When You're Invisible

My parents often had to take risks in pursuit of change, whether emigrating from Mexico or taking a leap of faith on a job that moved our family across the country. They open up about their childhoods in Mexico, and their journey from food stamps to the middle class. Being away from grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins in Mexico, our nuclear family has always been close and we unpack what we’ve learned from each other, be it Am...

The white rural working class is so often depicted in the mainstream media as just Trump supporters; but there’s a lot of layers to this community that go unseen. Jen comes from this world and she’s also a new member of my family (my sister-in-law’s sister). We talk about her experience as the first in her family to date a person of color, the isolation caused by grief, and her struggle at times to fit in with her community. You’ll...

Today my friend Lani lives very authentically, but she has struggled with perception and invisibility throughout her life. She unpacks the complexities of living a rough childhood that took her around the world and the nuances of her identity as a half-Korean, half-white woman who never looked like the rest of her family. She gets real about the power dynamics of past relationships and talks about how she hopes to maintain a full r...

I wanted to interview Kate because I didn’t know much about stuttering before meeting her. One percent of the population stutters and unconscious bias can impact this group’s self esteem, work opportunities, and social life. A white 30 year old woman living in New York, Kate has had a stutter since she was a kid but always believed she would grow out of it. She confronts speech therapy techniques that she’s come to see as destructi...

Franklin Lucely, Gilberto, and Ines cleaned up Ground Zero and New York City in the aftermath of 9/11 alongside hundreds of fellow undocumented Latin American workers. These American heroes discuss their experience on the ground during the days and months following 9/11 and the illnesses they developed as a result of their service. While the country has largely forgotten them – offering only token settlements, lack of robust health...

Anicia is an entrepreneur and works as a personal chef and nanny for the ultra-wealthy in New York City. Having met on a photoshoot, Anicia and I bonded over our shared experiences walking into these homes as educated women of color. She’s a first generation Nigerian American and discusses the complexities of power and personhood and some shocking stories from behind the scenes of this industry. In our conversation, the problems su...

Louie worked alongside Ralph at the Columbia University package center, which was an oasis for me in a high stress environment. Being two Latin kids around the same age, Louie and I experienced two sides of this elite institution – me as a student, and Louie as an employee. Louie, ever positive, manages to distill life lessons from encounters with students and colleagues. He also shares his experience of being the oldest of three g...

Ralph – a Marine vet, first generation Dominican American – was the manager of the package center at Columbia University, which is where I went to school for undergrad as a scholarship kid. An unexpected bonding over Spanish led to conversations with him that helped me when I wanted to drop out. He describes his upbringing in Washington Heights as a game of ‘Cops and Robbers’ and then we rehash our early encounters, un...