

But the mere indirectness of the manager’s words… the things not said… the dismissive gesture of his thumb… all of it wielded the power of a curse and a fist in the face.

Even worse, the incident exposed my sense of ‘whiteness’ as a pitiful illusion. It reinforced the message I had already been telling myself: I was different, a less-than, a problem.

Though I learned some grim lessons as a youth, I have not had a troubled adulthood. To be sure, I have had ups and downs; but, fortunately for me, the following happened in my lifetime: civil rights, Martin Luther King, Jr., Brown Power, Cesar Chavez, a fruitful career in human services, love, children, theatre, grad school, teaching, acting, directing, writing and moments when a friend says something with simple graceful power: “I dedicate this dive to you.”

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Lorenzo Sandoval is a theatre professional and Dimmit Fellow at Morningside College.

Ode is a storytelling series where community members tell true stories on stage to promote positive impact through empathy. It is produced by Siouxland Public Media.

The next event is 7 p.m. Friday, April 7 at the Peirce Mansion. The theme is “Growing up Is Hard to Do.” Tickets are available at kwit.org. For more information, visit facebook.com/odestorytelling.

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