This blog post is a part of the series, “So Good,” developed by the APAGS Committee for Sexual Orientation and Gender Diversity. This series will discuss current events and how these events relate to LGBTQ+ graduate students in psychology. If you are interested in contributing to the “So Good” series, please contact Mallaigh McGinley (they/them).

When You Said You See Me

By Aldo M. Barrita

“But do you see me?” – this is the question I often ask as I navigate academic spaces that were never meant for people like me. Exploring the intersectionality of my salient identities as an immigrant Latinx queer graduate student while facing gaslighting statements of inclusion from a system that fails to acknowledge the harm of their oppression is a daily routine in my existence. For some, choosing how to “show up” in academic spaces is as simple as choosing what to wear for the day, for others like me, the process is much more complex as, I must moderate parts of who I am in white-hetero spaces to prevent yet another attack. Being queer and Latinx means having to negotiate pieces of my soul, in order to make it through a heterosexist, heteronormative, white supremacist world. 

            Every time I talk, there must be control: “Don’t move like that, don’t sound like that.” It never stops! It wasn’t enough growing up in a traditional macho Latinx house where femininity was simply unacceptable; it continues to replicate in academic spaces where there seems to be a clear preference for and comfort with normative gender roles. I am a cis-queer man who often benefits from hetero/cis-normative spaces. This has led to a lot of internalized homophobia, especially when I am reminded of it with things like “I couldn’t tell you are gay,” while thinking what that would even mean and what I unconsciously have done to silence a part of me in an effort to exist. I remember being asked on a professional interview, “so you identified as queer, is that like gay?” triggering an internal negotiation, thinking what would make them feel safer to accepting me and then responding “Yes!”while losing another part of myself. You see, the beauty for me about being queer is that I do not conform, yet with every question, I am being asked to, fit into a box less threatening for them. When would it be enough, when would I be enough?

            Being Latinx – from an indigenous background of Zapotecan heritage from the beautiful region of Oaxaca, Mexico – comes with other layers of continuous invalidation: the anxiety before speaking up in a class or in a presentation, thinking about the “proper” colonial pronunciation I must adhere to before saying a word. “Interesting accent”, someone says as I realize I have been identified; I have been othered – knowing that my audience has focused on the discomfort of hearing my immigrant accent, the dare to sound different, instead of the message, the knowledge I tried to communicate. How am I supposed to excel in academia, when my own voice is used to keep me from fully entering these spaces of knowledge? When I first immigrated at the age of 16, I was warned by a Latinx school counselor, “You should work on losing your accent.” feeling betrayed, as I was asked by someone who looked like me to let go of who I was in order to fit. I resented them; I still do.  

            I was told grad school would be difficult, and I knew being a first-generation student would present additional challenges. However, the difficulty does not manifest in the rigorousness of the academics, but in the effort to erase people like me. I am a Latinx queer person, who is minoritized by a system that keeps trying to make me small, a statistic. I am not under-represented in these spaces; these spaces are systematically and intentionally excluding people like me. 

As long as conversations of inclusion and equity are made about the person impacted and not about the system that impacts them, the real issue is avoided, and white cis straight academia lives another day. Using performative rhetoric to claim that we belong while continuing to see only what is safe and comfortable harms marginalized students – forced to choose between leaving their dreams of higher education or staying while continuously giving up part of themselves in order to exist. Perhaps it’s time for academic programs to SEE the systems of oppression that surrounds marginalized students, the ways they foster it, perpetuate minoritized students, and replicate the harm. Perhaps it’s time for these institutions to first SEE themselves for who they are and acknowledge the damage they continue to cause (and often ignore to recognize), to those they describe as “minority”. Perhaps it’s time to be intentional and action-oriented when condemning systems of oppression, increasing funds for D&I initiatives, and adding value to the invisible labor marginalized scholars constantly engage in in order to survive academic spaces.

So, I ask again, when you say you see me, do you see me, do you REALLY see me?

By Aldo M Barrita

View other posts in the So Good series:

• She Went That Way? A Pathway to Graduate School
• The Only Queer Latinx in Ohio: The Start to My Graduate School Experience During a Global Pandemic
• Who Researches My Communities? Speaking Out About the White Academic Gaze
• Introducing the “So Good” Series: Sharing LGBTQ+ Graduate Student Perspectives