EJR David - Make Noise

 

I've always had a high tolerance for pain. I broke my left arm when I was a kid trying to skateboard, and I just tried to walk it off. I tore my ACL on my left knee playing basketball, but I still ran a couple of marathons and a couple of half marathons on it. In fact, one story that my mom often shares with me that exemplifies this tolerance for pain happened when I was just three years old. She said it was just an ordinary day. I wasn't complaining or crying. But that night, after we went to bed, I started convulsing. She checked me out and she saw that my eyes were rolling up to the back of my head. She rushed me to the hospital, where the doctors told her that I was convulsing, because I couldn't break out into a fever. 

 

I guess fevers can be a good thing, because it's an indicator that our immune system was activated to fight off whatever virus was inside our bodies. And so, I needed to get this fever out in order to heal, but I couldn't, and so I started convulsing. Anyway, the doctor said that I had a pretty serious virus infection in my body, but we didn't know about it because I didn't say anything. I just stayed quiet and didn't complain. So, yeah, high tolerance for pain, it's something that I take pride in. [chuckles] I see it as a sign of strength, of resilience. 

 

This is also how I handle psychological pain, like the pain I felt when I had to leave the Philippines to move to the United States when I was 14, the pain I felt when I had to leave my mom to go to a country I've never seen. My mom made a huge sacrifice when she put her two young sons, me and my younger brother, who was seven at that time, on a plane to cross the Pacific Ocean to go to a land she did not know if she would ever see. She was strong and didn't complain, and so I stayed strong and didn't complain. She believed life here was better, and so I believed life here was better. And those were my two core beliefs when I came into this country. 

 

For every racist experience I faced, for every insult, every slur, every spit, I was able to just keep quiet and keep going, because I reminded myself that I'm strong and I can handle pain. For every anti-immigrant comment I heard, for every fucking Filipinos, you come here and take all the jobs, I heard. I was able to just keep quiet and keep going, because I reminded myself that life here is better. 

 

Until one day, I was in college and I was going on this road trip with my girlfriend, who eventually would become my wife and her sister. And the road trip required us to go through the United States-Canada border. They said that we didn't need to bring our passports to go through the border. We just needed to bring our driver's licenses. But as a brown man, I couldn't take that risk. I have to always stay at least one step ahead of racism. And so, I brought my passport with me anyway, just in case. 

 

When we got to the border, the officer looked at us, asked if were US Citizens. We all said yes, and we showed him our driver's licenses. I was hoping that was going to be it. But then, he looked at me and asked if I had any other document to prove my citizenship. And so, I showed him my passport and I thought that was going to be it, but still it wasn't. The officer asked me to step out of the vehicle. He asked me if I've ever committed any crime. I said no. Then he followed that up with, “Are you sure? Are you sure you've never murdered anybody?” 

 

Now, I started getting word at this point, but the question was so absurd that I realized this officer was messing with me. He was using his state sanctioned authority to play this mean, insulting, dehumanizing power trip over me. And I wanted so badly to tell him off, but I didn't. I chose to stay silent. I thought to myself, don't do anything that will jeopardize our American dream. I just wanted to survive. Survive. 

 

You see, that incident at the border was different from all the other racism I faced in the past, because this time the person messing with me had real tangible power over me. He and the other officers could have just taken me somewhere, and harmed me and I wouldn't be able to do anything about it. I was concerned for my safety, for my life. So, this time I also stayed quiet because of fear. 

 

After that incident, my core beliefs began to crack. They began to unravel. I started asking myself if I was still being strong by not speaking up, by not standing up for myself, for my family, for my people, for our humanity. Or, was I now simply giving people permission to treat me like shit? Time passed, I continued to keep my head down, kept quiet, just kept going. I graduated from college, got into grad school, got my PhD, got a job, got married. But those thoughts, those questions, those confusions, those doubts about my strength and about life in this country continued to linger inside me. 

 

Then one day here in Alaska, it was summertime. We had out of state friends visiting us, and so we decided to take them camping. It was me, my wife and our friends. We drove to our campsite, we set up our tents, we grilled some dinner, we sat around the fire, we laughed. It was a fun night. The next morning, I was the first one up and I thought I'd be a good host and make coffee for everybody for when they woke up. 

 

As I was walking around our campsite looking for kindling, I started hearing this rustling noise from a bush about 10ft away from me, like, “Where you are.” [audience laughter] And so, I looked over and a bear walked out from behind the bush. And so, I paused, and the bear paused, and we both looked at each other and I sized it up. [audience laughter] 

 

I don't know a whole lot about bears, but the little bear knowledge I have tells me that if a black bear attacks you, you must fight back. And so, at least, that's what I heard. [audience laughter] And so, I thought to myself, shoot, I might have to fight a damn bear this morning. [audience laughter] But then, another option popped into my mind, I can just make loud, scary, intimidating noises to hopefully scare the bear away. Now, that might sound like the easier option, but as you all know by now, opening my mouth to make noise isn't really my thing. I haven't done a very good job of that in my previous 25 years. But I thought to myself, I have to freaking try, [audience laughter] because it's still a much better option than having to fight a damn bear. 

 

And so, I took a deep breath and with all the courage and the strength that I could generate from inside my body, I opened my mouth to let out the scariest, most intimidating noise I could muster at that moment. And out came [shrieks in an odd way] [audience laughter] [audience cheers and applause] 

 

The bear just looked at me, [audience laughter] probably confused. I just stood there shaking, stunned, shocked really at what my body chose to release. [audience laughter] And then, from our tent, I heard my wife. She's never been a morning person, and she sounded very annoyed. [audience laughter] And she said, “Please be quiet. I'm still sleeping.” [audience laughter] And so, I replied with, “I'm sorry about the noise, but please don't make any sudden movements. There's a bear outside.” [audience laughter] 

 

I thought that was it. I thought this bear was now going to attack me and just inflict serious damage. But maybe because of all the commotion or maybe because the bear realized I was not alone, it just scampered away back into the woods. And just like that, it was over. We were safe and it felt great. [chuckles] And as I processed that experience further, weirdly enough, it reminded me of that story that my mom shares with me of when I was three and I had that virus and I convulsed in the middle of the night. 

 

You see, there's a virus in this country, racism, anti immigrant sentiments. And it got under my skin to invade my heart and my mind. And I thought that the best way to handle that virus was to keep quiet about it and not complain about it. I thought I was being strong that way. But in order for me to heal from this virus, I need to let this fever out. And then it also hit me that, yeah, my mom always thought of me as having this special ability tolerate pain. But by telling me that story, she was also trying to teach me that sometimes I need to express my concerns, so that others can know about it, because then maybe they can help me heal or maybe so that we can all heal together. 

 

That bear experience, believe it or not, as funny as it sounds, was the beginning of something new for me. Even when I'm feeling really weak, and feeling helpless and feeling really scared that all I can muster is a whimper, even when I'm feeling insignificant, I am not. I have a voice and I've been making noise ever since. Thank you.