I recall one day when my parents picked me up from school, and I was talking about my day. I made the mistake of referring to my friends as just that—mis amigas—and my papi stopped me dead in my tracks and said: “Ellas no son tus amigas. Tus amigas solamente son las de la iglesia.” I was constantly bombarded with counter messaging to keep me faithful to our Lord and Savior.
Women were not leaders and did not have a voice in this church. My patriarchal fundamentalist church does not ordain women. Feminism is talked about negatively. I have been told to stay away from the deceit of feminism and the traitorous claim that women and men are equals. When I was in middle school, the church leaders from across our various church plants, which expanded across the world, all got together to discuss whether women would be allowed to lead the prayer for the offerings and tithes on Sundays. It was a whole discussion, and they voted on this simple handover as if we were electing a new leader for our cult. The men in my church took seriously their God-ordained role as leaders and cabezas de casas.
Like I said before, mi papi is a pastor. Therefore, he was not only chosen by God to lead an entire congregation, but he also was the head of our household. We had this double understanding of where mi papi stood in relationship to everything, and consequently where mi mami stood. As a little girl, I understood what the reality of my future life in a household and in our church would be. Our patriarchal fundamentalist church was shaping me. Slowly but surely, they were indoctrinating me.
Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence.
—bell hooks
Girls in this type of church received only one form of parenting, and it was punitive. My sister and I were guarded like we were porcelain dolls who could be easily swayed away from God. We also were guarded because our purity was a form of male currency. In a church that values female virginity, fathers were valued for their ability to guard our purity.
I was not allowed to have friends who were not Christian, because they would tempt me away from God. I was not allowed to have boyfriends because we would be lustful and have sex, and as mi mami would say: “Para qué calentarse.” I was only ever allowed to have amigos, meaning I was not allowed to date. When I was at a marrying age, I was expected to have a friendship with a man with supervision for a short amount of time, always staying at a respectful distance, and then get married. My close community believed that for a woman, a good Christian husband is the prize. The only prize.
And I believed all these things because my parents raised me by these messages. These lessons were taught, they told me, out of love for me. And they’d hit and spank me for any wrongdoing. I had a very real fear of being hit whenever I went against my parents’ wishes.
In fourth grade, I was allowed to go to a birthday party. I had begged for days, and my mami finally obliged and gave me a two-hour window to attend this party. We had just barely moved from our neighborhood in Sweetwater to a more assimilated Latinx neighborhood. I lacked the assimilation skills that my peers seemed to have, and social gatherings were where I got the most tangible evidence for how I was different and how to adapt.
I ended up having such a good time. I remember the secular music was cranked up, and everyone started dancing. I also started dancing. My mami and brother came to pick me up earlier than expected, and they caught me. As I was doing the Crybaby, I turned my head to check my surroundings and saw my brother peering at me from the backyard gate of my friends’ home. They were spying on me, and I had been caught.
I was hit for going to a party and dancing. And I was laughed at, because it was ridiculous to engage in this type of dancing. This dancing was not done in worship of God, and I was told it was not approved by God, and so was discouraged through the rod, porque la Biblia dice.
According to our church, good girls like me were not supposed to dance or otherwise sexually tempt anyone. To the church, dancing resembled sexual availability. All this was strange to me. I did not think dancing was inherently bad, and it was what defined my role in church; I led the worship dance team. But I also knew how to survive, and so I accepted this contradiction as my reality.
Anything I did other than reflect a good Christian upbringing would lessen my value and therefore diminish my odds of finding a good husband, the prize. I understood that and I had to accept it. Otherwise, I’d be accused of being possessed by demons or spanked until I agreed with them.
I was constantly bombarded with these messages about my place in the world as a woman. I remember talking about my future husband at eight years old. Any interest in marriage and childbearing was encouraged and coded as honorable. When playing with my dolls, my perceived maternal instincts were praiseworthy.
I remember the first list I made of my future husband’s qualities. It was the first of many. I was twelve or thirteen years old at the time, and we were attending a Christian event tailored for Christian youth in downtown Miami. At one point, the speaker separated the boys from the girls, because those were the only genders that could exist in that type of church. The girls were given blank sheets of paper, and the female speaker went on to say that she had made a list, which she put under her pillow, with all the attributes that she wanted in a husband. She said the most important thing was that her husband be a God-fearing man. Then she instructed all these young girls to make our own lists about our future husbands, and I remember not knowing what to put. Don’t get me wrong; I was a boy-crazy, hormonal preteen, but I was also just a kid who was not thinking that far ahead. Yet, no one around me seemed to skip a beat. We were pitched this future of marriage and happiness as the ultimate goal, and when everyone around me seemed to believe in it, I knew I had to believe in it too.
Anyway, as instructed, at the top of my list was “pastor’s son.” I remember going home and my mami coming into my room and asking me about the conference. I told her about the list, and she was so proud. She encouraged me to pray, and I went ahead and kept that list under my pillow for about a week before I lost it.
My parents talked about my future husband so often that I knew how dating would look before I was even interested in boys. I was told that if an honorable, God-fearing boy wanted to marry me, he would first approach my parents and then we would be allowed to be friends for a short period of time. Then we were to quickly get married so as to avoid the sin of fornication. Long relationships were discouraged because the sin of sex was considered unavoidable.
I knew that the God I had grown up learning about did not want me to have a boyfriend, so I began to hide things. God cannot compete with hormones; my church taught me this, and then I experienced it. I felt reckless for wanting to kiss people without first figuring out if they feared God. As I got older, I got better at hiding my “lust,” and I would do cartwheels to just satiate those hormonal impulses.
Finally, I was nineteen and thought it was time to bring someone home. I thought I was old enough to be on the marriage track and therefore did not need to hide my boyfriends anymore. When I brought José to meet my parents, I was deeply disappointed to learn that, no matter what I had on my list, they had their own list. My parents had their own expectations of who they thought I should be with, and it was all informed by what they were taught in our church. My boyfriend was a self-proclaimed Christian and had attended a Christian school, so I thought I was in the clear—only to discover that his divorced mom was a deal breaker for my parents. According to my church and parents, people do not get divorced, because marriages are pacts you make in front of God that can never be broken. Once that pact is broken, your entire lineage is unworthy.
Me and this boy eventually broke up because my family’s passive-aggressive comments became unbearable. I realized that the church was making the decision on who I was supposed to end up with,
so I began to resent these rules. In this type of upbringing, boys are born men and girls are never women. Girls only become mothers and their husbands’ ayuda idónea.
In that statement alone, my role was defined. I was to be of service to a man because I was theologically interpreted for that singular purpose. I grew up hearing “ayuda idónea” my entire life, and the propaganda got old real fast. Being a stay-at-home mom was the respectable thing; I grew up seeing this practiced in Nicaragua. All the pastors’ wives were stay-at-home moms, and I was taught that this was a beautiful gift that mi papi had given mi mami. I was expected to fit into that role all of my life. I get that in a working-class context not working is a luxury, and I understand that it can feel like a gift bestowed by a man to his wife. I saw the value in it, but I saw value in having choices too. Even after we moved to the United States, I was encouraged to aspire to the honorable position of mother and wife and nothing else.
Going to college was never discussed, but marriage and children were often. I was not a good student. There was no real reward at home for being a smart girl past elementary school, and there was no real punishment for being a mediocre student, so I gave up in school. Dancing and being filled with lust were punished, but bad grades and disinterest in school were rarely acknowledged. When my teacher in junior year implied that I should go to college, I immediately reflected on my grades. I was in a bad position with barely a 2.8 grade point average. But then I took the SAT and did decently on it without much effort. It turned out that my grades were not indicative of my potential, because I was still absorbing material. I had a good enough score to apply to a few state schools, much to everyone’s surprise.
By then, I had started to think differently about my future. I did not know how to dream about a career or a life without a man, but I had this sense that I could at least try. And, with little help at home, I applied to college and was accepted. When I quickly realized that college was expensive, I knew I had to go to the one place that offered a great financial-aid package: the Hispanic-Serving Institution Florida International University. This meant that I commuted to college, and while higher education had never been the plan for me, once I was in it there was no stopping what I would be exposed to. Being a college student was not something I had a framework for, but somehow I managed to figure it out.
Then I got into my head the idea that I should pursue a graduate degree, and I remember the first time I expressed the notion to my parents. We were having dinner, and my papi audibly laughed and immediately dismissed me. Smart girls were of no use to any husband. That day, mi papi took the wind out of my sails, and I knew that living at home meant that this was always going to be the case.
At twenty-three, after coming to the conclusion that I had no voice because of what I was taught in church, I wanted to run away and create a new reality, respectfully. I should have just run away, but I was too afraid. I took a few theological classes and was starting to really question the validity and value of my parents’ theologies. But I still believed what I had been taught, which meant that I felt incapable of explicitly defying my parents.
So, I did what any girl growing up in a conservative, patriarchal, nondenominational charismatic church does to run away from her parents and their God: I got engaged. Or rather, I proposed to my secret boyfriend and, much to my parents’ dismay, we got married. I was tired of being told I was not enough, and for some reason I thought partnering up would solve things. Instead, it proved their point.
But I needed to get away. I needed to feel like I could decide something for myself. Although, clearly, I couldn’t. I ended up picking, as my ticket to supposed freedom, a God-fearing Christian man from a two-parent household. Still, marriage felt like the only way I could escape my parents’ choices—through an institution that I was taught would then dictate my choices.
Eventually I ended up applying to graduate school, and I started classes at Vanderbilt University in the fall of 2011. A lot changed for me when I left my parents’ rules behind. I shook off the pressures, and I began to be exposed to things I would never have imagined were possible.
When I saw my friend and colleague Rev. Yolanda Norton get ordained, I sobbed in the pews. I had accepted that other churches ordained women, but seeing it happen with my very own eyes was another story, and I was shaken by it. I did not realize how badly I needed to see a woman ordained. I did not realize how badly I needed to see a Black woman get ordained among a sea of her Black colleagues. I learned about feminist theologians. I was taught about womanism and mujerista theologies. Suddenly the possibilities became endless for me. I began to see myself differently, and I wanted to become an active participant in the things that occurred in my life.
I had a short first marriage. We were young and we changed quickly. I left my husband while in the middle of my master’s program. I left my security blanket and I mourned the loss of my old self. I did not know who I was without a man. After my father, after my husband, I had never been given the chance to see what would happen if I was alone.
After my divorce, all I felt was shame. The same shame that I had heard in mi mami’s voice when she told my first official boyfriend, José, that his mother’s divorce meant he could never be enough. I felt all the words she said to that boy, years earlier; they were carved in my heart with a butcher knife.
I felt physical pain. I was burdened by the shame I was bringing upon myself. And I had to confess to mi mami about my separation and impending divorce. I knew I could not face her and carry her shame, all while packing up my clothes and books and the life I had created in accordance with their rules.
I remember calling my mami from my inflatable bed in a semi-completed basement. My friends had helped me move there; they had packed and then unpacked my things in my new place. After they left, I sat in a corner, barely able to make complete sentences.
When mi mami picked up the phone, I instantly began to cry because I was devastated and scared. I remember my mami screaming at me for doing what my parents had always believed to be a horrible thing, leaving la bendición de un hombre. I had broken my pact with God. I remember hanging up on her, with tears streaming down my face, while she was halfway through a tirade of insults. She was throwing back at me all of my biggest fears. I knew then that I had to release their God for good.
Releasing my marriage and my parents’ God were probably the hardest things I have ever done in my life. As I picked up the pieces of my heart and my sanity from that basement floor, I stepped more confidently into this new person I was becoming. I had to. I had to survive this new reality.
I accepted what I had realized years before, that the church that I had been raised in was full of sexist theologies that placed no value in me, wed or unwed. And that same church had vicious language for a woman like me, a used woman, a divorcée, arruinada.
I realized those inner demons who were telling me I was deplorable and was going to die alone, those demons were not demons but remnants of the God I had been raised to believe in. Slowly but surely, I realized that my goal was no longer to be someone’s wife. And figuring out who I would become felt freeing.
Growing up in a conservative, patriarchal fundamentalist church meant that I had learned and accepted that I was always to be defined by men. The man who raised me dictated everything about me, and when I was married that same narrative was supposed to continue. Getting divorced meant learning to become my own person, with my own thoughts, and accepting that my reputation was mine and mine alone.
Growing up in a conservative, patriarchal fundamentalist church meant that when I attended a theological school for my master’s degree, I was not actually expected to bring that back home, because my church did not believe women were worthy of speaking with God. Growing up in a sexist church meant that I got to see the two most important people in my life turn their backs on me when I needed them the most.
Mi mami and I eventually reconciled, and she learned to love the new version of me, the divorcée. My
relationship with my papi has never been the same. The dissolution of my marriage meant that I reflected poorly on him now, and he wanted nothing to do with me. He had no tools for parenting me anymore.
I also learned to see mi mami differently. I used to think mi mami was so weak for enjoying cleaning and cooking. I used to think she was beneath me, and I would tease her to her face about her devotion to her children and her home. I would tell her to want more, and to be more, as if she could. I was unfair. Today, my relationship with mi mami has never been stronger, and my sister and I also rely on one another significantly.
I began to realize that mi mami crawled so I could first walk and then run. Mi mami is a survivor. She, too, left a home that was toxic, and fled it all by getting married herself. I inherited that trauma. Mi mami had initially reacted to my divorce the way she was taught to. But when I demanded to be loved, not despite my “mistakes” but as her strong daughter who had made decisions for herself, she came around and embraced me.
My purity was currency in a church that values female virginity. It was guarded like it was the most definitive aspect of my personhood, and losing it meant defiling my body. I was told all these things about purity culture, and I took them to heart. I was not taught to challenge my upbringing, and it never occurred to me that my parents would ever cause me harm.
In the months after my separation and divorce, I discovered exactly how much shame I was taught around sex, and how much harm was done to me by placing value on my purity. Purity culture is a huge reason why moving out of my parents’ home without a husband was so discouraged. When my little sister did move out—the only one of the siblings who was able to do so without getting married first—she was humiliated for it. Her purity was in danger, and her moving out reflected negatively on my papi and his ability to take care of his girls. It also reflected negatively on mi mami: her inability to teach us the proper amount of shame and fear around living alone. I can recall long phone calls with my little sister, who innately knew that she, too, needed to leave our parents’ home. She still sobbed about that decision, because she was made to feel like she was causing a scandal. It was assumed that she wanted to be promiscuous, and my parents and my older brother abused and punished her for her sins.
For Brown Girls with Sharp Edges and Tender Hearts Page 17