Abstract
This collaborative autoethnography uses the prompt of “learning to drive” as a pivot point of critically remembering aspects of the authors being and becoming; from the earned autonomy of operating a vehicle to a broader sense of self-determination, social responsibility, and determined directionality as literal and figurative metaphor for life choices. The authors from diverse backgrounds working in the same academic institution engage the processes of reflectivity, reflexivity, and refractivity in autoethnography to theorize through lived experience. In the process, they bridge the gap between past, present, and beyond. The piece ends with prompts for others to tell critical stories of lived experience.
Driving the Point: An Introduction
verb
operate and control the direction and speed of a motor vehicle.
propel or carry along by force in a specified direction
noun
a trip or journey in a car.
psychology
an innate, biologically determined urge to attain a goal or satisfy a need.
Learning to drive is often considered a cultural rite of passage; marking the age of ascension and autonomy; a time of imbued trust and responsibility; and a pivot point from the cloistered controls of home and hearth. It becomes an opportunity for the (often) younger driver to engage broader explorations of place and space with the attending new set of responsibilities and culpabilities—trust, safety, social negotiation, getting a job, and in some cases the practical issues of cost and maintenance. Yet the notion of “learning to drive” is both literal and metaphorical; both particular and plural to the lessons, practices, and propulsions of driving that shape aspects of our being and becoming across cultural expectations. Learning to drive becomes about making choices, maybe life choices.
In this collaborative autoethnography, 1 each author uses the remembrance of learning how to drive as they build standpoint theories, analyzing their intersubjective discourses of the experience in relation to their being and becoming. 2 All from the earned autonomy of operating a vehicle to a broader sense of self-determination, social responsibility, and directionality. The authors, from diverse backgrounds, engage the processes of autoethnography as a qualitative methodology that uses close analysis of lived experience through the thrice engaged processes of reflectivity, reflexivity, and refractivity. In other words, through recall they turn a critical eye to past experiences relocating the self momentarily in the past, as an act of looking at the self-looking at the self with “vulnerability and emotional investment to sensitive issues” 3 to gain insight for the refractive possibilities of bending time/light/energy for future change and transformation of self, culture, and society. Hence, autoethnography can be a form of “archival work [that] becomes an act of defiance, an act of resistance and survival, an act of social activism, upon which we can imprint our historical significance. This work allows us to impart important and accurate depictions of our communities for future generations, where our voices are represented, collectively and individually, in a way that is unmistakably ours.” 4
In this project, “learning to drive” becomes a trope, a vehicle to bridge the gap between there and then, to here and now, and beyond to tell critical stories of experience. Lessons learned that go far beyond the operation of a vehicle to driving a sense of self in relation to society. Each author brings their unique voice and experience to inform the project, each other, and to the reader with subtitles like “Delayed Ignition” (Bryant Keith Alexander), “Keys to Transformation” (Sr. Joanna Carroll, CSJ), “Learning From My Dad and My Childhood Best Friend” (William Perez), “Managing the Drive” (Maria Melendrez),
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“Delayed Ignition”
Bryant Keith Alexander
I clearly remember the energy of excitement from both my siblings and grade school friends, that swirling desire to get their driving license. That laminated wallet-sized certificate would replace the identification cards that many of us had, the dubious juvenile protection from getting lost or displaced that had contact information for our parents (like the labels in our underwear). The driving license would also give some dignity in relation to those school identification cards (ID) that marked us in public as grade school kids with the limited authorizations of entering campus, school athletic events, checking out a library book, the occasional discount from local venders, and the varying machinations of access and recognition linked with being in grade school. I clearly remember their anticipation to take the formal “drivers education class”—that was usually taught in the summer immediately at the close of the academic year. And while I shared some of that energy and excitement—each summer of those initiating years, I found myself busy or distracted. I was that kid who went to band camp, drama, or debate camp for several years, and differing leadership camps like Louisiana Boys State. In each case, the camps took place over a period that overlapped with Drivers Education. So, I prioritized those experiences over taking the appropriate Driver’s Ed. class that would engage formal driving instruction, while also meeting the insurance coverage to parents of juvenile drivers. I had a delayed ignition to that ritual practice and the opportunity to begin driving sooner.
But what the heck: I was the fifth child of seven children, the four who preceded me all went through the ritual and attained the coveted driver’s license. I also had two doting parents. All of whom were (mostly) happy to escort me and pick me up from the range of high school events and activities; mostly. After high school, I attended the local university, lived at home with my parents, and commuted back and forth. My mother worked as a nurse’s aide at the university hospital that was located a couple blocks from the campus. So, it was easy to get a ride with her on Monday through Friday to campus, and to get home I either waited for her or took public transportation, the city bus. That was fine. It was those late-night evenings in college when I stayed for a class, a rehearsal, a play, a concert or other events, and the bus service had ended—that getting home became an issue. But I would just call home. When one of my parents could not pick me up, my mother would turn to my oldest brother. My oldest brother who had moved out of the house but lived close. My oldest brother, who had moved in with his girlfriend. My oldest brother who grew frustrated in a near decade of picking up his younger brother from late night grade school and now college activities.
On a particular night my mother called my brother to leave his home to pick me up from the university. He arrived in front of Burke Hall on the campus of the University of Southwestern Louisiana pealing around the corner and stopping abruptly in front of the building. As soon as I opened the door, he went into me. As I remember, he said something like: “I am so sick of this, picking you up! You are the damn college boy! You know how to drive! You are just damn lazy! I am sick of this shit! I am coming to pick you up in the morning and you are going to drive—damn it!” He said all of that before starting the car again—and the 20-minute drive home was quiet. He stopped in front of my parents’ house—and said, “Get out!” The next morning was a Saturday, and sure to his threat—he came into my room and practically pulled me out of the bed. I was ordered to get dress. He led me to his car, a late model Lincoln LTD (this was in 1984)—and pushed me behind the wheel and threw the keys at me. He entered the car on the passenger side and said, “Drive damn it!”
And in that moment, I experienced a mixture of threat and the energy of excitement of being behind the wheel of a car for the first time, a delayed ignition of this ritual practice. I gripped the stirring wheel and reached to place the key in the ignition. I thought to myself, “OK you know the theory behind doing this. You’ve witnessed this for years. You can do this.” Poising my foot over the brake pedal, I reached to key the ignition and then turned. The slightly souped-up engine turned and sent a vibration through the steering wheel. My heart was pounding, and I felt the searing stare of my brother on the right side of my face. He said nothing, but I was tickled because when I started the car The Gap Band started singing Party Train on his 8-track tape player. I reached to turn it off and he said, “Don’t touch anything else.” But he lowered the volume. I laid my foot onto the breaks and reached to place the car in reverse and eased my foot off the breaks. The car started to move backwards, and the motion startled me, and I remember hitting the breaks. Start, stop, start, stop, start, stop—edging to the end of the driveway in reverse. I stopped to look to my right to see if there was another vehicle coming in the lane and began turning outward. Once I was sufficiently out of the driveway, I thought that this is the moment that I shift from R to D. I reached over and did it. Then I thought that was the moment that I should move my foot from brake to accelerator. And then again—a hesitant start, stop, start, stop for the length of 5 long blocks before my brother told me to turn right onto the Breaux Bridge Highway. It was in the straight stretch of driving that I found a rhythm of engagement, a glide of movement but with a strained stare at the lane lines as I moved forward. My brother said, “You know where the lane is. Keep your eyes looking forward.” We drove. I drove for about 2 hours with instructions to stop, start, turn and backup. Then we returned home. He said nothing about the quality of my driving just, “You see. We are going to do this again after church tomorrow.” And he left. We did it again the next day after church, and for the next three weekends of merging on and off the highway and changing lanes—before he then threw a book at me to study for the driver’s test. A week later, I took the written test and used his car to take the road test. I passed.
In passing, the driving test there was no celebration or congratulation to me from him. There was just a stare of recognition—maybe that he was right (that I was the damn college boy and maybe I was just damn lazy.) But I felt satisfaction and the appreciation for what some might call “tough love,” or just an older brother’s bullying his younger brother into being and becoming, which might be the way that we all find ourselves in the world. Through nature or nurture, or somewhere in the pressures between resistance and persistence, we (e)merge. Shortly after, I was expected to pick-up and drop off my younger siblings—and I felt a little of what my older brother might have experienced. Because even when I moved out of the house to the university with my first car, I was called to chauffer them. But it all tickled me more than anything else.
When I think about my delayed ignition to driving, I think about many things. I think about what a pattern in my life it has been, in not following the traditional timelines; of finding and embodying my own rhythms of engagement in the expected regimes of the normal. 5 My brother’s frustration with me was not the only points of contention as one of five boys. There was always a critique of my performances of gender and masculinity on a presumed timeline to igniting a hetero-gender normality that never manifested. I did develop a queer masculine performativity that was not linked with the heteronormative but challenged the very nature of what it means to be a man—my own man (same and not the same) through the queer masculine. 6
I think about the pedagogical imperative of the moment—not what my brother did in teaching me how to drive—but his assumption about my knowledge of how to drive relative to my resistance to driving. Of course, that also applied to perceptions of delayed ignition in the areas of sex and sexuality. But oh, how many times was the reverse of that assumption also played out in my academic and professional life as a Black man in America—and my need to prove myself, capacity in relation to volition and opportunity, especially for a first-generation Black male college student. My brother’s motivation (or threat) was a pivotal moment. 7 I think about how learning through observation has served me well throughout my life—of observing, listening, detecting, describing, and then engaging in a commentary of interpretation and enactment. It is what the most discerning of younger children do in a large family as to avoid the pitfalls of their older siblings. Such close observations and cultural readings have become a part of my ethnographic methods—not just in research but reading culture in everyday life. 8 “I learned to listen to bodies. [That of others and my own.] It was a matter of survival.” 9
In those old driving lessons, I think about the starts and stops in varying aspects of my personal and professional life, not as hesitations but strategic moments of testing the borders and boundaries of possibility. Measuring twice and cutting once. And as I think about the shifting of gears—R to D, and the careful stepping on brakes and the choice to accelerate in a mindful recognition of my own biological and cultural determination to attain my personal goals and satisfy my personal needs. These are choices and steps in a process of doing and becoming. There is a synergistic energy that is transferred between action and a thing done that lingers. I think about the choices that drive us all and the consequences. I also remember my brother saying, “You know where the lane is. Keep your eyes looking forward.” I think that in driving and in life, that is good advice. But I also remember that my focus on the lane lines was both about minding my lane, as well as ensuring that others were minding their lanes. It was about recognizing that driving is a social and relational responsibility; a social negotiation in which we often depend on others to follow the rules for our personal well-being; while we try to keep our eyes looking forward as they also look at us in our own lane. I was thinking then, like now, that we are responsible for others as we seek to move forward in our own purpose. Each striving to reach their own destination in a joint humanity. Each guarding the course of the other and protecting our own good path. 10 We are each watching the lane lines, like looking for exits and knowing when and how to merge in/out of traffic (the flows and tides of living). These lessons matter beyond operating a vehicle but also apply to our personal drive, in everyday life.
My delayed ignition served me well. I didn’t miss a critical rite of passage, as much as I prioritized what was the most important things for me at the time. I found my own rhythm of engagement within my locomotion toward being. And every time I see an old Lincoln LTD, I smile because my memory of how I learned to drive is sutured to time, place, relationships, The Gap Band, and the specter of that car as a vehicle to lessons learned.
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“Keys to Transformation”
Sr. Joanna Carroll, CSJ
Dad died of cancer when I was in my late thirties. More than 30 years later, I am just now realizing how much I learned from him. When I was about 15 years old, Dad taught me how to drive in the Sears parking lot in Compton after hours. Yes, we practiced in the spacious dimly lighted lot “straight outta Compton” where my family lived. Mom was home praying for our safe return! I don’t remember if Dad also gave driving lessons to my five siblings, or if I was the lucky one. Dad was a good teacher for me because he was patient and thorough, and he believed in me. He had to teach me in his old used Chevy Nova, on a stick shift because that is all he had. It was an experience, to say the least! Learning how to use the clutch is an art in itself. If you could learn to drive a stick shift, I think you could drive anything. It was all about balance, holding, and letting go. You need two feet and a strong arm! With practice and the best teacher, I mastered the art and was soon driving around town.
(Fun fact! My brother actually worked at Sears, and I worked at Newberry’s which was in the same shopping area. Dad raised all of us six kids on a factory worker’s salary. Mom sold encyclopedias and volunteered at our parish elementary school run by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange.)
My first “used” car had an automatic drive, so it seemed easy. I felt like a pro, as if I could drive almost anything. By teaching me to drive, Dad had actually provided me with a gateway into my future of travel for the rest of my life. I have driven to college, to Church, and to work. I have driven myself and others to nearby and distant locations for family events and civic gatherings, for nature exploration and educational excursions, for grocery shopping, service, and fun. I also learned the hard way with a few tickets and car accidents! Knowing how to drive gave me a sense of empowerment and freedom, a feeling of pride and accomplishment, an ability to shape my activity and my life with choice and creativity, service learning, and time for family and friends. I wonder if Dad knew the gift of opportunity, he had provided for me by our time spent in the Sears parking lot after hours. He would probably be amazed to see where I have gone and what I have done and who I have become. By passing on his driving skill to me, he gave me not only the keys to my car but the keys to my life and to whom I have become. “Thanks, Dad, for taking the time to teach me.” Thank you for your loving patience with me as a young girl learning to grow up. You taught me how to take personal responsibility in going where I needed to go and doing what I felt called to do. You gave me freedom, self-confidence, and a deeper sense of purpose because you taught me how to drive, and also how to teach! Hope I didn’t ‘drive’ you crazy in the process!
(Fun fact! Before becoming a campus minister, I taught in the elementary schools throughout southern and northern California for twenty-one years. When a couple friends asked me to help them learn how to drive, I was happy that I could give them lessons with confidence in a car with automatic power and in the light of day!)
Now, I find it quite amazing that the remembrance of this “gift learning,” from my dad, has stayed with me over all these many years in my heart as a sacred memory. I don’t remember the car so much or the incidentals, but I do remember being with my dad and the time and care he spent in helping me to learn how to drive. The little time we had together was significant. The moments we shared are priceless. The memories I have with my dad, though few and far between, are pure treasures and reminders of his generous soul. He died more than 30 years ago, but he lives on in me. Dad probably never realized the impact he had on my life forever. Even as I recall these moments, many more experiences and circumstances are coming to mind, things that I had forgotten about, and my appreciation for my dad grows even deeper. Sharing this one story brings many more to mind and heart. This is only Story #1. Now that I am also living with cancer, Dad is taking that journey with me, also. “Thanks, Dad, for being the best teacher ever, and for passing on the wisdom and joy of transformative teaching and learning and living.” We drive on!
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“Learning to Drive From My Dad and My Childhood Best Friend”
William Perez
I learned to drive twice, but before I get to the details, I want to set the context. When I was in high school the state of California provided high schools with funds to offer a drivers ed class that became a rite of passage for students on their way to get their driver’s permit and license. By the time I reached the eligible age to take the class the state funds and the classes were gone. If you wanted to get your permit and license to drive, you either paid for driving school lessons from private vendors (We didn’t have that kind money) or you do what families in my neighborhood did and had your dad or a relative teach you the basics before taking the written exam.
Will. 1974 Ford Gran Torino. The First Car I Learned to Drive.
In my case, there were a few more complications. I grew up undocumented and learned to dread any possible encounter with police for fear of deportation. Everyone in my family had the same fear. I remember my dad turning on the next street if he saw a police cruiser in the rear-view mirror even if that meant taking the long way home. He was constantly checking the rear-view mirror. When he was teaching me how to drive, he would say in Spanish, “Siempre tienes que ver todos los espejos cada cinco segundos”—always in a serious and stern tone.
“You need to always check all three rear view mirrors every five seconds.” At age 48, I still do a version of that. Even with the advent of rear-view cameras and sensors that detect cars and pedestrians in your blind spots. My friends made fun of me for years and always asked why I checked the rear-view mirrors incessantly. They had all kinds of theories. Until this piece, only a handful of my closest friends knew the real reason.
The anxiety about learning how to drive was not as high when my dad drove us to the huge parking lot of LA County Fair Plex. It was often empty during weekdays and there would be other fathers and adult family members teaching their adolescent daughters and sons the basics of driving. The anxiety level rose when I took the wheel to drive on the road to learn about the road signs, when and how to look both ways at an intersection, etc. The anxiety stemmed not from learning something new, but from the fear of running into a police cruiser. I learned how to drive in a used 15-year-old Ford Gran Torino. My dad was not a muscle car enthusiast, but he got a good deal from his younger brother when he upgraded to a less used Ford Camaro. The Torino was a big heavy car and I felt like I was driving a boat. It had a lot of wear and tear. The original color was a dark brown but over the years some of the quarter panels had been replaced with parts from other cars that were a different color.
The front left quarter panel was a sky blue which made it stick out visually for any police officer that was looking to racially profile someone like us and pull us over. BIPOC people have all kinds of stories about that. So that was my first experience learning to drive. I learned the importance of managing your fears. My father modeled that. He helped me understand that even if you do everything right, biased traffic enforcement is a reality that I had to be prepared for. That helped me navigate the bias that I later encountered in school and professionally. He also reinforced the immigrant optimism that I grew up all around me. If we were back in our rural hometown in El Salvador, we wouldn’t have money for most things, let alone a beat-up Torino. Roads weren’t even drivable. By American standards we were not privileged by any means but compared to where we came from, we had climbed a long way despite the perils of systemic racism in police enforcement.
My second “learning to drive” experience was with my childhood best friend and the only other Salvadoran my age I knew growing up in Pomona, CA. When I started college, my father offered to help me buy a used car to be able to drive from the dorms to one of the four jobs I had to earn money to pay for school. I had three jobs on campus, but my fourth job was washing dishes on the weekends at a residence care cafeteria about 10 miles from campus. I tried to bike there initially, but my shift started at 6 a.m. which meant I had to get up at 5 a.m. to get there on time which really meant 15 minutes early because that’s how my parents raised us. When winter started that became untenable. So, my dad and I went to a used-car lot to pick out the cheapest car we could afford, a red manual transmission Nissan 240ZX that was eight years old. I learned to drive on a car with an automatic transmission, but stick-shift cars are a lot cheaper, so we didn’t really have a choice. The price difference compared to the lowest-priced automatic transmission was too much for our budget.
My best friend and his family had gone through the same dilemma so he already knew how to drive stick shift and he was more than happy to teach me but there was one glitch. We didn’t want to get stopped by the police if we were practicing on the streets, so he drove me to our high school parking lot which was a lot closer to home in case we got stopped and the car got impounded and we had to walk home. We both knew the stories all too well. He was a great teacher. He also had a great sense of humor, so he had plenty of material for jokes about my stick-shift driving mishaps for years. In the process, he taught me to be more carefree. To be proactive in finding ways to enjoy life. When I would get frustrated because I kept stalling the engine and couldn’t coordinate the accelerating, the breaking, and the gear shifting he would say things to motivate me to keep trying. He would say things like, “You have to learn it so you can ask the cute girls to come with us to the dance clubs in Hollywood.” Other times he would say, “Think of all the girls you can take cruising on Hollywood Boulevard?” That was a thing back then until it was outlawed because there were too many BIPOC youths from the suburbs coming over to make trouble.
Learning to drive from my dad and my best friend certainly played a role in my personal and professional approach to be cautious, always alert, and consider all the angles. The best-laid plans can go wrong in an instant, so you always must be prepared to improvise and make do with what you have. I also learned to prioritize finding the joys in life. My friends used to punk me all the time because I would always recite, “work hard, play hard” or some other version of that sentiment. My dad and my childhood best friend had a lot to do with that.
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“Managing the Drive”
Maria Melendrez
I learned how to drive when I was not driving, and I had to re-learn how to drive to be able to drive. I grew up sheltered in a three-story brick building hospital with breathtaking city views in Los Angeles. I spent about 6 to 9 months at Shriners Hospital for Children of LA. Once admitted as an “in patient” you were not allowed to leave the hospital unless you were granted permission from your doctor. Mother and I never exerted that privilege. The doctor that treated my third and second degree burns often scheduled my surgeries shortly after I was admitted, so I only had to wait a couple of weeks to be able to fully enjoy the multiple outdoor terraces that Shriners had for patients and families to soak in some vitamin D from the sun. It took about 3 days for me to work through the effects of morphine and Vicodin before I jumped out of bed, slipped into a double hospital gown, and dragged my IV catheter holder to the nearest terrace where I would watch kids use plastic “Little Tikes” cars as bumper cars. I loved the thrill and laughter that erupted after a collision. I got faster and stronger as the years went by and eventually too large to fit in the plastic cars. I was probably 12 when I fully outgrew the “Little Tikes,” as I got older my body bounced back quicker after each surgery. As a result, the number of procedures increased to three per year, and the length of my stays at Shriners shortened. It was too difficult for my mother and I to travel back and forth from LA to Mexico. When mother decided to call the United States our permanent home, my father cut us off financially, and otherwise but my mother’s endless energy, charm, and attitude propelled us in the right direction. She became good friends with a woman that lived near Shriners and was able to secure a place for us to sleep, in exchange my mother watched over her kids and cleaned the house. Part of the deal was for us to leave the house on the weekend so her friend could have the house to herself. It worked out great. Mother and I would bus to the garment district where she purchased nail polish, make-up, and other goodies in bulk. We set up shop at various Metro stops down Vermont and booked it when the cops did a “sweep.”
We would occasionally sell goodies at Shriners until one of the nurses caught wind of it. The nurse offered my mother a similar deal as her friend had, but to sweeten the deal she offered a car for us to live in! I lived my happiest days in a classic 1987 Toyota Van Wagon. The nurse helped my mother navigate the public school system and in the blink of an eye I went from being a typical burn survivor at Shriners Hospital to a “monster” at Arlington Heights Elementary School. Mother’s confidence, charm, and serenity were tested behind the wheel. Her hands trembled, and we were not allowed to speak in the car while she drove us to and from school. She was hypervigilant, anxious, and frustrated. It was as if she turned into a different person when she drove. When I got older, I asked her about it. I never understood why she feared driving until I learned that were undocumented and that if she happened to get pulled over, we risked being deported and the cops would tow away our home.
Mothers’ anxiety and fear of driving diminished after she was able to secure an apartment for us to call home. She found a full-time job as a nanny in Beverly Hills. She left the house around 5 a.m. before rush hour to avoid getting pulled over and came home around 7 p.m. at night. I walked to and from school. The time we spent together was contentious, I grew resentful of her absence, and she was often too tired to notice how much I missed the days when we were homeless but always together. She started to take evening shifts as a nanny when my sister Martha immigrated from Mexico. On the rare occasions that I was able to go to work with her, I found relief from the crowded single apartment the three of us shared. I enjoyed helping my mother clean the four-story home where she worked. I was not required to, but I needed to fill the void I felt after our street vendor days ended. The drive from Beverly Hills to South Central was smooth at 2:00 a.m. I was allowed to talk and listen to the radio if I kept an out for checkpoints and cops.
I learned the high stakes of making of a mistake behind the driving wheel. But most importantly I learned that driving is not something anyone can give you, it is learned behaviors. It is an instinct that you develop when your livelihood and your loved one’s depended on it. Mother is my inspiration and motivation. She is immune to despair and failure and treats others with humanity, respect, and dignity despite the hardship she has faced. I took her for granted growing up and the guilt I feel for the troubles and resentment I felt through most of my teenage years still lingers. I wish I had realized she is superhuman before I went off to college.
I attended Pitzer College; a private liberal arts institution nested in Claremont California. I was granted a full ride scholarship that included on-campus housing. I did not know how to drive so I took the train to LA on the weekends to visit my mother and sister. Mother chauffeured me around the city on the weekend. As she got more comfortable driving, I got more comfortable with this new version of her, alert and attentive, anxious when she knew she pressed the gas to catch a yellow light but daring enough to take the leap of faith.
After college, I accepted a part-time job at the Athletic Center at Pomona College. I got paid minimum wage to sit at the front desk. As I reflect on my decision to stay in Claremont, I realize that I was too afraid to leave the nest and the comfortable lifestyle that I had as a student. I was also afraid to realize how much I had changed. I started working on my cover letter and resume then applying to jobs. I accepted a full-time position at Pomona College as the First-Generation Student Program Coordinator. I had the opportunity to support and learn from the experiences of Pomona’s First-Gen, Low-Income, and Immigrant, students, and parents. I saw a version of my mother and in so many of students. It was then that I had to rise to challenge of getting behind the wheel. Learning how to manage my fear and anxiety as a DACAmented professional to ensure that I could provide that support for my students was not an option.
Learning how to operate an automobile to receive an official government ID in a country in which I am undocumented came at a pretty high cost. That was the first time I realized I am a version of my mother. As a 21-year-old, that was a bigger pill to swallow than it is now. You see, as a Pitzer graduate and Pomona College student affairs professional I could not afford being a version of the person I judged my mother for being when she first started driving in this country. I wanted to skip over that and arrive at the superhuman version of her, but I was not able to. My mentor, best friend, and driving instructor, observed from the passenger seat and helped me see what was keeping me back from taking control. I was anxious. Afraid. Distracted. Embarrassed.
I did not want to disappoint my mentor and I did not want to take the time to look inward. On Thursday, June 30, at around 3:50 p.m. I failed my first behind the wheel driving test at the Rancho Cucamonga Office. My mentor’s sporty Hybrid Audi Q5 and the countless driving lessons he had given me from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. for the past weeks weighed heavy after failing my second behind the wheel test. I failed. Twice. If it had not been for the patience, trust, and support of my mentor I am not sure I would have obtained my driver’s license. I had the privilege of patience, grace and understanding. He never judged me, we might’ve laughed about it later, I cannot remember. I learned the basics of driving that summer, but I am still working on being a better version of myself.
Working with hundreds of students, all of which had a unique set of talents and challenges has been the most rewarding experience I have had in my professional career. I learned how to code switch in minutes during orientation and parent weekend to meet the multi-cultural demands of students and families I served. Working in a fast-paced, student-centered environment, taught me the value of having a solid support system. In 2018 I accepted a full-time position at a university in West LA in the division of academic affairs. The rhythm of my days was different. I felt different. I enjoyed my, job but I was missing my drive. I was missing my drive purpose. My soul searched silently for 4 years. During the COVID pandemic I lost myself. I grew resentful, ugly, bitter, and angry. I thought I was done. I was done. The advice of my mother and mentor echoed in my head, but I refused to listen. I didn’t want to open my eyes and see the light at the end of the tunnel. I had to stay in the dark. I needed to embrace and learn to accept myself. The “monster.” I needed to feel comfortable in my own skin again. I wanted to continue to question everything and everyone a minute longer. On Friday, September 2, 2022 at 10 a.m. I had a 2-hour conversation that spun my life a different direction. I took a leap of faith. I gave myself a chance to be vulnerable behind the wheel again. Today, I can proudly say I have learned to manage the fear and anxiety. I feel comfortable with the direction my life is moving. I am stronger and confident. Until I am not.
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“Driving Through Difficult Intersections of Memory”
John K. Flaherty
Dear Keith,
I’ve written and re-written my piece numerous times and to be honest, it’s been a difficult and somewhat painful process as I’ve remembered my second year of living in the United States at 15 ½ years old. I have fond memories of my dad letting me drive while sitting on his lap in Japan and on a couple of occasions here in the United States, but in early to mid-70s California, being taught and learning to drive happened in public school classrooms, simulators and driver training cars in public high school.
Being Japanese and moving here from Japan as a teenager, I wasn’t prepared for all the racism that I came face to face with as a teenager in the United States. The end of WWII had occurred only 25 some odd years before we came to the United States. My mother spoke broken English and my siblings and I looked much more Asian then than now as adults. When we moved to Southern California, we didn’t live on the Air Force base as we did in Japan during our early childhood years. Living on-base in Japan, our friends and neighbors were white, black, mixed race (black/Japanese and white/Japanese), and of course, Japanese. When we moved to Riverside, CA, we lived off-base among civilians which in some ways was a new adventure. But it also exposed us for the first time in our lives to anti-Japanese and anti-black sentiment, remarks, ugliness, and vitriol than three mixed race kids were prepared to deal with.
The Doron Drivers Education Simulator.
When I was 15 and enrolled in driver’s education/driver training, I was very small for my age. 4′8″ at that time. I had to sit on a 6″ suitcase which was the car’s first aid kit to see well enough to drive during our driver training sessions, which only left me open to more derogatory anti-Asian comments and bullying. It was not a fun period of life. When driving with my parents after I got my driver’s permit, I sat on two Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogs.
In trying to write my essay, I tried in many ways to make light of that period and to find some humor in all those situations. But the truth of the matter is that everything I wrote and re-wrote was inadequate. Later, in my young adult life, I realized that I immersed myself in music, wrestling (first 4-year varsity letterman in the 60-year history of my high school), and theater. I refined a sense of self-deprecating humor as a defense mechanism that I still carry today.
Learning to drive was not a pleasant experience. However, driving once I had my driver’s permit and later my license was a liberating experience in my junior and senior years, I came into my own and learned how to survive when ugly and racist slurs were directed at my mother, brother, sister, and me.
Driving was freedom. A tank full of minimum wage. A 1969 Volkswagen bug with polished rims, Blaukpunkt AM/FM/Shortwave radio, and Hurst speed shifter. At nighttime, I used to sit in my car and listen to music and the SW conversations that came in from all over the world. Germany, England, Italy, and of course, Japan. In my senior year, I’d traded the VW in for a Datsun 260Z with spoked rims. The main boulevard in Riverside had maybe four stop lights that went nowhere. Warm weekend evenings that smelled of the desert and orange groves just beyond the city limits of Riverside, CA. Four lights up and four lights back only to turn around and cruise back and forth again and again. Pacing back and forth as if we were trying to break free from something. All that teenage angst with nowhere to go but still, we were free. Those were good memories after those first painful years of living in the United States.
So, I’m sorry that I haven’t been able to send something to you that would be insightful and fun. However, I thank you for inviting me to the exercise as it’s given me the time and space to reflect in gratitude for my mother and father whose marriage and married life endured some very harsh external pressure here in the United States in those early years. Thankfully, those sharp edges have been rounded a bit and being Japanese doesn’t mark me with the same scarlet letter as it did in those post-WWII decades. Still, it’s surprising to come up against anti-Asian sentiment now and again. It’s especially offensive when people don’t realize that I am Asian. In some ways, I now get to see people for who they really are since I sometimes present as white. Your invitation has also given me the opportunity to remember in gratitude my father’s response to some of the family members and friends in the United States. who questioned how and why he would marry a Japanese woman. He told all of them that if anyone had a problem with him bringing a Japanese bride home that they need not come to the airport to meet him upon his return from Japan. To their credit, they all, including his own mother, came around. In this exercise, I’ve reflected on what my own mother, oka-san, must have felt and endured in silence. She was always so happy and welcoming to anyone and everyone. This was her nature and personality, and in some ways, I now realize that she shielded us from a great deal of ugliness.
So, I’m sorry that I don’t have anything to contribute to this project. In great and deep gratitude for your friendship and brotherhood,
John
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“Driving Through Adversity”
Roberta Espinoza
Reflecting back on when I learned to drive, I now have a greater appreciation for the many life lessons embedded in the experience that impacted who I have become and how I have navigated my personal and professional life. At 15 and half years old, I immediately got a “learner’s permit” that allowed me to start driving with an adult in the car in anticipation of taking my driver’s test as soon as I turned 16. My path to becoming an adult was always accelerated because my childhood challenged me to want to be self-sufficient as quickly as I could. Learning to drive was no different, and it prepared me for the adversity I would encounter in my life’s journey to adulthood.
My dad, who was in his mid-sixties, happily started teaching me to drive before I was 16 because he was tired of having to drive me around to my “gigs” or side jobs—mostly babysitting and cleaning homes—that could pay me in cash as we were on welfare and public assistance regulations have ridiculously low limits for household incomes to qualify. My dad was also getting older, and his mobility and physical health were starting to decline, so he wanted me to be prepared to take the test to get my license as soon as I turned 16. My dad turned 64 when I got my license and by then he transitioned to being on Social Security that enabled me to get a formal job with the expectation that I would drive myself to it, which I eventually did working at a children’s clothing store during my junior and senior year of high school before I started college.
Datsun 260Z With Spoked Rims.
My parents separated when I was in elementary school, and my sister and I automatically lived with my dad in an atypical single-parent household. My dad had a great sense of humor and always made people laugh. He was funny, a little raunchy at times, but hilarious! If he became a comedian, he would be a mix between the comic Gabriel Iglesias and Tracy Morgan. Everyone that knew my dad always commented that he greatly influenced my witty sense of humor, and I wholeheartedly agree. I always wondered how he kept his sense of humor throughout his life despite the many tragedies he experienced. My dad was many things — a prankster, social butterfly, devout Catholic, but patience was definitely not one his strengths and that was clear when he was teaching me how to drive.
I have a particularly vivid memory about driving that conjures up my learned ability to drive through adversity and get to the other side. It was the crucial moment when my dad had finally given me the “green light” to start driving on the street in real traffic in a stick shift in my used red Volkswagen (VW) bug that already had way too many miles on it and the stiffest clutch EVER. Nonetheless, I felt confident and thought in my head “I got this!”
We had practiced for months in the empty lots near the plane hangers behind the Ontario Airport where my dad worked for the U.S. Forestry as a part-time janitor through a senior citizen work program. His job was to clean the hanger and wash the vans and planes four days a week. He knew nobody was around on the weekends, so it was the perfect place for me to practice driving long stretches while trying to master the frustrating coordination required to learn stick shift.
When the moment arrived for my live-traffic practice lesson, I felt more than ready. I had finally got to place in our practice runs that I could successfully coordinate the operation of the gas pedal and switching the clutch to the proper gear in the right sequence, and the car did not buck or stall. My confidence, however, was short-lived. Little did I know that to drive us home from the back of the airport would require an unexpected set of challenges, to conquer two steep hills on Grove Avenue that were part of an underpass for train tracks above and there were traffic lights at the top of both. If the light was not green after going through the underpass, I knew I was in trouble. As we approached the first hill, I panicked, was extremely nervous, and started crying like a baby. My dad in his firm, always unfiltered voice (many expletives used) told me to stop crying and deal with the challenging situation ahead of me because they are a part of life, especially because we were poor and Chicano/a (a term he used frequently, but one I did not fully understand until college).
I conquered both hills that day with my dad’s tough love, support, and push to being and becoming who I am today. To help me, my dad quickly pulled up the lever for the parking brake located between the two front seats while we waited for the other cars around us to pass and clear the street. That gave me time to gather myself (dry the tears streaming down my face) and focus on the coordination required to switch my foot from the brake pedal to the gas pedal and operate the clutch with the precise coordination to properly rev up the engine and start moving forward. As he watched me to determine the right time, he pulled the break down and told me to hit the gas, which I did. We started moving past the top of the hill, through the distressful place, and on our way home. . . after one more hill, of course (gulp!).
When I think about learning to drive and, that moment in particular, driving through adversity, reminds me about the pivotal moments that define who we become. We live in a world with a positionality—Latina, First-Generation, etc.—that we must constantly navigate in our everyday lives. This experience taught be about the things I would need to lean into throughout my life to persist even when things get rough to find my place of comfort in both who I am and a sense of belonging in where I stand. I think about the patience, my dad never had, that I have been forced to embrace as a part of how I decode new situations, experiences, relationships, and jobs. The imposter syndrome that crept in that day of driving, doubting my skills and fearing being exposed as a fraud or failure, is something I continue to work through to get to the other side and drives my perfectionism to reach the goals I aim to achieve. The lessons of driving through adversity will always be a part of my habitus and I am grateful to carry this memory of my dad.
My dad passed away when I was 28 years old. Before he died, he saw me conquer many other hills and he beamed with pride each and every time. My high school graduation, my college graduation, receiving my Master’s degree, but he sadly he was not alive when I finally finished graduate school with my doctorate in Sociology. I think he would of happily called me “Dr.” or “Professor” with a snarky joke to accompany it no doubt, but would have known his life lessons, like learning to drive, contributed to my ability to overcome the adversities I have encountered in my life to become the person I am today.
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“Look Up”
Chris de Silva
As I reflect on the things that the act of learning to drive has brought to me over time, I think of two words that continually shape the ways in which I see the world today—practice and perspective. Learning to drive is more than a rite of passage for my teenage self, I think it is a metaphor for the different places where life and learning intersect. It is in these meeting places that I find the skills and lessons learned from hour-long drive classes in Singapore and my work in campus ministry in Los Angeles (the area that I am most immersed in at Loyola Marymount University) converge.
I still remember the day when I put the cassette tape into my brand-new Daihatsu Charade’s tape player, and she began playing Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” as I drove down Singapore’s Upper East Coast Road. I felt amazing—oh, the independence! Not only did I finally pass the driving test, but I managed to save up enough to put a down payment to purchase my first car. As a musician there is nothing I love more, than listening to music especially jazz music. I often download new music to listen to on the commute to work. And while I drive, I am in a musical zone of my own. I am grateful to a wise person who reminds me about thinking more about the joys of driving.
Getting to this point of my 19-year-old life took a lot of freelance gigging as a jazz pianist at various Singapore hotel lobby bars, lounges and fancy restaurants, and multiple attempts at a very involved series of written and practical tests—a Basic Theory Test, Final Theory Test, a simulation course in a controlled area and a short route in regular traffic. Learning to drive in Singapore in the 1980s much like learning to become a professional musician was a challenging rite of passage. I eventually passed the drive test after three tries. It is not because Singapore’s notoriously difficult drive test complicated things, it is because I failed (until the third test) to physically look up, turn my head toward the rearview and side mirrors and check for oncoming traffic. A valuable life lesson—check the blind spots. And this requires much practice.
Before I took the first two tests, my close friends, whom I refused to listen to, told me to exaggerate my gestures during the drive test. When I look back at this simple lesson, it continues to make sense. Look into the mirror then check your blind spots. But this good driving habit only comes with practice. And in life, it might take a certain amount of quiet contemplation and a humble heart to make the decision to check our blind spots. On the road, we see this sign as gentle reminder all the time—“yield” which might also mean, surrender. I find it hard to practice that spirit of surrender especially when someone cuts into my lane and slams on the brake. And then I chuckle as I try without sarcasm to recall the poetry of Bill Withers: “When someone else instead of me always seems to know the way. . . a lovely day. . .” Checking blind spots could mean listening more closely to our faithful companions who seem to know us and trust us more than we know and trust ourselves. Sometimes surrendering to friendly counsel might save us multiple attempts at a drive test.
Good and faith-filled counsel offers multiple perspective. Bill Withers’ words remind us that someone else might still have the answer, and through that other person’s point of view or lens or their life story, we might see our own lives even more clearly if we are willing to listen. Withers also suggests that on that sometimes-mundane drive alone to various places of employment or residence, the road may not be as anonymous as we think it might be. We might lean into becoming a community of commuters with shared journey. Becoming open to perspective enables my creative spirit to thrive and transform. Look up, check blind spots, listen for different perspectives, arrive safely and perhaps transformed.
One of the joys of learning to drive in addition to the discovery of practice and perspective, is to know that there is the possibility for transformation. Test passed, independence gained, mobility maxed, I felt transformed after that third attempt. Soon after it, I became the family chauffeur. I remember the joy of giving rides to my grandmother, brother, and younger cousins. More so I remember the stories shared during our car rides. I remember all the questions as we exchanged stories. Stories that ranged from the high and low points of post-World War II reconstruction after the Japanese occupation of the island, to the joys and struggles of the 70s and 80s urban renewal movement of newly independent Singapore. Oh, the freedom of driving and the beauty of story.
I find that each day in my work as a campus minister, I am called to listen to story and offer my own story as a way to accompany the other colleague, student or stranger. Life and extraordinary learning meet in the most ordinary places. Through self-reflection I remind myself to question the limitless possibility of transformation, of a new transformative encounter with a fellow commuter, a common pilgrim on the journey, the person in the other car. The work of finding purpose in and through practice, searching to understand the richness of multiple perspective never ends. Just when I thought I knew almost everything about learning how to drive, I made my journey across the Pacific. I arrived safely from Singapore to find home in Los Angeles only to engage in the act of learning to drive again. This time around, I had to learn how to drive on the other (some might say “wrong”) side of the street.
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“Fury”
John Axtell
It was the year before George Orwell’s dystopian tale would age to the actual date of its setting. The IRA had just bombed London and President Ronald Reagan was proposing the Strategic Defense Initiative to safeguard the world for Democracy, which would eventually further heighten the Cold War with Russia. Later that year, legislation making the third Monday in January a U.S. federal holiday to honor Martin Luther King Jr. would finally pass, fifteen years after it was first proposed, and three years before anyone would actually see a day off.
We had just finished a full school assembly where all the high school students were shown The Day After, an ABC television Sci-Fi educational film depicting the horrors of nuclear war and chronicling the trials of a group of small-town residents in the aftermath who try to survive a nuclear winter. We were dismissed early to contemplate the film and my best friend Curtis Williams and I were hitchhiking home from school as we often did.
The mid-afternoon sun shimmered on the snowpacks, and ice piled on the sidewalks from the city plows. We were lost in a conversation about the newly released Talking Heads album, “Speaking in Tongues” when a burnt green Chevy impala pulled up slowly to the curb. As was our custom, one of us would walk over to the side window, look in to scope out the situation and try to have a chat with the driver to suss out whether or not it was safe before jumping in. I was closest to the car. I had a cigarette in my right hand and my left hand was shoved into the pocket of my jeans for warmth. I sidled up to the car and bent over to look in the window.
A Virgin Mary pendant dangled from the rear-view mirror. The man driving looked to be in his mid-fifties, Hispanic, perhaps Puerto Rican or Dominican. He was wearing a tan coverall work uniform and a trace of a tribal tattoo popped out from under the long sleeve on the back of his left wrist. He had a gold chain with a cross hanging around his neck and three rings on his right hand, two gold bands and a signet ring with a square ruby that caught the afternoon sun and flashed specks of light on the dashboard. His inky hair was slicked back revealing a high forehead with deep crevices, and a prominent scar ran from the right side of his cheek to the corner of his mouth.
I rapped on the window, and he leaned over to roll it down. I said “how ya doin’?” For a long while he silently looked at me and then at Curtis. After what seemed to be a small eternity, he turned back to me and for another long minute we remained locked staring at each other as I bent over peering into the car. Then he said, “you can get in, but the n______ has to walk.” I straightened up, looked over at Curtis who was already bending over to pick up a rock. Not thinking clearly, I kicked the side of the car in anger with my boot and flicked my lit cigarette at the man. He angrily threw the car into park and started to open the driver door when the rock hit the side window and spider webbed the glass. Curtis and I started to run the opposite way against traffic. The man jumped back into his car and screeched forward, whipping around the corner to turn around. As rush hour traffic consumed the car, Curtis and I kept running. We ran for nearly a mile straight without stopping, crossing streets, and cutting through backyards until we felt sure we had lost him.
When we finally stopped, bent over, gasping for air, and holding our knees to catch our breath, we both looked up at each other and started to laugh. “Piece of shit,” I said. “Yeah,” said Curtis, “Where the hell are we now?” We had run clear across midtown in the opposite direction. We decided to hoof it back to the main drag and hitch again. On the walk back, we kicked an empty Hamms beer can between the two of us for twelve blocks before it fell into the sewergrate. We got to talking about Curtis’ sister. Her new boyfriend had just met Grandmaster Flash in the City and was promising to introduce us all. “Don’t-push-me-cause-I’m-close-to-the-edge. . .it’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ under.” We tried to sing together, laughing.
Curtis and I loved music. We grew up together. Our families were neighbors and friends since we were five, and all the kids were always in and out of the two houses, entering and exiting through back doors, fire escapes, and open windows. Curtis and I would spend hours in the attic with a shortwave radio rigged to the antenna on the roof listening to music stations across New York City and the world. If we weren’t in the attic, we were in the downstairs hallway messing around with the upright piano that my older brother had picked up for free somewhere and left in the entryway where it awkwardly sat waiting for a real home. In a world where parents were non-existent at best, and abusive at worst, Curtis and I had each other, the radio, that piano, and all the layers of the vast and mysterious city we regularly wandered through like nomads.
When we got back to the drag, just a minute after putting my thumb out, a silver Buick Skylark slowed down, put its flashers on, then inched past us. I started to walk toward the car when the backup lights turned on and it began to slowly retreat, then neatly parallel park along the curb in a perfect symmetry between the cars. Curtis stepped back onto the sidewalk for a moment, unclear whether this was actually a ride, when the car window rolled down, revealing a familiar face we both instantly recognized. It was Mr. Kazimieras, our driver’s ed teacher. He smiled with his signature broad Steeplechase grin revealing two shiny gold-capped molars and said, “Gentlemen, vat can I do for you?”
We loved Mr. Kazimieras. He was an old salt of a guy from another era, a bulky eastern European with chiseled features, a solid stocky body, straight forehead with a short and wide face, and deep brow ridges that protruded over heavy-lidded eyes. He seemed to trudge when he walked, like a weathered old boxer or distant relative of Charles Bukowski. At times, his rough appearance frightened people who didn’t know him. Mr. K projected an odd mixture of sternness and deep kindness at the same time. He spoke methodically with a heavy accent, didn’t take shit from anyone, and had a wry sense of humor, so subtle that most people missed it. I always imagined he had quite a back story to tell before arriving in the new world to end up teaching a bunch of inner-city kids how to drive. Some of the students were afraid of him and secretly called him “cro magnon man,” but everyone gave him deference in public and he commanded respect in the classroom.
“I am told dat choosing to smoke may not be a very good choice if you vant to live long dese days,” he said to Curtis in a slow and measured monotone. Curtis had been cupping his cigarette, trying to hide it as soon as he saw Mr. K. “I assume you are seeking a ride from strangers somewhere along dis route since you were standing in da middle of da road vit your tumb pointing in dat direction? Ve must together discuss best practices for safety on da sidewalk, but I ask you to first distinguish your life trettenink habit before entering da vehicle.” Curtis smiled, dropped his cigarette on the ground and twisted it out with his boot. Mr. K smiled and pointed to the squashed cigarette butt and Curtis sheepishly picked it up and deposited it in the nearby trash can. “Very vell,” said Mr. K, “off ve go.” We both happily piled into the back seat of the Buick.
Inside Mr. K’s car, the heat was on, and it was toasty warm. WOR 710 AM radio was playing on the speakers and the familiar voice of Sherrye Henry was talking to one of her guests, discussing theories about why not enough women were supporting the women’s movement. The interior of the car was immaculate, and the upholstery was a black and green plaid pattern that permeated the entire experience; it felt like my grandmother’s parlor on wheels. There were a few hardcover books from the library on the seat—Night, by Elie Wiesel, and The Robots of Dawn, by Isaac Asimov. Mr. K turned down the radio to a whisper, and began, “Gentlemen, vat is da first ting you do ven entering da car?” I looked at Curtis who shrugged then nudged me to speak. I gingerly offered, “seat belts?” “Yes Mr. Maxwell! You may have been listening in class after all. Vat is da next ting you do Mr. Villiams?” Curtis was on the hot seat now. Mr. K began exaggeratingly adjusting his mirrors, one at a time. I giggled and nudged Curtis, pointing at the rearview. Curtis blurted out, “adjust your mirrors!” Yes! Mr. Villiams, very good!” he said. “Dere is hope for you yet, if you live past da cigarette smoking.” We all laughed. Mr. K proceeded to narrate the entire drive with Curtis and I nodding and responding appropriately. “Before you begin to slowly enter into da traffic, vat is da first ting you do?” “Signal!” We blurted in unison. “Yes! You use your traffic turn signal. How else in da vorld vud anyone know you are about to enter da traffic?”
Mr. K. drove us clear across town, almost all the way home, narrating every move just like he did while walking up and down the aisles in the classroom where we all drove mini simulators. “Remember to respect everyone on da road. You never know vat kind of life dey have, and vat kind of troubles dey are dealing vit. Be nice and respectful to everyone in dis life. Keep your hands on da veel at 10 o’clock and 2 o’clock. Ven you turn, make sure to use da hand over hand teknik for best control and remember to keep scanning your mirrors. Slowly pump da breaks to avoid skidding and lockup. Look bote vays an den bote vays again. Ve are all in dis togedder, EVERYVON. Respect evervone, gentlemen. Look ahead at least tree car lenkts to anticipate trouble. If ve all learn to be defensive drivers, ve can stop accidents before dey happen and save lives. Drive da speed limit, not faster, not slower.” He went on and on while Sherrye Henry continued low in the background like some secret messenger of portent from far away whispering truths. We nodded and smiled in time with the narration as the city slid by the windows like a slow silent movie that we watched from the safety of Mr. K’s cozy plaid capsule.
After another perfect parallel parking job, Mr. K deposited us right in front of Marconi’s Italian Deli, where we had asked to be dropped off. Our daily ritual, without fail, was to stop in to say hello to Mr. Marconi before the final walk home, and he always gave us something. “Boys, you’re home early today! You’re not skipping school, right?” We told him how we were let off early and all about the movie we were forced to watch. He just rolled his eyes. “Wasn’t like that when I was in school,” he said. Then he yelled back to the kitchen, “Isabella come say hello to the boys, and bring some of that fresh gabagool!” Mr. Marconi was always feeding us. A few minutes later, his wife Isabella emerged from the back, all smiles, with a sheet of white butcher paper piled high with fresh Capicola. “Taste this,” she said. “Fresh from Martina Franca this morning!” We sat at the counter munching on slices of Capicola with fresh bread and peppers telling the Marconi’s all about the effects of nuclear fallout, while they tutted and crossed themselves, shaking their heads and whispering “Marone, Che Roba, Macché.”
We said our goodbyes to the Marconis and headed down Sheridan Ave for the final walk across St. Cloud schoolyard, up and over the hill to home. Flurries of snow were swirling around, and the streetlights were beginning to flicker in the receding dusk. As we left the schoolyard and crossed over to Roosevelt Avenue, we could hear in the distance a chaotic and cacophonous junkyard sound like all kinds of instruments at once playing a funky staccato rhythm. The music seemed to echo off the buildings from far away with an infectious and continuous groove punctuated by squealing horns, electric guitars, and strange foreign percussive sounds. We were mesmerized. As we continued walking, the music seemed to be getting closer and closer until we saw a burnt red dodge magnum with a white shell roof and T-top slowly turn the corner in the distance and head our way. As the car rolled toward us, getting closer and closer, the music got clearer and clearer. The music, “On the Corner” by Miles Davis—was coming from the car stereo, and the car was driven by Terrence Jackson, one of the older neighborhood kids who occasionally hung out with Curtis’ older brother.
Terrence had the car full of friends, who were all high on something, heading out to a party in Newark. When they came up on us, Terrence noticed us as he passed, then he turned around, came back, and pulled the car up next to us, slowly pacing its roll along with our walking. Terrence laughed winking at me and said, “Curtis, what you doin’ with this cracker? He ain’t one of us.” Curtis smiled and held his left fist up facing the car as we continued to walk forward. He then raised his right fist and pretended to be cranking a pulley as he slowly raised the middle finger on his left fist at Terrence. Another kid from the car said to me, “hey girl, maybe you should get a haircut.” “You hittin’ on me?” I replied, and everyone in the car busted up laughing. Terrence smiled and said, “you’re lucky we have somewhere to be.” We all laughed, and Curtis and I mock-saluted Terrence and his friends as the car pulled away. The music got louder, then started to slowly fade as the taillights disappeared into the night.
That evening, my mother gathered everyone in the kitchen and told me and my siblings that she and our father had fought again that day, and he had left. She didn’t think he’d be back this time. Curtis and I climbed out of our windows and met on the roof. We lay there for a long while, smoking cigarettes and staring at the stars. We talked about fear. We talked about dreams. We decided not to hitchhike for a while, and we decided to work to save up for a car of our own that would get us out of this place and anywhere we might want to go, with whoever we wanted to go there with. That night we made a plan.
It would be more than a year later, long after our driver’s ed class with Mr. K was over. We shoveled snow, we cleaned out gutters, we painted houses, we mowed lawns, and weeded flower beds. We raked leaves and washed cars. Finally, we had enough money to buy a car together. We found a powder blue 1973 Plymouth Fury III. The car was a creampuff that had lived most of its life in a widow’s garage, free from any rain, sleet, snow, or sun damage. She had held it for sentimental reasons for ten years after her husband had died, but once her son and his wife had a baby, she decided to move to a different state to help them and she wanted to get rid of the car quickly. She sold it to us for $750. The car was massive. It had a 318 cubic inch V8 engine in it, plush interior couches in the front and back, a Jensen coaxial speaker system, and special shock absorbers that made you feel like you were in a boat on the water. We dubbed it the “Ark” because it could fit two of every animal in it—and that is exactly what wedid. The first Saturday that we had the car, we picked up all our friends—there was Curtis, Anoushka, Selma, Marie, Eddie, and his boyfriend Jack, Carmello, Arturo, Samara, and her dog Mr. Wiggles, and me. We drove aimlessly for hours. We stayed up all night. We drove clear out of the city, all the way to the shore. We all piled out of the car and ran up onto the beach. The sun was rising, and we sat there on the beach for a long while in silence, staring out across the vast Atlantic Ocean. Something changed forever in that moment. We could see the horizon; we could sense a new world. We sat in silence, staring. We had found a new freedom that was beyond words.
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Pedestrian Crossing: A Conclusion 12
noun
a person walking along a road or in a developed area.
adjective
lacking inspiration or excitement; dull.
In some ways the notion of “learning how to drive” is pedestrian—as in lacking excitement or no need for additional attention; or just everyday knowing that is often taken for granted. This standing in stark relief against walking, hitchhiking, or being taxied by others. But the authors of this essay suggest different. They (we) ask you, the reader, to think again about everyday ritual practices that are often seen as pedestrian but shape our lives as monumental steppingstones in our being and becoming as gifts of opportunity. Everyday rituals, as those repetitive acts of living that for many have cultural, social, or religious significance. Everyday rituals that are both private and public; acts that are both particular and plural that define aspects of our social identities and instill principles of being and belief. In driving and in learning to drive, we move in and out of the lanes of ritual practice—bodies engaging social skills and vehicles entering cloistered places with focused attention. In such practice, reflection and discernment are engaged to achieve social significance that is always relational to others — “learning to (re)member the things we’ve learned to forget”; 13 with purpose; as sacred practice and the fear against repeating. And those who taught us to drive (and gave us drive), stand as monuments to memory; brother, father, friend, mother, mentor, and teachers in school and state; sometimes with bated breath and accented tongues they accentuated our possibility and potentiality 14 —while sometime shielding us from a great deal of ugliness.
In our autoethnographic practice, together and alone, we have looked both ways as we entered natural and manmade laws converged at pedestrian crossings with consequences. Thus, the confrontation between those walking and driving are mortal acts of social encounter. And we know that when we are driving—we are driving with purpose and privilege but always necessarily alert, attentive, and anxious. These are daily cautions, but some of us also know that we are driving while Black or driving while Brown (or driving while being “the presumed other” in this country). 15 This as our social identities are sometimes confronted on the highways and byways of our destination; documenting our status and citizenship across histories and middle passages of alienation, war and conflict; where our difference may have consequences when we cross borders of time and place.
In these entries, each author has used autobiographical detail as theorizing on experience and the ways in which “learning drive” (the literal and figurative) was a performative rehearsal for living.
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John Axtell’s piece ends this collaborative autoethnography as it also narrates aspects of the sound and the fury of what are sometimes our spoken and unspoken struggles. 18 Hence, there is a relational through-line in these entries—with the cars, with the persons engaged in instruction, in the critical act of remembering, in the cultural context of our living, in the sense of struggle to independence/ opportunity/exploration/confidence/caution/freedom that is driving our beings, reckoning with history, and the work in-between the authors. We are teacher-artist-activist-religious-servant-minister-leader-professionals working in different aspects of the same Catholic Jesuit University. We are companions on a journey who have been gifted with each other. 19 This collaborative autoethnography helps to bleed the borders of our personal and professional relationships.
We each entered this collaboration at a crossroads of our lives in which critical decisions and careful attention must be given to our purpose, exploring varying modes of sustaining our truths. In recalling these stories, we have all been forced to confront often painful and joyous memories; learning to reconcile our past in the present as we help to build new templates of sociality for others. This is also the message of John Kennith Flaherty’s piece which is sincere apology, but also critically helps us all to move past the romanticizing of “learning to drive” to place memory in the proper socio-political context of our growing up (growing up sometimes too fast and furious; 20 and sometimes growing up through the viciousness and vitriol of racism in America). Only to recognize that some memories of “learning to drive” may not be fun and not disconnected from other memories to which we must all reckon. But the process of remembering can be insightful to what drives us as we are reminded to engage autoethnography, storytelling and life, as lived. 21 My brother (from another mother, Kenny) 22 delivers a reflection that is literally and figuratively at the heart of this project. In his humble apology, he makes a supreme contribution that evidences the power of autoethnographic reflection, and how writing can touch in this intimate scholarly collaboration. 23
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The entries in this project illuminate the latent traces of informing human/social experiences that often go unspoken, as we encounter each other in the pedestrian spaces of work. In sharing our stories with each other (and now with you), we are forever bonded in what matters in the maintaining of relationships that motivate care and build pathways for all else that matters in our personal and professional lives. As we drive forward together/alone, we lean into becoming a community of commuters with a shared journey. We do not have to endure in silence. In this collaborative autoethnography, in which each author privately responded to a singular prompt about their experience in “learning to drive”
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—we have built arguments that narrate aspects of our individual experience unknowingly resonating with each other until the stories were brought in communion for the whole; punctuating the rhythms of our lives with familiar percussive sounds, almost like a soundtrack of our lives played through the radio of our first cars. In the process, and through story, we have encountered each other anew. And we have come to realize that we are all more alike than different. In the “telling of the told”
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we have found a new freedom beyond the words, each breaking free from something. And better preparing us for whatever comes next; preparing us for wherever we might roam: What are the implications and complications of your “learning how to drive” story? How do you process the meaningfulness of that past to your present reality? What are other sometimes-banal rituals of daily living (in being and becoming) that drive you? How can you discover the potency of your private experiences within a shared community of others?
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In reading each of these stories you can see that they are not just about driving—because memories and stories are sutured to other realities on the borders of our becoming. 26 We invite you to tell stories that have shaped your reality. Someone in your community of care is waiting to listen and accompany you. 27 We are sure it will initiate a generative dialogue of co-informing concerns. 28 *Along with filling important gaps in understanding your and our collective histories on issues that matter—including (as these stories allude) embodied experiences of difference, racism, physical trauma, health challenge, family dynamics, first-generation experiences, undocumented stories, and more. This with the intention to work in the processes of information, formation, and transformation of self and society. 29 To which all members of this collaborative are committed by virtue of our persons and passions, not just our professions or our current institutional affiliation.
Story through autoethnography is a critically functioning mechanism to excavate our past and recalibrate our present as we plan toward better futures. And when we tell stories in the community of others, we embrace storytelling as a critical aspect of culture-crafting that both maintains and has the potential to transform communities through collaborative narratives of meaning and purpose.
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Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
