On April 17th 2018, I attended a one-man show entitled “The Trouble with My Name” by Javier Ávila. For the duration of about 1 hour, Javier highlighted several issues, spanning from race, language, culture, that minority groups face.
1. What did you learn from the play about diversity, inclusion, and/or perspective taking?
This play displayed various aspects of inclusion and perspective taking. The showman made sure to explain the difference between equity (fairness) and equality (giving out the same thing), citing an example of wheel chair accommodation at an event. He went further to tell us that whatever helps a minority helps the majority too. As leaders, it is incumbent on us to consider various perspectives and include a variety of people and ideas in whatever we do. With regards to diversity, his example of tokenism- being the one Spanish kid in his class who always got asked the meaning of Spanish words, informs us that we are not as diverse as we like to believe.
2. What did you learn from Javier Avila’s autobiographical play about identity, privilege, and power in interpersonal interactions?
Being a foreigner with a cultural name, I could relate with Javier on how he has to deal with various versions of his name on a daily basis. Americans would like you to assimilate their culture (and pronunciation of your name) but it is important to maintain your identity.
From the play, I gathered that privilege and power can sometimes make a person ignorant. He mentioned, for instance, that many Americans don’t realize that for a Puerto Rican to become American, all the person has to do is be born. Javier also narrated his experience of discrimination based on his accent and conversation in Spanish with a friend. He was told that this is America and english is the acceptable language. Whereas, unknown to many americans, America has no official language. Just because English is the most widely spoken language in America, it is assumed that everyone should adopt the language as the primary means of communication. This is a typical example of how privilege and power affect our interaction with others.
