Minority

This history of Latin America is filled
 with pain and misunderstanding.

Today in Ecuador, there are a lot guys that think they are conquistadores, out to conquer their girlfriends like Henan Cortez conquered the Aztecs. Such was the mentality of “la conquista,” and such was the experience of millions of indigenous women - relentless rape. 

Unfortunately, a white girl in Latin America sticks out just like an Indigenous woman. Different, sexy - there to be conquered . . . and so the typical Ecuadorian dude often asks me, “Alfonso, ¿cómo conquistas a una gringa?”  Or in English, “how do you conquer a gringa?” How do you subdue her? How do you overcome her, overwhelm her, overpower her?

Think I’m exaggerating? Ask an American girl that’s been to Latin America. They have 60 year-old guys approaching them to flirt every single day. Policemen stare at them as they walk by. Everybody whistles at them. They step on the bus, and this is how they are greeted by complete strangers.

“Hey baby.” 

“Hey beautiful.”

“Hey blondey.”

Being a minority is hard. Damn hard. 

The realization that you are strikingly different isn’t always pretty. Rapper Lil’ Wayne wrote a song a few years back called “misunderstood”  in which he sings for 3 minutes and then rants for 7 minutes. He cusses. He yells. He laughs sarcastically, but he definitely isn’t kidding around. Heck, he even got the word “misunderstood” tattooed on his face. 

"But you don't understand me so let me explain."
- Lil wayne

Now, I haven’t gotten any tattoos on my face (or anywhere else, Mom) during my stay in Ecuador, but misunderstood is exactly how I feel. My skin color is an attraction for eyeballs on the streets; my basketball shorts look silly in a world full of jeans; my desire to be a pastor is incredibly strange, at best. 

And on top of it all, it’s easy to feel dumb when you can’t even string a few sentences together. I’m sure you can think of an immigrant in the States that struggles to talk. Their accent is thick, and they sound somewhat goofy. 

Put yourselves in the shoes of a minority just for a second. Picture the Obama supporter at a republican convention or the black student in a classroom full of white kids. Imagine the homosexual person hanging out with 50 straight people or the Muslim girl that has to explain why she wears a veil every single day. Right now, that’s me! I’m that one guy, that one guy that’s different.

And gosh, it’s tough because you become a word or a label instead of a person. You have to live with the assumptions that other people have about you. You anticipate judgment. Worst of all, nobody, literally nobody, knows you.

When all this happens and you realize that you are a minority, you have one of the three options:

1. Blend in - You can sacrifice authenticity for blending in, but with this option your identity withers away. You dilute yourself, and you try to fit in to every situation with every group of people.
2. Be you - You can live in the uncomfortable world with authenticity, fully accepting that you might be weird to others, and though a weirdo, you know who you are and what you stand for.
3. Flee - You can sometimes just avoid the situation all-together. 

But here’s the thing - option 3 is out of the question for me. I didn’t come to Ecuador just to leave when it got uncomfortable. I asked for the discomfort.  I asked for the experience of my Father.

His name is Alfonso Ernesto Sasieta Li, and he was a minority with broken English, a Peruvian with a thick accent, a Latino that decided to move to a little town full of white people. He made the conscious decision to go where he had to go all the while knowing that he would be the foreigner, the outsider, and the stranger.  

But he’s not a conquistador. He’s different. He’s a man with guts. 

And I pray for these guts daily. The guts to be authentic and the guts to be like my Father, a man sure of his identity, a man willing to leave his bubble. He is humble but not haughty. He is bizarre but not boastful. He is my Father, and it is a privilege to be a minority with him.