By LAURA GREVAS, Staff Writer

Diversity week guest speaker Alex Avila has had more than his fair share of hard knocks. And that, he said, is what allows him to speak to people from all backgrounds.

He spoke in classes and diversity training sessions throughout the week.

Avila was raised in the Bronx in New York City and came to Wartburg from his current home in San Bernadino, Calif., where he directs the Central City Lutheran Mission, a common destination for service trip participants.

As a black Latino struggling with poverty, drugs, abuse and intolerance around him, Avila fought to define his own identity. He shared his story Monday, complete with Spanish phrases and homespun raps to bring the audience into his world.

His presentation began with some Latin music and dancing between the diversity council and a handful of audience members before sophomore Anabel Duarte introduced him. Avila, who has worked with various non-profit organizations since he was 13, took the stage and began his story. The son of Honduran immigrants, Avila did not speak English until the age of five when he started school.

As he struggled with his identity and accent, he felt that “bullies, teachers, everybody outside my house didn’t want me.”

“We have self-hatred among ourselves,” he said, “We want to blend in and become ghosts, just like everybody else.”

Then Avila began looking for answers. He looked to his parents for guidance and saw that his mother was proud of her heritage and had no interest in speaking English. When rap music became popular, he used it as an outlet and a voice.

“I wanted to hide real bad from the world, but every time I tried I just kept popping up,” Avila said.

His father abused alcohol and beat his mother. One day Avila intervened and took the beating for his mother after his plea to stop hitting her was ineffective. After that, he felt empowered and became the self-proclaimed “ambassador for the ghetto,” breaking up fights between Latinos and blacks at school. He spoke at his presentation about people trying to find a different beat or rhythm, and his new actions were the rhythm of love. He began talking to people, listening to their stories.

“I like knowing other cultures. I’d never been to Mexico until I talked to this one dude on 59th street. I was in Mexico, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Cuba, Africa and Hong Kong. I was everywhere just by listening. I traveled for free,” Avila said.

“People walk around incomplete. They’re shy and embarrassed of who they are, wondering if people are judging them, looking at them,” Avila said. “They don’t know themselves. To hate other people, you have to hate a part of yourself first.”

Avila has several books in print, but he feels he needs to speak to and work with people because of the hatred he sees all around him.

“People are dying right now,” he says, “Rather than publish, I felt like I needed to intervene so people could live longer and together in harmony. I had to do something real quick.”

On Thursday evening, Avila and students met in Cardinal Commons for root beer floats and an interactive dialogue, which Mosaico sponsored. Avila began by having students go around the room, each saying his or her name and a sound, which the others repeated. Students broke into groups and each acted out advertisements for the others. The catch was each person was given a temporary disability; some were blind, some could not speak, and some could not walk.

Sophomore Shatrece Burt said the dialogue taught her to “look at things from another perspective and walk in somebody else’s shoes.”

“The main theme seems to be [that] there are many obstacles to lead a ‘normal life’ in the U.S,” junior Alberto Lazo-Hulme of Mosaico said. “Your origins give you more or less obstacles, but you can see them in someone else and be able to help them.”
Avila also travels the country speaking at universities and doing acting and poetry presentations to people with HIV, gangs, molested women and youth.

He tries to connect with his audience by dressing like them and talking like them using his four languages: English, Spanish, Spanglish, and Ebonics. Avila last visited Wartburg in January with Pastor David Kalke, originally from Iowa. “We share the same air, sky, moon and stars; I’m pretty sure we share some of the same problems,” Avila said.