If you attended, you’ll see some words and thoughts you will recognize and a new thought or two. 

Unleashing the Power of Your Voice by Breaking Your Own Rules

When I launched Bilingual in the Boonies in 2006, just a few months after leaving my job as a reporter, I emailed a link to my former editor with the subject line:

“Look Ma, No Hands!”

Blogging was liberating and exciting.

A little scary, too.

I spent nearly 20 years in newsrooms and during that time at least three sets of eyes looked at my copy before it was published.

Suddenly, it was just me, the dashboard and the publish button.

There also had been a lot of rules to follow: correct grammar, the AP Stylebook, even specific newsroom rules of style — everything from the abbreviation of states to how many words should, or could, be in my first graph. (And sometimes, a few rules depended on whom was your editor that day…)

Suddenly, in blogging, I was not bound by my newspaper’s or editor’s rules.

Know the Rules: They Give Confidence

But, I kept to many of the good rules I learned from talented and passionate reporters and editors. I believe in rules. Understanding the basics and norms of whatever you are doing gives you a firm foundation and confidence. A grip on the basics often will point toward a better way of doing things — and in your own style.

Being comfortable as a writer gave me the confidence to try a wholly different medium for writing, one that was somewhat bold and non-reporter-like in 2006.

Back then, journalists didn’t really blog. Plus, as a reporter, not a columnist, I am trained not to express an opinion – and that is pretty much the opposite of blogging.

I had to get over that and by 2009, I especially had to.

Here’s an example of the Disruptive Voice we’re talking about in this Latism session. (#latismvoice)

Personal (and Social Media) Disruption

Nashville voters were facing an English-Only Resolution that would ban city government from working in any language other than English. That meant translations for immigrants and refugees would have been a no-no.

I did a few posts blasting the resolution and a way-too long 4-minute video in the accent and character of a Cuban, Carmen Miranda Remolino, to trash the councilman. The video is painful now to watch. I want to scream “cut! edit! cut! edit!”

Well, the thing was defeated. Amen. But, that was the first time I used my big mouth and my personal blog for a cause became a broadening of what I wrote about.

It also was my intro to vlogging, something I now love and something I learned to do only after I broke two of my own rules:

1. Don’t express your opinion.
2. Cover your face from any video camera.

Know this:

The Rules You Have to Break Most Often are the Ones You Make Up for Yourself

If I had kept to the belief that I was always and forever a writer, a person who avoided the camera, I never would have taken up doing video.

But the truth is that as my blogging style emerged, and when the Tiki Tiki Blog was born to tell the cuentos of what it is like to live Latin in the USA, I had to confront the fact that some stories have to be told on video. (Despite how long Carmen Miranda Remolino went on, I got great feedback from readers and friends.)

So, for the Tiki Tiki, how could I capture the accents, the gestures, the facial expressions with just words? I can’t. So, I got a Flip cam, breathed deeply and went for it. It was scary and unknown, but a necessary way to tell the stories I want to tell.

It is an irony for me that this year the Tiki Tiki and I have been recognized for our videos — not our writing. So, the attention has come for something that I did not know a lot about two years ago, something that forced me to break rules I had established for myself.

The videos bring traffic. I optimize them just as I do blog posts. The videos also bring comments, and they have helped create the community that — blessedly — hangs out with us at the Tiki Tiki’s social media channels. In addition, videos and the Tiki Tiki help win me freelance work, so that’s not bad.

And so, back to the good rules: This new love of video means I have had to study things such technique, editing, software. It means I have watched a whole lot of vlogs, videos and business videos and heck, even commercials, which are great for teaching you to get a point across in 30 seconds. Knowledge is possibility.

And all the good stuff that doing video has brought has happened because I had the confidence to open my mouth, broke my own self-imposed rules and took a chance. When you break down your own barriers, new stuff appears for you. New paths and passions.

Breaking past fear and rules means the authentic appears, and that’s the voice, the person, whom your readers and viewers really want to know.

What Rules Do You Need to Break to Unleash Your Voice?

• What self-imposed rules are keeping you from telling it like it is?
• What rules are keeping you from expressing yourself with a more authentic voice, or in a different medium?
• What rules do you need to break in order to experiment and grow?

PS:

You don’t have to go off and Find Your Voice. You already know what it sounds like. Your Voice is the person who talks inside your head, the sound of your Spirit — the one who tells you to try new stuff, but whom your outside voice, your public persona, often quiets.

Let that Voice out, scary as it can be, and many right things will happen.

#Latism11 Links

If you want to search through the Web to find more of what was said at the panel, search #latismvoice or #latism11.

Here’s a cool list of Latism11 tips sent via Twitter curated by Frankie De Soto.

Have you watched CNN’s Latino in America?

What did you think?

I watched it, and along with some other big mouths on the bilingual webosphere, I feel it focused too narrowly on Latinos in dire straights. I would have called the two-part series “Some Latinos in America.”

For reaction, you can watch the comic Mike Robles in this blistering and funny video speaking out about the series.

“Fifty-one million Latinos in America and this is the best you can do?” he asks.

Julio Varela, a Boston-based writer and marketer, asked for success stories on his blog to counter the depressing stuff. He got a lot of them. Here is an open letter to Soledad O’Brien by Nydia Teter (imagine the mail Soledad is getting!) and you can follow the tweets by searching #latinoinamerica. Also, here are some thoughts by prominent Latinos in America.

To me, the series focused too heavily on those at the very top and those at the very bottom — Willy Chirino versus 15-year-old illegal immigrant facing deportation.

The millions of Latinos in the middle? Not made for prime time TV news, apparently.

Now, I may be one of the few Cuban-Americans who likes CNN (they call it the Castro News Network in Miami), and I met with one of the show’s producers this past winter when he was here during Nashville’s English-Only vote. He was a very, very nice man, so I hope he forgives me my opinion.

So, while the racial and ethnic divide going on in Shenandoah, Pa. got highlighted on CNN, the story of Nashvillians resoundingly coming together to beat back a regressive (yes, that is my opinion) policy, didn’t get a second of play. In voting against an English-only government, Nashville showed the country that division must not always overshadow a changing community. It would have been nice to show viewers that people of all creeds worked their butts off to make sure Nashville voted against the caca resolution aimed so clearly against newly-arrived Latinos. CNN had footage.

Now, I am not being dismissive of the hard issues CNN covered. I care about the effects of illegal immigration and I care about Latinos new to this country who are struggling. My money is where my mouth is on that. I volunteer my time with, and give my charitable dollars to, a local non-profit who works solely with the Latino community in Middle Tennessee.

But, when you say “Latino in America,” the reality is that we’re not all struggling, and we haven’t all overcome something gigantic. We don’t wear fruit on our heads. We’re just average people whose roots extend to another country, people who pay their mortgage, raise their kids in the suburbs of Middle America, maybe speak a little Spanglish, and for some fluke of genetics are really, really good at shaking our colita when salsa plays.

The tongue-wagging online and on Twitter was about that…too many average, acculturated Latinos who didn’t see themselves reflected in something titled “Latino in America.”

But damn, how do you even really begin to capture it?

Good luck to the next news crew who tries.

Last month, I wondered aloud where all the Latina bloggers are hiding and introduced a round-up that unveiled some awesomeness.

Those who believe they love America more because they were here first and because they only speak English have been all about Barack Obama’s comment last week that we should teach our children to speak another language, namely Spanish. (Some discussions on Technorati here.)

The blah and the plah of it makes me think about removing the Google Alert I have for “bilingual.” While I have found some wonderful sites and news because it of this little word alert, it is, more often that not, depressing — especially this election season when the division in our country is so pronounced.

Can’t we all just get along?

Por favor?

And hey, here are some links to non-illegals teaching their children second languages: Bringing Up Baby Bilingual, and My Bilingual Kid.

I made myself watch Cane again.

Que paquete.

I’m not even going to get into the fact the main character (Jimmy Smits) is a murderer, or that the balsero sounds like he has marbles in his mouth, or that ew, the main Cubanita marries her adopted brother. I just want to let the Cane writers know that this ain’t no Cuban family drama.

You want Cuban family drama? (Forgive me while I stereotype my people…) How’s this:

The under-age niña going off to the nightclub without a chaperona? Por favor. And then she does ecstasy and her uncle finds out, but doesn’t give her a shake right then, drag her over to her madre and send them both home? There would be yelling and arm-waving and threats of boarding school for days. For days!

Hector Elizondo’s patriarch character hands the reins over to his son and lets him make all the multimillion-dollar decisions. Really? While there is still breathe in him? Cuban fathers are made of opinions. Letting go isn’t really in the DNA. And if the character was based on a real Cuban, he also would have given that snotty younger son quite the verbal palisa.

And finally, I have yet to see Rita Moreno say an “Ay, Dios Mio’’or “Bendito” Listen, if it was my mother’s grandchild who was going off to fight in Iraq, she’d be santiguando the boy and lighting candles to all the saints. She also hasn’t nagged, martyred or slapped anyone upside the head. ¿Que pasa with that?

And seriously, where’s all the screaming? And the laughing. We are funny, you know.

So, Cane people, call me…I have alotta material for ju.