Angela Batista - Words of Wisdom
From Natalia Fernandez
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Oh yeah. It's called “code switching”, right, so in some ways--- So a couple of things before I get to code switching. I think that so like, when I’m with my family, they see the little girl that they know, the person that went away, you know, the person who grew up and I grew up in a Catholic family, I was very involved in the church and I'm not anymore and so it took, in terms of that they see that, they don't really know, you know, all this other experiences that I've had. So, it is a little bit like so forever in multiple worlds. You know I don't really belong in the U.S. right, because I'm an immigrant, and I don't feel like I'm a U.S. citizen - I know that, but I don't belong, but I'm not Dominican anymore either. I'm not New York anymore, but I'm not here either, right, so everywhere I've gone it's almost like you're always an outsider no matter what. So I feel like an outsider in my family at times, what's important to them is not necessarily what's important to me anymore. You know, my values are not necessarily the same because I've been exposed to a whole different thing --- so you know I have a cousin who said to me when I lived in Florida, we were driving one day and he made a remark about an African American person who was driving next to us and you know I went on my rampage that I do and he said, he just looked at me he said, “You know I just wish I was like you.” And I said, “What do you mean?” He said, “You see the good in everybody.” And I don't see, not everybody is good, but what he meant is that I could see value in other people and I wasn't restrained by that, right, that internalized oppression, because a lot of Dominicans are very black so it's like we have a lot of issues with internalized racism so. So for me, I feel like that's a place where that happens. In my work it happens all the time, right like I've been in places where I couldn't really be myself, because you know, I'm loud and Dominican and in Indiana you know where I was before, that didn't go so well. So I had to figure, right, in order for people to take me seriously, if I walk into a meeting with the president and my boss, they're not going to potentially see the same thing if I'm there and doing all this --- I have to code switch. I have to behave the way that they expect, but when I leave there, so like I'm meeting with you I have a certain way that I interact with you, and maybe another way that I interact with Janet because of our comfort, but if the president was here I wouldn't be a different person, but I will be showing that differently right, that's called cultural code switching. So, that's just what I, what you do and so you have to learn the different languages. Today I was doing a presentation, so I am the chair of a Latino, a national Latino group for the organization of Student Affairs Administrators and I was asked to do a presentation to a business association for Hispanic Heritage Month. And so my colleague and I did a presentation on what's happening in Higher Ed, sort of all the trends about Latinos, how can you prepare and how do you become culturally competent, and how do you see the benefit of having Latinos in your organization, you know, in terms of like a culture that is very loyal, that is very you know that is very hospitable and is built on connections, how do you, so those kinds of things. So you know the questions that, I just listen to myself, like I'm on a phone call with people from all over, two days ago I was on a phone call with Student Affairs Administrators from universities all over the Caribbean talking about student success, you know, that's not anything that I could have predicted. But I think that what it is is you have to really be okay with really celebrating yourself. And so I don't walk around with like, “Oh I'm this big person” --- sometimes when they introduce me I'm like, “Who is that? Oh yeah that's me!” I feel like it's a different person, so you're talking about multiple identities, right? Student: Yeah. Angela: I'm like, “Who is that? Oh that person sounds amazing, what she?” You know, so the students, I went to speak to the multicultural student groups, I was like, “Who is that person?” and they're like, “Oh that's me!” And then here's another thing, I come here and they're like, “Should I call you Angela (An-he-la) or Angela (An-gel-la)?” Well guess what? I have lived in the U. S. my entire life, nobody ever asked, they just call me Angela (An-gel-la). So the only people that call me Angela (An-he-la) are my mother, my dad, and my grandmother. So now I'm going through a whole identity crisis, okay, because they're like, and they're like upset right because they are trying to be inclusive and they're like so this. So I have a colleague who is walking me around saying this is Angela (An-he-la), this is Angela (An-he-la), and then somebody, “Hi, I'm Angela (An-gel-la).” He goes, “You're confusing them,” he said, I said, “But I am her too” --- right? Student: Uhuh. Angela: So it never stops; it always continues. So today I was on the webinar, “Would you like me to call you Angela (An-he-la) or Angela (An-gel-la)?” I said, “You know what I'm pretty bicultural it's a Latino identity, just go for it, call me whatever.” So she tried to call me Angela (An-gel-la), Angela (An-he-la), she mispronounced it the she said corrected it but it was in Spanish, I was like, this is why just call me Angela (An-gel-la) because now I feel like you know, you know what I mean, you killed my name three times, but she's trying, she wants to be inclusive, so you have to kind of you know learn what's important.
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