El Cuentista - Henry Suarez
A Soy/Somos Conversation
This interview continues my Soy/Somos conversation with Latinos in the US and other Americans with their feet planted in two or more cultures. Aquí estoy. Aquí estamos. This is who I am.
Henry, your name puts a smile on my face. I'm a baseball fan and I am thinking of the Dominican players like David Ortiz, Juan Soto, Pedro Martinez—names that are more expected—y te quería preguntar--de dónde salió "Henry"?
My father liked the name Henry in a book! It's not a typical Latino name, but there is actually a Dominican beisbolero, Henry Rodriguez. He played with the great teams in the 1990s. And it's true, very often, after I introduce myself as Henry—just a few minutes later—someone will call me "Hector."
I think of "Henry" with a smile. I am thinking of an awkward little boy, too skinny, not fitting with the other kids. Endearing. So let me ask you, what were you like as a little boy?
(laughs) Troublesome! I was the eldest of three boys. Very energetic. Running around the house causing havoc. One thing that always stood out, my mother says, I was always talking. If two adults were having a conversation, I would butt in with some random question and my mother would give me this look. That's all it took. I'd crossed the line.
Were you surrounded by lots of family growing up?
I grew up with cousins, aunts and uncles, both biological and through marriage, all in the building in Corona, Queens, where we lived. Nearby I had two uncles by marriage. Yes, I was surrounded by family. My grandmother on my father's side would travel to New York and split her time between the homes of her children.
I think of this as wonderful, because I grew up with a lot of family in Panama. They get in your life. You could say this is a negative, but really it isn't. I think of it as a gift that we as Latinos have received.
Also, I grew up surrounded by Latinos from different countries. Colombian, Ecuadorian, Mexican, Cuban, Puerto Rican.... We kind of meshed together in our building. It didn't matter what country you came from.
Why do you think that is?
The shared experience of being in a new place, leaving home behind. The language, without a doubt. It's a lot of easier to blend when you have that unifying factor. The struggle, too, that each person faces--as unique as those experiences may be--the struggle to learn the adopted language, find employment—when you can share this with another person who understands and has likely experienced it.
Sharing a language—or any other kind of similarity—opens a door to intimacy and connection. ¿Queremos eso, no?
Henry, you were born in this country, but not your parents. When did they arrive? And why?
My father came first. In 1978. Just last month he celebrated his 45 years here. I got him to write a little piece about his journey here. My mother came three years later in 1981. The root cause of the migration was poverty and the political situation. Much of Dominican identity is rooted in what happened during the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo. My own family were not as directly affected because they were living in the campo—in rural areas—until long after he died. We were more affected by the rule of his underling, Joaquin Balaguer. His regime—they call it “the 12 years.”.
Balaguer developed initiatives to revitalize and rebuild the country, but he was aggressive toward any kind of opposition. My father was involved with communist meetings in student organizations that Balaguer was trying to stamp out. One of my uncles was in the United States at the time and began to bring family. At first, my father was hesitant, but then he realized that if he didn't move quickly things would only get worse.
The largest wave of Dominicans came in the late 1970s and into the 80s and 90s. The first wave would have been in the late l910s during the US occupation of the Dominican Republic. Another great wave, during Trujillo's time, but then the floodgates opened during the Dominican Civil War, in 1965 or a little before, after Trujillo's murder. That's when Dominicans started leaving for the United States en masse.
One of the first Latina writers in this country writing in English is Julia Álvarez who wrote about this time. Her father was a doctor and had been active against Trujillo, and they had to get out.
Yes. Julia Álvarez references this in the book How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents and talks about her father's involvement in the clandestine activities against Trujillo. I think they migrated in the 50s, when there were two main groups leaving—those who were against the regime and were in self-imposed exile or were sentenced to exile, and you had folks who had once been involved with the regime and fallen out of favor.
So, your family is now here. You're living in Corona, in a suburb of New York. Who was Henry growing up?
I had what I felt was a typical upbringing, because it was similar to that of everyone I saw around me. In that way I was insulated. I didn't feel like an outsider until High School. My neighborhood in Elementary and Junior High was mostly black and Latino, so folks looked like me. I would hear Spanish regularly.
Now bringing up my daughters in the suburbs I look back at the things I miss, and how young they are, and how occasionally they may feel like outsiders.
A few weeks ago, my oldest one, my six-year-old, asked me, "Papi, why am I the only brown one in my class? Everyone else in my class is peach." Over the summer we'd gone to the Dominican Republic, and there for the most part we look like everyone. "No es como en la República Dominicana donde todo el mundo es marrón. ¿Papi, por qué no podemos ir para allá?"
I didn't experience this as a kid.
When I got to high school, it was no longer a neighborhood school, so you had kids from all over Queens, representative of all groups. There were fewer Dominicans. To this day, two of my best friends are the two Latino boys that I associated with in high school. One is Colombian; one is Peruvian.
What are you loving to do right now, Henry?
I'm writing. Experiences I had as a kid, stories about my parents. I recently wrote an essay about my father. One of the things sometimes associated with Dominican men is that they're absentee fathers—and my father is anything but that. My father can be very opinionated; he doesn't always want to give up the reigns. But always, when we were kids and still today, he was super involved—checking homework, making sure we were reading, to this day making suggestions on books, setting aside time for sports or play. I like to highlight this and put it out there.
The essay was published by the Dominican Writers Association. I am a member, and frequently they have calls for submission. They recently had a call for "Ción Papi" or Bendición. Typically when you greet an elder you ask for their blessing, their bendición, rooted in Catholic religious belief. "Bendición Abuela" or "Bendicción tío." We've abbreviated it to "Ción Papi" or "Ción Mami."
Ción Papi or mami or abuela. So beautiful. The abbreviation makes it so much a part of life; it's so intimate.
And then you have a regular job. Can you tell me something about your work with computers?
I work specifically in technology, as an administrator for a financial firm. It wasn't what I originally set out to do. My degree was actually in Business Administration with a focus in finance, and I worked in retail and then in private banking. It must have been around the recession of 2008, I'd say 2010, when I felt I didn't want to do this any more.
I 'd always had an interest in technology and was tech savvy. I had a friend who was already working in the field. "Why don't you give it a try," he said, "learn some of the basics?"
So I did some research on the operating systems, some of the more technical aspects. His company had a project coming up, and he recommended me to his boss. We met. It wasn't even a technical interview. It was an ordinary conversation. He liked my attitude. He liked who I was. I think you'd be a good guy to have around. He gave me the opportunity.
Early on, when I was in junior high, our dad brought us a computer and hired a young man to teach us about it. And he planted this in my head—that technology was a good field and probably quite fruitful.
Do you like the work?
I absolutely do. There will come a time when I won't want to do the 9-5 anymore. One of the things I want to do is begin to cultivate my own business, break into different areas, whether it's cyber security or learning more about the cloud. I also see getting involved with bringing into the field more city kids, more black and Latino children. We are getting left behind.
Where do you think your love of writing comes from? Are there writers in your family? Or readers?
My father is a voracious reader. He used to carry a book everywhere. Now he carries his Kindle. The first time I went to the library was with my father. There is one instance I remember, my middle brother and I and he at Barnes and Noble—he was looking for some book. My brother and I—we were 5 and 8—sat down just kind of waiting. Papi came by and said, "Parénse niños, busquen un libro. De eso se alimentan." Books nourish you. So, of course, we picked up sport biographies. He looked at the books and was a bit disgusted but said "mejor que lean, a que se sienten allí haciendo nada."
Now that I am getting more into writing, he is getting into it. The writing for me started more as storytelling. I've always loved telling family stories. I was a nosy kid, I would hear things that were happening and would retell them. I'd mimic my dad, my uncle, my mom. Era un bochinchero.
My wife planted the idea, you know all these stories—you should write them down so you can share them with our daughters when they're older.
Some years back we'd visit my great uncle, my paternal grandfather's brother, in Boston. He was 99 years old and would tell us stories of his youth with my grandfather. What the Dominican Republic was like then. He was born in 1915. He got to meet his great great grandmother. So that's a connection to the mid-1800s before the Dominican Republic even existed. He died a few years after our visits. No one wrote down the stories.
With an oral tradition the stories live on, but when things are written down, it's history.
You wrote an essay Me, Black? exploring your Afro-Latino identity that is plain and honest and downright beautiful. What have you written since then, in addition to the stories about your dad?
Not long ago I published a story about my mother and one about my grandmother, Mamita. A more recent story came out in a magazine called Huellas, featuring writers from Queens. In this one I write about my parents' arrival here, the Dominican migration and the places we chose to settle in.
I have a short piece I submitted to the New York Times' "Tiny Love Stories." that was chosen and appeared in the paper.
I saw that! Congratulations, Henry!
I wrote about how my wife and I met. We worked together at a bank. We didn't really click. Then one afternoon she was talking to another worker, and as a chismoso I was listening in and invited myself. I am working on an extended piece with that story and either publishing it to my site or putting it out elsewhere.
Is your wife from the Dominican Republic?
She is of Dominican descent. She was born here but left for the Dominican Republic when she was 7. Lived in the DR for ten years then came back. That makes for an interesting dynamic, because similar to the "Me Black?" story, you are searching for this identity.
One of the things in Dominican culture, there is a lot of gatekeeping. It's like a point of pride. Who is really Dominican? In my mind I was really Dominican. I fit all the stereotypes. My wife's idea of what it is to be Dominican is quite different. Her experiences as a Dominicana are different, because she was living día a día over there.
I would go as a kid for two weeks every two years. It's almost a fake narrative. We would be in our families' houses for those two weeks and the refrigerator was full. When we left, things got back to normal. The refrigerator not that full, and they're not going to the beach.
She was that relative who stayed back once the New Yorkers left.
She must be a little bit of a snob about that. Te llamas Dominicano, pero no sabes nada...
They call Dominican Americans, "Dominican Yorks." We have an idea of what being Dominican is, the music, the slang that we use. She's quick to point out that no one in the DR would ever use that word.
El mundo es muy grande. It emcompasses all of us.
Henry, families require a lot of attention. When do you find time to write?
(Henry laughs) I leverage the train. I commute to work every day. I have 40 minutes going down and 40 minutes coming back. So I squeeze some writing into that. I'll have on my computer a specific notebook for story ideas. I have another one for random thoughts, with maybe some dialogue, and I'll type it there
When I get home and we put the daughters to bed, I spend some time with my wife. She's an early to bed, early to rise person. I'll stay up a while longer and write. My brain gets going later in the day. At least twice a week I'll do that.
What must be working so well is that you are keeping your brain moving from the morning into the evening. You keep the ideas present. They don't go sit and get lost.
Sometimes at night—I am sure this has happened to you—you'll be laying in bed and an idea comes to you and you want to hold on to it. I'll record a voice memo at night, and in the morning you say, what the hell does this say?
We are doing so much. I read every night. I can’t go to sleep without reading a book. This takes you back to language. But it also takes you away.
It also gives you a break. If you are deeply involved in a project, it can be overwhelming. I try to occasionally read things that are different from what I write. Or you go back to something similar, how someone else develops a character. You can write stories that are similar, but we are all going to put our own twist to it.
Así es. We notice and we borrow.
Reader and friend, as you know, this is always a conversation. Do you identify strongly with a particular community? Why do you think that is? I’d love to hear from you about any issue that moves you.
Spanish Words of the day:
el cuento the story
el cuentista storyteller
te quería preguntar I wanted to ask you
¿de dónde salio? where does [the name Henry] come from?
mejor que lean better that you read
el bochinche gossip (often malicious)
el bochinchero the gossip (person)
marrón color - chestnut brown
las huellas footprints
el chismoso another word for the gossip (person)
what an interesting interview! great idea about leaving a voicemail on your phone at night to take notes! so many new ways to remember-
Loved it Marlena. Really enjoyed what Henry had to say. Agree 100% about writing down family stories, something we regret not having done after so many of the older ones have passed on. Hope you keep doing it.