DISPATCH FROM ELECTION AFTERMATH: One Way to Keep It Together

The US presidential election earlier this month was historic, disruptive, and unnerving for those who did not vote for Donald Trump.

It's hard to imagine what will be four years or more of policies and values that will have frightening consequences as we assume that promises made on the campaign trail will be enacted.

These past few weeks I've heard much despair, a sense that the political reality will be all-consuming in our personal realities. There are edgy elements of that, where the political will flow into our personal lives like it already has, causing breaks within families, communities, and governing bodies. This, in addition to many who have, in a variety of ways, suffered due to some inhumane policy around immigration, abortion, being LGBTQ+, etc.

So how do we manage the duality of what could be the beginnings of an authoritarian government, mass deportations, and the significant loss of women’s control over their bodies?

So how do we manage the duality of what could be the beginnings of an authoritarian government, mass deportations, and the significant loss of women’s control over their own bodies?

While the circumstances and the realities differ in significant ways, this moment in time in the USA reminds me of a moment in time when I was growing up in Lima, Peru. I lived under a twelve-year military dictatorship. It was a frightening time. We had tanks surrounding the government palace, which had been taken over in a military coup d’etat. We had dusk-to-dawn curfews—not the kind of teenage curfews one thinks of in the US, but military curfews where if you were caught outside without a salvoconducto (afterhours movement military permit), you might not be heard from again. We had states of emergency, the rescinding of civil liberties, and no freedom of the press. Those were dark, scary times during my most formative years, from eight years old to eighteen.

What happened during that time? Of course, we had to be careful, not only be “street savvy” but also “military-dictatorship savvy.” Yet, amid the fear, amid the disappearances, in the midst of the violence, and amid counterrevolutionary incursions—something else happened.

While we lived in fear, we also lived in love.

This meant that while the military clung to power through repression, we clung to life with expression. We went to school and studied, learned about the marvels of literature and biology, gained insights through the arts and the social sciences, figured things out through math and mastering a second language. We played soccer, scored goals, and celebrated championships. We surfed in the majestic Pacific Ocean, baked under the hot sun, and cooled down in the coastal Humboldt Current originating far south in Antarctica. We ate ceviche.

This meant that while the military clung to power through repression, we clung to life with expression.

We went partying. We danced all night long. In fact, the way we overcame the dusk-to-dawn curfew was by having “toque-a-toque” (“dusk-to-dawn”) parties where we made sure that we were all at the host’s home by 6:00 PM before the lockdown began. Then we’d crank up the speakers full blast and dance all night until daybreak.

Since it was not infrequent that there would be blackouts caused by counter-revolutionaries blowing up power towers, suddenly the music would stop, and the lights emanating from all the homes would go off. Thirty seconds of sheer darkness and silence … then suddenly the “vroom, vroom” of gas-powered electric generators would come to life, power restored, and Celia Cruz’s “La Vida Es Un Carnaval” (Life Is a Carnival) would once again be blasting.

During this time, we gathered with our families, we fell in love, we dreamed big dreams about what we would do with our lives—and we planned and executed them.

What to take away from this?

Whatever darkness awaits us, whatever terrible tragedy befalls any one of us, people we care about personally, or even people we don’t know—when things are threatened to be taken away, we must be vigilant. Yes, we must be proactive, we must be leaders, and we must fight against things that are unjust, unfair, and unsafe.

But all this shouldn’t rob us of the rest of our lives—the part of our lives where we learn, play, dance, eat, gather, love, and make love. That continues on. That is life, the lifeforce.

So make your plans—to resist, to fight, to protect, to advocate, to defend. And then keep your life plans.

I recently learned that my daughter and her husband will have a baby. We did the gender reveal party via Zoom with Ali’s family in Beirut. On the other side of the screen, on the other side of the world, fifteen of them huddled together—multiple generations—in eager anticipation of whether it would be a boy or a girl, each with their favorite guesses.

All while huddling in a house where they had to seek refuge because missiles had damaged their home. At that moment, during the reveal, the war was a backdrop, not the forefront. All we focused on was life—the celebration of life, the anticipation of life, the surprises: boy or girl?!

I recently learned that my daughter and her husband will have a baby. We did the gender reveal party via Zoom with Ali’s family in Beirut. ...All while huddling in a house where they had to seek refuge because missiles had damaged their home.

And when Marisela and Ali opened the envelope, revealing the official record with a blue Post-It announcing it was a boy, we all exploded in jubilation at the sheer celebration of vida, life!

Yes, in war, in authoritarianism, in plagues, in uncertainties, in tragedies—love can and must still flourish.

In response to this statement, Marcelino Miyares, Jr., a marketing Managing Partner at d2H Partners (a multi-disciplinary Hispanic advertising agency) and someone I was connecting with for the first time reflected, "Love is?always?the antidote to darkness. As long as we have love in our hearts, we will always have hope in our souls."

It's what Canadian singer/songwriter Bruce Coburn referred to as being "lovers in a dangerous time."

Embracing this mindset and acting on it is how we have a much better chance to keep it together.

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