Facing My Privilege: The End of a Journey

Anyone who has left behind the comfort of privilege and thrust themselves into a situation that we might call "unjust" or in "poverty" understands the wave of emotions that rolls over as you are faced with the realities of our world. Stepping into a homeless camp, a "third world" country,  or even a prison, as part of the privileged class, I was taught first to feel pity and sadness for the unfortunate situation before my eyes and gratitude for the situation I left behind at home.

As you dive deeper into the injustice, you realize that this pity and gratitude you have been taught to feel can be detrimental and hurtful to many people and therefore begin to leave behind these first reactions to excavate new truths that inspire new emotions. Learning of the connections between my own country and the civil war and poverty that occurred and is still occurring in Guatemala, seeing the connection between health and poverty in the United States, understanding the relationship between politics, business, and the provision of medical technology, understanding the economic control exerted over countries or communities in order to exploit and use the poor, crime connected to prejudice, prejudice connected to history, cultural norms that disregard some humans while affording advantage to others for arbitrary characteristics, accepted realities of competition, profit mongering, selfishness, ignorance, hatred and finally the realization that our world functions on systems that are so complex, so intricate, so compounding, that it is impossible to articulate or even imagine what a world might look like in which each human was treated with love, value, and joy, all come together to create an overwhelming, distressing, and frustrating gauntlet between us and the realization of a loving world.

Anger, frustration, pain, and guilt emerge each time I find myself in these situations, as I sit in realization that even in my attempts to approach poverty, human rights violations, and injustice in a way that breaks the norm of dependency and subverts control over the poor, I, a white cis-male US citizen, from a middle class family, many times simply reinforce and sometimes further the oppressive system in place. I cannot separate myself completely from the world in which I was formed, from the unchanging "truths" of western culture and the culture of the United States. It seems that I cannot step back from myself and sift through these truths and find which ones are valuable and which are not. It feels almost impossible to discover which ideals hurt and harm the people around me and know then that I should leave those behind. When you pull on one string of injustice, three more appear, when you try to pull the choking vine from the tree, branches fall on your head.

We become overwhelmed and saturated with the complexity, jaded by the constant uphill battle, and frustrated when people simply choose to be selfish, greedy, and deceitful. We feel like single droplets making no difference in the ocean of injustice. As we turn home, we feel broken, incomplete, and sorrowful as we face the privileged situation before our eyes and feel longing, shame, and discomfort for what we leave behind. We recognize that no matter what, we can always return to our safe havens, our comfortable homes, and our distracted lives. We know that we will never be able to feel the full extent of the pain and hardship of those people who are suffering at the behest of our lifestyle of imprisoned consumerism and forced individualism. We always have an escape. We always have a plane ticket out of poverty. We always have a ride waiting for us at the airport when we get home. We throw ourselves onto our soft beds in our warm houses and cry because our privilege permeates even our very blood.

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But then, as you lift your face from your tear-stained feather pillow, as you feel the wounds from standing next to the oppressed, the broken pieces of yourself laying around you, and the voids in your soul calling for fulfillment, the faces of the many people you met along the way emerge, little by little tending to your wounds, aiding your recovery, sorting the pieces of yourself into piles to keep and piles to throw away.

You allow the smile of a young shoe shiner to leave its mark on your soul through compassion, reminding you of his passion for learning, his dedication to his family, and his ability to simply sit in peace even at 10 years old.

You feel the care and guidance of the powerful spirit of your mentor, an occupational therapist with a heart for true solidarity and mind for true understanding, helping pick up the pieces of yourself that were broken, putting them back together, maybe in new places with new purposes.

You feel the embrace of a new friendship emerge from an unexpected relationship, holding your hand as you drive along the hard road of analysis, understanding, and true recognition of the complexity of oppression, pain, and anger.

You feel the energy of humans colliding together from all sides of the planet to learn, grow, and change with one another, opening up themselves to the souls of others.

You hear the laughter of new friends echoing off the cobblestones of an old colonial city, sending vibrations of hope through the hardest of stones.







You see light peek over the mountain of pain and injustice before you, reminding you that there is hope, there is joy, and there is a possibility for a better future.

You touch the scars from your past wounds, reminders that the wounds of the oppressed don't often have the time or privilege of healing into scars. You are reminded that the work is never done, and you have been forever changed. You hear the call to return to solidarity, to leave your privileged life, give back what has been stolen from the deprivileged people of our world. As you look in the mirror to see who you have become and what you might provide to our world, your ears are forever tuned to the cries for human dignity and human rights.

You bring your past experiences with you as tools for the future, filling you with the fuel of passion, driving you to stand up, open your windows and your heart, and scream to the world that you are ready for change, ready to be a small part of a body, walking toward justice, taking on the challenge of imagining the potential for a better world alongside your fellow humans. You are ready to listen with your whole being, to be moved by the poor and shaped by the suffering. You realize as you turn to face your privilege that, although it affects your life so much,  it does not have the final word.





You are ready to reclaim what it means to be human,  what it means to be a part of the human community. You are ready to make the final word something much more powerful than privilege: love.

Speaking Without Words

Over the past 4 years, I have traveled to Central American many times, each time with a particular purpose: to explore, understand, and support the resolution of the injustices that are present here in the world between the United States and Colombia.  Each journey dove deeper into the structural, cultural, and political causes of the hunger, violence, and injustice prevalent throughout this land of lakes and volcanoes. Each time I set foot in these places my agenda was "analyze", "ask questions", and "find answers", however in the past few weeks, it seems my agenda has included a more diverse schedule.

In some moments, as I step across the familiar cobblestone streets of Antigua, walking to the print shop or passing by Central Park on my way to buy some bread, as I sit at the bow of a boat skimming across the silky water of Lake Atitlán, feeling just a sprinkle of rain hit my skin, as I feel the warm sun on the back of my neck as I talk with a young Guatemalan with the soul much older than mine, or as I sit at dinner with friends discussing fears and personalities, I feel myself forget to analyze. I forget to connect all the social and political factors together into a map leading me directly to my place in society at that moment.

Instead, I feel the pressure of each stone through my shoes on the balls of my feet, the sharp and the dull, the angled and the flat, the rough and the smooth. I hear the music of flutes and drums in Central Park as a band plays for onlookers. I let the wind of the lake whip across my face, holding my attention with its gentle touch yet roaring sound.

I feel the droplets of rain touch my skin as small reminders that I am alive. I sit and do nothing, creating space to see the people around me as humans rather than sociological pawns. I hear the laughter of a friend as I feel the same sound escape from my own chest.

As we drive home from a National Hospital, the smell of the truck exhaust in front of us pinches my nose with its unnatural stench. The spiciness of jalapeño pupusas sits on my tongue for just a moment longer than usual, breaking from my usual hasty eating to experience the food. I walk lightly through ancient ruins, imagining the people who 500 years ago walked the same path.

I feel the soft touch of a friend's hand as we dance together, laughing and smiling as the only ones brave enough to let the music move us. I see the reflection of people in a puddle as they walk by, a portal into another world. I feel the bump and rattle of the camionetas we ride to class each Monday and Wednesday, noticing the detail and intricacy of the designs on each one.

In these moments I am pulled from my demanding mind and find peace in the sensory experiences of the world around me. There is no analysis, there is no larger contextual connection, there is only feeling, tasting, hearing, seeing, smell, and moving. The details of the world around me light up through my senses, reaching deep into my muscles, telling me each stone's texture through my toes, each droplet's weight through my skin, each human's emotion through my eyes, and each taste of life through my tongue. Without words, the world describes itself to me.


I am not sure why these experiences have been so prevalent lately. Maybe because my purpose on this trip is not really to analyze or process, maybe because the person who taught me the value of these experience has been on my mind quite frequently of late, maybe it is because I am not engulfed in searching for an answer because I have not asked a question... there could be many reasons. It really doesn't matter why.

Sometimes the only thing that matters is that I am here, in this complex and diverse world, filled with experiences, people, tastes, sounds, sensations, and emotions. I am one living organism speaking with the world through my life, a dance of soul and sense, a moment in time to be felt to its fullest extent.

Identity, Occupation, and Environment

In many ways, I think my generation in the United States has become obsessed with the idea of authenticity, identity, and the true self. I am not sure exactly why this preoccupation has emerged within my age group, and one could speculate reasons regarding many things, both negative and positive like narcissism, historical context, or even a reaction to a consumerist and wasteful culture. Whichever may be the cause, we have seen the emergence of identity seekers shape the environment and occupations of our society into a young generation that values local beers, "alternative" lifestyles, nuanced or sometimes new aged religious beliefs, and diversity. Our identities, our true selfs, emerge from the interaction between our agency and the environment around us, occupation. Our occupations become integral to the expression of our identity, acting as the means through which we create our persona in this world.

I am laying on a blanket in a park in Cincinnati with my shirt off, reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed with a friend playing Arcade Fire songs on her guitar next to me. These activities relate to and facilitate an identity for myself both in my mind and the minds of others, a university educated, urban living, male in the United States.

I sit in a coffee shop with another student discussing our shared experience in Nicaragua and the merits of fair trade products and the potential pitfalls of genetically modified organisms. An identity emerges through this engagement, a traveled, cultured, socially aware global citizen.

These occupations, the ways that we live our lives, create an identity that our generation believes is deeply rooted in the authenticity of the soul, the true human essence.

As I spent the past week and a half here in Guatemala, I have realized that there is both a lasting truth and deceitful lie intertwined with this true self concept. As I have walked through the streets of Antigua, spoke with locals, and simply sat in the park, I have found a forced identity shift because of the changes in what I am doing and environment in which I am doing it.

I sit modestly dressed, with a backpack sitting next to me, camera hidden within, taking notes on a bench in Central Park. In that moment, no matter what, my white skin, height, clothing, and my lack of a native routine will always connect me to my identity as a visitor, a foreigner. This identity is forced to the surface of every unclear interaction, unfamiliar exchange, or even passing glance. In the United States, I may have thought of myself as alternative or slightly outside the mainstream, yet here I am far from the most alternative gringo who walks barefoot in the street with Aladdin-like pants, a tie die tank top, dreadlocks, and a guitar slung around his back. I am foreign, white, and most usually expected to not speak Spanish and never expected to speak any of the 23 native languages.

Here in Guatemala, my environment has had a profound impact on what I do and how I do it which therefore has had a noticeable impact on my perception of my own identity. But is this such a bad thing, to be forced to reform and reassess my identity within this new context, new environment. Some in my generation might claim travesty that the Guatemalan context simplifies me to a white foreigner, most likely "helping" poor Guatemalans through a mission trip.  People my age might say I am being unfairly pigeonholed into an identity that isn't "truly" me.

Is it not? Is this white, middle class, man, taking notes and pictures here in Guatemala not who I "truly" am. Well, like I said, this is both a truth and a lie. As much as my generation might want it to be, I have come to realize, our identity is not like a stone sitting in a river, being moved or thrown about, chipped our smoothed on the surface but with an unchanging, unbending core. We are not the same in every environment with which we interact.

We are much more like a toy box, filled with many different identities, both small and large, some of which have drifted toward the bottom. The identities that lie on the surface, just as you open our lid, depend on what the person who you are engaging with most usually plays with and toys you make most easily found. Your environment through your occupations within it, often pulls to the surface the part of your identity that it most wants, sometimes taking just what is on top, and sometimes digging deep into the parts of ourselves with which we have never engaged. We are always changing, reorganizing, and reinventing the identities within our selfs to interact with the world. We might be able to maintain a static identity if we did not do anything, however to be human is to occupy our time, to do, to be, and to be alive. Our identity is something richer, deeper, and more fluid than a simple label or a single story.

So yes, I am a university educated, urban living, male as well as a somewhat traveled, generally socially aware person. However, part of my identity is also simply a white person from the United States who is visiting Guatemala for a short time. This is no more or less authentically part of who I am and becoming aware of that fact may inform and enrich how I go about engaging with this new context. Understanding what that newly emerging identity means for my place here in Guatemala challenges me to understand how I fit into this contextual puzzle, if I am, as Frank Kronenberg would say, "doing well with" the Guatemalan people.

Recognizing the many parts of my identity through the things that I do every day, being aware of them, and understanding their relationship to the world around me will help me to better understand how I can use the many toys in my toy box to support change toward justice in our world. Being aware the many facets of my being will better equip me to relate, engage, and be open to the people and experiences waiting for me in the world. Our generation has clung to the idea that we each have an single unchanging truth that runs in the core of our being, and that may be true in some ways, however our identity and the occupations associated with it are malleable, changing, things that allow us to disconnect and connect with our world.

We are part of the world around us, shaping and being shaped by it. We exist with our world, not in spite of it and our occupations help us discover what that existence looks like and means.

Back in Guatemala: Thinking about Productivity and "doing nothing"

I am back in the wonderful country of Guatemala this week, preparing for the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology - Occupational Therapy Field School. I was lucky enough to return to Antigua as the coordinator for this fantastic fieldwork experience for both anthropology and occupational therapy students. We will be going on a whirlwind adventure of four weeks exploring and researching various topics including Pediatric Development, Sustainable Technology, and NGO Networks in Health.

Before that adventure begins, I have had some time this week, as we prepare for the fast paced weeks to come, to explore and spend some time simply being in Antigua. Today, I found myself sitting on a bench in the middle of the city. In the center of this small colonial town sits Parque Central, a hive of activity, events, and interactions. People, both Guatemalan and foreign, walk, talk, and move throughout the green plants, cobblestone streets, and small stores. Venders selling ice cream, bracelets, table centerpieces, and shoe shines meander through the park gently and sometimes more aggressively engaging with those passing by or seated on the benches. Tour guides and instant photographers linger around the fountain in the middle of the square, waiting for someone who needs their services. Young children play around the fountain and old men smoke cigars, commenting on scantily clad gringas walking by. Pairs of police officers wearing intimidating military-like uniforms stroll through the area eyeing the people with a heightened awareness.

Guatemalan teenage school girls sit in a circle around one of the benches in the park surrounding a laptop computer looking at something that periodically makes them shriek like... well... school girls. They giggle and glance at the older boys who walk passed them, all of them dressed in the typical white and blue uniforms of Guatemalan public schools. A young mother and her child sit near the edge of the fountain. The little boy chases the pigeons as she texts on her cell phone, taking a moment to stop and give her child a peck on the lips when he approaches. Today, there is an event for a local gym in which children from all the local schools came out and did something akin to Zumba with the gym's instructors. There was music and microphones echoing throughout the square, but one could always still hear the constant flow and splash of the center fountain over it all.

As I sat on that bench I pulled out my old Spanish class notes to review some vocabulary. After a few pages, I realized there was no way I would remember any of it with everything happening around me so I opened my notebook and began journaling some thoughts. As I looked around, the majority of other park-goers who were sitting on benches had no notebooks, books to read, crosswords to fill out, or even cameras to take pictures. They were doing nothing. I realized I had pulled out my notebooks to provide some impression that I was not just sitting there watching everyone; I was being productive and had a reason for sitting down and being in the park. However everyone else had no intention of creating an image of productivity, they were doing nothing. Doing nothing, what an interesting idea. Is it even possible?

I guess in reality, these people were doing. They were talking with each other, they were simply being present in the community, and they were watching, breathing, seeing, itching, smoking, hearing, touching, simply existing for a moment to experience the world around them. Such a foreign concept to my mind, marinaded in the protestant work ethic and the fast paced productive culture of the US. How often do you see people at the park in the US simply sitting and watching the other people at the park? They are reading a book, doing homework, exercising, or doing a variety of other things, but few are simply existing in the space, experiencing the world around them without being productive. We march through life with productivity as our goal.


As I sat staring into my world of occupation and analysis, I had stopped writing and was simply glancing around. In that moment, the Guatemalan man who was sitting near me on the bench began a conversation with me. We talked about his teacher in Guatemala City and about some sicknesses he had. He asked about why I was in Guatemala and how long. Then we stopped talking as he told me "I didn't mean to interrupt your work, you can continue working now." He went back to staring and I returned to my notebook.

My apparent productivity had stifled an opportunity to engage the people around me. Holding still in my productive timeline allowed someone else to catch up to me and connect. When I opened up to the world around me and allowed an empty space to emerge in my productive life, it was quickly filled with community. I wonder what else could fill up in those spaces if we just allowed them to happen? Maybe "doing nothing", something so countercultural, is actually an opportunity for the world to fill in the vacant corners of your life, allowing the nuances of people, the smells of the air, the sounds of a fountain, and the sights of a community to enter into the dance we call life. Maybe in spending some time "doing nothing" sometimes we learn to exist together and taste the diverse flavors of this world.

Final Presentation