Family Chat: Feeling Like an Outsider with My Husband, Richard Roman Jr

In this episode, we have our first family chat! I speak with my husband, Richard Roman Jr, about his experience growing up as a Chinese, Korean and Puerto Rican person in Long Island, specifically, in a predominantly white community, which deeply impacted his experience. We learn about his time growing up going to Jewish schools, while not being Jewish, and Catholic school, while not being Catholic, until eventually ending up in public school and trying to fit in through participating in sports.

Summary

In a family chat on the podcast "On the Outside", Taylor Rae and her husband, Richard Roman Jr., share personal experiences of school bullying due to their minority backgrounds. Richard describes exclusion and harassment, based on his race and perceived sexuality. Despite these difficulties, Richard learned to protect himself, lessening the physical bullying, but the psychological fear and cultural biases persisted, causing him to hide his culture and identity. Over time, Richard started a journey to reclaim his identity and heritage.

Transcription

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Welcome back. It's Me Taylor Rae. And this is another episode of “On the Outside”. It is our first Family Chat. I am so excited to bring you in to these conversations with someone that I love growing up, sitting at the kitchen table and connecting with my mom and my dad and my sister over these talks made me feel so seen to this day. I call my mom so many times a week and just vent to her about what's going on with me.

We talk about different topics when I'm learning at school, what we're reading in the news, just things that are on our mind, things in our everyday life. And I'm thrilled to bring these conversations right to you guys while the Monday episodes are a little bit more journalistic, a little bit educational while also definitely being super vulnerable and heartfelt.

And hopefully you find them as funny as I do. These conversations are more raw, unedited, unfiltered and just between me and someone that I care about this week, I'm talking with my husband, Richard Roman Junior, something that Richard and I bonded early on in our relationship was the fact that both of us were bullied. I experienced being ostracized like I talked a little bit about in episode one, but Richard really was harassed verbally and physically by his classmates in

elementary middle high school. He had various different encounters that left him feeling unin included. I feel like I don't talk too much during our conversation because it was actually a little bit painful to hear these stories again. I've heard them before, but it's really hard to hear someone that you love talk about a time where they felt un-included. I always say that we wish we knew each other when we were kids.

That was actually something we said in our wedding vows and it holds true today. This conversation is just a little short snippet of some of the experiences Richard had growing up in Long Island and it's a really heartfelt conversation. It's your first introduction to him. And I think you're going to love him as much as I do. Let's get into our conversation.

I'm super excited that you're on the podcast today. Honey.

Richard Roman Jr.

Me too. I really am. My name is Richard Roman Junior. I am your husband, father of one puppy at home of our child, our child. Really. And yeah, I'm excited to be here. I know.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

I'm so happy.

Richard Roman Jr.

This is so fun. It's fun talking to the people not behind closed doors.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

So I wanted to talk a little bit about your outsider story because as both of us know very well. We both grew up in predominantly white communities. We've talked a lot about that. even in our wedding vows, you said that you wish we knew each other sooner so that we could have fought off each other's bullies.

and I think that's something that we've always talked about and honestly bonded over. So you've told me a lot of stories throughout your life of how you felt like you were on the outside, just hit me with one right now, just whichever one kind of comes to your mind.

Richard Roman Jr.

Yeah. You know, so to tell the people a bit about my history. I grew up as an only child with my mother and father and you know, I lived in a whole household with my family and including at the time, which was really special looking back again. Now it's, it was my grandma, it was my uncle, it was my aunt all in one home that, you know, my parents bought.

and I think, you know, ever since I was very little growing up, even then in pre K, I was sent by my parents to a Jewish pre K I went to and you're not Jewish, I'm not Jewish. And after that I went to a Catholic school from kindergarten till fifth grade and you are also not Catholic. Yeah, I'm not Catholic. I was never baptized. I do believe, have beliefs.

Right. and I think growing up in that school system, you know, I definitely align myself a lot with what I, you know, was taught. and then from sixth grade I went to public school and, you know, from pre K, I was on the outside. I was one of the only kids in the whole group that didn't belong and kids saw me as that, or my peers saw me as that and especially in Catholic school as well.

I was one of 20 something kids in the, in my grade and we were, you know, in the same class from kindergarten to fifth grade when I transferred out. And, it was really tough. I felt, you know, little stuff from not being invited. Well, I guess it's kind of big, not being invited to certain parties, being invited late to parties where I show up and everybody's already been there for a little while. And even even stuff like playing, I remember, playing, I think in gym time and in grade school, which is at the Catholic school and I remember we're in the basement playing gym and we were playing like, red light, green light or something like that. And there was a kid, he was throwing coins on the ground and bouncing them off the floor and the floors were like, you know, granite or some sort of stone.

So it was hard. And you know, it was kind of like a thrill for everybody because we're like all dodging it. And I remember you know, me being next to this kid, I was throwing it and me saying, hey, you should stop that. And I remember he threw that coin and it hit another kid in our class right above his eye. He started bleeding everywhere. And that kid that threw it, blamed it on me.

And then I remember the whole entire class blaming on me for days and weeks afterwards. And I remember even after that, I was even more excluded. And so anyway, that was just a little, you know, from Catholic school and high school, middle school. I think that was a pretty huge change for me. going from a rigid system where I had, you know, a I had to wear uniform. I had the same class to a public school where there were more than 20 kids, there were maybe over 100 kids. Like you said, a predominantly white community. And I think I was exposed to that my whole life, kindergarten pre K, it was all mostly white. And so, you know, I was kind of used to that but not at this level where I think there is, there was a higher level of privilege. Most of the families living in that community were of a middle to higher middle class to wealthy. And so there was a certain pressure going into it to fit in, especially going into sixth grade.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Middle school is the worst.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman, Richard Roman Jr.

Honestly, school is really tough and I think it's high school is tough, but middle school is really tough and with the, you know, social pressures, I think that's when really social, social pressure started to really kick in.

Richard Roman Jr.

People were doing sports and in the community I grew up in, in Garden City. there, I mean, kids were born with lacrosse sticks in their hands. they were playing sports to be collegiate athletes. Right. And so, me who, you know, didn't have exposure to lacrosse or football or all these other activities when I was younger. yeah, there was a certain pressure to, like, dive in and catch up on top of, you know, the social pressures and I remember, one really, bad, you know, kind of, well,

I guess rememberable, event for me was, as, you know, when I was, on the football team or trying out for a football team in middle school. you know, I was bullied pretty heavily. not only in sports, but in the classroom, I remember even in middle school, like kids coming up to me, smacking me in the butt, groping me calling me racial slurs. and, even the way I dress like, I never dressed in a public school where I could dress whatever I wanted to.

And so my, my mom helped me and I was wearing skinny jeans and pumas and a white t-shirt, which honestly is not far from how I dress now. So I guess I'm pretty happy that I stayed true to myself the entire time. But, yeah, kids, really were pretty mean to me and I remember gym time was, I feared gym because I'm changing into my clothes in the men's locker room or boys locker room.

Yeah, kids were taunting me. They were calling me racial slurs. They were saying really inappropriate things about, you know, how gay I was. and I think you could use your imagination what other things they could say. And I remember one day, you know, my mom actually, back up a little bit. So, one day, I told my mom, hey, things are going on in school.

They're not great, but I don't want you to worry about it. I'm going to take care of it. and I don't even know what I meant at that. Right. Like I just knew that it was building up to a point where I had so much anxiety every day where I had to do something about it to change my circumstances, whether that's speak up, whether that's tell the guidance counselor or whatever.

And I, I didn't really want to tell the guidance counselor because I didn't think they would understand. So, what naturally happened, my mom spoke to the guidance counselor and that next day the guidance counselor called me in and my mom was there and I feel like I didn't even know about that. Yeah, that happens. And, you know, of course, I didn't, I acted like nothing happened as if, you know, no, everything's going great.

Everything's perfect. Right. And a fast forward. few days after that we had Jim, I went down to the locker room and within my row and where my locker was, there was a bunch of kids surrounding that area. I remember this kid, let's call him. Alex. Alex had braces and he was right in front of my locker room and everybody locker and everybody was surrounding us and, you know, I got so pissed because I si looked at my locker and there was just the my lock to my locker was just covered in spit.

There was even like gummy worms that like were, you know, chewed up and like pushed on my locker. And honestly, they might have done even more inappropriate stuff that I didn't know about it. but I got pissed and I said who I think did this right? Like you can curse on the pocket. Yeah. Ok. So I said who fucking did this or something along the lines of that?

And this kid Alice goes I did. What are you going to do about it? And what these kids didn't know. Right was one I am confrontational, right? But yeah, I, I, you know if you're gonna fuck with me like, you know, you know what I'm saying? So that's one they didn't know that I used to do martial arts like I used to but you didn't just do martial arts.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

You were a double black belt.

Richard Roman Jr.

I was, I ended my martial arts career taekwondo specifically as a black belt, I was number one nationally for my age group to these hands. You better watch out. Ok. Yes, so something you know just happened here snapped in me. I felt this rush and I punched this kid right in the face.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

We don't condone the anger but on the pod but we are, we're OK with this.

Richard Roman Jr.

I mean, it's not something I'm like, you know, showcasing to everybody, but this did happen to me like it brought me to that point where I felt like I had to defend myself from this happening anymore and punch the skin in the face. Long story short, it ended, he didn't even try to like punch me back.

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Was that, did they stop harassing you?

Richard Roman Jr.

They did, they did, they did stop harassing me. But I will have to say racism, the internal biases did not stop. And if anything, it really was the beginning of me losing my identity for me making fun of myself to fit in because even after, even after me defending myself in front of this kid, sure, maybe I wasn't harassed about being gay and all these certain things now, but I still felt like I had to fit in and in order to like cut through that barrier of like, oh, well, Richard fought

this kid and you know, beat him, right. We still don't like him. So I, I naturally for me to fit in, I found myself making fun of myself and putting myself down and my culture down in order to gain acceptance to everybody else. And that's something that I really had to work on really, really hard.

And I mean, as you know, when we first started dating, I was still on that journey. I'm more myself today than I've ever been before, but I still feel like I have progress to go to really to grow. Yeah, room to grow and really discover myself in, in my culture. Right?

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Yeah.

...

Taylor Rae Almonte-Roman

Yeah. It was a tough conversation to hear back, but Richard will be back later this season. A few more times. We have some great conversations. He is honestly the light of my life. And I also say that about my mom who will be on the podcast next week. You're going to hear her on Wednesday and she actually has three episodes in a row. My mom is truly someone that I look up to so much. She just has so much love and compassion and understanding.

Growing up, me and my sister used to call her a motivational speaker because she would just break out into one of her lectures that was just all about uplifting you. And I'm so, so lucky to have grown up with her by my side to be my best friend, my advocate, my teacher, and I cannot wait to bring this conversation to you guys. I'll see you out there.