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 qvTriumphs |
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Asi es La
Vida
Emanuel was born to an Ecuadorian mother and a Puerto Rican father, whom he has never met. Growing up without a dad or male role model around really affected Emanuel. "I really felt like the only male in my mother's life because there was no man between us-no father," Emanuel reflects. "I hated the fact that my father left my mother. When my stepfather came into the picture, it was really hard to accept him. My mom wanted me to call him 'papi,'-not by his first name. I remember it being really hard for me to get the word 'papi' out of my mouth." Not having a father, coupled with being sexually abused at the age of 3 by an older cousin, really got Emanuel off on a difficult path. As he grew up and realized his QV sexual orientation, a whole new set of fears set in. "I was raised to believe that every man was either Christ-Like or Anti-Christ," he says. "My mother named me Emanuel which means 'God is with us.' My last name, Xavier, means 'God is light,' so you can see what expectations she had of her only child. My mother's strict, overprotective nature, however well intentioned, made it difficult for me to even tell her that I had been sexually molested as a child." But at the age of 16, Emanuel was outed to his mother by an abusive boyfriend. Emanuel recalls, "I just fell apart and admitted everything to my mother in hopes of some sort of sympathy from her. Instead, she was angry and violent. It wasn't long before my clothes were out on the street, and the locks were changed." Once out on the streets and all alone, Emanuel began to change for the worse. "Something inside of me had died," he says. "I learned to survive by developing a thick skin and searching for love in all the wrong places. My innocence quickly slipped away. It was one of the hardest times I've faced in my life, and it's something I really haven't gotten over with-to this day." In order to survive living out by the piers,
Emanuel turned to hustling and drug-selling: "When you're
out on the streets of New York at 16 with nowhere else to go,
you'll do anything for a place to sleep." It didn't take long for Emanuel to notice
something very frightening happening on the streets: "People
around me were dropping dead like flies-including one of my ex-boyfriends.
I seriously thought I was HIV positive for a very long time,
but I wasn't. It's a miracle I walked away unscathed." When Emanuel finally returned to New York, he felt very focused. He used his new-found focus to explore the underground poetry circuit. "I became very goal-oriented. I took a class with Regie Cabico, a Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam Champion, and took full advantage of it. I wanted to learn everything about performance poetry and to make a career out of it. My intensive performance training was one of the happiest times of my life. I really felt loved. I started going up to open mics, reading some very revealing stuff, and Stephanie would be there in the audience crying. I was always thinking in my mind that I could absolve myself from the past if I shared my experiences with others, who could learn from my mistakes-not that I have any regrets because everything in life happens for a reason." Years later, and now with his struggling past behind him, Emanuel looks forward to a bright future with many opportunities. He has signed a deal with Painted Leaf Press, which will publish his debut novel, "Christ-Like," in the fall 1999. Emanuel says the novel tells the story of a West Side Highway hustler/drug dealer who survives the streets of New York by joining a gang-a gang of godless QVs who terrorize the underground club scene and ball circuit. An excerpt from "Christ-Like" is featured in the book, "Men on Men 7," which was just nominated for a Lambda Literary Award. Another excerpt from the novel will appear in "Bésame Mucho"-one of two Latino anthologies coming out this year. Once "Christ-Like" is out, Emanuel plans on touring the country to promote it in his own special way. "I'd like to do something unconventional like a one-man-show combining my performance poetry with prose," he says. Emanuel believes reciting his poetry and excerpts from his novel will be a great opportunity to bring his words to life on a deeper level. And as if writing weren't enough, Emanuel has also been busy acting. He has nearly completed an independent film called, "A Life In A Day." The film is being directed by Henry B. Roas and features an all-Latin cast. Emanuel says, "I play a very straight Washington Heights drug dealer named Nixon. Needless to say, the only stretch was playing a straight character." Now at 28 years of age, Emanuel feels he
can look back and share his experiences as a way for others to
learn and be inspired from. "It feels great to be able to
go back to the piers or the clubs and know that I don't have
to sell myself or sell drugs, anymore. I've managed to crawl
out of the gutter, so to speak, but it took a very long time
before I could pull away completely. It didn't happen overnight.
I never expected to be doing all of the things that I'm doing
today, and it took believing in myself to make any of it possible.
But that's the key, in spite of all the obstacles and hardships
you may have to face, the only way out of any situation is believing
in yourself and the rest will come. Asi es la vida." -by qvStaff Roldán Be sure to get the full
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Two
years ago, QV Nuyorican Emanuel Xavier self-published a collection
of his fierce poems titled, "Pier Queen." Publishing
this book marked the culmination of Emanuel's recovery from a
life that had included drug dealing and hustling.