Chapter 9 #3
“It was an amazing opportunity, but at first I was lost. I’d only been to the States for visits a few times, and always with my parents.
It was so intimidating to come here on my own.
Just me and my two suitcases. It was daunting and so lonely.
I didn’t know where I fit. In the DR I’d been Dominican like everyone else.
Here I looked white and with my name the Latinx students weren’t sure what to make of me.
The white students just assumed I was some kid from the suburbs.
” I held up my hand then, because I wasn’t trying to imply I didn’t have all kinds of advantages.
“Don’t get me wrong. I was very privileged.
I’d gone to the international school where my dad taught in the DR, so I was fully bilingual and had a scholarship to one of the most prestigious universities in the world, and through my dad was a U.S.
citizen. I was living the Dominican boy dream, but it was still a hard adjustment. College was tough.”
I smiled thinking about Heni and Sanjay, and how meeting them was like finally finding my people.
“I didn’t really come into my own until grad school.
There I met my two best friends who ended up becoming my business partners and my U.S.
family in many ways. Sanjay’s family emigrated from India when he was a boy; he grew up in the Midwest where his dad was a physics professor.
And Heni came here for grad school from Ethiopia. ”
Camilo was still intent on me, he’d made affirmative sounds as I spoke, but he hadn’t said a word yet.
“The guys and I had very different backgrounds, but we hit it off from day one and became each other’s support system.
Well, and Priya, too. I don’t know what I would have done without them.
As for how I negotiate those sides, I’m still figuring it out.
I think in many ways I chose the path of least resistance.
I just let people assume what they want. ”
He seemed to be struggling with the last part or whatever he wanted to say in response. Then he looked up and took a sip from his water.
“Thanks for sharing that.”
I knew he was holding something back, but I didn’t want to push. I had a feeling whatever was floating around in his head was not going to be something I wanted to hear.
“You seem like you have something on your mind?”
I felt like Camilo could see into those parts no one else noticed.
I’d always been cautious about who I let in.
Depending on the people I was with or the situation, I could be Tom Hughes, successful American businessman or Thomas Caonabo Hughes Gomez, son of Esperanza and grandson of Libertad.
Those two people were very different, and they almost always stamped each other out.
He shook his head and smiled. “I was just thinking. My mom’s really light-skinned, and in many ways she could pass.
But her name is Dinorah Santiago and she didn’t speak a word of English when she came here.
So there was always a line there for her.
Even for me. I was born here, but I’m brown and it puts me in the ‘other’ category. ”
He paused then and his eyes were trained on something in the distance, like he was making sure he got whatever he was going to say right.
That was something I was beginning to learn about Camilo, he didn’t shy away from talking about the uncomfortable things, but he was careful with his words.
It wasn’t oversharing or flippant prying.
Camilo asked about the hard stuff because he wasn’t afraid to grapple with the answers.
When he was ready to say more, he turned those gray eyes back on me. “It must be challenging to have what gives you an advantage also erase you. That the Tom people see doesn’t fit with who you actually are.”
I dipped my head in agreement. Camilo saw too much.
“It’s something I think about all the time.
I always wonder, would I have been able to have the success I had with my business if I would’ve looked more like my mom or if my name was Juan Perez?
I wonder if I would’ve been able to get into the rooms I did.
Or if I did, would I have been taken seriously? ”
After a moment, I spoke again. Wanting to share with Camilo these things I rarely ever spoke about out loud.
“When we started our company, Henock and Sanjay asked that I be the face of the business during our initial talks with investors.” I fiddled with a little branch on the tree in front on us, recalling the discomfort of that conversation.
“They thought it would give us a better chance of securing the funds we needed for the startup. It hurt so much to hear it, and I debated with the decision of going along with it. Not just because I knew they were right and it made the world so fucked up, but by how matter-of-fact they’d been about it.
” I shook my head remembering how awful I felt for them, for us.
“They weren’t wrong,” Camilo acquiesced with a grimace.
“I try not to take things for granted, but I forget sometimes.” I sighed feeling like I’d said too much. “I overshared.”
He was looking at me with such kindness, like he really was trying to understand.
“Don’t apologize. Thank you for telling me a bit more about your story and being so honest. Sounds like you don’t take any of this lightly.” The smile he gave me was the one I got when something I said had caught him off guard. “You keep surprising me, Tom.”
I turned so that I could look at him when I spoke, “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
He lifted his eyes to the ceiling as if he was searching for an answer.
“I’m not sure yet.” His eyes looked unsure when he focused them back on me.
“But the more I know about you, the harder it is to remember it’s not a good idea to get involved with you.
” After that, he walked off too fast for me to respond.
As I went after him, I realized I probably wasn’t supposed to.
But I hadn’t made it as far as I had in business by missing opportunities, and this was one opening I was not going to miss.