Being “Other” Makes You a Better Storyteller

I was asked to speak in a writing class at Brown University. A wonderfully accomplished non-fiction writing professor invited me to speak to her class after a rant I had on the phone with her about lack of diversity in all organizations, especially in New England.

I was both honored and entirely nervous about the invitation. It would be me and the host of the podcast that I’ve been working on. A podcast on the immigrant experience in Rhode Island. We knew that we would talk about the podcast, but more broadly talk about diversity in newsrooms and storytelling as well as our experience as storytellers.

I fretted about what I would speak about. Having never attended an Ivy League school, I wasn’t sure what to expect. Would they tear me apart? Would they see through me, all the way into the imposter syndrome that haunts me so deeply?

The professor told us the class was primarily made up of Asian-Americans since the class focused on Asian-American writing and writers, which only added to the degree ineptitude that I felt. Caribbean writers? No problem, but I am no expert in Asian-American storytellers and storytelling.

What could I possibly contribute to these students’ academic experience?

But then it hit me. Being Asian-American in America, that must make these kids feel like outsiders a lot of the time, if not all the time.

I was told that most of the students spoke more than one language. I thought about my experiences of speaking three but sometimes feeling like I can’t speak any of them well. The feeling of loss and being lost between multiple cultures always present.

While we might not have the same cultural experience or literary background, we all have the commonality of being “the outsider” or “other.” Never taking for granted your right to be existing in the reality you are currently living.

And what I could share with the class is something that I wished someone had shared with me when I was doing my undergraduate degree: being “the other” makes you a better storyteller because you see things that most people don't.

I have spent most of my life wanting to fit in. I was either too white, too foreign, told I spoke English well all things considered or Spanish poorly. I could dance well “for a white girl” or too provocatively for the white picket comfort of my white friends’ mothers.

In no instance did I ever fit in.

My undergraduate thesis was on being trapped between two cultures and two languages: White-American and Puerto Rican/English and Spanish. I was obsessed with entrapment between two or many realities at once. Caribbean, American, British, I had no idea what I was or where to begin with describing myself.

Now, there are still moments where I waiver, wanting to have that certainty of belonging. Most of the time I hesitate on those “check the box” questions on background because they feel too simplistic to describe who I truly am. But for the most part, I realize the gift of being “the other.” It has given me the ability to see into worlds, look at stories and find connection where someone else might not be able to.

And so, I now realize that being “the other” is one of the greatest gifts life has given me.

As “the other”, we never feel comfortable, therefore we are always observing. Something that is essential for the storytelling process. We question everything, we wonder why people do this or that. We can leave behind at least most of our preconceived notions because we don’t have a rigid set of mental models in place. We assume nothing because nothing in our lives has “always been this way.”

So I am no longer nervous about talking to these Brown University students who, on the surface it might not look like we have anything in common, but actually we do.

We are The Other.