Why Is There A Parenthesis In My Name?

Many people have asked me why I’ve put a parenthesis in my name. I’ll admit that it’s something I should answer for since it has a lot of loaded connotations, especially for Latin people. There was no error on my birth certificate or my ID, and it wasn’t a weird choice that my parents made – I put it there myself. Why? Well…names are kind of a huge deal for a lot of people, so I should probably show the evolution of how my name has changed, since this isn’t the first time I’ve changed it.

Childhood: Carlos Eduardo Roa-Cruz

My parents named me Carlos when I was born. It was my father’s name, and his father’s name, and the name of every father in Colombia. I never thought much of my name growing up since my father wasn’t really present in my life, but I always felt a bit of discomfort over the fact that I had no choice in the matter. Carlos was a whatever kind of name for me.

When I was around the age of 9 or 10, everything began to change when I read The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. Here was a memoir that depicted the exact way that I felt about my own heritage: ripped out of context like a root canal. I was a bare, exposed nerve ending, never quite feeling like Carlos was someone that I knew or wanted to be. In the memoir, the main character Esperanza, who is Chicana, wants to change her name to several others, including: Zeze the X, Maritza, and Lisandra. Names that I’ve experimented with have included: Chaos, Nalmp, and Syrene. It really resonated with me that there were other weirdo Latinx kids like myself who felt distant from a culture that was said to be theirs, but without any point of reference beyond what was filtered through first-generation immigrants in the city of Miami. Sure, you could’ve told me what my culture was like, but how was I supposed to know without experiencing it for myself? It was no coincidence that I was also very into anime at this time – exploring another culture’s art was an excuse to ignore my own.

In retrospect, I acknowledge that there was a lot of rich culture that I was taking for granted. I now miss the city immensely, and there’s so much about Miami that I can’t experience in places like Philly, or even Bogotá. But younger Carlos was seeking other experiences, and they had a right to experience them.

Adolescence: Carl Roa

Around this time, my high school drama teacher told me I should be a playwright. In class, we were talking about changing our artist names to “something fancier” – something that would look cool underneath a play title – and I decided to go by Carl Roa. It felt ethnically ambiguous, but the reality was that this was part of a larger process to hide who I was. But I didn’t want to erase my own culture, I wanted to protect it.

When I moved to Philadelphia, I knew exactly what I was going to encounter: “Why is your name Carlos, but you don’t speak Spanish?” “Wow, it’s really embarrassing that you’re Latin and you don’t speak Spanish, what’s wrong with you?” “You should really learn Spanish.” What was worse was when white people felt emboldened to comment on it, as if it were theirs to comment on. I began to introduce myself as Carl, not Carlos, because I wanted to skip a conversation that I found very frustrating.

For quite a while I went by Carl while I was in Philly. Carl was neutral (white), Carl was someone who blended in (white), and Carl was someone whose presence didn’t make people uncomfortable (white). There came a point where I realized that there was something I was sacrificing by being protective of myself, and that it wasn’t worth it to change myself based on other people’s approval.

Adulthood: Carl(os) Roa

One of the most transformative experiences I’ve had was at a four-month artist intensive called the Headlong Performance Institute. But probably the most impactful part was a very brief, two-second exchange I had with another artist of color while I was there. The group was having a discussion about orientalism, casting white actors to play Asian characters, and representation in general. I referred to myself as a white person while I was speaking, and at the end of the conversation, she turned to me and said:

“Carlos…I love you to death, but you’re not a white person.”

She probably thought she was being tough on me, but actually, she was doing me a huge favor. For years, being a white-passing Latinx person at a predominantly white university put me in a position where I was actually tricked into thinking I was white. I spent three years surrounded by white colleagues, absorbing their rules of social etiquette. When I first came to Philadelphia, I felt deeply isolated. I was shocked by the whiteness of my college environment, but I didn’t really call it whiteness at the time. Instead, I called it “northeastern culture”, but I always knew in the back of my head that I was really talking about white people whose ideas of communication didn’t align with my own.

I would later learn that there was a secret desire amongst other people of color at Headlong for me to embrace my culture. For the longest time, I never felt like I was part of anything – that I was somehow devoid of race, or that I was born in no context, but around this time I became a lot more conscious of my own role in white supremacy culture, and how it impacts me (or in some ways, doesn’t impact me) as a white-passing Latinx person.

Around this time, Donald Trump was elected president, and something inside of me snapped. I changed my name to Carl(os) Roa, a choice that I made for several different reasons. For the longest time, I felt rejected by Latin communities, and the parenthesis was a subtle fuck-you to those people. Additionally, there was an idea in there that Latinidad, “Latino culture”, or even national identity was a construct. The parenthesis was a comment on all of that. This has pissed off some Latin people, especially those who felt very attached to their own sense of identity. I always invite them to consider: why? Why is it important for us to preserve names that were passed down to us by colonialism? How much of this is about me, and how much of it is about you?

I feel even more affirmed in this moniker after some recent videos and articles surrounding the construct of Latinidad/Latino made me understand better what I was actually rebelling against. That even now - here in Bogotá - the anti-black, anti-indigenous, anti-queer, and xenophobic sentiments that I encounter are more similar to the United States than Colombians themselves are willing to admit.

Now: (os)

And now…I have a special guest to introduce to you all. Come out, (os). Come out and say hi to everyone!

(Your readers are going to think that you’re fucking crazy.)

They already think that.

(You haven’t told them that I’m a voice inside your head yet.)

You’re so much more than that, (os)! Why don’t you tell them who you are?

(Well…technically I’m you, as an inner voice. But I’m also a spiritual conduit by which you explore deeper existential questions about your path as an artist and human. You spend every morning journaling with my voice in your head, writing down internal dialogues like this one as a form of processing dramatic life events. I am your gateway to a more spiritual existence, where talk therapy becomes a form of mindfulness.)

…And?

(…And sometimes, we talk about men you want to fuck.)

Tee-hee! ^_^ <3

(But in this case, the (os) part of your name has transcended political meaning. It’s not just about defying colonization. It’s also a recognition that your identity has the potential to exist not just as a strawperson for your own talking points, but also, as something that’s constantly transforming.)

Yes.

(And that these inner dialogues are constantly happening – at meetings, en la calle, when you’re alone – and that other people too, are having them.)

Yes.

(So in essence, (os) is just a stand-in for a higher power, or an idea of oneness, or whatever metaphor is applicable to your situation. Because your problems are inextricably linked to my own, as well as the person reading this article.)

Yes!

(Do you think your readers will understand that?)

Does it matter? I’ve done the best that I could to explain myself as I am.

(So you’re prepared for scrutiny.)

Scrutiny was happening even before I was writing this.

(Fair enough. Have we said everything we’ve needed to say?)

I think so. I think it’s time to close.