“When people clarify what matters and leverage their strengths, leaders emerge and anything is possible.”
Three words that struck a chord when Dean James Bundy gave his orientation address my first year of graduate school. My situation’s reality was dawning on me in waves: excited as I was to be accepted into the acting program, it was quickly becoming clear that this is where the real work would begin. Beyond the challenges I would face in pushing myself to be a better artist––the expected challenges––my eyes would also be opened to a host of underlying barriers shaping the working world within and beyond the creative classroom. I was venturing into uncharted territory, the first in my family to go to college, first to pursue a masters degree, and one of the few Latino artist academics to develop their craft at the Yale School of Drama. It would take a while before I truly believed Dean Bundy’s message.
Singular as I felt at the time, mine is a common experience for first generation college and graduate students: students whose parents/guardians/caregivers did not earn bachelor’s, master’s, doctorate, or professional degrees (although elder siblings and cousins may be pursuing or awarded similar credentials). Without the mentorship of elders who’ve been there before, these first-gen students are left to navigate what Maria Dykma-Erb, Executive Director of the Boston University Newbury Center, calls “the hidden curriculum”: an amorphous collection of “implicit academic, social, and cultural messages,” “unwritten rules and unspoken expectations,” and “unofficial norms, behaviours and values” of the dominant-culture context in which all teaching and learning is situated.
Today, Ms. Dykma-Erb provides resources for this pool of emerging talent as the director of the Newbury Center at Boston University. Providing a comprehensive array of services, including financial aid navigation and financial literacy support, academic guidance, assistance with internships and study abroad opportunities, cohort and mentoring programs, and family outreach, the Newbury Center is exactly the kind of resource I craved in my time as a student. Even so, time spent sorting out my version of the hidden curriculum became not only a proving ground for my evolution as first-gen artist, but as a first-gen leader.
As a coach and leadership development specialist, I’ve found those lessons to have proven essential––not only for a first-gen leader, but for anyone looking to effectively impact and guide their teams in a time of pivotal change. The hidden curriculum may add complexity to the first-gen experience, but the insights gleaned are worth the investment.
Elevate Lived Experienced
Ironically, interrogating the opacity of amorphous norms as a grad student clarified one very important idea: lived experience is as valuable to a leader as the formal credits on their CV. Knowledge gained from first-hand involvement and choices as they pertain to an individual, and that individual’s identity layered across race, gender, class, and other social dimensions. Even as the data shows that inclusive workplaces consistently outperform their less diverse peers, many leaders struggle with sustainable and significant improvements in inclusion. Many of these barriers are due to fuzzy metrics and an overreliance on inequitable systems, even in the pursuit of just goals.
Ruha Benjamin, a sociologist whose work focuses on a similar kind of “demystification” in social systems, took the stage at TEDx Baltimore to share her talk, “From Park Bench to Lab Bench: What Kind of Future Are We Designing?” There, Benjamin delved into the concept of “discriminatory design,” citing public benches engineered with armrests every two feet to prevent people from lying down. These benches represent systems which carry the fingerprint of the designers’ biases toward the unhoused, and in flattening access to a select few, disallow a full experience for all. These benches lie––while preventing you or I from lying on them––as public architecture exemplars of what Benjamin describes as “technologies that reflect and reproduce existing inequities.”
As the modern workplace struggles with recruitment and retention, I often push leaders to reconsider their methods––and account for the marginalized. Much of our workplace culture, from recruitment to expectation, is predicated on the seventeenth century concept of a “universal individual” who was, as Dr. Nancy Leys Stepan, Cornell University accounts “…unmarked by the myriad specificities (e.g. of wealth, rank, education, age, sex) that make each person unique.” This hypothetical neutrality aligned with the intersections of whiteness, maleness, and heterosexuality––leaving other intersectional identities in the margins. Other. Minoritized; and considered lesser. As leaders, we must ask if we are valuing lived experience, or is an overreliance on outdated systems forcing talent to adapt to a myth of neutrality? If our teams can’t bring the fullness of themselves to their work, either from gatekeeping aspects of ATS software or unnecessary degree requirements or a culture that implicitly forces conformity, how can we expect them to bring the fullness of their innovative potential?
Yale’s training followed a classic conservatory model, and as such, focused heavily on learning and practicing the Shakespearean canon. As we studied and engaged in iambs and epics, kings and emperors, romances and tragedies, I found myself daunted. This was not a world in which I was––excuse the pun,––well-versed (as a matter of fact, I doubt my family would have been able to afford a ticket to any of my Shakespearean performances), and the pedagogical methods, often in dialogue with the Elizabethan worldview, felt doubly foreign.
It was only when I began to elevate my own lived experience that I found my voice. After all, were these not tales of love and loss, family and loyalty, life and death? Had my own upbringing, as a lower-working-class minority in a heavily middle-class neighborhood, not informed the outsider perspective of Edmund, the bastard son? Could the loss of family members to senseless gun violence not spark something in my rendition of Hamlet’s ruminations on mortality? Here, even lacking the formal exposure to the work, I brought a rich resume of lived history: a complexity uniquely my own.
Systems that flatten complexity may serve to simplify practices, but rarely make them sustainable. Had I tried to conform my performance to the typical Shakespearean representation, emulating the British “masters,” I would have undoubtedly stifled the nuance and imagination––and the passion––for the performance of these great works. So, too, can outdated workplace practices, from inequitable hiring metrics to rigid cultural norms, perpetuate exclusion and stifle innovation. Conversely, leaders who prioritize lived experience alongside formal credentials unlock a more nuanced, human-centered approach to leadership.
Relentlessly Pursue Mentorship
As much as I would like to take credit for a bold and fearless venturing into the unknown, the support of mentors was essential in overcoming the confounds of my first-gen experience. Findings in a study published by the Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning showed that first-generation students “face unique challenges during their transition to college, including lower academic preparedness, financial pressures, and limited social support, all of which can impact their academic outcomes.”
As for those who succeed? The same study showed that support structures like mentorship and cultural initiatives were pivotal in their advancement. One large reason is a shift in what the study’s authors, Stacie Craft DeFreitas and Anne Rinn, termed “self-concept.”
Self-concept, “defined as one’s perception of ability, is a complex, hierarchical construct that significantly impacts academic performance… potentially creating feedback loops where performance and self-concept reinforce each other.”
When Dean Bundy implored us to know we belonged, there was little evidence outside of his statement to support the premise. At the time, there were no Latino professors or instructors, and few BIPOC in our faculty. Even today, Yale is a predominantly white institution, and my daily walk to class took me past shops where I couldn’t afford to spend––populated by folks who looked nothing like me. As Bruce Feiler outlines in The Search: Finding Meaningful Work in a Post-Career World, “Role models are among the most valuable building blocks of narrative career construction. The reason: choosing your model is your first choice about work.” Role models help to create an idea of what’s possible; but, as it is often said, we cannot be what we cannot see.
My mentors helped me to reframe my self-concept, and to give myself the permission to reframe an artistic career as a possibility––partially because I widened my aperture to a broader understanding of who mentors could be. I looked for them in my peers, in professional actors performing at the Yale Repertory Theater, in guest speakers, and in past teachers as well as current. What’s more, I proactively pursued their guidance, seeking out and soaking up whatever bits of wisdom I could.
Today, I encourage organizations to take the same approach, and to be intentional and transparent about holding space and time for mentorship––and, importantly, to do so while investing in diversifying their teams. Priceless as the wisdom and guidance I received, few of my mentors grasped the nuances of my lived reality. It simply wasn’t one many of them shared; and intrinsic biases in hiring in academia made access to those leadership roles inaccessible to many Latino artists. Felicia Rose Chavez, author of The Anti-Racist Writing Workshop, outlines this reality:
“…we (are) erased within our graduate programs, in terms of representation on the syllabi and representation within the faculty…our literary mentors are eliminated. Our own narratives are sacrificed because we think we can’t share that information.”
As I prepared to graduate, I was assigned to understudy René Millán in American Night: The Ballad of Juan José. Both thematically and technically challenging, American Night asked of René (and consequently, if he ever fell ill, me) a roller coaster ride of dancing, singing, movement, language, and emotional depth. Juan José, the lead as played by René, never left the stage. René brought excellence to every rehearsal––even taking time in the interim to coach me on the nuances of the show. In working with him, I learned the real importance of marrying diverse viewpoints with mentorship––the hidden curriculum takes a new form in the professional world, one known as “invisible labor.” René provided a role model on navigating invisible labor in a way no other mentor could––an example I would need to take with me into the working world.
Acknowledge Invisible Labor
Invisible labor is a phenomenon that seems a cousin to the hidden curriculum, manifesting in the working world as unpaid work, often carried on the backs of marginalized people, that goes unnoticed and, consequently, unregulated (Arlene Daniels). In the same way that the hidden curriculum drains mental and emotional resources, invisible labor (such as family care expectations, financial pressures, and self-advocacy) exacerbates and intensifies risk of burnout and disengagement.
In the rigorous Yale environment, little time and few models of self-care existed. With high expectations common to the conservatory, multiplied by pressures I felt to succeed as the first member of my family to pursue a postgraduate degree, I soon learned the limits and consequences of not taking time to invest in my wellness. I began taking stock of my time, energy, and attention as a single pool of finite resources––resources which needed to be, every so often, replenished––whether they were being employed in my training, professional development, or personal life.
Employees who feel their contributions are overlooked are 2.5 times more likely to leave their jobs within a year, with one study from the Center for American Progress (CAP) finding that the cost of replacement was on average 213% of the annual salary for highly skilled employees. At the same time, employees who feel that their work is valued are twice as likely to refer others to the organization.
With recruitment and retention at the forefront of the talent crunch (and a pending wave of retirement approaching), the time to quantify invisible labor––with the aim of compensating it––has never been more essential.
For leaders, that often starts with examining invisible labor’s personal impacts. Are you a beneficiary of other people’s invisible labor, or undertaking more than your fair share? Once you begin this honest conversation, difficult as it may be, you’ll be better suited to lead a workforce labored by invisible forces like economic precarity, unjust biases, sourcing childcare, and student loans. This starts with listening, and acknowledging that the time, energy, and attention your team brings is not solely in service to the bottom line.
Invest in Laughter
Rituals of self-care are important, and permission for little joys and pleasures is essential in an increasingly hustle-focused culture. Time allowing, I’ll hop the ACE uptown and spend a little time getting lost in the American Museum of Natural History: marveling at enormous sea creatures, taking in the immensity of the universe at the “Worlds Beyond Earth” planetarium program (frequently enough that I’ve begun to quote the dulcet tones of Lupita Nyong’o’s narration––“baby moons the size of houses”). My tour usually ends at the Hall of Human Origins, which a few months ago caught my attention with a new addition.
Flanking the familiar dioramas of our paleolithic ancestors, just past “Lucy” (who has the honor, I suppose, of being one of the most complete skeletons reassembled––though I’m not positive they have her permission for the display), there was an addendum: floor-to-ceiling Pantone shades in a series of portraits, the human faces in them matching the colors from a warm oak Pantone 319-2 C to the reddish near-opaque lightness of Pantone 109-9 C. The color range crosses national boundaries, racial representations, ability categories, gender, generations––a showcase of how the robust spectrum of pigmentation manifests across humanity.
This is a portion of the 4,000 portraits which make up Angélica Dass’s “Humanae.”
As described in National Geographic, “When people saw the brown skin of Brazilian Angélica Dass and the pink tones of her Spanish husband, they would theorize about the color of their future children. For clues, Dass looked at her family, whose European and African skin tones range from “pancakes to peanuts to chocolate.”
Dass takes a portrait and then takes an “11×11 pixel ‘sample’ of that person’s skin from the resulting image, matching it to one of the thousands of colors in Pantone’s international color database.” The result is remarkable. And Dass’s “chromatic inventory” points to the beauty of the differences, and at the same time the absurdity of assigning value to a factor which itself seems unrestricted by boundaries and borders. Skin color, related to amounts and types of melanin produced by the body, has a wide array of outward presentations––and has operated as a proxy for race, and thereby a basis for human horrors from the Haitain genocide of Trujilo to the one-drop rule. Historically, Queen Isabella’s obsession with whiteness proliferated the genocidal colonization of the Caribbean––extending even to an erasure of the Taíno peoples in official records in what Jorge Baracutei Estevez calls a “paper genocide.”
As the pairings played out, indigenous Taíno, invading Spaniards, and enslaved Africans mixed and married, until a migration brought my parents from Puerto Rico as children––and me to the mainland where I would be taught that my particular racial classification was (according to some) Latino; to others, Hispanic. As we studied a canon of overwhelmingly European authors, most considered white, I found my questioning of their centrality to be considered a nuisance, a classmate even slinging the jab “Mr. Minority.”
I’d later identify with Felicia Rose Chavez’s observation of academia and this phenomenon in the creative writing classroom:
It remains true that in MFA programs, and in the profession of acting writ large, there’s an arbitrary centering of a small sliver of Dass’s “chromatic inventory”: over 75% of the film industry workforce identifies as white, the overall percentage of Latino directors is a measly 4.6%––of lead actors, 4%. For a reference point, 19% of the US population identifies as Latino according to the Pew Research Center. The USC Annenberg Center has given this incongruity the moniker “An Epidemic of Invisibility.”
So what’s there to laugh at?
Joy is a powerful act of resistance, especially when it comes to the prejudices that prevented my predecessors from achieving mentorship roles. A leader who can laugh at themself showcases a humility and transparency that today’s talent demands. The leader who can laugh in the face of adversity is magnetic, and, for those we are leading, evinces an impactful alternative to the self-serious top-down authority models which disempower rather than develop people within an organization. Humor’s capacity to change hearts and minds is essential to leaders affecting positive change, what Paul Osincup, author of The Humor Habit, calls “power of humor” in leadership. That ability to influence underpins the work of fostering an inclusive job market for emerging artists.
One more reason to smile? Each time I take on the role of mentor or coach I am embodying the kind of visibility I didn’t have access to as a first-gen student––actively curing, in a small way, the epidemic of invisibility for Latino talent in the US. I get to be the change I want to see, and do it joyfully.
As harmful as myths of neutrality, invisible labor, and homogeneity are, they are also, at their core, quite silly. Whether economic, interpersonal, or ethical, the deleterious effects of inequity and discrimination on our shared economy are well documented, and it’s exponentially laughable to ignore them. However impossible change may seem, it can’t be more impossible than a poor kid descended from a people thought to be extinct finding a spot at the Yale School of Drama, and navigating a host of hidden challenges therein. Each happy improbability compounds, until there’s plenty to laugh at, even as we set about doing the hard work of dismantling out-of-date systems and building better ones.
And besides, credit where credit is due: “Mr. Minority” is a pretty solid burn.
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