Difference Makers

My name is Cruz Marcelo Soch Batz, however most people know me as Marcelo.  I was born in Totonicapan, Guatemala into a family of five brothers and two sisters.  I came to the United States when I was 17 with a desire to help my family overcome economic struggles. Where I come from it is extremely hard to earn money to provide for a family. If I were to work a normal job in Guatemala for forty hours I would typically make around $20. ($20 dollars is equivalent to Q150-160 Quetzales, Guatemala's currency ) Normal household essentials and food cost around Q500-600 a week for a family of 5. Due to the lack of income most children only complete school through about Grade 6. At this age the children will help in the fields, do chores, make clothes or sell items in the plaza to help make ends meet withinthe family. I was truly driven by the ‘American Dream” and made a choice to leave all that I knew to come here.

I quickly found out that it was very challenging living in a foreign place. My first job was on a dairy farm. In Guatemala the cows are usually led to the side of a path or road and tied so that they can graze. In the morning and afternoon they are brought to the barn and milked by hand. The milk is used for the family who owns the cow. Farming here is quite different, with automatic milkers, large groups of cows, machines and so many other differences. 

When I came I did not speak any English. I started to study every evening after work through books and audio tapes that I bought. I could not drive a car and for a long time I was not able to get my license because I was not here legally.  I had to pay someone every time I needed to go to the store.  

Legally, it is very hard for people in Guatemala to come to the United States with any type of Visa.  It is a very expensive process and most people are not able to afford it. It also helps if you are well educated and wanted to come study in the United States, however, most of the young adults (especially when I chose to come) were not able to continue and graduate from school. I am very grateful to the people and the places where I have been and I am currently employed, as they taught me so many things, giving me more responsibilities and allowing me to grow into a career. I am currently one of the farm managers at Ridgecrest Dairy. 

My original plan upon coming to the United States was to make enough money to help get my family out of debt and to help provide for a better life in the future.  I had only planned to stay for three years at most. However, I met a woman at my place of work and we fell in love and got married. From the beginning we struggled to find a way to do things legally.  Since 9/11, immigration laws had become very strict and it was very difficult to try and change immigration status. It was very risky and very expensive and for a few years we waited for the laws to change. But they did not. However, after our family grew with an addition of a second child, we decided it was time we fought for a change. It was a very long, complicated and expensive process. It took almost four years to become a Permanent Resident, with a book filled of detailed paperwork from lawyers. It took another three years to become a Citizen of the United States.

I feel that the biggest challenge in immigration is that many people do not understand the struggles and the reason why people choose to leave all they know and cross very dangerous places to come here.  The majority are not bad people, the majority are struggling and there is not a clear path for a poor person to come work in the United States. However, I am hopeful because more and more people are stepping in to help and stand up for Hispanic people in the communities around us. They are fighting with us to keep us safe and to keep our families together. 

There is also a greater opportunity for the younger generation that has immigrated to the United States in the past few years as they have been encouraged to go to school and get an education, with many of them continuing their education at universities. This allows them to discover their full potential and will allow them to contribute to the community in a wonderful way.

I am hopeful that people will continue to push for a change in the immigration laws, to help provide ways for people to come support the agriculture industry, and also provide a way for the younger generation to further their education. I am hopeful that people will realize that love has no boundaries and will open doors to those who have formed families while they have been here working. I am hopeful that the American dream can continue to be available to everyone who dares to dream of a better future.

I’ve been to Amsterdam 5 or 6 times—I’ve lost track. Sure, I was attracted to the manageable, old city; the beautiful canals; and particularly, as a Jewish person, the Jewish history. I visited the Anne Frank House several times and felt a deep connection to her story.

But the real reason I vacationed in Amsterdam more than anywhere else is because, although marijuana was not technically legal, I could buy it and smoke it publicly. Of course, this was long before New York legalized marijuana.

Marijuana was a lot of fun in my life, until it wasn’t. Two years after my last trip, during the pandemic, I finally admitted that I had a problem. Although I’m also an alcoholic, I mention marijuana specifically because it was my drug of choice, and I want the young people—and the older people—here who think that marijuana is harmless to know that it is, in fact, addictive for some of us.

During my recovery journey, I learned about hope, which to me, is believing that a better future is possible. In Twelve Step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, hope is the spiritual principle behind Step 2. This comes after Step 1, of course, which is when we admit we have a problem. The spiritual principle behind Step 1 is honesty.  

So, during the pandemic, I was first honest with myself that I needed help, and then came to believe—with hope—that I could find the help I needed.

I was asked to speak about my professional life, and I’ll tell you that I have had a successful career, which I interpret as having financial stability and doing good work that affects others in positive ways. However, this success has not been without personal and relational cost. I am not just a marijuana addict and an alcoholic but a workaholic as well. I worked a lot and still do, even in so-called retirement. In recovery, I came to understand that I relied on my employer to fulfill my emotional needs, just as I relied on substances.

To people who don’t know me well, my life today looks not too different than it did when I was in active addiction. I never suffered the consequences that others have suffered. For that, I am grateful. And yet, I’m very different.  

I’m glad to speak about community. At work, I had a false sense of community; I say false because it was not sustainable outside the organizational structure, and it was never based on our humanity. It was based on roles and status.

In recovery, I have found a real community of others. This is probably the first time in my life that I actually felt a part of something, and I believe recovery programs work best when there’s a shared experience and a sense of belonging. There’s hope because we see others living without their addictive substance or behavior. We hear others with years of sobriety who seem quite well adjusted and happy, and it gives us hope for a more positive future for ourselves. We think, “If they can do it, perhaps I can do it too.” There’s an expression in Twelve Step programs: “Connection is the opposite of addiction.”

When I reflect on what is most challenging for me, and for many in recovery, I would sum it up in the most obvious way: as I’ve heard from others, it’s “living life on life’s terms.” In other words, I no longer have my old pattern of escape from the inevitable difficulty, suffering, loss, and grief that I experience in everyday life. Even in inconceivably wretched times—as Viktor Frankl teaches us—even after our shoes disintegrate, we still walk out that door. Without pot, alcohol, and a job to obsess over, I had to find new ways to cope, ways to build resilience and agility.

At some point in recovery, as I was learning new tools for living, I thought they would be quite useful in the workplace. I didn’t find anything written about Twelve Step programs in a working environment, so I decided to write a book on the topic, particularly on the spiritual principles underlying each of the steps. I’ve told you the first two: honesty and hope. The others go by different names, but typically are faith, courage, integrity, willingness, humility, compassion, accountability, perseverance, spiritual awareness, and service.

We can think of them as spiritual principles, or as dimensions of character, or as virtues. We tend to think of these as binary—we’re either hopeful or we’re not. We have hope or we’re in despair. But I’ve found it more useful to think of these principles as a continuum. Too little hope is despair. If I’m worried that I might lose my job or fail on a project, then I might see only devasting outcomes. At an extreme, this might stymie me and prevent me from doing good work—or from doing anything at all, like getting out of bed.   

Feelings of hopelessness also can spiral into self-pity. As I heard in a meeting, “Poor me, poor me, pour me a drink.” We become victims who can’t see our role in creating a problem or in solving it, so we fall back on our addictions—our default ways of coping.

But there’s another damaging extreme of hope, which is idealism, or blind optimism. At work, this could look like not seeing the “writing on the wall”—declining revenue, equipment that doesn’t get repaired, and a loss of customers—and failing to see reality, believing that things will magically turn around. Failing to see that I will likely be laid off and, as a result, not making plans for a more positive future. 

In academic literature, definitions of hope include action. In the New Testament, we read, “faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead,” or more commonly said, “faith without works is dead,” meaning faith is demonstrated through our actions.

Well, hope without works is also dead. Hope without action is simply wishful thinking. Hope with action increases our chance of success, of good things actually happening. I could not hope my way of our addiction. I had to go to  and work the steps. I still have to go to meetings and work the steps, both for myself and, more and more, for others to see what is possible in their own lives.

Professor, author, and activist Cornel West describes hope as a collective action: “Hope is about everybody trying to contribute to the push, the motion, the momentum, the movement for something bigger than them that’s better. The good, the beautiful. If you’re not in motion, you’re a spectator.”

Viktor Frankl teaches us to rise above even the worst of circumstances. We take action—doing what we can to cultivate a purpose. That purpose is driven by hope: the belief that we may live another day to see a better future for ourselves and for others.

Today, I am hopeful. Because the alternative is no longer an option for me.

I may never go back to Amsterdam. As of now, a trip feels like a threat to my sobriety. So I’m particularly grateful for the Tree Project. I can always visit the Southern Cayuga Anne Frank Tree.

Hello everyone. My name is River Vooris, and I am a queer, non-binary, white person who uses they/them pronouns.  I use the word queer because it best fits my understanding of my sexuality and gender, as a not-straight, not-cis person. I like that queer is ambiguous, and expansive. However, I know that for some people it has been hurled at them as a slur, and I recognize it has a painful, contested history.

I also sometimes describe myself as an anxious pickle–my humorous take on the fact that I live with social and generalized anxiety. (This came from a meme I saw that said humans are 80 percent water, so we’re basically cucumbers with anxiety). At various points in my life I have also struggled with depression, and I experienced deep grief after navigating several losses in my twenties.

As a trans person, I also navigate gender dysphoria, which means that I feel an incongruence between my gender identity, my body, and others’ perceptions. Given the way that LGBTQ rights are being threatened in the US right now, I also feel despair, anxiety, and fear about what the future brings for myself, my loved ones, and the LGBTQ community. Tonight, I want to talk with you about some of my life experiences and reflect on what gives me hope in times of despair. 

I grew up on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and also England. My early childhood was shaped by the landscape of an eastern shore farm. Home was sweet-berry juice, cool ­river water, the slow blink of fireflies over darkened fields of corn. While I loved dresses as a young child, I threw them off around age 6, and was a barefoot, topless tomboy who built forts in the hay barn and covered themself in mud from the creek. Being homeschooled from 3-6th grade gave me freedom to explore, play, and read.

When I was 11, we moved to the Isle of Wight, England and I entered middle school. This is a rough time to enter public school! I didn’t understand many of the hierarchical social rules that my classmates’ followed. In our co-ed, multi-age, disability-inclusive home-schooling group everyone played and learned together. We had our conflicts, as kids do–but these were more personality based than identity based. In my 7th grade, UK classroom, I didn’t understand why I was teased for hanging out with a boy, and my keen interest in learning put a further target on my back. My parents did their best to be supportive, but their advice was that I should try to fit in more. Thankfully they also put me into an after-school academic club where I met a fellow nerd, Kavita. Soon, we were inseparable, and 25 years later we are still close friends.

By high-school we were back in the US, and I was dealing with some pretty serious anxiety–although I didn’t know its name. I frequently had stomach aches on the way to school. My heart would race when I was called on in class. Looking back, I think that this was partially created from the bullying I received while we were in England, but it is also probably genetic, and may have been triggered by puberty. My siblings also have anxiety, and there are many extended relatives who have a tendency to “get flustered” or are described as “worriers.”

In high-school, I figured out that I was queer, and I spent senior year mostly closeted. The only openly gay kid I knew got spat on and called the f-slur. Hiding myself protected me in some ways, and in other ways further contributed to anxiety and depression. In college, I finally connected with other LGBTQ folks, although it was not easy being gay at Bucknell in the early 2000s. A boy on my first-year hall experienced homophobic bullying and physical harassment, and witnessing that violence had a profound effect on my own mental health. I am very grateful to Fran, the director of the LGBTQ Office who tirelessly fought for better campus policies and was a second mom to many LGBTQ students. She was one of my fiercest advocates, and closest mentors, and I am still heartbroken from losing her to a sudden illness a year after I graduated.

After Bucknell, I went to the University of Maryland to do my Phd in Women’s Studies. Living between DC and Baltimore gave me the opportunity to become a part of a vibrant, multi-racial, creative, loving queer community, who taught me how to celebrate myself. I experienced the joy of dancing in a room full of other LGBTQ folks, the thrill of watching a Pride parade surrounded by hundreds of thousands of other people, and the tenderness of my first romantic relationships.

I also struggled with anxiety on a higher level than ever, and began to face it. At first, I fought my anxiety as an enemy, but that tactic only brought self-loathing. Now, I see my anxiety as part of me that needs compassion. Sometimes, I imagine my anxiety as a little monster who needs care and attention in order to keep it small. I have also learned how to differentiate between irrational anxiety and more rational concerns. Ultimately, my anxiety is trying to protect me from harm, but sometimes it picks the wrong things to worry about. For example, the world will not end if I am 3 minutes late to an event. The pizza person on the telephone will not care if I somehow stumble over my order. They are expecting my call, and they want to sell pizzas!

Other types of anxiety are more rational, like concern for my safety in a world that is not always understanding of trans and queer folks. I didn’t come out as trans until I was 30 years old, when I moved to Massachusetts after finishing my PhD. I spent hours in the woods with my dog Pippin, and finally had the time and space to face all of my gender feelings. Coming out as trans and non-binary has been an amazing experience in many ways. I feel a deeper connection to myself, to trans history, and to the wider trans community. I have felt great joy and gender euphoria. It has also been difficult to face the gender dysphoria I feel about my body, and to navigate my social dysphoria when people misgender me or refuse to use my chosen name. On a larger political level, there are people who think that trans people should cease to exist. There are people who think that I am perverse, deviant, wrong.

So how do I survive as a queer, non-binary, anxious pickle of a person who also deals with depression? How do I find hope in troubled and troubling times?

1)   Community, Friendships, and Connecting with Loved Ones: One of the most difficult things for folks struggling with mental health issues is the idea that they are alone. That no one cares. This past year was a difficult one for me. I lost my job at Wells College, and struggled emotionally, financially, and professionally. I had a scary day this winter where my mental health plummeted and my brain convinced me that I had no one to call. That everyone was too busy, stressed, or unavailable. I fought my brain, and reached out to my partner, and my therapist, and I found equilibrium. As soon as my brain was back in a more rational place–I could suddenly write a list of ALL the people I could have called. In fact, I reached out to some of those folks to let them know and they all affirmed that OF COURSE, I can call them in a crisis. 

Community is particularly important for LGBTQ folks or others who are part of marginalized communities. It can be hard to fight anxiety and depression when society is telling you that you don’t matter. But we are never alone. There are people who care about us! I am grateful for all of the people who have supported me through the years–Kavita, my best friend since those middle school days, my college friends and mentors, my graduate school buddies, and the community I have built here. I am particularly grateful to everyone who has supported me this year. And I encourage people to reach out to each other in this community–to check in on one another–and to remind each other that we aren’t alone.

Beyond my friends and family, I also find comfort and connection by looking at queer and trans history, and learning about how people have survived difficult times before.

2)   Nature. Being outside has always been the place that I feel most comfortable, and it reminds me that I am part of a larger world and a larger time-line than my own life. I am a part of the “family of things” as Mary Oliver says in her poem “Wild Geese.” In nature, I am reminded of the many wonderful, diverse permutations of beings that are not limited by binary ideas of gender and sexuality. When I am amongst the trees, I don’t have to worry about gender norms and regulations. I also find comfort in observing earth’s cycles, knowing that seasons shift and change, just as we humans do throughout our own lives, and that my life is only a small part of the much larger universe.

3)   Imagination: My imagination is also one of the strongest tools in my mental health-tool box. My anxiety often imagines the worst possible reality, so I try to respond by imagining the best case scenario! This is easier said than done, but has been very helpful at times! Imagination and creativity have also been used by the wider queer and trans community to write our stories down, to connect, and to dream about better worlds. My favorite type of writing is science-fiction, as it gives us a chance to imagine a different future.

Conclusion: There are other tricks and tips that I have learned over the years of navigating anxiety, depression, and gender dysphoria, but I know that I am pressed for time, so I am going to end here, with a call to community, a nod to the healing balm of nature, and a reminder to call on creativity and imagination. I am happy to answer more questions about my own life, as well as ways that I think we can support LGBTQ folks, and folks navigating mental health challenges in the Q and A.