CENTER VALLEY, Pa. — During an uplifting spoken word performance, Carlos Andrés Gómez paid tribute to his family and addressed harmful stereotypes about Latinos.
Gómez, an award-winning Colombian-American poet and author of "Fractures," inspired both faculty and students at a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration held at Penn State Lehigh Valley last week.
The event was organized by the school's student affairs office and its Hispanic Organization and Latino Association, or HOLA.
For his fourth visit to the campus, Gómez shared personal stories before reciting his poems that touched on his family roots, stigmas in Latino communities, and the treatment of minorities by law enforcement.
"When I'm celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, I'm very conscious of the fact that within my culture and my heritage, there's a long tradition of racism and classism, sexism and transphobia that's embedded in a lot of elements of my heritage," he said.
'Mi Gente'
His thoughts about race and identity led into the first reading of the poem "Mi Gente," or my people, which like many of his works, contains verses in both English and Spanish, and is meant to invoke unity.
"I feel like 'mi gente' is one of those phrases that can be used like a weapon to separate people or keep people out, because 'my people' can distinguish between your people," Gómez said.
"When I say, 'mi gente,' I mean it in a very expansive way. 'Mi Gente' includes anybody who tells corny jokes ... anybody who [is] super sensitive.
"There are people who are Latin American, who are not Latin American, people who are great friends, people who like to play basketball, people who write poetry, and so on. That's who 'Mi Gente" is. Everybody in this room is 'Mi Gente.'"
'Abuelita'
During his intimate performance Wednesday, Gómez also spoke about his family before reciting verses from his poems, "Abuelita" and "Gifted."
He wrote "Abuelita" on the eve of his grandmother's 100th birthday and coincidentally released a short film, directed by Joe West, of the poemon his YouTube channel on Wednesday.
Gómez's grandmother, who he called genuine and authentic, went against her family's wishes by refusing to marry young, as it was expected by women to do in the 1940s and '50s.
"In a very violent machismo culture, I felt like so many people around me told me I had to be somebody different," he said. "But my abuelita always wanted me to be only myself, and that really saved my life at some really critical points. And I don't mean that figuratively. I mean that quite literally. Especially in my later teenage years."
Gifted, book signing
His last spoken word poem, "Gifted," is about his younger sister, Maya.
The siblings bonded after she opened up about her learning disorder.
When he shared with his sister that he felt shame over learning to read at the age of nine, she offered a positive solution.
"What if there's someone in that audience that wants to be a poet or a novelist or a journalist, but thinks they can't because of how old they were when they learned how to read?" Gómez said of her heartfelt advice.
"It makes me feel honored and ecstatic to be here."Carlos Andres Gomez, poet
"Anybody here have a younger sibling, niece or nephew, child whose obviously an 8,000-year-old abuela posing as a young person?"
After the show, Gómez signed copies of "Fractures" and posed for selfies with the students.
"It makes me feel honored and ecstatic to be here in celebration of my Latinidad, being Colombian, and my culture and my heritage," he said. "I think in celebrating my love and pride in my cultural and ethnic heritage, I'm hoping that it can be a bridge and also a doorway for people who aren't Latin American.
"For those who may be international students from other parts of the world who are here in Lehigh Valley, or students who just have ethnicity or descent traced to a place that's not in Latin America.
"I want everyone from every different kind of background to feel like they have permission to celebrate and feel like they can be their authentic selves from watching me up on stage today."
