Challenging Dual Identity in Latinidad
The double whammy of being a gay and childfree Latino for Fede Vargas
What’s it like to be both gay and childfree in a traditional culture like Latinidad? If you’re struggling with that question, Fede Vargas has some answers for you.
In Part 1 of this conversation (Living Authentically), Fede talked us through his transformational journey from corporate rat race to living his most authentic (and chévere!) life. Read that here:
In this next part of the conversation, we’re dissecting what it’s like to be the diversity in a room or on a team. The token.
And the way that makes us have to cover up or hide pieces of ourselves. Also how the struggle between tradition and personal beliefs can sometimes make us—and in this instance, Fede—feel like we have split personalities.
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Tokenization
Being the token anything, be it gay, Latine, childfree, or any type of Other, can take its toll. And make us code switch in such a way that we bury our true selves. Shedding that way of life, that way of thinking, and rewiring ourselves to live authentically, is a process.
It's something you have to learn to do and then continuously practice. Fede describes how this happened for him. He followed the advice my guest Ana gives in the episode Choosing Yourself is Sanity, specifically to stop pretzeling and cutting off pieces of himself to fit in a mold that didn't serve him.
Fede: And as a gay Latino working in the corporate culture for 15 plus years, it was a very open-minded industry , the media and entertainment industry, but I felt that was just like a corporate headshot.
And even with communications, blurbs that I would say in magazines, it wasn't really me shining through. I was like, “what's the best way for me to have a platform?” And I think it's so important.
That's why I'm so happy to be on this podcast and that you have this podcast. My mission in life is now to make sure that we gay, Latino, childfree, Latina, is that we have a voice and that we have a platform.
And I want to share cool stories cuz I interview people from all walks of life on my podcast. But that we're the storytellers, we're the ones that are doing the interviewing like you're here, and that we're giving other people a platform to tell their stories.
Paulette: Yes, yes, absolutely. This is another reason why we had to do this because our missions are so well aligned.
My mission to show the world childfree Latinos are not scary. We exist. We're normal people just living our best lives as much as anyone else can. And you living your most authentic life, and what that means for all of us. So I really appreciate you and I appreciate that your platform and your podcast exist because you're right, the voices, they need to be heard.
And the nice thing about how you were saying the entertainment industry is pretty progressive, pretty open. Being a gay Latino is like, okay. And I am right-handed, right? Doesn't matter.
But when you go back to la familia, la cultura, it's a little bit of a different story. You're both gay and childfree, so you get the double whammy.
How has that shaped you? Was there friction in your family on either side of that, either of those two facets of you?
Fede: I love that question. Thank you. Because it's something I've been dealing with my whole life. Like I am perpetually a split personality or dealing with split issues. Because you just said two huge ones, but number one, I was shaped by two amazing countries.
Born in Mexico, raised in Canada. Very proud of both. But I was dealing with that duality, right? And then, within the Latino culture, you know the Catholicism, I was raised in a deeply Catholic home. My mom's really open-minded, love her. We have an amazing relationship. I've always felt welcomed.
But the conflict of what the Catholic Church says and what I represent. And then now another tier that I won't have kids either, right? Because I could be adopting as well. So it just keeps getting more and more complicated too. With that, I keep rebelling. What am I gonna do next?
Paulette: ¿Quien sabe? But I'm here for it!
Fede: That's a whole other podcast. But yeah, that experience has shaped me in both good and bad because there's so much freedom.
At one point you just realize how lucky you are because you do get to have the freedom to do so many cool things. I think the extended career break that I took, being able to take my time to build a podcast, investing in myself, I wouldn't be able to do that if I had responsibilities.
Like a child, obviously.
Paulette: So you are living your best life.
Fede: I am! You love that term, but it is funny. I told that story before to see the evolution of what the podcast [is] title[d].
A Daily Routine & the Strong Rs
This next portion of the interview Fede introduces his Strong Rs that he developed during his career break, and how they came about. This is a framework he uses with clients.
Paulette: It is great that you feel that you are your most authentic self. How long did it take to get there?
Fede: Honestly, it was this huge transformational journey because why aren't we taught all these courses before, like in university? Like self-compassion, like learning to love yourself. I wish I had learned all of that at university. Because here I was just two years ago learning that through my personal development work: how to be self-compassionate, how to not be hard on myself. And rewiring myself.
So during my career break I did three things every day. I had a little routine and it filled my day. It was self-care, one. And I know you spoke about self-care recently and what it's not. It's not [just] going to the spa, right?
So I'll tell you the three quickly: self-care, explore, reimagine. So self-care, for example, is, like I said, it can be going to the spa, but for me every day would be different. It'd be like, you know what, I'm gonna go see the sunrise. And because I had no job to go to, the sunrise would be an hour of me or however long it took for me to be in my own thoughts, think, listen to a podcast, read a book.
That was my self-care—with all the notifications off by the way, that was self-care. You don't have to be available to WhatsApp, you know, 24/7.
Number two, similar day: explore. Everyday, make sure that I did something that was out of the ordinary. Take the long way home. Or once you're in that space of a career break, you're open to meeting new people. So if I randomly would meet someone new people coming to my life and they were good energy, I'd be like a Tuesday. Be like, “do you wanna go to cenote?” I'm like, “yeah, let's go to cenote!” Explore. I'll just go for three hours.
And then the third one, reimagine was huge because those are what I call—and I talk about this on the podcast a lot—the strong Rs. So every day, imagine for a year and a half, I worked on rewiring, rethinking, reassessing, re-engineering, retooling. And all of that made me look at the world in a much different way, because we've been taught you should be this, you should be like that.
You should have a house, you should have a car. You should have two kids. You should, should, should, should, should, should. And then finally, I was just kind of, no. Be as you should or as you are. And I accepted myself. I'm gonna live as I am, not as I should be. And that's how that was a journey to my most authentic self.
Paulette: It must have been so liberating to just accept yourself as you are, knowing that you have so much potential and you'll see yourself there in the future, but just loving yourself as you are. That's gotta be like the ultimate in adulting. Like you've reached the top of the mountain in the acceptance of yourself as a person, as the world as it exists. What was that like?
Fede: Yes. As you were saying that, I was responding with my chest. So I was like, yes. And my chest was saying yes, yes, yes. Because it was a body feeling. You could say words like liberating, freedom.
Of course they are. But at the end of the day, it became, and I still experience it today, it's like a daily kind of body feeling which I kind of associate now with gratitude. So that's what that feeling was. It was gratitude. I'm like, wow. So this is what it's like to be you. Wow.
Paulette: And what a great reaction. Wow. This is what it's like to be you. Wow. Like this is who I get to be. That's amazing. I think that our listeners really listen closely to this because he is also talking about not just the intellectual part of recognizing yourself and all your accomplishments. It's being in the body that you inhabit, and your head's just a very small part of that entire body that you get to be in, that it is a privilege to live in and love, ¿verdad?
Fede: Yes, ¡si! Absolutely. It's beautiful.
Paulette: It is beautiful, but it's not easy. It's a practice, something you constantly work on, like a meditation practice. It's something that you just have to consistently do.
Fede: And that's why I said earlier that it was healthy to disappear because you need to kind of reset and we're not always able to do this. So in everyday life, if you're not able to disappear for whatever reason, then there's gonna be always external factors that may try to draw you back in. So that's the challenging part, to stand your ground.
Part 3, the final portion of this interview, will be out on Friday. Stay tuned!
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To get the full show notes, and a full episode transcript, go to PauletteErato.com.