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LEARN, COMMUNICATE, AND TEACH

Our desire is heaven on Earth, a society in which people actively care for each other, schools support our children to become their best, government serves the will of the people, and corporations act on behalf of the common good. To create such a society requires tremendous amounts of communication, learning, and teaching.

Know the Reason for Your Communication

As family activists, it’s important to realize both the enormous influence we wield via our communications and the significance of knowing the purpose of our communication. Every day we engage in dozens of communications. We communicate to express a good morning greeting, to coordinate the day’s activities, and sometimes to offer feedback to others about what’s working or not working. Yet, how often do we stop to consider the powerful influence of our communications—not just what we say, but why and how we say it? Our communication can lift self-esteem, inspire, teach, or it can reinforce a sense of apathy and powerlessness. It’s our choice. Given the evolving crises in our world, it’s time to learn to make our communication as impactful as possible so as to enhance the power of family and friends to become greater contributors to transformation.

Toward this end, it is imperative to communicate with purpose in mind—to foster self-love, lift self-esteem, facilitate connection, teach, and assist others to discover their power to advance positive 136 change for themselves and others. Regardless of a person’s age, what’s important is to cultivate that person’s ability to be caring, courageous, and people-connected. Keeping this intention in mind will make your communication more effective.

Most of us think of communication as words conveying our message, but the reality is that much of our communication is nonverbal. Dr. Albert Marabian’s classical study in communication determined that 7 percent of meaning is conveyed in the words that are actually spoken, 38 percent in the way the words are delivered, and 55 percent by facial expression.¹ In any face-to-face communication, we unconsciously communicate to others what we feel and think largely by a combination of facial expressions and body language. For this reason, it’s important to be grounded in our purpose when we communicate. When wishing to convey love or to empower, you become more effective in achieving your desired outcome when your body, spirit, and strategy are aligned to your intent.

Alignment means that everything said and done is consistent with and conveys your message. So if your intent is to empower a family member or friend, this is how you might approach it. First, you remind yourself, “Right now, my intention is to make my friend feel her power.” Then get in touch with your genuine positive feelings for this person. Whether your feelings arise from an interest to know her better or from deep caring, get in touch with that feeling so it becomes what you emanate. From this place, open yourself to sense who she is and what she may need in the moment. Her need may be for someone to truly listen to her current challenge, or maybe provide a simple acknowledgement or just a “pick-me-up.” Grounding yourself in your purpose and taking a few moments to connect with her needs, you will usually know what to do next. Maybe she needs a couple of strategic questions to help her reconnect with her power or provide a simple reminder of her intelligence. Often, you can be empowering just by listening, because it conveys that you care.

The other day, a compadre called, and while I assumed it was a business-related call, I soon realized he was a friend in need. I took a breath to connect more to my heart, and listened. He is dean of a school and, given evolving challenges, he was questioning whether 137 he should muscle up and deal with the new difficulties or consider leaving his job. While my personal interest is to see him continue as dean, I reminded myself to consider him as a person I really care about. I focused on truly listening to him, and in so doing I faintly heard his deeper desire that led me to ask him several questions, such as “Are you living your purpose?” “Are you happy?” Hearing his own responses, he connected with his power to make the decisions ultimately best for himself and for others.

Reconnecting with my purpose to be a supportive and empowering friend, I was able to identify and then ask the real questions my compadre needed to consider. Even over the phone, he could feel my respect and support for him. Because of the integrity between my words and the energy I conveyed, he was able to both hear and feel my appreciation of his capacity for insight. It helped him acknowledge and validate his power to access his wisdom and find his own answers.

The more we practice remaining mindful of our purpose as we communicate, aware of our feelings for the other, and fully present, the more we learn to trust and guide our communications toward that purpose. We learn to listen more deeply and allow the needs of the other to inform us of how to be co-powering.

Learning About Love

Our ultimate goal is to foster a culture of love in which people genuinely care about and serve each other. To teach such compassion begins by maturing in our own ability to love. This is a lifelong process which demands that we repeatedly remind ourselves to work toward our best. For this reason, we need to continually help each other to discover and remain on the path of love. The story of my own maturation involves both assisting others and needing assistance from others.

My motivation for community betterment grew out of my childhood experience of receiving love. During my early twenties, the source of my inspiration shifted, in part due to my encounters with prejudice and racism. Beginning in high school and through my college years, the occasions on which I had to deal with people belittling 138me or yelling at me for being a “Mexican” increased. Anger and a desire for justice became my stronger motivations. As ugly encounters with racism continued, I became still angrier, but I learned to use my anger to psych myself up to work longer and harder to combat it. Unfortunately, in so doing, I also developed and fueled my own prejudice.

Without realizing it, I had started to sound like the people who had injured me. My venting about the disrespect inflicted upon me and those of my community became more frequent and critical of the character of all white people. Then one day I was stunned by my younger brother, Marcos, who courageously confronted me with his love. He said that despite having viewed me as his role model for years, he could no longer listen to me because I was too full of hate. My initial reaction was anger at him. Couldn’t he see all the good that I was doing? Yet, over many days, as I cooled down I recognized that I had become consumed by my anger. I realized it was time to consciously reprogram my motivation, not to deny my experiences with injustice and racism, but to nurture my original inspiration, which was love.

Thirty years later, I still work on being loving in all my actions. I see this as fundamentally a contest between my selfish nature and my giving nature, and I know the mature side is winning. For many of us, being a loving person takes practice, reflection, patience, and more practice and reflection. It takes asking, “How can I be more giving to others in each communication?” and then following through. Periodically, it involves telling yourself, “I did great!” After a while, it becomes a habit and way of being. A conversation a short while ago with my mother provided me additional insight about teaching love.

One day I observed a dramatic increase in my mom’s energy and physical facility when we received a surprise visit from her young granddaughters. Shortly before, I had seen her painfully struggle to move, yet upon their arrival, she had outstretched arms inviting these youngsters to stampede her with their joy. Soon after, she was preparing their favorite meal. It made me wonder, and later I asked her about this: “The love I see you exhibit in your actions, where does it come from, your mind or heart?” Roughly translated from 139 Spanish, she responded, “It just flows because that’s who I am. If it weren’t for the love inside me, I don’t think I could even get up in the morning. Maybe I think about it a little—like how I can serve my family today—but later the love just moves me.” Our conversation continued, and I explained that while I feel love for my nieces, I usually have to recognize my feelings for them and then think about what I might do to express my love. I feel first, think, and then act. That’s what prompts me to invite them to play a game so we can connect, talk, and have some fun, while I also seek opportunities to support their growth.

This conversation got me to evaluate my actions more. Maybe for some of us, by virtue of our own psychology and experience, our acts of love do just flow. I seem to observe this more among women than among men. For others, like me, who still seem to be learning about being loving, we are more directed by the “feel, think, and then act” approach. In the final analysis, both caring types can benefit by developing greater mindfulness of our teacher role to advance love. Why? Because the love we need to transform our society involves both—the flow of the deep heartfelt hugs and the mindful consideration committed to helping others develop. We need both and much more. To transform our society requires people who possess self-love, impart that love unconditionally, and also have the confidence and ability to create change within themselves, their relationships, and all our institutions. Toward this end, we must always be ready and constant learners and teachers of love.

Empower by Providing Experiences that Inspire

We communicate not only through what we convey in words, but by the experiences we create for others that inform and inspire them. Dolores Huerta, nationally recognized civil rights leader and parent of eleven children who are also activists, recently shared with me her key strategy for empowering.² She said, “As organizers we develop people’s self-confidence just by getting them to a meeting or rally. We tell them, Just be there. Just come to the march. Just come to the rally. Just come to the meeting and bring your kids. The experience will empower them and their kids.”

In preparing to write this book, I interviewed dozens of activists to ask what influenced their caring commitment, and also asked many parents how they sought to foster an activist spirit in their children. What they shared were essentially three key strategies: conversations, storytelling, and providing experiences that expressed the dynamics of hardship, struggle, and love. Here I convey the types of experiences we can create to inspire and motivate our children.

Create Learning Conversations

Kapua Sproat, an environmental advocacy attorney and law professor, belongs to an extended family strongly involved in fostering native Hawaiian culture, building native Hawaiian institutions, and advocating for native Hawaiian rights.³ Kapua says her parents simply used the “meet, visit, and picket sign approach.” Her parents took their children to all community meetings, visits, and protests. The children learned to care by observing and participating in activism, and through the conversations of family and friends at the dinner table. Similarly, many activists developed their caring commitment by observing, accompanying, and helping their parents as they aided neighbors, made their homes available to others, engaged in church activities to serve the community, registered voters, or organized protests. The young people directly saw the need, heard the stories of social struggle, witnessed people taking action, and they joined in.

Many other activists are like Patricia Loya, who was inspired by the stories she heard around the kitchen table. Her parents came from an Arizona mining community where her father was a copper miner. “At dinner, he would tell us about when he used to work at the mines, the dangerous working conditions, and the racist treatment of Mexican workers. But he’d also tell us what he and others were doing to make a difference. Sometimes the stories would be about workers getting hurt or even killed. I’d be angry and upset, but also felt pride because he was always organizing to make conditions better.” Later, her parents became teachers and advocates for farm workers and youth, which brought even more people into their living room. “We saw them organizing, planning, and laughing, and 141 as kids, we wanted to get involved too.” Hearing the stories of injustice and efforts for change, and witnessing the activist work up close, encourages young people to care for others and commit to “giving back.” Now, both Patricia and her sister are directors of major community legal assistance centers doing tremendous advocacy work on behalf of immigrant workers.⁴

I still recall the cold December evening when our minister asked me to accompany him to deliver blankets to people living in our church’s neighborhood. I can still see the young mother cooking over an open pit stove on the dirt floor of a makeshift lean-to no larger than a small cave. After that evening, I felt blessed to be living in comfort, and I also felt responsible to make a difference for those struggling to survive. That evening, Reverend Rodriquez communicated a lesson about service to me without saying a word.

We can impart knowledge and nurture a caring spirit to develop activists by modeling, asking questions, sharing activities, and facilitating conversations. When I visited my uncle who was recovering from diabetes-related surgery, I started a conversation with his nephews who were present. We teach by affirming and complementing the knowledge possessed by others, so our conversation mainly involved my raising a sequence of questions, their responses, my elaboration, and more questions. Do you know what diabetes is? Why do you think Uncle got sick? What do you think about television commercials that encourage us to eat sugar-laden foods that undermine our health? What can we do to protect ourselves and others from getting diabetes? What can we do to make Uncle proud? By the time we finished our conversation, a couple of the young people reaffirmed their commitment to study and find ways to make a difference for their family and community.

Bring Home the Storytellers

Many of the lessons we need to learn or desire to teach about community service and social struggle are not taught by lectures, but by stories. When a real-life story is delivered, we often deeply listen because it involves someone’s life experience. Then it is up to us to garner the lessons, or our interest may have been so piqued that we have many questions to ask and a learning conversation ensues. We 142 should all consider developing our ability for storytelling, particularly those stories that can teach others about our social conditions, struggles, and victories to create the changes we desire. Meanwhile, spending time with storytellers is always worthwhile and the best way to cultivate this talent in yourself.

We can inspire others by sharing our experience and stories. Compadre Jerry encourages creative activism by relating his own rich experiences.

My regular counsel to young people is to wait to find the right person with whom to create a life partnership. For me this has made a tremendous difference in my activism, as Rebeca has been a fantastic143 partner and collaborator in supporting many of the family practices important to me, including making our home available not only for family, but for friends and others who might need a place to stay.

Despite living in a small two-bedroom house in Oakland, I can’t recall a time when we didn’t have people staying with us for short or long periods. Our visitors were students new to the area without a place to stay, friends experiencing challenges and needing a supportive environment, friend-of-friend activists visiting the area, and others. I thoroughly enjoyed welcoming visitors, simply to offer the comfort of our home, and also for the feeling of familia that occurs as we share life and stories. This became more significant during the early years of our daughters’ lives when I realized that every one of our visitors could be a teacher for them. When visitors asked how they could help, my request would be for them to tell us some stories about their lives or activist work. Over the years, we heard many stories that served to teach and inspire us.

Late one evening, I received a telephone call from the receptionist of a community center for which I had recently begun working. I had only shared a couple of conversations with Linda, but as she was a Native American sister struggling to survive in San Francisco, I had given her my card with the offer to call me if she ever needed support. Now she told me that she didn’t have time to talk, it was a matter of life or death, she needed to move out of her room immediately, and she needed a place to stay. My gut response was to offer support, so upon finishing the call I told Rebeca, a friend needs a place to stay and I have to go get her. It’s an emergency and I will explain when I return.

A couple of hours later, I returned with Linda, who was very grateful but also petrified with fear. Over the course of the next couple of days, her story unfolded. As a youngster she and her siblings had been virtually made indentured workers on an Oklahoma farm. She ran away a number of times, and every time she was found and locked in a windowless room for increasingly more days and weeks. Consequently, she developed an overwhelming fear of closed spaces. Years later in Colorado a well-to-do gentleman attempted to rape her in a park. She ultimately fended him off by striking him 144 with his cane. Later, he was able to use his privileged status to have her charged with assault. With the prospect of several years in jail, Linda skipped bail and had been living underground. The night she called me, she was certain that she was about to be arrested.

Linda had other stories of the deplorable ways Native Americans are still treated in this country. During the several weeks she stayed with us, besides helping in the kitchen, my only request was that she share her stories with my children. Through her storytelling we became more sensitive to the realities of her people, and healing occurred for her as she was able to relate her experiences.

When we selected our next home, we all wanted to have an extra room for guests. We continued to hear stories from many visitors. As a result, we learned how to better support people with AIDS, about the struggles of young people, the power of art in activist work, organizing activity occurring in different parts of the county, and much more.

Learning to Be an Advocate

Life can bring unexpected experiences that teach us and our families tremendous lessons of contradiction, courage, learning, and change. This happened for my family and me when our lives were radically altered by the molestation of our daughter Andrea. The story of our experience is shared to remind us of the great courage and ongoing conversations and learning that are often required to care for and heal our own families. It is also intended to inspire us as family activists to truly be advocates for our families, our own children and other children, and to find forgiveness.

For me, the story begins when Carl and I lived together as roommates. We were a perfect match, not just because we were attending the same graduate program, committed to cleanliness, and politically compatible, but also because our work styles complemented each other. I held a vision of a better world and was driven every day to organize and work toward that end. Carl shared a similar vision, yet also believed in enjoying life. We developed a mode of collaboration based on his proviso of balance, which meant that periodically we made time for music, fishing, and having the boys over for drinks and cards.

For the next couple of years we were a powerful team assisting various communities in their organizing efforts. Our relationship became even more like family after Rebeca and I had our own home with two young toddlers, and Carl came to live with us off and on for several years. It was great. Carl was excellent with kids, so our daughters had an uncle in the house, my wife had a trusted friend, and I had an older brother, a colleague, and a comrade in the struggle.

Several years later, our ideal family life changed forever. Carl was no longer living with us, but was a frequent visitor to our home. One weekend evening, we were enjoying a great dinner gathering when Carl informed me that he had to leave. Because I wanted his consultation on several projects, I insisted that he stay a little longer, but he finally convinced me to let him go. After our final guests left, Rebeca asked that I join her in my office because there was something we had to talk about. She described to me what had occurred. Andrea, who was then ten years old, had invited her beloved uncle to see her newly decorated play house that I had made for her under the family room stairway. Once in that tiny room he fondled her and tried to French-kiss her, while blocking her exit. She finally squeezed away and in shock ran to Rebeca.

After hearing this, we joined our daughters in their room, and Andrea now told me what happened. I didn’t want to believe her. My immediate thoughts were, “Impossible, Carl could never do anything like this. Impossible!” Yet also echoing in my mind were the stories I had heard from at least half a dozen women who said that the worst part of their molestation had been when their parents had not believed them. It took all my inner strength to restrain myself from asking, “Are you sure this happened?” and to instead say, “Mija, I’m so sorry. It’s not your fault, and we are never going to let this happen again.”

I saw the fear in her eyes as she said, “But, Papi, he has a key to our house. What if he comes back?” My thoughts were, “F--k you, Carl! How could you do this to her, to me, to us?” As much as I didn’t want to believe what I was about to say, I pulled her close and told her not to worry—he would never come back to our house.

After we put the girls to bed, Rebeca filled me in with the details. She had been working in the kitchen when she turned to see Andrea 146ghostly pale, breathing hard and perspiring. After hearing what had occurred, she comforted Andrea and tried to reassure her of her safety. Rebeca then confronted Carl, who denied that anything had happened. It was a misunderstanding, he said. Rebeca told him that there was no misunderstanding and she demanded he immediately leave the house. For the sake of our other guests, she thought it best to wait until everyone had left before telling me. She wanted to kill him.

The next morning, I called Carl, not knowing what I was going to say, but knowing that I needed to meet with him directly and soon. He began by arguing that it was just a misunderstanding. I told him to stop and listen, “If you are still into denying what happened, then you are sicker than you realize. I want to meet with you now.”

Forty-five minutes later, I arrived at his apartment. When he answered his door, the first words were an apology. “You’re right. I really messed up. I’m so sorry. I don’t deserve to be part of your family. I know you have to do what you have to do. And if it’s going to the police, let’s just do it now.” Pushing into his apartment, I said, “I don’t want to go the police. I want to know how could you do this to Andrea? To all of us? We’ve been family. Why did you f--k it up for all of us?”

We talked. I wanted to be angrier. I wanted to lose control and punch him out. But mostly I was sad. Sad for him because I knew our family made him whole. And as much as I wanted to be angry for Andrea, I was sad for myself. I was losing my brother and chief collaborator. Selfishly, I thought, Andrea has our love and will recover, but how am I going to continue without Carl?

He expressed his shame. The day of the party he had been drinking before arriving at our home, and he had just lost it. As he spoke, I was visualizing the future and struggling with what would come next. I thought, “In three or four months, he could complete a treatment program and the family could forgive him. Damn, I need his support.” We were inspiring young people, creating community, and developing activist leaders. What was I going to tell our colleagues? Our friends? The community? Then I remembered that for Andrea, he had to see that I was angry and adamant. I asked for my keys and told him I wanted to hear that he was seeing a counselor within the week.

For the next several weeks, the girls needed comforting, and it was provided. We mostly spoke with Andrea, as Cheli didn’t want to talk about it. I made calls to find counseling services for Andrea, which led to the county’s Child Protective Services interviewing everyone in our household. They determined that we had responded well, and that both girls appeared to be fine. They did not, unfortunately, provide us any insight about how this experience would continue impacting our family over the rest of our lives.

The following months were challenging. First, we struggled with whom to inform about Carl. Here was one of our community leaders, a man recognized and respected by many for his community service. To announce his violation to the world seemed wrong, yet some explanation of his alienation from us was necessary. This was compounded by Andrea’s insistence that we not tell people what had happened. She didn’t want to live with the embarrassment. We negotiated a strategy. We decided to inform only those closest to our family about what happened, particularly those families with children. For most others, when the question arose, there was just an awkward statement that we were no longer relating.

Soon after, Andrea courageously put forth a request: “Papi, I feel scared when your men friends come to the house. Can you just ask them to stop coming over?” My initial impulse was to respond that she was asking too much—after all, these were good people, they were not Carl. But I caught myself and we talked. I agreed that I would have fewer men visiting the house. I also expressed my trust in her intuition. If she ever felt uncomfortable about any of our visitors, she was free to leave the room and we could talk about it later.

Compounding the situation, arguments and tension arose with my younger brother, Art. Over the years, he had grown to respect Carl and also saw him as family. Having no children himself, his feeling was that there needed to be a consideration of the degree of the molestation, since it wasn’t rape. His view was that Carl was sick, needed help, and we should be more open to work with him and forgive. I repeatedly felt angry with Art because his sensitivity seemed directed more to Carl than to Andrea. For the most part, we elected not to bring up further conversation around this issue.

At the same time, I truly did want to forgive Carl. I knew he had seen a counselor, and I heard that his weekly poker nights were now alcohol-free. This was a radical change. Enthused about these developments, I raised the question to my family whether there was a possibility of forgiving Carl. The unanimous reaction was “No!” with my wife giving me a sound lashing for even considering the possibility. Yet I continued to consider it over the next several years, until another molestation surfaced. This time it involved another community leader, Pete, and his grandniece, the niece of one of our dear friends.

During the subsequent weeks, I thought hard and deep about this issue of child molestation. I began to wonder if we had made a mistake by hushing up the actions of these men. Does this type of behavior continue because men do not want to lose their friends, because men do not make public our judgment about what is wrong? Was I going to be silent about Pete’s behavior as well?

I shared my thoughts with Andrea, who was now sixteen years old. I told her that I believed it was important that we participate in being a voice that says that the molestation of children is wrong and will not be tolerated. She asked with whom I wanted to share her experience. I told her that I wanted to begin with the men’s council that I had belonged to for the past twelve years. Her request was that for the time being, I only share with them.

The result was one of our council’s most difficult gatherings. Some had known about Carl, but the news about Pete was a shock for everyone. Of course, the question arose, can we know for certain? Do we know if his niece is telling the truth? I shared how similar my reactions were when my daughter told me about Carl. We don’t want to believe our respected peers are capable of such behavior, and we first want to protect them rather than consider the child. I asked, when are we going to believe our children and denounce this violent behavior by our peers?

Before the end of the evening, a couple of members of our group shared how they had been victimized as children. One shared how his experience led him to make it his life’s work to educate men about our need to change that part of our culture that perpetuates 149 this form of violence. We didn’t arrive at a final resolution, but we all left with an increased awareness that there are issues of dysfunction among men that must be addressed. Also, we realized that it may be time to become more vigilant, to raise the issue, and confront each other about abuse.

Since then, another molestation has surfaced within our circle of extended family. This time, we have become active advocates for the child. My wife, daughter, and I have spoken to the perpetrator, informing him that we know about the situation and that our alliance is absolutely with his daughter. Hearing his remorse, our commitment remains with his daughter, and secondarily to support him in revealing his act to others as a means of preventing further harm to his child and others.

As a family, our own healing around our Andrea’s experience with molestation is still incomplete. As individuals, each of us still carries personal wounds, and as a family we are growing to believe that a more complete closure may not occur until Carl hears directly from us the trauma caused by his actions. We are learning that communication and truth are essential, accountability is necessary, change and forgiveness are possible, and the layers of hurt, discovery, and healing sometimes require a lifetime.

I share this story for several reasons. First and foremost, from the core of my being, I don’t want to hear of another child being molested. Just as we must stop the violence of guns, exploitation, and war, we must stop the violence inflicted against children and women. While we may have less influence to halt the former, we are often in a position to confront the violence that happens within families around us. I also want people to realize that family activism is at times about directly addressing the hard issues, by confronting wrongdoing and being advocates for the vulnerable. This sometimes requires us to make our family issues community issues.

In agreeing to make this story public, Andrea asked that it end with her appeal that each person reading it share it with at least one other, with the question, “What can be done to better protect our children?” She also asks that each person commit to discuss any abuse they may be aware of, rather than keeping silent.

PRAXIS

1. What strategies might you use to foster the caring spirit or the social consciousness of the children or young people in your family network? Initiate a one-to-one, or a session with a couple of young people, in which you ask them how you might be able to help other youth develop their sense of caring for others and for the earth.
2. Reflecting on what inspired your initial activism or what inspires you now, identify a story or experience you could share with others to inform or inspire them about the importance of activism or community service. Develop your story and find an opportunity to share it with your family or friends.
3. Reflecting on the story of the molestation, what would you do regarding the perpetrator if you were the child’s parent? The uncle or aunt? What do you believe should be done when the perpetrator is your close friend or family? What can you do for the young people you know to protect them from such violence?