I have just returned from my first visit to Puebla, the central purpose of which was to attend Andres Roemer’s fantastic festival “La Ciudad de las Ideas”, (Nov. 16-19), which focuses on bringing together the world’s most brilliant minds for three days of engagement, conversations, and demonstrations of making the impossible possible, challenging one’s thinking, and stretching every person’s horizons on every possible level. While the festival itself left me more motivated and inspired than I remember being in a very long time, the impressions of Puebla where it all took place, likewise left an indelible mark on me. I had an opportunity to wander around for a day before the social activities began, and I returned home, treasuring every moment, and looking forward to one day coming back to explore more. I was surprised to discover how every time I visit a new country or city, I find myself growing enchanted and wishing to come back and learn more, look into every nook and cranny. I guess, to paraphrase one of the speakers at the conference, the astrophysicist Mario Livio, curiosity is the best antidote to fear. But the experience jolted me in more ways than one. On the plane back to New York, I suddenly recalled my first encounter with Puebla… and how I learned to unlearn my fears.
22 years ago
I arrived with my family from Ukraine, and started attending fifth grade in an elementary school in Brooklyn. Because I started the year late, I ended up in a class that was not particularly academically challenging. A significant portion of the class consisted of immigrants of various backgrounds, and we all attended an ESL class together; however, most of the programming was in English. For me, the experience was a culture shock. I was brought up with fascination with other countries, cultures, stories, and traditions but spent my early years in a very homogeneous society, only a few years away from being also a closed society, and attended an insulated Jewish day school for the first three years. Meeting all these people of different backgrounds and countries of origin was nothing like what I had imagined. We were in a big inner city school, and the kids were noisy. Some came from troubled families, while others were simply from very big families crowded in small Brooklyn apartments.
My first friend in the United States was my classmate from Puebla. When I came, I could read enough English to get by, but my listening skills were weak, and I could not string two words together. My new friend was a year ahead in terms of being in the US, and it seemed like a lifetime to me. Nevertheless, her English was not too much better. But she was friendly and reached out to me, and I was glad to have made a new friend so quickly. Soon, she introduced me to her friends – a group of kids from Mexico and various Central American countries. They accepted me right away, and we’d play ball games during recess and had fun, even though none of us really spoke English, nor did we speak each other’s languages. I felt welcomed. My friend’s mom was very kind to me, and even gave me some hand-me-downs, and the other kids never made fun of me or my accent and clothes, the way the American-born kids did. Although I realized we came from very different cultures, I felt comfortable and happy. Prior to that, the only exposure I had to Latin America was through the soap operas that were aired on Russian TV post-Soviet break up.
But when I started junior high school, things changed. We drifted apart. I had learned English very quickly, and passed the ESL exam, soon entering an accelerated program, and thanks to a wonderful mentor, quickly making it into a specialized class focused on writing. What motivated me was the hostility of the only other fluent Russian speaker in my class, who’d taunt me that I would never pass the exam and would be stuck in a bilingual program for years like everyone else. My friends, on the other hand, had no such pressure. They were friendly to each other, spoke Spanish together, and did not learn English quickly enough. They indeed ended up in a bilingual program.
And we drifted apart. I eventually made a good friend in my new class, and there was simply no opportunity to spend time with the old crowd. Additionally, the culture differences made themselves increasingly evident, and I grew increasingly wary of spending time with people whose families came from very different cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, and education level than my own. We just didn’t seem to have much in common, nor, I thought, we ever would have. It’s not that I was afraid of them, but we just did not seem to share the same interests. And as time passed, I grew increasingly prone to try to disassociate myself from groups of people, who increasingly, in school appeared to be either unmotivated or troublemaking, and I thought it was because of their culture.
In sixth grade, I started taking Spanish, as taking an additional foreign language was a requirement, despite the fact that I had just managed to pass an ESL exam, and less than a year after coming to the United States, was still getting my bearings in English. I had passionately wanted to take French, having grown up with French culture, and having romanticized it to some extent. My parents thought it would be a waste of time. Spanish speakers were a significant segment of the population in the US, whereas French was much less likely to be useful. But to me, Spanish was a “common” language; urban kids spoke it, and I had no interest in spending time in their communities or working with them in any way when I grew up. Besides, Spanish to me, was boring and cold, a language I associated with the Inquisition, though all of my family could not get enough of how beautiful it was. To me, it was dead.
I, however, gave in to my parents and reluctantly agreed to take Spanish, figuring that I would always learn French at some later point. I intended to drop Spanish in high school and opt for French then,, having gotten enough of a background to make it easier for myself. For three years, I took Spanish and felt militantly indifferent about it. I just did what I had to do. The first year and a half, I ended up in a class where the teacher would not say a word in English to us. That intimidated me, especially in the beginning, but that was actually the best thing he could have done for us. At one point, we had a project, where we had to present (in English) in groups about various Spanish-speaking countries. My group chose Cuba. I had written and memorized the entire report. Cuba fascinated me even before then, but after the report, I felt somewhat more connected simply by virtue of having had to do some research. Nevertheless, I was counting down the days till I graduated and could finally embrace my real passion. And then….
Then the grades from the state exams came in, and I somehow ended up as one of the top people in the school, in a very small minority of people who got a perfect score. Somehow, without even noticing it, I did pretty well in a subject I had no interest in.
This came as a surprise, and for the first time, I questioned my decision regarding changing my language for high school. I thought that if I did so well, perhaps I could challenge myself and build on my strength. I still was not particularly thrilled with the language, but thought it would be easier and more worthwhile to continue what I had already started. I still had no interest of reconnecting with the people, but I was curious to see just how far I could go.
As it turned out, it was pretty far. I forced myself out of my comfort zone and took advanced placement classes (college level, for credit) in Native Spanish Language & Literature, and later, in Spanish culture. Most of those two years were a struggle. This was not the same as performing against a somewhat lazier kids who came in with the same level of the language (zero) as I did. The classes were filled with native speakers. And they all spoke differently. As did the teachers, one of whom spoke quickly and swallowed her “s”s, and the other, lisped. They spoke only in Spanish, and because they were talking with all the natives – and me – they spoke quickly. And I had to keep up, only I could barely understand what they said. I honestly thought my experience would end disastrously. It was not enjoyable at all, and I felt angry that I gave up on my dream just to show off how good I could be. I was not sure how I was going to pass the end of the year exams for college credit.
And then I discovered Becquer, and Lorca, and Neruda… and my life changed forever.
I fell in love with the Spanish language slowly, painfully, and forever.
One day, we had to write a poem. And when I wrote mine, instead of hearing words, I heard music. It was rich, and delicate, like antique lace beaded with pearls.
I typed my poem on a beautiful piece of stationery with a fancy calligraphic font, because beautiful words deserve a beautiful presentation. I liked my own work product, but did not think much of it.
Then, my teacher came back to me and asked whether I was the one who wrote the poem. I told her that I did, and that the only help I got was from the dictionary. She framed it on the wall. And to me, it was a shock.
That summer, I tried reading a book, then put it away. It was difficult, too much for me, and therefore boring. I was frustrated. I had picked it up at various times under pretense of learning the language, but overestimated my actual knowledge and did not get much past the title and the first paragraph. I did not get far enough even to learn that the author was a Cuban writer named Reynaldo Arenas, whose book would play an important role in my professional life many years later. At the time, however, I did not think it was worth my effort, but did power through One Hundred Years of Solitude, and although I did not agree with the politics of it, the magical realism spoke to me.
At the end of high school, not only did I pass the language exams and get credit for them for college, but I got the top award for Spanish at graduation.
And then college came, and yet again, instead of finally plunging into French, I opted for more Spanish courses, and ended up having a minor in Latin American studies inside my International/Intercultural Studies major. I was fascinated by the cultures, though all of that, to me was theoretical, and was more of an issue of appreciating literature and music and fine arts from a distance, while learning about social and political issues for the general understanding of the region. It had no practical consequence for me. In law school, I ended up doing an Immigration Law clinic, and my first client ever was a Spanish-speaking woman, who needed help against her abusive ex-husband. Increasingly, Spanish entered my professional realm, not just the quite moments of leisure. I had to deal with Spanish-speaking witnesses during my professional internships. I ended up having to translate documents. It became a practical useful skill. In law school, I was studying with students from various Spanish-speaking countries, including Mexico, and for the first time since childhood, I was fascinated, rather than repulsed. I saw them as human beings and fellow lawyers, rather than representatives of some largely fictional groups which existed largely in my imagination.
Flash Forward
Over the course of the following years, my life changed dramatically, and I refocused my efforts on work with people from various countries. A lot of my life now revolves around relationship building with other cultures, including Jewish-Latino relations, as well as my research into the history of conversos, Jews from Spain, who ended up in North and South America. My interest in global issues expanded signficantly, and Latin America stopped being an abstracted blob and a half on the map, and became an area of professional interest. And my focus on security made me believe that despite years of largely tangential foreign policy, Spanish-speaking countries were central to US interests on a number of levels.
In 2015, candidate Donald Trump emerged, saying crazy things about Mexicans, and practically everybody else. Like many of my contemporaries, I did not initially believe that he himself was serious about his candidacy, nor that anyone else would take him seriously for long. We know the outcome. His staunch supporters dismissed, explained away, or even embraced his comments. Candidate Trump managed to turn a sober discussion about border security and a security wall to prevent the proliferation of cartels into a nativist talking point, that was less about security and prevention of illegal immigration, and more about cheap jingoism that played well to the fears of people who were genuinely affected by the failed policies of the preceding administration.
By 2016, I was getting a ton of flack from both sides – from the one, for allegedly failing to discern legitimate concern and that Donald Trump allegedly was the only one tough enough to talk straight about them, and from the other, for being an enabler of bigots, despite the fact that I was blunt about my choice in that election, and that choice was both significantly more conservative than Mr. Trump and thus reflective of my own values and not at all bigoted or racist. What I saw from that unique perspective was that neither side appeared to be dedicated to fairness. pursuit of truth, or frankly, even finding actual solutions to legitimate security problems. Instead, the election became about discrediting the other side at the expense of anyone who stood in the way, propagating polarizing propaganda, and furthering identity politics – through cheap tokenism and disastrously superficial multiculturalism on the left and through obsession with a sense of white victimhood on the right. Human beings affected by this rhetoric were of no consequences, and I observed with concern the rise of populist demagoguery both in the US, and in Mexico.
When a friend, distressed by the situation, started sending me strong signals that some human grassroots effort was badly needed to streamline away from the alarming trends all around, I was initially reluctant to get involved in a community, with which I had had no formal contacts of any sort for most of my life, but eventually agreed to keep my mind open. That willingness brought about a series of unusual circumstances and events that brought me to Mexico.
Puebla
By this time, I had already visited a number of SPanish-speaking countries, including Mexico, but only as a tourist of sites and experiences. I had little interest, nor opportunity in spending too much time with the local populations.
Listening to my friend discuss her family life in Mexico, the community issues in the US, and the struggle of maintaining reason in an increasingly hyperemotional and polarized world, made me rethink my previous apathy, towards wanting to understand and learn more. Could it be that the situation with Mexico was so bad that the only thing it could produce was the erosion of respect for US immigration laws and drug money?
When I landed in Puebla, I was curious to see what I would discover. And the first thing that I discovered was that no one appeared to know a word of English, and although I have been very nervous about speaking Spanish for fear of getting something wrong, I was basically left with no choice but to plunge right in.
We had a few funny episodes, but I found myself naturally comfortable with everyone around me. Every person I met was patient, polite, respectful, and interested. As we went shopping, the vendors were never overly pushy, and at times even welcomed us with milk candy. Locals were happy to help with directions and did not turn away or pretend to be talking on the phone. No one made fun of my thick accent or showed impatience at my linguistic shortcomings. And on a tour, despite the fact that I was obviously a foreigner, tourists from other cities, happily engaged me and did not run off the moment it became clear that I was not a native-born speaker. I had an opportunity to interact with a wide variety of people during my brief time in Puebla – wealthy, middle class, and of humble descent – and did not have a single alarming experience. On the contrary, I saw hard workers, a growing trend away from the manyana syndrome, which had so irritated me in the cultures of the Spanish speaking countries. The staff everywhere went out of the way to be helpful, and was genial and genuine about it. People were welcoming and warm and people did not try to take advantage of me as a tourist. It just was… normal. Less normal were the extraordinary individuals I saw during the course of the festival, entrepreneurs who would rival anyone in the US, children, who get up in the morning to make bricks, then, after all day in school, go to take music classes until late evening, forward-looking specialists of every kind, all looking to make positive changes for the world and to make their country a better place.
Yes, there are cartels, and corruption, and populists, and lazy people who have not moved on with the times, and people in dire economic straights who take advantage of existing opportunities to break the law and break the law. I am not excusing or diminishing any of that, and all problems should be dealt with according to what makes sense.
But I also realized that the sky is not falling and that all these problems are not the only side to the story. The other side, the side you won’t find in the media, or in the rhetoric of the “nationalist populists”, is the tremendous human potential right next door to us.
They won’t tell you about all the hard-working interested, curious human beings who are yearning to grow and break out of the existing frameworks, and outdated narratives. They won’t tell you about all the exciting projects in development from this country – breakthroughs in non-invasive breast cancer diagnostics, musical talents, scientists, and thinkers. They won’t tell you that in addition to the crude stereotypes which arose from the heat of election rhetoric, and which never quite went away, there are normal, kind, considerate people who are working hard every day and who can be and are good neighbors.
And I would never have said what I am saying had I not seen it with my own eyes, and experienced what I did directly, without the interference of any special lens. Just on my own, exploring the city, in a regular every day context, away from the touristy beaches, from the business center of Mexico City, away from grandstanding politicians, and from the criminal gangs which hold entire towns hostage.
I came to the city and remembered my friend from Puebla, who extended a warm welcome to me before anyone else, and who provided me with refuge during a tough adjustment period to a new country, when people born and raised in the United States saw in me only a stranger. A stranger that by the mere fact of being strange was infringing on their territory. I remembered where I felt wanted, if only for a relatively short while, and what it meant to be a human being despite the differences in language, culture, backgrounds, education, or even aspirations. And I am afraid, that in light of what I had experienced then, and in light of what I am seeing now, we are on a very serious brink of throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Instead of embracing common opportunities and finding ways of solving problems that affect both countries, instead of developing valuable relationships, and exchanging ideas, we are mired in a sea of meaningless bloviations that take us further and further away from long-term answers and in the very dangerous direction of complete dehumanization of other people, all in the spirit of support of self-serving politicos.
It took me many years, most of my life, in fact, to get over my fears, and to return to a place of simple respect, and ability to acknowledge the basic things people have in common despite whatever political and economic differences and conflicts – basic civil treatment, openness to the possibility of growth and something positive, willingness to look past pat answers, and to ask oneself and the other questions – while listening.
One day, the United States will have a president, who may, perhaps, speak more than one language – maybe even Spanish, and will utilize this skill to extract greater understanding and to break down barriers that stand in the way of resolving conflicts and overcoming challenges. One day we will have a president who will use these obstacles to unite the country rather than engage in simplistic polarization and reductionist dehumanizing rhetoric that plays to fears, rather than to reason and to problem solving. One day we will have a visionary leader who in his or her every action demonstrate the America’s true greatness is in the acknowledgment of God-given rights and liberties, the centrality of freedom, common to every individual regardless of background and in the Constitution that protects these individual rights, and thus the concept of free will.
The day will come when such a president will understand that great leadership means finding and working towards bringing out the best in our own citizens, and in our allies and partners, and utilizing the existing opportunities to create networks, generate ideas. Such governance will find possibilities for innovation that benefit both countries, and strengthen the United States through the richness of available talent, rather than through appeal to emotions, whether to worthless pity or fearmongering and isolationsim. However, until that day comes, we are still responsible, even without such an example at time, in engaging in the examination of what we know, what we think we know, what we are afraid to find out we may know, and question everything we hear, see, believe, or think we understand. Despite the pessimistic prognoses from the partisan polemicists on both sides of political aisle, there is more to life than governments, slogans, and sensationalist headlines. Most of life consists of ordinary human beings making a choice every day, whether to listen and engage, or to turn away in fear and avoid.
I spent most of my life running away from the unknown because of my assumptions, distortions, and preconceptions. I ended up limiting myself and almost missing out on unique experiences and relationships, which added spark and flavor to my life. Because I was so focused on the one thing I thought I wanted based on the limited experience that I had, I was willing to ignore the centuries of fascinating, rich history, culture, and heritage that was no less challenging, provocative, beautiful, and thought-provoking. And when I let go of my rigidity and of my fears, I found myself drawn in and charmed by the very things that I thought repulsed me.
I spent three days in conversations with people who vehemently disagreed with me and with each other on every imaginable issue, yet were deeply fascinated by what the other had to say.
We came there to disagree. We came FOR the clash of ideas. We never, for a moment, let the differences in ideas, take away from our interest in the individuals or from seeing the same human nature. These clashes of ideas did not create additional polarization; they created innovation in our outlook.
Thousands of strangers were gathered in one place committed to the goal of learning together, learning from each other, and changing perspectives. We were open to having our minds changed, and ended up having our minds blown.
I came to Puebla with an attitude of curiosity rather than distrust, disgust, and horror, and came away finding my old friend. And after all the hardships, after all the blowhards on TV and on the internet who tell you how horrible other people are, and how dark our world is, and how nothing can ever change, or if it can, it can only do so through one set of means – what remains is the one thing that I had learned as a child but forgot as an adult. You always have a choice. You can always welcome a stranger, without abandoning your own culture or stopping to speak your own language. You can spend time learning from each other and enjoying your time together, and when the time comes, go your separate ways, having grown from the experience. Your humanity comes not from how many ideological opponents you “slay”, “rip”, or “destroy” on social media, but how many people you influence with kindness, positivity, courage, and moral clarity.
Puebla may be a provincial town away from the central government, but it made New York look small by comparison. Why? Because it was an open space, whereas my current reality is seeing just how many people are perfectly willing to isolate themselves in meaningless bubbles dictated to them by invisible forces that serve only their own interests and that no one even properly understands, and spend their lives fighting fruitless and meaningless battles, which are prefabricated for them by other people, complete with predictable rules, and equally uncontrollable precreated outcomes. In Puebla, I just was. It wasn’t complicated and I didn’t spend every minute in neurotic analysis of what will happen if I exchange comments with a complete stranger. Who will judge me for it? Will my ideological allies turn away from me if I befriend the “wrong” kind of person?
What has happened to us that we’ve forgotten how to live, that all our conversations are about politics, largely outside our control, rather than about doing something productive with our times/ Where are our discussions about art – not politics in the arts – but art? About innovations? About science and medical research and ideas that lie outside the predictable talking points brought down to us from the Hill (rather than Mount Sinai) by the usual suspects? In Puebla, I saw life in its fullness – first, on the streets filled with regular people, so different from me, yet at the core, no less human – and then at the festival during a lively exchange of ideas, which left everyone feeling motivated, inspired, and energized, rather than obsessive, depressed, and belligerent.
When I left, I took a bit of Puebla with me. I remembered the good times I shared with my first friend. We did not speak the same language. We knew noting of politics or who was supposed to play what role.
For a few hours a day, we just were. We had fun, we spent time together, we treated each other with kindness, and then we went home.
We were children, but this is something that we need to relearn, before we find ourselves, sitting by ourselves, each in a dark webbed corner, wondering where life went and what went wrong.
The author is a human rights and national security lawyer based in New York
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