Allow me to share this perspective as a Panamanian who was raised in the Canal Zone and then came to the United States when he was 10 years old to attend private, Catholic schools until high school graduation. It was a sheltered upbringing, by design of course by loving parents. Still, I want to be clear about something often taken for granted.

I cannot support hatred of individuals. I do not accept skin color or LGBTQ+ as a reason for poor treatment of other people. This has never been more needed, especially in education and online spaces like this one, given the level of hate and bias.

Being who you are should not result in blind bias or hatred. I reject that and the frames that people have adopted that result in such hate.

As a Latinx who grew up in the Republic of Panama and then Texas, I have my own perspective.

My own identity as a cisgender (he/him/his), a bilingual/bicultural speaker, a person caught between two cultures, I have not suffered the slings and arrows of bias, prejudice that Black or LGBTQ+ members have.

I have been blinded by two big fictional stories taught as truth and have guided me most of my life.

Discarding them has been difficult, but necessary. Still, that’s been done in the comfort of my own privileged identity.

That is to say, since I speak and write in Standard English, I enjoy a level of white privilege due to my skin color (from my Swedish father) and my last name (“Guhlin” is Swedish, not Latino), I know that my life experience does not give me the authority to speak in more certain terms.

So, I offer my perspective in this space in a tentative way, and hope that I can learn with and from others.