Christopher Rivas On What It Means To Be "Brown Enough"
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Let's get started with your beginnings. Where are you from, and tell us a little about your upbringing?
Yeah, I'm from Queens. I sort of rep Queens proudly. I represent New York proudly. I love being a New Yorker; I put it above many things. When people say, 'where are you from,' when you leave the country, some will say America, the United States, but I say, New York. My dad is Dominican, and my mom's Colombian, so Latinidad is in my blood. And how was that raised? My two parents that raised me had really rough upbringings. And so the best thing they did for me was they said yes, more than they said no. Their parents said no to them a bunch, and didn't let them live the life they wanted to live, and they didn't have opportunities. So they said, we're going let our kids experience their desires, and that's what they did. I'm grateful for it because I think I became the artist I am because of this.
You're an Author, an Actor, a Podcaster, and a Public Speaker. When did you know that you wanted to be a public figure?
I knew I wanted to act very early. I saw John Leguizamo's one-man show for free, and it was one of the only times that I saw someone who looked like me, sounded like me, from Queens, and Columbian, like half of me on a stage on Broadway. I knew I wanted to act, whatever that meant. Then, when I discovered storytelling, like The Moth, live, true stories told for live performance. I fell in love with sharing one story, that and James Baldwin. Those essays of his really changed my life. I think the diversity of my resume grew from this level of storytelling. I was always trying to find my voice, whether I was doing poetry or in a play, or writing. Then I discovered that I'm facilitating stories, and you can do that with a poem or play that you write, with something you put in a gallery, with a movie or book you write. No matter what I'm doing, I'm facilitating stories, and I believe stories are the things that will heal us.
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Which one of those mediums do you feel is your favorite or your most comfortable when it comes to your storytelling?
Well, podcasting is the newest, so I'd say it's the least comfortable because I had to learn so much, but I love it. On stage, I'm most comfortable. I feel at home being on stage as an actor, and that's what I found most comfortable. A second to that is probably writing, like essay writing. And then third to that is film and TV.
You've been on several sets, from Grey's Anatomy to NCIS. What are the biggest lessons you've learned on-set that you can pass down to up-and-coming actors?
The biggest lesson I've learned on set is to make honest connections. Be interested in others. Don't be interested in your own career and what people can do for you. The thing you do most on a set is waiting and sitting around. It's not acting. It's a lot of waiting, so you want to hang out with people. Who you can hang with for ten to twelve hours between the acting part and be genuinely interested in them. Don't listen with the intent of what can this person do for me. Meet people, and honestly open your heart to them. And making connections like that is what is sustainable in that career.
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Let's get to the book and what inspired you to write Brown Enough.
So I identify as a brown man in the world, meaning I don't identify with whiteness. I don't feel like I have the same diasporic relationship with blackness. This space in between white and black is where I feel like I fall. That's the brown part. Another part is I saw Ta-Nehisi Coates, this incredible writer, speak at this event. He was speaking on black and white race politics in America and the world. And I raised my hand, and I said, as an Afro Latino, as a brown man, as a Dominican Columbian, where does that put me in the conversation, and he said, not in it. So I started to explore what it means to be in it or more or less what it means to not be in it. What do brown bodies have to do with their voices and their bodies to be in that space, take up space, be seen, be heard, be recognized? And then enoughness, I think we all want to be enough. We want to be enough to be loved, to be seen, to be worthy of the careers we want. We want all our projects to be enough. We want the attention of others, the love of others. That journey for enoughness combined with feeling like I wasn't brown enough, I didn't fit in white, I didn't fit in black. I didn't speak good enough Spanish to hang out with some Latinos. That is where brown enough is born, an exploration of brownness in America and what it means to be enough.
I don't want to give away too much of the book, but some of these chapter titles are interesting. "The Real James Bond Was Dominican," "Please Don't Hate Me For Dating White Women," and "Always Lie When Someone Asks You If You Meditate." Which one of these chapters do you think is going to be the most eye-opening for readers?
The most powerful chapter in the book is called the "Ameri-con Dream." That's about my experience with higher education and student loans. But it's also about America. The dream that America tells us about upward mobility that we invest in, is not made for bodies of culture to win. I think I'm most proud of that chapter. I love that meditation chapter so much because meditation is a big part of my life. And that's a funny one, funny and poignant. The chapter people have found the most powerful is "Alchemy of Brownness." That is the chapter that, if you were reading only one chapter in the book, that would be the one. That question you asked, what is brown enough? Where is it born? I think it's all in “Alchemy of Brownness.”
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On this life journey, have you gotten to the space where you feel brown enough?
That's a beautiful question. I feel like I'm far from where I was at a point in my life. I think there were days of not feeling enough, but not in brownness. I think that's the essence of an artist. That's the curse of an artist. When you stop, is it enough? Do you ever stop? Can you stop? What does it mean to know you made enough as an artist? As a brown person, that drew me to storytelling and personal storytelling, admitting what I know, what I didn't know, and what I was still learning and uncovering. In that process, I get a lot closer to myself. Take your two hands, one hand is who you want to be, and one hand is who you are. There's a space between them. And every time I speak my truth into existence, I share my story, that space is closer together, and now my hands are touching. So I feel like I have come a very long way.
If any young brown people are reading this interview, do you have any words of advice for them as they go on their journey to feel brown enough?
To all the young brown kids who don't feel seen, I see you, I hear you. You take up space. You are enough as you are. You don't need to fit in something. You matter as you are. Be different, be better. But, you as you are is enough right now.
Photographer: Ammar Thomas @iam.ammarjamal
Styling & Editor: Nigel Isaiah @nigel_isaiah
Special Thanks: Narrative PR