The summer I graduated from high school was the last time the boys and I spent together as a group. We kept in touch, but we weren’t the tight family unit we once were. It was sad to say good-bye to all my friends who were heading off to college, a luxury I couldn’t afford. It was difficult to watch everyone take their next steps in life while I was stuck at home. But I kept my game face on and wished all my friends the best.
Then 1999 hit, and my world was changed forever.
It all began the evening of February 24 as I sat down in my living room to watch the Grammys. The telecast had great performances by the likes of Madonna and the Dixie Chicks, but musical historians remember it most for Lauryn Hill’s groundbreaking win for Album of the Year, the first time a hip-hop artist had won that coveted prize. However, the only thing the average American who watched it live—Latinos in particular—will ever remember of the 41st Annual Grammy Awards was the man who would forever be known as Ricky Martin.
Ricky was performing “The Cup of Life” live in front of an English-speaking American audience for the first time. I was glued to the TV the second it started. My mom, who knew the song from Spanish language radio, rushed in as soon as she heard it begin. It was also the official song of the FIFA World Cup, which was why my dad joined us as well. If you were Latin American, you knew that song before the Grammys even aired. But like the rest of the United States, I was about to wake up to its performer.
The trumpets introduced him, but he wasn’t revealed until one of his giant, shiny Pablo Picasso cubist set pieces dramatically flipped around. When Ricky started singing, it was evident that we were all witnessing a supernova in the flesh. He was a handsome young Puerto Rican who had a captivating voice, undeniable good looks, and an uncanny command of his lower body. My mom’s jaw dropped. My dad shifted uncomfortably on the couch. I, however, could not be bothered. The way Ricky Martin danced salsa onstage, the way he sang with such glee, the way he had the entire audience in the palm of his hand… it was as if Ricky was redefining masculinity in front of our very eyes. He was shaking his hips in ways that Elvis Presley was banned from doing on TV just decades before. The audience at the event could not stop cheering for this multitalented Latino. I knew America was losing its damn mind because I was, too. I didn’t look like Ricky, but I knew those moves were deep inside me. It’s the music and the passion I grew up with my whole life. In 1999, Ricky Martin was the type of man I wanted to be: confident, talented, and unapologetically Latin. Every young woman I knew who watched the Grammys that night went crazy over him. Ricky Martin finally made me feel sexy without having to pretend that I was Zack Morris.
Ricky Martin kicked off what the media went on to dub “The Latin Explosion.” Record companies couldn’t find Latin American performers fast enough to exploit the Ricky Martin phenomenon. The Colombian Shakira, the Nuryorican Marc Anthony, everyone had crossover records in the works. Rising movie star Jennifer Lopez redefined herself as the singer J-Lo. Even Europeans, like the Spanish Enrique Iglesias, got in the game. The Latins in the music industry were exploding and I was going to do my damndest to take advantage of this newfound fascination with us. I wore tighter shirts. I bought an Enrique Iglesias beanie. I took salsa classes that I never intended on finishing. But it was no use. I would attend backyard parties with very little fanfare. I couldn’t “She Bangs” my way into any girl’s number. Nobody cared that I was Latin. Ricky Martin’s sex appeal was not trickling down to me.
With the sad realization that I wouldn’t explode like the Latinos on MTV, I finally forced myself to enroll at my local community college, Mt. San Antonio College. It turns out all my hard work in high school didn’t mean much of anything once I graduated. Out of desperation, I applied for financial aid and was denied just as quickly for being undocumented. I was forced to pay for college out of pocket, which meant that community college was the only thing I could afford. My dad warned me that as long as I lived in his house, I had to go to college and pay for it myself. It turns out, community college was how you made cheap immigrant fathers happy. I was still working under the table at the local video store, so I could afford the community college tuition myself. It’s terrible that higher education is so expensive in this country, and—worse—that it’s predominantly minorities that end up in bankruptcy because of it. Nevertheless, there I went.
The majority of my West Covina High School crew went to Cal State Universities. Cal State Universities were cheaper than the University of California system: same academic rigor minus all the extra fees. Napo, Sal, and I, however, stayed put. The three of us trekked our way to Walnut, California, to attend the University of Walnut. There is no such thing as the University of Walnut! It was just how we referred to Mt. San Antonio College—or Mt. SAC for short. By the way, I don’t advise anyone to text “Mt. SAC” to your college professor because your phone will always autocorrect it to “my sack.” It is quite embarrassing.
My sack—I mean, Mt. SAC—was a bus ride away from my house. I spent most of my teenage years looking down at public transportation and at all the maids, nannies, older immigrants, and low-paid workers who had no choice but to take the bus. I was now one of them. It was difficult maneuvering my way through Mt. SAC with no social security number. When I first went to take my English proficiency test, they asked for it so out of desperation I made one up. Then when I went to take my math proficiency test, I forgot the number I used, and angry with myself, I made another one up. The result was that I had inadvertently made a bigger mess for myself. I had created two Rafaels at Mt. SAC: one who was good at English but bad at math, and the other who was good at math but bad at English. I remember sheepishly walking up to my remedial math college professor and saying I didn’t belong in this class, to which he replied: “I know, son, nobody does.” It was like elementary school all over again, which made sense since it was a remedial class!
It took me an entire semester to figure out the mistake I’d made. I knew there was a reason I was being blocked from taking higher-level courses. I was worried about talking to any college official for fear they might turn me into the authorities, but I had no choice. It was either overcome my crippling fear of sharing the truth about my immigration status or stay in community college until both Rafaels finished their AA’s. I had to fix this two Rafaels problem. I took a deep breath and signed up to speak to a college counselor. I was assigned an incredibly caring Japanese American counselor named Audrey Yamagata-Nogi. Ms. Yamagata-Nogi had dedicated her entire life to helping the young aspiring minds that walked through the halls of Mt. SAC. Undocumented students were not common at this time. According to the future state bills that went on to support undocumented students like AB 540, there must have been others, but none of us were out. Therefore, I was paralyzed by the fear that I would be deported if I admitted to being one. I played dumb with Ms. Yamagata-Nogi, saying that I didn’t know why I had no social security number. It was news to me. Cough, cough. But I was honest about having an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number. If you’re keeping track at home: I was not allowed to be in this country, but as long as I was here, I needed to pay taxes. Again, the American Revolution was founded on the idea that there should be no taxation without representation. But I digress.
Ms. Yamagata-Nogi considered the situation. Clearly the federal government knew I was here if they had issued me a Taxpayer ID Number. But then again, what student does not have a social security number? I started to breathe heavily. I was now eighteen, and as an adult, I feared I ran a greater risk than when I was underage and in high school. But with a wave of her pen, Ms. Yamagata-Nogi fixed all my legal problems at community college with one simple solution: “I will give you a Mt. SAC ID number. Use this for everything while you’re here.” Ms. Yamagata-Nogi was taken aback by my reaction. In all the history of Mt. San Antonio College counseling appointments, I am certain no student ever did a victory dance upon receiving a Mt. SAC ID number. If she knew about my legal problems, she never once let on. Everything seemed to be back on track, for now.
Once I was able to unite both Rafaels, I had access to college courses that were transferable to the UC system. Because I was behind in my schooling by a semester, I started community-college-hopping. My cousin Diane was getting ahead in her classes at Cal State Fullerton by also going to Citrus College, a community college where her old high school counselor, Mr. Burmingham, was the Citrus College English professor. Can you imagine needing to be a community college professor as a side hustle because being a full-time high school counselor did not pay enough? Like the old saying goes: those who can, do; those who can’t, need at least three jobs to stay afloat while your doing robs the working class blind. I’m paraphrasing.
Using my Mt. SAC ID number as my social security number, I enrolled at Citrus Community College as well. The maximum college credits any student could take at one community college in a given semester in the state of California at that time was eighteen. By going to two community colleges, I was able to take twenty-four credits a semester. In other words, I had no life. Between college and the video store, my friends never saw me. Community college was burning me out fast. It was at this exact time that I enrolled in a third community college.
While all this was going on, my American life was in total limbo, even more so than before. My parents had hoped our permanent residencies would arrive before I finished high school, but they didn’t. I was in community college buying time while the United States’ family reunification program (or as the forty-fifth president called it, “my third set of in-laws”) worked itself out. We were thirteen years into the process and still waiting. This immigration purgatory, the idea that I might spend another five years or fifteen years waiting for our petition to be approved, caused me to take every class in the course catalog, simply to take advantage of it in case I got deported. I simply went in alphabetical order. I took: anthropology, biology, chemistry (I should have picked a different “c”), economics, geology, humanities, political science, philosophy, and theater. I didn’t want to take the theater class. I feared that my neighborhood cholo friends would beat me up.
I walked into my first acting class with trepidation. My theater professor, an awesomely judgmental gay man who used to teach theater at Michigan University but who was happy to work in the California community college system because of the better pay and even better weather, assigned me a monologue from A Streetcar Named Desire. Luckily, I worked at a video store and found a copy of the old black-and-white movie starring Marlon Brando. I saw what he did with the words and then tried them on for size. I got in front of the class, and did what I had been practicing in the mirror for a few days. It was a thrill to perform in front of people. When I’d finished, my theater professor said that I definitely needed to audition for the school play. He said I was a natural. A natural what? I wondered.
I auditioned and got the lead role of our college’s production of a Chicano play by Milcha Sanchez-Scott called Roosters, which was in part about a father returning home from prison and his young campesino son having a hard time accepting him back into the family. I played the son, but I was a complete novice to acting. It was one thing to follow an established blueprint created by Marlon Brando to get an A in class, but it was a whole other thing to do the handiwork of creating a character yourself. I didn’t know what I was doing, so I took direction very well—eager not to look like an idiot onstage. I would rehearse with my new homeboy Eddie, who despite looking like a local gangbanger, had studied theater all four years of high school. Eddie helped me with my memorization, with my blocking, and with intent. I was surprised to discover that acting wasn’t so difficult for me, especially after having acted like an American for most of my life.
As opening night approached, I found it harder and harder to tell my parents about the play out of fear that my dad would get upset. Our relationship was just as bad as ever, and I didn’t want to make it worse. He’d sacrificed so much to come to this country, and in return I wanted to be an actor? Give me a break. I’m upset at myself just writing about it.
Opening weekend was Mt. SAC theater program’s greatest lesson in live events: always cast Latinos! Boy, did my family come out in droves. My family helped sustain that opening weekend on their own. My aunt Teresa, my uncle Ivan, my uncle Sergio, my aunt Lucha, my uncle Pete, my aunt Betty, my great-aunt Emma—everybody showed up! At the time, I was incredibly embarrassed that they were there. Now I realize how lucky I was to have such a large and loving family eager to support my stupid pipe dream. My mom and dad were present as well, of course, but I had only informed them that week that I was in a play so to them it was a one-off. Their response to my new interest in theater was not anything we had discussed up to that point.
The impromptu opening-night party for my family at my house was as last minute as some of my acting choices during the play. My aunts, uncles, and homies piled into our West Covina condo. As always, the beer was flowing. We were still fighting for upward mobility, so hard alcohol was not a common practice for us then—it was too expensive. I was drinking with Choli and Napo when my dad pulled me aside. He was several beers in when he said he wanted to talk. My dad was not known as a man of the arts. As a pediatric surgeon, he was clearly a man of science. He would get drunk once in a while at family gatherings and bring out his old guitar, giving us all a glimpse of that South American high school student who could have had a musical career but whose father forced him into a career that was less “estupido.” I thought perhaps this would be our conversation on this night: finding a career less stupid. I had been waiting for him to ask me why the hell I was pursuing theater. What he said next left me speechless…
“You were… good. Very good. And I know it must have come from all of our problems.”
Wow. My dad thought my portrayal of a young man fighting with his estranged father was so believable that I must have been tapping into our real-life friction. Astonished, I then watched my dad do something he had never done in my presence before. He cried. My dad would cry many times in front of me after that, but this night was the first time he had ever done so in my presence. The machismo facade was slowly peeling off in front of my very eyes. I had never seen them before, as a child or as a young man: my father’s tears.
I never once thought of my dad. I was too concentrated on hitting my blocking and finding my light to care about anything else, even the acting part. When my dad told me my performance was good and that it must have come from all the problems we had with each other, I remember thinking: I was just trying not to forget my lines—ain’t nobody thinking about you! But I didn’t say that. I thought it was important that my dad cry. I thought it was important that I cry with him as well.
I believe that blood is thicker than water, but that love is thicker than blood. Enrique was not my biological father, but he was always my dad. Like he said to me once during a fight when I was fourteen: “You don’t have to love me, but while you live under this roof, you do have to respect me.” That was our deal. All I had to do was respect him. I was an ungrateful teenager living for free, and all I had to do for rent was not be disrespectful. I can’t imagine what he went through all those years. I’m sure that not being his blood made raising me and loving me that much harder. How difficult it must be to love a child who is not your own, and how complicated it must be to discipline said child. Luckily, we both had my mom’s love to bind us together. It is not a hyperbole when I say that my mom was the glue that kept our family whole, just like my abuelita did for her immediate family before her. Nothing could have made this vulnerable moment with my dad more perfect. Two men brought together not by blood, but by love. Crying.
Many years later, Ricky Martin redefined what it meant to be a Latin man for me once again by coming out of the closet. It was a devastating shock to admiring Latinas all around the world, my mom most of all. But to tell you the truth, with an extraordinary global music career, engaged political activism, and a foundation that fights to end human trafficking, Ricky Martin continues to inspire me to this day—sexy gyrating hips and all. Ricky spent most of his life building up the courage to publicly come out of the closet. I related to that struggle insofar that I was still trying to find the courage to finally come out of the shadows.