Positive Deviants in New York

By Jorge Luis Aguilar Cruz

            On March 11^th I had the amazing blessing and privilege to visit New York City for a show, in which all proceeds went to a let’s say a well know children’s hospital. We raised over 218 thousand dollars.  Well, now to the point of this blog entry, before all the events I took part in several events that definitely had the theme of positive deviance and personal liberation, and its performers were those that were acting in a way that is absolutely not expected from them.

            Our first visit was to the children hospitals, this was my second visit, and as always it was a very emotionally intense 4 hours, we handed out actions figures and dolls to the patients, but more importantly we gave them hugs, kisses, love and conversations.  The deviance in this process had two components to it. First, despite having severe physical conditions, some life threatening, the children were deviants in that in every single aspect of their lives they were filled with hope, optimism, and a beaming light of desire, like that of the Phoenix.  The second aspect of this was in the realization that some of our problems as adults are dismal compared to what these children are going through, this definitely put things into perspective for those who got to know the children that day, life is too short, and we should embrace and love all that we have.

            The second part of the positively deviant day was made possible by dear friends and ex classmates I met at NYU; we made the trip into beautiful Brooklyn.  Brooklyn has a strong Mexican, and Mexican American stronghold.  In this case, we went to a meeting between the Mexican and Mexican American community, but the focus was the treatment of immigrants in the area. Present were several immigrants from Mexico and Central America, also “politicians,” there to “work on a solution, to help you.”  This turned out to be a great session to speak about the communities issues, but more importantly, the focus was on the immigrants, they were deviants in the way that they acted out, many of us live in fear from immigration, and perhaps the general public, so we do not go out or involved, all we do is home, work, then home again.  The forum allowed for personal and community expression, a grassroots based forum to improve the conditions of the community as a whole.

            I was there to take part of world called show business, but in reality the trip and the activities we took part in, once again added to growing desire for social justice and compassion.  We took from this trip that really life is beautiful, we only have one to live, as one little 7 years old girl told me, “time flies, and choose to love.”