Omar's Hate Crime; Never Give Up!

A couple of years ago I was standing in Speech class about to give a speech about awareness on Hate Crime. My attention getter was the words that were engraved in my memories from one of the four men that had attacked me 6 years ago for being a homosexual. His words were, "Where is your girlfriend, oh wait you don't have one cause your a wet-back fagot that is infesting our world!" followed by a punch to my face with his friends joining in... They did not even know my name. As I stood there in front of 30 students and about to say those words...I choked, I began to feel the memory resurface. In that instant I realized I had buried it and never really talk about it with anyone. I had buried it so deep, that it was like if it never happened... I had to take a minute and was able to finish the speech, but the whole time I could hear my heart and I was barely in control, but I made it through the speech. I then realized that I needed to talk about it, I needed to deal with it because I never had closure with that night. A year after the speech I decided to do a dance solo to help me have some closure, to help me express it through my passion for art, and to do it to expose myself and share with others my experience. The solo was another hard step because not only did I perform it at Idaho State University it was selected to be performed at the American College Dance Festival in March of 2010. It became harder to expose the solo in front 450 students from the Northwest region and their faculty that I had created for myself. I did not take in mind the idea of performing it to so many strangers, when I was still sort of dealing with it. At that point I felt I needed to do the solo to deal with it, and to share it with others who might need it. It was my challenge.

But maybe first I should talk about that day. I feel that now is the right time to share this with others.

At the time I was living in Houston, TX and worked three jobs. On a Friday evening I had been invited to a small party at the Marriott that was located in the prestigious area know as the Medical Center. We showed up to the hotel and went up to the 24th floor. When we entered the suite I noticed it was mostly men with and only a few women. I did not get a good feeling in me at all, so I went up to the friends I had shown up with and told them I wasn't really feeling the party. They wanted to stay and mingle for a while, so I decided to step out of the suite and went downstairs to wait in the lobby. After about 45 minutes I decided I was going to just tell them I was leaving, and found no need for me to stay. When I got to the 24th floor the elevator doors opened and in front of me stood four very drunk Hispanic males. They began to question me if I had a girlfriend and if so, where was she. Before I could answer they began to call me fagot, wet back, queer, and so on followed by a punch to my face from one of the guys. I began to fight back out of the elevator and for my life, I punched back, and shoved and ran around the 24th floor knocking on doors and calling out for help, while fighting the four guys off me. I finally noticed that one of the guys began to feel bad and question what his friends were doing. He did not say anything but his face got pale when he saw how much damage his friends were doing. This guy managed to prop one of the fire escape doors open and just told me to run. I ran non-stop 24 flights of stairs till I got to the lobby. Once I got to the lobby I ran to the help desk to seek help, only to find that the elder man in charge wasn't really trying to assist me or call the cops for me. I then decided to run out to the parking garage to get my car and go to the cops. As I was stepping out to the garage the four men were running to their car and peeled out of the parking garage. A few seconds later security from the hotel across ran over to see what was going on. Finally, the security people from across the street were nice enough to assist me and call the cops for me. That night I sat and filled out a police report saying that I was a victim of Hate Crime. That evening I drove home with a busted lip, a black eye, my face swollen, and a few bruises on my torso, but I had survived. Emotionally, I was not O.K. As I drove home, I shook like never before, as if a lot of me had been ripped out of me. The next morning I had to be at work. I decided to get their early enough so no one would see me except for management. I brought in my police report and asked for some time off to heal. After that I could not leave my house for almost two weeks. I was angry at the world, I was scared to go anywhere, and I did not trust anyone.

Anyways, after that I went back to work, but I was not social for a very long time, and I began to find ways of coping with it on my own. I had no family support at the time because my family did not accept me being an open gay Hispanic male, so it was me who had to pick me up and put me back together. I never heard back from the police on my case either. I also found out three years later too late that I could have sued the Marriott for their lack of assistance. I feel lucky now that I am here in 2010 typing about my horrible experience, and hope that others will stand up for what they believe, and do not let others bully you. And if I can survive such experience, just think life is not over, so don't let anything or anyone bring you down to the level of taking your life. Now there is so much support, that wasn't available back when I was a victim of a hate crime, so please seek help because there are many people that are standing up and fighting against bullying and hate crimes! Fight for your rights and fight for your right to live!