You know how sometimes you feel like people just don’t understand things? You almost feel crazy because no matter how many times you explain it, even in the simplest way possible, people are still not getting it! Most of all, you feel almost judged. Judged, because if no one is understanding you then you’re obviously the problem.
My mom tells me that many times people don’t understand, because they can’t relate. They’ve never been through the situation or shared a similar experience. At least, not yet. She always says to me:
“Cuando mi mal sea viejo, el tuyo sera nuevo.â€
(Translation: “When my troubles have passed, yours will have just begun.”)
In no way is this a way of wishing something negative upon others. But, I’ve noticed she is right. It’s almost like a friendly form of karma.
The older I get, the more I see how so many different lives are almost the same. Similar experiences – just at different points. It’s taught me to be less judgmental and take a step back when listening, because in the end, you never know when you’ll be in the same shoes.
Anthony Giovanniello grew up in an Italian-American household in Queens, NY, but for as long as he can remember, he says he’s had an affinity for Asian culture.
“My parents thought they picked the wrong kid up from the hospital,†says Giovanniello laughing. “We were Catholic. So Friday nights we used to order all these vegetable dishes at the Chinese restaurant. They always sent me to pick up the food, but I would take so long because I would spend so much time talking to the owner about China.â€
His parents let him embrace his love of everything Asian, however. Giovanniello started his first yoga class at 15, and then took martial arts, and finally when he was 19, he took his first trip to Japan.
“It solidified my understanding that my love of Asia was more than this life,†says Giovanniello.
Today, at 60, he is an acupuncturist at a clinic in Nashville, Tenn., as well as the founder of the non-profit Acupuncture Ambassadors which organizes sustainable acupuncture schools, training programs and treatment clinics for the care of refugees, victims of violence, and the poor around the world. In October, he will be going to help heal the trauma victims of the Nepal earthquake.
“I love Nepal – it’s one of my favorite places in the world,†says Giovanniello. “Thank God my friends are alive, but most of them are homeless.â€
He says he’s been to Cambodia, Vietnam, and many other places throughout Asia, but Nepal is where he goes most often.
“I’ve been four times years in that past 10 years,†says the soft-spoken healer. “I feel at home there. The first time I went there was in 1998. It was this incredible feeling. There was a square where the King of Kathmandu had his court, and when I walked out of the taxi, I started crying like I came home.â€
Giovanniello says he knew he wanted to be an acupuncturist when he was 20 – right after he had his first acupuncture treatment.
“But then I realized there were no schools to study acupuncture in the U.S. around 1980 – you had to go to China,†says Giovanniello. “You probably spend 5 or 7 years there, and then you come back and maybe you don’t find a job. So I put that idea to the side.â€
Since he grew up playing music and was in a band through his 20s, he was very familiar with recording equipment. It made sense to start a career in audio production. Eventually, he became a soundtrack supervisor for the animated television series, “Thunder Cats.â€
“I loved the animation which came from Japan, but late in 1999, I was in a place where life didn’t work anymore,†Giovanniello remembers. “I thought, ‘If I don’t do this acupuncture thing it’s never going to happen.’ I was 45. I went back to school in January 2000…I was determined to graduate by the time I was 50, and I did. I have a skill, but I feel it’s more of a calling, because I’m passionate about it.â€
He explains that acupuncture – a form of alternative medicine involving inserting thin needles into the body at specific acupuncture points – was originally created side by side with the Chinese religious tradition of Daoism.
“You embrace the earth and nature and believe that mankind is at one with nature,†says Giovanniello. “Most won’t say it’s a spiritual practice, but it can be if you allow it. It works on animals and they have no belief systems. Most thoroughbreds have their own acupuncturists.â€
He says the most memorable moment of his career so far was when he was working on the streets of Nepal, and a woman brought her 30-year-old son who had been such a severe alcoholic that he ruined his liver and was crippled.
“They came in a cab, and he needed four men to pick him up. He screamed the whole way being carried,†remembers Giovanniello. “We thought the needles were going to hurt him so I thought the best I can do is do ear acupuncture. He laid there for a couple of hours with the needles in his ears. The second day he came, and he was a little better, not screaming. He came every day. By the fourth day, he got himself onto the bed himself. By the fifth day, we were putting needles everywhere, and by the sixth day, he was walking himself to the cab. Acupuncture allows your body to kick in the hormones we already have to heal our own bodies. At the end of 7 days, he was still very weak, but he was able to get himself into the cab. It was an amazing transformation.â€
Anthony performing ear acupuncture in a monastery in Nepal.
He says he started his non-profit organization, right in his living room, when he realized that acupuncture was more of a calling than a business.
“It’s been an amazing journey,†reflects Giovanniello. “My first ‘get my feet wet’ mission was in a Navajo reservation in Arizona. I went there, and it solidified everything to me. It is interesting, fun and helpful..it gets me up in the morning.â€
Currently, Giovanniello works five days a week at the clinic, and his two days off he spends fundraising for Acupuncture Ambassadors.
What piece of advice about life would he tell his younger self if he could?
“I would tell my younger self never to be afraid of doing what you thought was right.”
I used to have a wonderful Spanish teacher, Ms. Rina Faz, in high school who once told me I speak like I have lived a hundred years. I used to always blurt out my mom’s phrases during class. The best part was she enjoyed hearing them, and we would talk about them in class.
Out of all the phrases my mom says, time and time again, I’d have to say this one is one of my favorites:
     (VERY loosely translated: Love and personal interest took a stroll in through a field one day, the personal interest outweighed the love they shared.)
People and their personal interests is something I always find intriguing. You really find out how much you mean to a person when they’re willing to put you before their own personal/financial gain. When it comes down to making a choice between someone you love and a personal gain/interest how many times will you honestly go with the person you love?
I always appreciated the days Ms. Faz took a moment aside in class to discuss my mom’s phrases or to delve deeper into current events and topics. She was the perfect example of someone who constantly put her personal interests, i.e.-sticking to the planned lesson, aside for her students.
I’ve learned that when you do that, it leads to people loving you for a very long time, longer than those personal interests will ever last.
When you’re a kid you want to fit in with the crowd. You don’t want to stand out. I remember I used to watch shows like “Full House” and DJ would have Kimmy Gibbler sleep over all the time. I had friends who were allowed to sleep over their friends’ houses. Not this girl.
When some of my friends were allowed to go to the movies without adult supervision, at around age 10, I was not. I used to tell my mom it wasn’t fair because other kids’ parents let them do things I wasn’t allowed to. Her response always was:
      (You’re not a part of the bunch! You’re mine.)
At the time I detested that answer. I wanted to be part of the bunch! As I’ve gotten older these words have helped me more than I could have ever imagined. I’m very competitive and when you’re competitive you compare yourself a lot. I try to repeat these words to myself as much as I can.
I think back now and I laugh. I had no business sleeping over anyone’s house or going to the movies without adult supervision when I was 10. Not following the masses is always tough but in the end I’m grateful to have a mom who raised me to not be a part of the masses.
I’m not a part of the bunch. I’m my own person and I’m hers. Besides, I’m not trying to share her with anyone (besides my brother) anyways.
Do you remember reading the play, “Zoot Suit†in high school or watching the movie “La Bamba†(1987), based on the life of 1950’s rocker Ritchie Valens, starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Esai Morales? They were both written by multi-award winning playwright and director, Luis Valdez.
He is also the founder of the longest running Chicano theater in the U.S. El Teatro Campesino is located in the rural community of San Juan Bautista, Calif. – approximately 150 miles northwest from where he was born to migrant farm worker parents.
“I was born in 1940 in a labor camp in Delano…the west side of Delano was separated by the railroad tracks,†says Valdez, now 74. “The Asians, Mexicans, and African Americans were on the west side, and the White people lived on the east side of the tracks.â€
Valdez says he remembers understanding as early as age six, that he was born into a segregated land.
Years later, in 1955, he remembers the segregation continued. There was a young man who was called “C.C.†who decided to sit in the middle of the movie theater and not in the section designated for “non-whites.â€
“The police took him away,†says Valdez. “There was no law – it was custom. They released him, and the following week, a whole group went and sat in the middle of the theater. Years later, I went to work with the UFW [United Farm Workers], and my mom said, ‘Don’t you know who C.C. is? He is Cesar Chavez.â€
It was in 1965, while volunteering with the UFW, that Valdez founded El Teatro Campesino – a theater troupe for farm workers and students. The theater, he says, served as a way to inform, educate and also provide laughter during very hard times for strikers.
El Teatro Campesino performing in the 1960’s. (Courtesy El Teatro Campesino)
“I’ve seen the evolution of theater, film and television,†says Valdez regarding his continually growing work with El Teatro Campesino, which still continues today. “My focus has been on historical periods so people can know who we are today…now we’re focused on developing the young.â€
Valdez says it was school that changed the trajectory of his life. It was his mom who sent him and his brother to school one day with their lunches packed in a little brown paper bag – a luxury, he says, in those days.
“I used to take care of my little bag, but one day my bag was missing,†Valdez remembers back to the first grade. “My teacher said, ‘I took it. It’s for a mask I’m making for a play.’ I forgave her for the bag, and the next week, I auditioned and I got my first part in a play – a monkey. I was looking forward to my first debut in front of the world on a Monday. I told my mom, and she said, ‘We’re leaving Friday. We were being evicted.â€
Valdez says he was six and devastated. However, that episode in his life was crucial, because it gave him the insatiable desire to pursue theater for the rest of his life.
“It was at San Jose State University that I began to write and produce,†says Valdez. “I wrote my first full-length play there, and just last month, my son produced ‘Zoot Suit’ – it ran two weeks. It’s come full circle – 50 years after I graduated.â€
What piece of life advice would Valdez tell his younger self if he could?
“I would tell my young self, and others, that it’s important to develop people skills…It comes with giving respect when respect is due. Genius is not an excuse to mistreat other people. A true genius is a genius of compassion and humility…I’m happy to say that El Teatro Campesino is composed of 12 people who have been together the past 40 years. They have had other careers but are still pitching in and helping out. In an odd way, that keeps us young. That’s a great feeling. It’s amazing to me. They’ve become maestras and maestros in their own right…We got a slow start incorporating women into the group, but some of our greatest collaborators have been with women. I would talk to my younger self about the importance of that…These are lessons they I’ve learned along the way. We are all human, and we all have a heart.
Victoria Moll-Ramirez is a broadcast journalist based in Atlanta, GA. She is originally from Miami, FL and had the great fortune of being raised by the sassiest, spunkiest, wisest, most hysterical Honduran woman in the world. Victoria’s mother, Bélgica, is 60-years-old, resides in Little Havana (Miami) and enjoys a good margarita accompanied by a heartrending ranchera. Victoria blogs about her mom’s funny and wise sayings on, “In My Mother’s Words.â€
