My journey hasn’t been a straight path, but every detour taught me something valuable: it’s okay to be a late bloomer – though that’s not what the world tells you. In today’s hustle culture all you hear is how quickly somebody became a CEO and got ‘Billionaire’ status. It’s true: some people grew up in the right place at the right time with access to key resources. They had wealthy parents – or at least parents that had the wherewithal to provide the right kind of support and stimulation.
I did not have that type of luck. My parents immigrated to the US in the late 60s, early 70s. They came from El Salvador and were happy just to have work and find a better life. They were dreamers and took big risks. Personally, I wouldn’t move to a foreign country where I didn’t know the language, had no support, and did not have a job lined up! The thought turns my stomach into knots. But my parents did it. I thank them for that. I guess that alone makes me luckier than most in this world. I feel very privileged to be born in this country.
However, luck tends to be a finnicky mistress since we were not rich by any means. I grew up in a rough neighborhood with not-so-great living conditions. My father’s mason contracting business notwithstanding, we didn’t live the picturesque American life. He made a good living for the 80’s, but we were not the typical “middle class” family. My mom, like most women from El Salvador, cleaned houses for a living. She has limited post high-school education and was not a reader. This was very typical for Hispanic immigrants, construction and cleaning.
I longed to live in the neighborhoods that I saw in all my favorite movies of the era. Beautiful, large houses with manicured lawns and treehouses in the backyard. Where kids rode around on bikes and played worry free. That was the big dream. But not reality. My reality was living in a 3-family house. We were a family of 5 living in a 1000 square foot 2-bedroom apartment – with 1 bathroom. At night you could see drug dealers on the corner and drug addicts running around. When we would go out and play my mom would worry. I guess that’s why I loved movies so much. Fiction was so much nicer, cleaner, and much more organized.
I could become anything I wanted in movies. I could be the nerdy kid that beat the bully and got the girl. I could be the scientist, that no one listened to, that finds the solution and saves the day. Everyone had access to computers and could create cool things that were not possible with 80s technology. The most technology we had were old TVs that were always breaking. I wanted to be in the movie universe. That was not going to happen.
My first language was Spanish and that made it difficult to transition into school. I remember starting school and not knowing what my name was. My father’s name was Jose, so they called me Chepe as a nick name (common in El Salvador). To me, that was my name. When kids at school called me Jose, I did not respond. I learned quickly, however.
Learning to read was harder since up until Kindergarten I was not read to by my parents. That put me behind the other kids. By first grade I was struggling, so I was kept behind and put in a remedial reading program. That made all the difference. By fourth grade, I was at the highest reading level. Part of me always wished I did not get held back. I always felt ashamed of it somehow. Now I realize some people need a little extra time to reach certain milestones – especially when they start with a disadvantage.
My parents made ends meet well. However, there was always tension between my parents. They never seemed to see eye-to-eye. With the struggles of work and kids, it made it very difficult to keep everything together when you don’t have good examples. They both came from difficult childhoods. Eventually, it all fell apart, and my parents split up.
It wasn’t even a divorce – my dad stopped paying the mortgage, and my mom just left the state. I think she was running from her shame. We left everyone we knew because she didn’t want them to see how far she had fallen. That feeling has stayed with me for all these years. This kind of thinking can be inherited, but I am doing my best to break the cycle.
Looking back, I think I see better now what my parents were going through and why they made the decisions they made. It gives me a blueprint of what NOT to do. However, I still struggle to make the right decisions. Don’t we all? They say hindsight is 20/20, but maybe late bloomers are just learning to see clearly, one lesson at a time.
I think the moral of this part of my life is that we do not have to become our parents. We can learn from their mistakes and improve upon them. It doesn’t have to be perfect, all we need is some improvement, so our children have it a little better.