Nydia Antonia Russe García: Who’s behind the Pink Sunglasses?

CHILDHOOD

Why do I identify with the character of Princess Leia? Because I have come this far while struggling with my emotions, crisis and circumstances. Because life is not rosy, it has never been for me, and yet that is how I like to see it and live it; making bad decisions that many have had to recognize, including me, have not been that bad.

My name is Nydia Antonia Russe García, I am 47 years old and I am from the town of Morovis, but I was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Where is Morovis? In the center of Puerto Rico. There I grew up with my dad, mom, brother, sister, grandmother, and grandfather. During my childhood, most of my parents’ family lived in Morovis. There I faced my first crises for the first time. The ones that shaped my childhood. And yes, in order to understand my journey, you have to know where I come from, what kind of family took care of me, my culture, beliefs, my genetics, yes, my genetics, because I was born with polydactyly, a genetic disorder where a human is born with more fingers or toes than normal (usually one more finger). It is detected at the time of birth.

So, I came out of my mother’s womb with a crisis not in my hands but one in my feet. Perhaps that is why it is so difficult for me to stay in a fixed place. Sometimes I liked to think that I was going to live far from Puerto Rico, so I lived in Spain, and currently in the United States, but I was living in Puerto Rico for a long time. I liked Puerto Rico to live in, but not anymore, I find it toxic and oppressive. As I mentioned before, I was rejected since I came out of Mommy’s belly. Because when it was the nurses’ turn to count my toes, they counted twelve instead of ten. Do you want your daughter to grow up normal, like everyone else, with 10 fingers? We can operate and remove those fingers. Now that he is a baby, the operation is easier. We do not have money for both feet, operate the easiest, the one that came without bone. So, because dominant gene, I ended up not with 12 or 10, I ended up with 11 toes. An odd number, odd and creepy after September 11. It’s also the name of an alien from a Netflix series, “Stranger Things”, that takes place in the eighties, look at that coincidence.

TEENAGER

In 1984, at the age of twelve, I moved to San Juan and there in the metropolis of Wepalandia, San Juan, Puerto Rico, I became a teenager. How old is one in sixth grade? Thirteen? From being in a girls’ school, I had to go to a girls and boys’ school. And at that age I used public transportation to get home. And I had access to many other resources that my friends at school did not have. I could read the books I wanted, watch the movies, series and channels without restriction and go to bed whenever I wanted. All that independence for me at 13 years old. I have always had many privileges and I am glad I put them to good use.

COLLEGE

I went to college in Puerto Rico, I did not have many ambitions to study abroad like many of my friends, I did not want to be a judge or a mechanical engineer, in truth what I wanted to be was a detective and that is only achieved by writing fiction. I think that the counselor at my school was not so bad, because she understood me from the beginning and told me that I should study Communications. You have won story contests, you have competed in the Speech and Drama club and you are always watching television, reading magazines, listening to the radio. She was not wrong. I entered Universidad del Sagrado Corazón, the best communications school in the Caribbean; and there I studied a bachelor’s degree in Advertising and short story writing. Then I wanted to know more about medieval Spanish literature and the Boom of Latin American writers and so I began a master’s degree in Hispanic Literature at the University of Puerto Rico and moved to Seville, Spain, in 2000, to study Hispanic Philology in the University of Seville, and later film script at the Madrid School of Arts and Entertainment (TAI).

ADULTHOOD

In 2002 I returned to San Juan and lived there until 2014. Between 2002 and 2014 I studied a master’s degree in Literary Creation, also at the Universidad Sagrado Corazón, and took some singing classes with Rosa Ramos, a Voice & Music Coach Teacher who sang on the tuna of the Inter-American University. I took some courses in Theater of Improvisation at the Puerto Rican League for Theater Improvisation (LIPIT); and Contemporary Dance with the Professional Dance Association of Puerto Rico, with dancers Mayra Collazo and Verónica Rodríguez. I worked for more than 12 years in the advertising industry in Puerto Rico as a copywriter and writer until I lost my job and began to be interested in going to the United States to look for work.

EARLY MIDLIFE

In 2014 I left Puerto Rico due to the economic crisis. I got a job as a copywriter and writer at an advertising agency in Miami, Florida, and lived there until I lost my job again and decided to change careers. In 2016 I moved to New York and did a Social Media bootcamp at NYU. In 2017, Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico, completely destroying, among other things, the country’s economy, so I could not return there. Basically, the passing of Hurricane Maria through Puerto Rico was the factor that prompted me to apply to the Pratt Institute; But it wasn’t until 2018 that Pratt’s Department of Creative Arts Therapy accepted me to do a Master of Science in Dance / Movement Therapy, and I graduated from Pratt Institute in 2020, a year better known as the year of COVID -19. I am currently working on my thesis: Coping with Crisis Using Creative Arts and Social Media. In the future I would like to obtain the Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT) license from the state of New York.

I had lived in Puerto Rico for more than 40 years, and during that time I experienced many hurricanes. On September 18, 1989, Hurricane Hugo made landfall in Puerto Rico, overshadowing my birthday. A hurricane is a meteorological phenomenon that usually affects the tropics, where the winds turn with tremendous force. Puerto Ricans are exposed to this phenomenon every year, so I thought that if I moved to New York I would never experience it again. I moved to New York in 2016 to begin my admissions process to attend the Pratt Institute. When I couldn’t get in that year, I was disappointed, but not discouraged. I had all of 2017 to try again. I had started the admission process again, I just needed to put in more effort and energy, but for some reason I still doubted myself, so I took it easy, thinking I had enough time. I usually fly to Puerto Rico on September 18 to celebrate my birthday with my family, so in 2017 I flew there as usual. The threat of Hurricane Irma had passed, and although another hurricane, Maria, was looming nearby; I thought it wouldn’t affect us. Puerto Rico had been spared from hurricanes for over 10 years, so I thought we would be blessed for another year. So, I came to the island hoping to celebrate my 45th birthday, yet the headlines in all the newspapers and on television predicted that Hurricane Maria would hit Puerto Rico and basically destroy the island. I thought it was not possible to have traveled to Puerto Rico to celebrate my birthday only to have to experience another hurricane.

On September 20, 2017, Hurricane María hit Puerto Rico, destroying everything in its path and leaving the island isolated from the rest of the world. Once again, I was facing a hurricane, one of the largest and most devastating the island had ever experienced. With no means of communication or a way to get off the island, since the airport had been severely damaged, I had to stay in Puerto Rico for 9 days after the hurricane. My entry process to Pratt was not complete, so I also faced the possibility of not being able to enter that year. Hurricane Maria had even threatened my chances of entering the Dance/Movement Therapy Program at Pratt. Although those days were difficult, I had been through my own personal and emotional hurricanes before. In 2013 I lost my job and my home. I moved to the United States to try to find work. These events made me sad and depressed. I remember that the only thing that helped me overcome this sadness was dancing with myself. In 2014, before I left Puerto Rico, I started doing Authentic Movement workshops and improvised dances in different dance schools, in addition to practicing at home. I already write, sing and act, and I saw that dancing helped me too, I also started encouraging others to use creative therapies to overcome life’s challenges. Creativity in all its expressions helped me overcome my own problems and move on. Experiencing this healing made me realize that I could help people if I could commit to actually learning dance/movement therapy. I thought: “Nydia, you are a survivor, a warrior. You survived these hurricanes even before Maria, you can survive anything!”

WHO AM I NOW?

Last May 2020, during COVID-19, I finished my training as a dance/movement therapist at the Pratt Institute and after living and surviving this year dealing with a crisis using Creative Arts and Social Media, I reflected about who I became during this year of COVID-19 after spending two years studying a master’s degree in Creative Arts Therapy.

For some people I am a middle-aged white Puerto Rican woman or simply a Caribbean woman. In the United States I am a Hispanic brown skinned woman. In Europe I am a white woman from France. In Crown Heights, Brooklyn, a Jewish boy stopped me in the street to ask if I was Jewish; but I consider myself a multiracial woman. I am firstly Puerto Rican. What does that mean? That I have black, white and indigenous genes in my DNA and that my ancestors are from all corners of the world, including Africa. Polydactyly involves only one gene that can cause some variations. People of African American descent, more than other ethnic groups, can inherit a sixth finger. So, this chromosomal aberration tells me that there are indeed African genes in my DNA.

I learned in my Cultural Competency class what the term “intersectionality” means, and I was able to understand that I am not of a single race, that I am multi-racial, that I am Caribbean, that what defines me is my culture and my knowledge. That I can accept that others define me, while letting them know that their definition is not correct. I feel and see myself as a multi-racial woman, because in the Caribbean the races are sometimes, many times, a mixture, a mixture of the white, indigenous and African races. In my family there are whites, indigenous people, and mestizo people. What defines me is my culture, the food, the literature, the art of my country, which is Puerto Rico, its popular culture and the culture of the imperial country (USA) that colonized us. What influence from the United States did I grow up with? The 70's, 80's, 90's and the beginning of the new millennium. Fourteen years living in a new millennium in Puerto Rico, a decade and a half of the new century, living there in Puerto Rico. The issue is that for me Puerto Rico never changed, it stayed in the eighties and that's good, because despite all the circumstances that one can go through living on an island, my childhood was wonderful; because I never lacked anything. My family gave me everything. Everything I needed to be able to stay alive today. Everything I had and have is what keeps me motivated and with deep faith in the future.

Nothing bothered me more than not being clear about my race and ethnicity, but reading about the subject and processing it with my Dance Therapist, María Rivera, helped me understand and respond in a professional way how to present myself to a community of multi-cultural therapists and patients. Doing Dance Therapy with María Rivera, I discovered how not being able to fit in a place affects the way the world looks at me. That I am sometimes a privileged white woman who abuses her blessings and I accept it and I move with discomfort with that privilege being pointed to me, but I accept it. I try to process the information; I don't ignore it. I want to offer transparency; I believe that to be a good therapist you first have to be a good mirror. For example, if you show yourself ambiguous, I will be ambiguous. Am I a mirror in which everyone can look? No, but I offer my transparency and clarity, to see if I can connect with others in some way.

My gender expression is she/her/herself. I remember doing a movement experience in my Cultural Competence class and using “Rebel, Rebel,” a song by David Bowie. This song and this artist really defined my gender expression. That line from the song that said, “You've got your mother in a whirl. She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl." I am more masculine in my expression, because I learned from my father, and my mother, who is very feminine, but also has a strong character; They are two rebels, very opposite, but opposites attract. I also discover that I have serious gender problems, especially with men, because I am tired of being treated with violence, I am tired of men who take advantage of my gender, my identity, my multiracial privileged status. Why? Because I am a woman? Puerto Rican? Because I am in my forties and age is also a problem for society? Because I am smart and loud? Because I am happy, strong, and always looking for joy and positivity? Because I'm not married or have children? I am a survivor and a fighter!

The fighter was sleeping for a while, but the earthquake of January 7, 2020 in Puerto Rico woke me up and now I am aware that I need to unlearn many things. And I know it will be difficult, but not impossible, I hope to be better and mature enough to keep working at it. I will keep in mind the meaning of being brave. I have an idea of the ​​countertransference I have in me. I have problems with male gender, because my Caribbean and Hispanic culture perpetuated patriarchy and, sad to say, but every time I go to Puerto Rico, it’s hard to be a friend of misogynistic men, relatives, people I love, including myself, that use language to perpetuate stereotypes.

My bodily experience is strong and contained at times. In my dance therapy classes I found, again, the Bomba dance, a very strong rhythm from Puerto Rico and the Caribbean that helped me face adversity, oppression, and crisis. Bomba was always in me, but I rediscovered it through my dance therapist, María Rivera, and I began to better understand its healing powers thanks to her knowledge.

I’m not afraid of exposing myself. I say what I feel, and I know that will upset many people, but that’s also part of my culture and personality. The Caribbean is spiritual, an excessively spiritual for my taste, a spirituality that I do not respect much, because in the name of God a lot of atrocities have been committed. That is why I think that knowing about religions, all of them, is very important, because they all share many of their beliefs, many of their stories are copies of one of the others. In other words, the appropriation of cultures, religions, concepts, symbols, has always existed. I identify a lot with this because I grew up in a country that relies on spirituality, art and dance during times of crisis. Immersed in the community, but knowing about literature, my training as a writer, that privilege of being able to educate myself, to travel, has taught me to become interested in other cultures and their spiritualities. The patriarchal part bothers me and that is why I’m sarcastic and cynical, and I scoff because I recognize beauty, but also oppression.

RESEARCH PROPOSAL

Puerto Rico is a Caribbean Island, colonized by the United States. I have realized that I love Puerto Rico, that being away from home has turned me into an activist. I am no longer so passive, now I like to know about the status of the country, its history and what makes up being a Puerto Rican in exile. I come from the island of the crisis. Nobody knows more about crisis than we Puerto Ricans. During this particular COVID-19 crisis, I have been able to develop my thesis topic: Coping with Crisis Using Creative Arts and Social Media, and I have been inspired by Puerto Ricans themselves. Observe how they have used social media, for coping with crisis, in different and creative ways. How people react in crises, especially artists. There is a lot of community, connection, familiarity, compassion, very generous people, and that is me, I understand and feel the need to be part of that community that shares knowledge, blessings and privileges.

I think that reviewing my emotions again before the Pandemic began, has turned everything around me, seeing that uncertainty I had since long before the pandemic began. The uncertainty of not knowing where he was going to spend the rest of Pratt’s semester, because of COVID-19. The continuing uncertainty that I have with a romantic relationship with a man I met here in New York, before the Pandemic. The traumas that make me relive from past relationships, arouses distrust, low self-esteem, anger, and hatred towards the male sex and its abuses. The uncertainty of not knowing if my loved ones will be fine while at the mercy of an earthquake or tsunami, because being present during an earthquake at the beginning of 2020 and having to leave and leave my parents and friends and family at the mercy of another catastrophe natural was very intense to me. Hurricane Maria had already happened to me, so, I relived those crises again, in less than a month. And, of course, the uncertainty that it was the last semester at Pratt. Will I be able to finish? Will I successfully do my job at Woodhull? Will I make it? The fear of moving to a space in New York with worse roommates than the ones I had, in short, those were the crises I was experiencing before COVID-19 and the Pandemic arrived.

I have meditated a lot and I see myself as a privileged therapist in training, this training in dance/movement therapy has made me understand that. It has helped me accept who I am. I have been able to remember that I have always been considered a leader, or influencer, by my professors, teachers, and managers, they always saw leadership qualities in me, and I had forgotten that. At the beginning of this quarantine I had no urgency to help anyone. I felt like I had to deal with myself, with my sanity.

What I am going to do? What routine am I going to create to resist? Why do I want to write this thesis? Because I have been through many crises. And I have endured them because I am an artist. That although many times I did not recognize myself as a great artist, due to my low self-esteem and my stage fright, and my problem with procrastination and perfection, it causes me extreme anxiety that these factors did not allow me to develop my art and give it value, for fear of be criticized. I told myself, if I don’t value my art, I won’t care if people tell me it’s shit. Thinking that I would never create that great immortal work would shield me from criticism, because wasn’t going to get over the criticism. Why? Because I worked for money. I was offering my creativity for money and in the end a real artist should not make art for money but rather for the love of art. I was very confused, many things happened that I did not process, but I never stopped writing, creating, taking workshops, classes, singing, filming videos, so many other things, creativity saved me and continues saving me.

As more and more crises arise in the world we live in, creating new strategies to deal with them now and in the future is what I think makes my thesis topic interesting. I am from an island everybody calls: The Crisis Island. This thesis explores my approach to Creative Arts during the pandemic and post-quarantine. Before the pandemic I had agreed on a topic but I changed it, recognizing that I was facing a crisis and that this was in real time, that if I talked about the therapeutic benefits of creative arts, now more than ever I could help people to face this crisis from another perspective. The quarantine I was proposing was to spend more time alone, away from the world, to gain a deeper understanding of who I am, my culture and what my responses are to the crisis. Now that being alone was normal, it was time to distance myself physically, but not entirely because I could connect with an intimate group of people, through social media and its different applications. It was a moment to reconnect with my body and my mind. It was like spending a few long months in a kind of monastery of silence and reflection that activated many fears, but also many hopes. I was able to reflect on what I wanted to let go of and what I didn’t. I decided to work with one of my great fears, stage fright. I stood in front of the camera and accepted the vulnerability. I turned my room into a stage to connect with people and not feel alone. And when I couldn’t focus or work in my classes, I worked on my anxiety with the same anxiety. Because doing those live videos caused me a lot of anxiety, but I processed all that and at the end of the sessions I felt positive and energized, empowered to be able to continue with my Pratt projects and the COVID-19 quarantine. This pandemic taught me to see all the things that we are taking for granted, and value everything around me. Even the friends with whom I had lost contact.