Embracing My True Path
Posted on Oct. 9, 2023 / Subscribe 0
By Erika Flores
I always had my face in a book. I couldn’t remember a time when I wasn’t reading just for the fun of it or, in my many awkward years, to avoid social interactions with family and strangers alike. Naturally as I became engulfed in stories by Roald Dahl, Stephen King, Charlotte Bronte and others, I knew I wanted to grow up to be a writer.
My story and that of my family’s differed from the stories I read. My father is an immigrant from El Salvador and my mother is Puerto Rican but was born and raised in New Jersey. Although they grew up in two different countries, both of their early lives were marred by hardships that forever shaped them and in turn, shaped my sister and me. My father was an orphan at 9 and endured a civil war and feared death squads and both experienced hunger and poverty. Neither completed traditional high school, let alone dared to dream of higher education. I think even in utero, it was instilled in my older sister and me that we HAD to do well in school and go to college. The hope was we would study medicine, law or some other prestigious career believed to be the only path to success and to break the cycle of financial insecurity.
I wanted to be a writer, but the weight of my family’s expectations on my shoulders felt heavy. My parents had sacrificed too much for me to waste the incredible opportunity to go to college and not study something worthy of their sacrifice. My sister was the model child and obtained a bachelor’s and master’s degree in accounting. And my parents beamed with pride. I understood that I needed to follow suit and do as I was expected. I buried the dream to become a fiction writer and picked something that I thought I would love and seemed noble, but still make them proud: Journalism. Around sophomore year, my dad came to speak with me, the parent who would be the default one to share my parents’ collective concerns for anything. “Are you sure? Are you sure this is what you want to do?” Yes?...
Those words sowed doubt in me. I wasn’t going to make them proud. They didn’t believe in me. I was going to disappoint them. I wasn’t fulfilling their expectations.
Graduating in 2008 and struggling to carve out a career like many of my fellow post-grads at that time, I thought they were right. Years passed of applying and sending resumes and someone finally took a chance on me. It wasn’t journalism, but it was an opportunity I grasped at and ultimately started me on a career in community outreach and public relations. No one’s path is ever a straight line. Mine had many turns and still might.
In the end, I realized my parents’ family and cultural expectations were born out of their own trauma and lost hopes and concern for my future well-being. They desperately didn’t want me to follow in their footsteps. Culturally, we’re not a group that talks about our feelings. Over time my family has tried to work on speaking more openly about our issues. I know that’s not always the case for others and not just in the Latino/Hispanic community. But with the newest generation, there is special care to not impose our expectations on them.
I did become a storyteller after all. And I work in the healthcare field. I will not be on the New York Times Bestsellers list or scrubbing in for surgery, but I tell stories every day of modern heroes who became organ and tissue donors to encourage others to register their donation decision.
Recently, on a Sunday evening after visiting my parents, my dad was walking me to my car and helping to put my son in his car seat, as he always does when I’m heading out. Just before I pull out of the driveway, he asked me about work. I don’t remember what he asked specifically or what I said in response, but the last thing he said was, “I’m glad you like what you’re doing and that it’s helping people.”
My experience made me feel caught between my parents’ traditional values about prioritizing family and their expectations and the very American ideal of “I can be anything I want to be,” and my parents can’t tell me what to do. But it’s important to remember that even when we buck traditions, there is still a part of us that holds onto some of those cultural values. As a communications professional, particularly communicating with other Hispanics/Latinos, it’s important that messaging always speaks to those shared values, and that we see all versions of our lived experience represented – different generations, immigration status, socioeconomic status, nationalities and colors.
Erika Flores has nine years’ experience in community outreach and public relations in non-profit and government. She is currently a Public Affairs Coordinator for the LifeLink Foundation and a member of PRSA Tampa Bay’s DE&I Committee.
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