What is Authenticity?
The journey towards my dissertation started with my own lived experience and the experiences of many women of color I coached. Could I really be my authentic self? Who is my authentic self? Are there limitations and choices to how authentic I can be? Should I wait for a seat at the table? Should I bring a chair? Should I bust in like Method Man in SWV’s Anything Remix with a “Kaboom, guess who stepped in the room?” How can folks who do not see themselves represented take space without giving themselves up? Or should I even embark on it as a mere act of self-preservation?
During my research, I explored the impact of stereotypes and archetypes on Latina leaders, borrowing work from Melissa Harris-Perry’s Sister Citizen and Ana Nogales’ Latina Power!: Using 7 Strengths You Already Have to Create the Success You Deserve. In one chapter, Harris-Perry noted the study about the crooked room and connected it to Black women stepping into white male dominant spaces. She notes that some may contort themselves to fit in the crooked room, while others may stand straight and feel physically misaligned in that space. The environment may cause some to feel shame and therefore play mental and physical gymnastics to fit in, while others stand confidently in their erect positioning knowing that the room is in fact crooked.
In her book, Nogales focused on how archetypes that seem limiting are in fact strengths. Similar to Harris-Perry, she notes that in a historically machismo Latinx cultura, the strength of women (in a gendered binary concept of mujeres and hombres) seeks to diminish the light of Latinas. So she encourages us to embrace the strengths - the Espíritu Creativo (Creative Spirit), the Aguantadora's (Survivor's) Passionate Determination, the Comadre's (Girlfriend's) Networking Ability, the Diplomática's (Diplomat's) Discretion, the Atrevida's (Risktaker's) Courage, the Malabarista's (Multitasker's) Balance and La Reina's (A Diva's) Confidence.
With the words of these authors, I should feel soooo empowered to take space, to live in my most authentic self, to create a new way of being... However, claiming my strengths internally and being celebrated for these strengths may not always align. As a matter of fact, some days it may feel uncomfortable, risky, or even dare I say, it gives you the “ick” (yes, I watch too much reality tv and scroll through occasional videos)... And some days, I may not want to show up. Sometimes it is too risky to show up. Some days, I am just tired…
So when I embarked on this quest for authentic leadership and its meaning, I realized that there isn’t a one-way of being authentic. The task of living into my authentic self was really a conversation with myself first… Yes, the rooms need to be straightened and systems need to be overthrown. But how do I quiet the noise of the negative messages around me? How do I lean into strengths that I give? What cultural scripts or norms do I lean into, or reject, or redefine?
So I wish there was an easy answer to this but there isn’t. And how I show up at this time may not be the same way. But I continue to ask myself: What do I want to be true of how I show up in spaces? What do I value? How do I want others to experience me? And who gets to be given that?
As for the rooms needing to be straightened, torn down or completely demolished… well that is a whole other conversation for a whole other day… but in the meantime, look at that amazing self and channel the words of our newly-welcomed ancestor, Nikki Giovanni who reminds us in her poem “Ego Tripping (there may be a reason why)”
“I am so perfect so divine so ethereal so surreal
I cannot be comprehended except by my permission
I mean...I...can fly
like a bird in the sky...”
Let’s give ourselves permission to be our imperfectly perfect selves and let our inner lights shine…