Sticking together

Vanessa E. Jones - The Boston Globe: "Third in a series of occasional articles about blacks and Latinos living in metro Boston.

Boston may boast a population that's 25 percent African-American and 14 percent Hispanic, but those Census figures are difficult to discern from a casual glance at the city's social centers. A few Latino and black faces occasionally add color to the hottest restaurants on Newbury Street. A handful of people of color populate the clubs in downtown Boston. And those numbers don't jump appreciably when visiting beaches, sports arenas, and malls in the area.

What's keeping them away? Some are wearied by a city where white people sometimes greet them with unwelcome stares or protective gestures toward their wallets or purses. In the recent Harvard University study ''We Don't Feel Welcome Here: African Americans and Hispanics in Metro Boston," 403 Latinos and African-Americans were asked about discrimination in this city. Some 27 percent of the group answered positively to the statement, ''People act as if they were afraid of you a few times a year"; 47 percent believed they were ''treated with less respect than other people a few times a year."

Wilfred Labiosa, a Puerto Rican who moved here in 1988 to attend Boston University, finds that in Boston, he must eliminate the social courtesies he learned growing up in San Juan. The kisses he gives to greet and say goodbye to friends. The friendly hand that unconsciously touches a knee or arm. He can't do those things in a city where, ''If I don't act in a certain way, they look at you funny."

Some people of color choose to shield themselves from those disapproving glances through self-segregation, socializing at the comedy clubs, nightclubs, and restaurants where black and Latino promoters host events. Others turn a blind eye to the racial misunderstandings and intrepidly go wherever they please. Labiosa and an African-American married couple, Hycel and Venus Taylor, give faces to both these approaches.

The Taylors are part of the small number of residents of color who go to clubs, restaurants, and beaches frequented mainly by whites, refusing to let anything -- including their own position as the sole people of color -- limit their enjoyment of the city. Their bohemian interests in raw food and home schooling generate a diverse group of Asian, white, and African-American friends. The couple also socialize with co-workers from Hycel's previous job as a principal software engineer at the start-up company Upromise, which helps people save money for college.

''We love being with black folks," says Venus, a petite 37-year-old, while sitting in the kitchen of the couple's house in Lower Mills, Dorchester. ''We love what we share [with them] culturally, but philosophically we don't share a lot. Then we have a foot in the white world, where all of our beliefs are [supported] -- the home schooling, the food -- but it lacks the cultural aspect."

To create a full life, says Hycel, a wiry 41-year-old, the couple savors ''a little bit of both" communities.

Then there's Labiosa, who after several disappointing encounters with whites on his way to obtaining an undergraduate degree in Latin American studies and psychology at BU and a master's in psychology at Northeastern, surrounds himself mostly with like-minded friends who are Latino. He's the cofounder of Somos Latinos LGBT Coalition, an organization for gay Latinos that holds monthly social events. It's one of several organizations, mailing lists and websites -- Downtime, Soul Revival, Clubfiestas.com -- operating in the city that help people of color find social succor.

Ask Labiosa how many white friends he has and the 34-year-old, whose receding hairline and stocky build brings to mind the George Costanza character in ''Seinfeld," exclaims, ''I can count them." He holds two hands cupped in front of him while sitting in the backyard patio of his Arlington home. The whites in his life include his spouse, John Barter, 41, an Italian-American raised in Arlington who loves Latin food and music.

''There has to be a connection with me and them," says Labiosa, a director of community health promotion and prevention education programs at the Hispanic Office of Planning and Evaluation, which develops programs for Massachusetts's Latino community. ''It has to be people who understand where I'm coming from, my mannerisms, my expressions. I'm at the stage where I don't want to explain myself anymore, but I want to be comfortable."

A cacophony of voices explodes inside Limoncello restaurant in the North End as the Taylors celebrate a couple's engagement with 12 friends. Most of the people at their table work or used to work at Upromise. Most of them are white, except for Hycel, Venus, and Paul Spencer, 39. The three are actually the only African-American diners at the restaurant. That minority status doesn't bother the Taylors. ''It's the state of being all the time," Hycel had said days earlier. Instead, warmth shines through as Hycel makes introductions. ''That's Lois," he says, pointing to Lois Kaznicki, 35, who sits at the other end of the table. ''She's like my sister." He motions toward Kathryn Graham, 45 and says, ''The young woman next to [Kaznicki], she would be my lover if Venus wasn't here." Venus laughs, and calls out to Graham, ''Kathryn, just smile."

The Taylors didn't form strong friendships during their first three years of living in Boston in the early 1990s. They were too busy. Hycel studied at Boston University's School of Theology before dropping out to pursue his love of computer science. Venus attended Harvard University's School of Education, where she received her master's in risk and prevention. In 1994, with Venus pregnant with their first child, the couple returned to their hometown of Chicago, where both grew up in the suburbs.

But Chicago was a bad fit for the Taylors. They complain about the city's guarded residents who are obsessed with ''what you wear, who you work for, [and] what's your title," says Hycel. So after a five-year absence, they moved back to the East Coast. Venus immediately began meeting people through her interest in home schooling her children, Jasmine, 10, and Buddy, 8. This stay-at-home mom still remembers what happened when she first visited the group, Homeschooling Together, in Arlington.

As Venus stepped into the meeting, the women were talking about an article in Mothering magazine detailing how McDonald's creates advertising campaigns that make children beg for its products. Venus had just read the same article. She immediately felt at home, even though she was the only black person in the room.

''I'd never had this with Chicago women," says Venus rapturously. ''The magazines I read, nobody else read. The way that I felt about things, nobody else was feeling."

Meanwhile, Hycel developed his closest friends at the foosball table of Upromise, where he had started working around 2000. Hycel eagerly explains the Tao of the foos: ''When you're in a start-up, [or a] stressful environment, people tend not to speak to each other; they tend to get into cliques. . . . At the foos table, when you play, you also talk a lot of crap. It tends to break the tension; people get to see you're a real person. Everyone I played foos with, I am now really, really close friends [with]."

But making social connections in this city is not always that easy.

When Labiosa first moved to Boston for college he made a conscious decision not to hang out with other Latinos on campus. He wanted to fine-tune the English he had learned while attending Catholic school in San Juan. Labiosa quickly became part of BU's international community of students. His best friends that first year were two women from Thailand and India.

''I really felt comfortable with the international crowd," says Labiosa. ''They understood there were differences. I didn't have to explain myself."

A lot of explaining had to be done when Labiosa interacted with his white peers. If he served his white roommates his home-style Puerto Rican cooking -- chicken stew, codfish salad -- the response was ''Ewww, what is this?" Two of his white college peers once asked Labiosa, ''When did you learn how to dress?" apparently astounded by the fact that a Puerto Rican could dress the same as whites.

Labiosa also remembers the stares he received when he went out in Boston. This was after he'd befriended two female transfer students at BU, a black Puerto Rican and a Spaniard. One of their favorite hangouts was the now defunct Hub Club in Downtown Crossing, where the DJ spun disco music. They would find a corner on the dance floor and dance salsa and merengue all night.

''And when we were dancing," says Labiosa, ''people were looking at us like, 'Where do they come from?' "

The friends refused to let the stares of the predominantly white crowd demoralize them. ''At the beginning we were saying, 'What's going on?' " says Labiosa. ''We internalized that it was because we danced great. But who knows what they were staring at us for? Who knows?"

Talk to the Taylors long enough and they begin recounting the handful of difficulties they've had interacting with white folks as well. Venus, for example, sensed her skin color made her a novelty among some of her white home-schooling friends. Some of the academics and corporate types she and Hycel befriended sometimes gave her an uncomfortable feeling, ''like I was an attraction at the zoo," she says.

''The first thing they would do when we would get close -- they would ask about the hair," says Venus, who wears hers in dreadlocks. ''You must not have known too many [black] people to ask me that."

Hycel, on the other hand, had to contend with co-workers being afraid of him. The incidents usually happened in the elevator of Upromise. White women would maneuver their purses away from him when he entered the elevator.

''Once they got to know him, no," says Venus. ''But before they got to know him, they're pulling their purses."

The fear is something that Hycel takes into account with every interaction he has with Caucasians.

''[White] people aren't used to being with people of color," Hycel says. Before the initial social contact with them, she says, what you sense ''is fear of the unknown. I always come in saying, 'Wow, I'm not the one that's scared, they are.' And I have more sympathy for them. I'm the first one to put out my hand and say, 'Hi, I'm Hycel, how are you doing?' and that immediately cools the water."

On a recent Wednesday evening, Labiosa and his spouse, Barter, host the first home-based fund-raiser for Marty Martinez , a gay Latino running for Alderman at Large in Somerville. This Somos Latinos event takes place in Arlington, a suburb with a Latin population of 2 percent. ''I'm the only Latino on my block," Labiosa had said forlornly weeks earlier. But at the moment, Arlington is savoring a bit of flavor. Labiosa greets Martinez, a friend since 1999, with a kiss on the cheek. The ''Barrio Latino" compilation CD plays in the backyard patio, as guests drink sangria and eat the Parmesan chicken and pasta made by Barter.


Somos Latinos started seven years ago when Labiosa and two other women began organizing events for gay Latinos. The group, which has met at the Milky Way, El Taino restaurant, and other venues around the city, satisfies a pressing need: Labiosa didn't see Latin faces on mainstream gay organizations' club fliers. He didn't see his culture reflected in their events.

In fact, Labiosa was sometimes turned away at the door. In the early 1990s, he went to the now defunct Fenway club, Quest, with friends on a Thursday night. When the person guarding the door heard them speaking Spanish, says Labiosa, he told them, ''You all aren't getting in if you don't have IDs."

Then about a year and a half ago, Labiosa was with Barter and friends visiting from Spain and Puerto Rico waiting to get into Club Cafe in the South End. The person checking IDs looked at the Puerto Rican driver's license of Labiosa's female friend and immediately pronounced, ''This is fake." When Labiosa's Spanish friend showed his passport, the ID checker turned to the Puerto Rican woman and asked, ''Where's your passport?" She had to explain to him that Puerto Ricans don't need a passport to visit the United States.

''It was unbelievable, unbelievable," says Labiosa, who was so angered by the incident that he no longer frequents the club. ''We felt that he had not had an education about diverse communities.""