Pressing into my ethnicity
When a person I know opened up to their ethnic identity this summer, a piece of advice I handed down was that this journey wasn't going to be over in a few weeks or months. It could take years or a lifetime to tear down all the negative stereotypes they had taken in over the years. I was definitely reminded of that this past year.
Welcome Week was a week full of highs and lows in terms of ministry. On the plus side, I got to meet a lot of people and get into some great spiritual conversations. We had a good amount of people show up to the LaFe hangouts which was amazing! I got the contact info for people in other groups that might be interested in coordinating events with LaFe. The LaFe leaders are all pumped up and definitely put in their share of work this past week. InterVarsity's events were all full of people! Although I didn't go inside to Large Group, I heard that the amount of people that stood up for prayer to commit their lives to Jesus or reaffirm their beliefs was much more than our student leadership could handle!
On the downside, a lot of negativity surrounding my ethnicity re-emerged. Monday, the first day of our outreach was when it was heaviest. The heaviness of the emotions weighed down on me so much, I had to go take a half hour walk just to pray it out with God. Luckily, my co-leaders from last year as well as Laura all lent a helping hand with prayer.
Coming into college, my ethnic identity wasn't strong. In fact, I didn't really care about it. I wanted to just ignore it. But as God started to move in my life, I realized that our ethnicity was something beautiful God gave to all of us. This lead to me being on leadership with LaFe and as God continued to move in me, lead to me volunteering with the staff team at UCSD.
This past week and for a few weeks before that, a lot of that old identity issues stuff started coming up again. As much as I knew that God designed our ethnicity for something amazing, there was a part of me that felt tired of pressing into that. It was both this literal fatigue and an emotional fatigue that came over me.
"Why do I have to keep pressing further and further into this?"
"Wouldn't it be easier to just ignore all this?"
"Why not let somebody else take up this burden?"
It was stuff like this that came into my mind on Monday night. However, even as these thoughts flooded into my mind, I knew the answers. It's essential to keep pressing into all this because there is still so much ignorance surrounding race relations in the church and the world. And although it would be easier to ignore it, in doing so, I would be ignoring a huge part of who I am and what I have to offer the world.
There was also a part of me that was feeling the pressure of being Latino in a fellowship that is mostly Asian-American and on a staff team that is mostly white. The pressure of feeling like I have to represent Latino/a people at all times and in everything I do. Feeling like I'm there as The Latino Guy and that's all I bring to the table.
But there were several things that changed my perspective and helped me feel a lot better.
The first was prayer. God always listens to His children and will comfort them in their times of need. As I prayed, I felt peace come over me. At that same time, I got a response from Laura who reminded me that I'm paving the way here for future generations. Of course the enemy is going to want to attack me and bring me down! Reading her message strengthened and encouraged me. Those who are at the forefront of battle always get hit the hardest.
A second thing that helped me this week was remembering the faithfulness of God and the way He has never left me in this journey. I know He's the one who placed me here and if God is with me, who can stand against me? I spent the better part of last year praying for a Latino/a staff to come on campus. And as people have said, perhaps that person is me. I just know that there are a lot of issues the Latino/a students go through being here at UCSD and who better to understand/help them through it than another Latino? Seeing and remembering how several people awakened to their ethnic identity this summer was also a reminder of the beauty of what God can do.
The third thing that happened was having brunch with Jessica and Weley yesterday. A few of the USC people came down to San Diego so Emily and I hosted them. As we were eating at The Cottage, I was asking Jessica about how their LaFe chapter was going. I also shared a bit about how Welcome Week had been going on for us. Jessica then turned to me and told me how important my role was at UCSD. The knowledge I brought to the table. I just sat there listening to her, realizing the truth in her words. It was definitely the affirmation that I needed to hear this week. I don't think she knew the impact her words had on me, but they hit me pretty hard.
Finally, at church today, the message was about multiethnicity. The pastor talked about God's plan for multiethnicity and then brought up a panel of people to talk about their experiences. After the ups and downs of this week, it was definitely a message I needed to hear. Hearing about different people pressing into their ethnicity and how difficult it was. The pastor reminded us that even though it might seem like a good idea to see past our differences, (No Jew or Gentile, etc), God's design was for a multiethnic world where we all came together to worship God in different ways. It was a great message to hear.
All this in the first week! Crazy! So what was my takeaway? Well, this is what came up at church today.
Why is it so hard to keep pressing into my ethnicity? Because each time I confront something new, I'm bringing up lots of painful memories of years of feeling inadequate or shameful. So when I shared my story at leadership summit last year, I had to dig into those memories and talk about how God opened up my eyes. When I talk about why I'm on volunteer staff, I have to re-open wounds. I have to be vulnerable to someone that may be from the dominant culture. There were definitely times last year where I felt awkward sharing something from my past with my staff worker solely because she's white. So when I talk to someone like her, I have to talk about how the culture she's from is what produced feelings of shame in me. It's hard!!! But it's God giving me the strength to go into these past memories and be able to speak about them. Yes, I can, and will, feel the hurt, but I must trust that God is the one healing me bit by bit. Each time I share these painful memories, I'm also giving God glory because only He could have removed the shame.
As I saw the person to my side, (the same one who opened up to learning about their ethnicity this past summer), it served as a physical representation of what God wanted to do. I was able to give advice and counsel to this person because I had been through the same thing myself. And I saw in this person a desire to lead others to open up to their ethnicity as well.
I know this year isn't going to be easy. Following Jesus never is. But I am hopeful that God is the one that is going to get me through everything the enemy throws my way. Somebody has to pave the way for future generations right?
