photo by Lara Herscovitch
One of the exercises in CLP is about identifying and clarifying our own personal values. We each identify our top 5 values, writing one each on 5 index cards. Then we have to drop one… and another… until we are forced to choose our number 1, top value. What is your current One right now and why?
At this point in my life, at age 62, I would say that Self-Awareness is my number one personal value.
Over the years I have constantly worked on issues of identity and self-awareness – who I am, what I am, and where I come from. But it’s only recently that I have become more intensely aware that many others still do not see me the same way I see myself. Big disconnect!
I am American-born – Minnesota in 1956. I am a child of an ethnically Filipino father and an ethnically Chinese mother. My parents were Filipino citizens (still are) studying in the U.S. as graduate students in the early 1950s. After spending my first two years in Minnesota, I was raised in the Philippines from age 2-12. I returned to the U.S. – Connecticut – to finish 8th grade, followed by high school and college in Massachusetts.
During most of those early transition and reintegration years – 8th grade through college – I was treated as a “foreign student.” And I played along. I never really questioned it – it was the way I was viewed and treated, and I played the role. I supposed I did not look typically “American” to other students – neither white nor black – therefore I must be from somewhere else, a foreigner or recent immigrant.
I am, and always have been, American. But stepping into it fully is still a work-in-progress. It’s a leftover, old habit of not asserting my American identity – not correcting someone – when they perceive me as a foreigner. Therefore, self-awareness is very high on my list of personal values these days: I am keenly aware of better navigating everyday personal and social interactions when my own sense of self doesn’t match how someone else sees or treats me.
What is the one big, burning leadership question you are wrestling with these days?
I have a two-part “One.”
The first is related to the heroin/opioid crisis. How can I participate? How can I help? How does one get to the table where this burning issue is discussed and where policy is debated and developed and implemented? How can I help provide leadership to the effort?
The second is funding for the New Haven Public Schools. I am president of the Parent-Teacher Organization for the John C. Daniels School in the Hill neighborhood of New Haven, where our 9-year old son and 6-year old daughter attend. It is a dual language, inter-district school. I am always concerned about adequate funding to support the curriculum, activities and educational goals of this school in particular, and the entire district.
What inspires you, gives you hope these days?
I’m an eternal optimist and have always maintained a bright and forward-looking view of the world. I am confident there’s always a possibility to make good things happen, so long as there are committed people working towards a common goal for the common good.
This work of transformational change is hard. Stepping in, stepping up, over time, can be draining – physically, intellectually, emotionally, psychically, spiritually. How do you recharge, restore, take care of yourself, rekindle your fire?
I watch reruns of Seinfeld and Big Bang Theory. For relief from the absurd and ridiculous in this world, I am a true follower of the Seinfeldian weltanschauung: “It’s a show about nothing… What did you do today? I woke up, went to work, had lunch and went home. That’s a show!” The shallowness and brilliant comedy of the daily foibles of George Costanza, Jerry, Kramer and Elaine, plus Howard Wolowitz, Raj Koothrappali, Sheldon Cooper, and Leonard Hofstadter are enough to keep me recharged for another day.
Introduce us to someone you are/were close with personally, who shaped you and how you view leadership and possibility for a better community/world?
Raphael Flores, the protagonist from the 1998 book, The Fix by Michael Massing: “Looking back on the 25-year war on drugs, Michael Massing offers a blistering critique of the politics and narrow-mindedness that have made our national drug policy a failure, and he proposes what must be done – stressing treatment over imprisonment.”
I was able to meet and get to know Ralph after I completed my naval intelligence / military tours in 1996-1999 fighting the War on Drugs with the Department of Justice and FBI, DEA, U.S. Customs, and the rest of the usual group of federal and state law enforcement, drug war agencies around the country. Ralph was a saint. Selfless, committed, stubborn, admirable. I could never measure up to his level of dedication. He made a better world for so many, during their darkest hours.
What do you recommend to us, in each of these categories:
- Reading – Ambiguous Adventure by Cheikh Hamidou Kane
- Listening – Any and all albums by The Beatles
- Eating – Almost anything Filipino, except balut (a balut will never pass through my lips!)
- Watching – Rachel Maddow
- Laughing – Seinfeld, Big Bang Theory reruns
Learn more about Sylvester at Connecticut Heroin Users Union or Salcedo for Senate
To get in touch directly with Sylvester: salcedo1898@gmail.com