Colin Hosten and Erica Hartwell

00:04 My name is Erica Hartwell and I'm 37 years old. Today is Wednesday, August 25th, 2021. I'm here in Norwalk, Connecticut with Colin Hosten, who I know from our work on the board of directors at triangle Community Center, which is an lgbtq Resource Center in Southwest, Connecticut.

00:23 Hi, Eric, my name is Colin Hosten. I am 39 years. Old. Today is Wednesday, August 25th, 2021. We're here in Norwalk, Connecticut. And I am chatting with my friend and a colleague Erica Hartwell whom I know from our work together in the Triangle Community Center. 260 always, so we work together at triangle Community Center and also at Fairfield University and those are not the only two things that you're involved in. So I was hoping you would tell me a little bit about the different kinds of work that you're involved in the different roles you have in the community.

01:05 Absolutely, so, you know a few years ago in which I take myself here almost 10 years ago. I left my full-time position in a children's book, publisher to Pivot, to be to work more on my own writing and

01:25 To support that, I decided to explore teaching, which allows me to earn money while I start teaching at Fairfield University and found myself.

01:45 Getting more and more involved with my flexible time. And so, some of the things I've been able to do our get involved with. I've also been very involved in local politics here in Norwalk where I'm trying to the chair of our Board of Education. I initially ran for State office here. In Connecticut, did not win, but I have turn on our city council here in Norwalk.

02:19 Is there more. Thank you, might also be so far in a few different areas. Yes. Yes. Sometimes I think the lucky thing for me is that I've been able to control some complement each other involved with

03:19 Community are allies foundation and I think all of that helps inform my work as a teacher and a writer, you know, I had a really

03:39 I random, but I think really great compliment that actually a Board of Education meeting just last night where somebody said to me, you're such a good posture and she said, no, you really good at causing allow people to think and respond. And, you know, I can get all I do in the classroom and outside the classroom as well.

04:08 And what do you teach? I teach writing for a strip of University are in Fairfield Connecticut hours of intro to rhetoric class, which is allowing students to think about and is part of the creative writing program. I teach a class on publishing industry work on your own writing. You want to put in a lot of different things into that time. Opened up how has your own writing, Like what kind of projects have you worked on it for the most part? Pretty cool. But also sometimes a little frustrating sugar to work on is creative nonfiction, which is like my graduate degree, is it?

05:08 States personal storytelling finding narrative from life. I love it. It's it's, it's just a way for me to understand myself better to think about how I can share stories to help readers understand their own lives better, and then just make those kind of connections, which is what I think literature allows. It's been going. Okay, I sent some stuff out. The publication of gotten some acceptance has been in flux for a long time. It's been forced to respond to a very changing media landscape particularly in academic Eero where people's addresses with books and reading his

06:07 During these last.

06:11 16 or 17 months. I have found myself going back to books that I read six or seven times before because I'm just don't have space for new material. And my brain has been expanding its allowed me, which is part of the intent. The original intent to engage with the writing life, more fully and

06:34 In a in a more focused way.

06:36 On a more fun level would have also been able to do is do a children's book writing and editing. That was what I was doing. I'm in New York and then I'm here in Westchester. And so as part of a larger Trend in publishing, there has been this and move to use a lot of freelance writers grade. Which House characters of properties owned by other entities, usually large corporation miles from Disney things to Marvel. Lick Nickelodeon. It's just, it's been really fun things I can do.

07:36 Important, your life is turned out quite different than you imagined.

07:46 I don't think I even had the wherewithal to imagine this life when I was growing up.

07:52 It's, you know, yet, I don't think I imagined find a place headspace for me. You know, I think about being able to serve in a local political office, openly as a proud black gay man, and just not thinking that was a possibility. When I was a teenager. I'm a crook a different time and place literally. I've spoiled and raised in Trinidad and Tobago the 80's and 90's.

08:38 And generally had a

08:42 Happy childhood, you know, I mean,

08:54 Really terrible secret. That's not at me from the inside and he's really kind of left me Barracks for a few years. In my, my teenage years. I gave, it gave me a sense of having.

09:10 Can I just tell me? No identity, but no path to living that identity and it was quite frustrating. And I think I was depressed for a long time. I turn around.

09:23 I think by mistake and, you know, I think about this the story every now and then, just because of how random it happened. How easily my life could take a nap, very, very different tack. What happened was that my parents sent me to a depressed teenagers to try to draw them out and try to help them find a way out. Whatever was eating them up, and so are my parents, it wasn't really a factor of my grades, slipping, precipitously. I'm going from you pretty much a straight? A student that mean, like, I would bring home the same honest and mean, I might be with my dad was saying, like, you know, what is your past?

10:23 I started coming out with season. They can have realized something was wrong and I was not in a position to be able to talk to them about it. Not necessarily through any fault of any person. Is the cultural thing. I did not even say the word gay. There's a general understanding. And I think that there was also a cultural understanding, but that was a white thing in America, that that was, there was no real the real place for that in Trinidad.

10:58 And so yeah, I didn't really read those this gulf between me, and my parents are between me and most people. I could have lived in a very isolated existence that many people can identify with. And so when they suggested, I go talk to this guy, whom I have nicknamed got to death and reasons of my own.

11:24 I said, I said sure why not. You know, I didn't quite envision myself going and opening up to him and having this turn around, but I knew that I just needed to do something that wasn't so for the first, I didn't know several sessions. It was really a game of cat-and-mouse between him and me, you know, where I just sat there. He's not there. He would be writing something isn't pad and looking over at me and you know, kind of

11:56 Free gently inviting me to talk with not forcing. And I just kind of just like overtime. He would use a question about school about my friends to kind of draw me out. He got the sense that I was very troubled. And, you know,

12:20 Try to chip away at that overtime.

12:23 So, I think if we were maybe you six passes in when I found myself.

12:31 Ready or needing to say something about why I was so depressed and I should just stay with such a I can stand the next to those words out loud to anyone.

12:45 And through our conversation, you know, he just said now he was getting a little bit more. Directive is questioning and let's talk about why this is Sunday. That's why it is that you don't feel comfortable hanging out with these people and so on. And so I finally, just shutting my eyes really, really, really tightly and very, very quietly saying, you know, I think,

13:17 I think I might be gay. I just kept my eyes.

13:21 What does it feel like to say that?

13:26 I felt like a movie where where?

13:35 There are characters. At I wore in a battlefield. It's a b throws. A grenade. I felt like I was waiting for it to explode felt like, you know, we're in the movies. What happens if the sound of silence for a few seconds and I just was waiting for the world to open up and swallow. I had no idea how he would react. So I just sat there with my eyes, tightly shut.

14:03 And,

14:06 Wait for him to say something. And then there was silence and I kind of Pete when I open, and he's there, looking at me with this, again. Just very genial smile, not like laughing at me smile on his face and he literally said, okay, is that at

14:23 And now I'm like wait when I start to feel like, you know, I just told somebody that you know, and I like now I'm like crying and like this ugly cry.

14:58 And he's like, listened, not a big deal. And for me.

15:05 That was like, you know, I still think about that moment of it and how important to me as I think it then 15 15 and a half year old to hear somebody say that it was. Okay. Yeah, I think that

15:33 I did not.

15:35 Hate myself.

15:38 I think I can say that it's been a tough when you're going through this very, very Tangled emotions. I thought the world hated me. And so I think that specifically as a teenager, but I think in ways that almost every human being X-rays at some point and needed some validation. What I knew was that there was not really a way to to live openly at 1. At least. I have not experienced and not seen or heard of anyone living openly gay person.

16:16 So, for him to shrug it off when I do them was.

16:32 Young people like you everyday. I talk to young people like you going through this every day, and I just I was just

16:40 You know, that they had had an emoji.

16:47 And the reason I remember this, so distinct that I think I, it's almost verbatim. You know, I've written about this too, is part of my creative nonfiction. Is that what happened? Next is, what changed everything for the big literally everything I say, what I tell my clients, which is that

17:12 You'll have to be this way.

17:16 I can help you. I can hear you.

17:21 And yeah, I've heard you tell this story many times and I still feel like I still Catch My Breath, but every time you get to that part, just imagining being the fourteen-year-old are Super Bowl normal place and having this at this point, trusted adult.

17:40 I tell you that he can fix you.

17:44 I still catch my own breath. When I tell this story because the truth is

17:50 What? I now come to understand is called Gay. Conversion therapy is a real thing.

17:56 And it is foisted upon very vulnerable people who are often but not always what you are going through this this thing where they think they need to be somebody different and they

18:10 Go through.

18:12 What I consider torture to try and do that. And so I catch my breath because I just think of how different my life could have been. If I heard him say that and said, yeah, please fix me.

18:28 I shutter. I literally shudder to think of what I could have gone down and

18:38 I could not tell you, I I've told this story, many, many, many times. I could not tell you what it is. That made me know at that moment as a teenager that I I actually was not sick, but I knew that I knew that, like I said, I don't like I hated myself. I think about the mid-nineties and you know, I was you know, so I can pick up the phone but I think I was aware enough that this was a thing. I was not an aberration of nature.

19:17 So, I just remembered thinking to myself when he said that.

19:26 Wow.

19:29 This was a guy with like framed degrees on his wall, in a very nice office. Very difficult when I start the car. It looks like a nice car.

19:52 And he's an idiot.

19:55 Unfortunately, I think that's why I actually thought I was kind of a teenager can be so successful.

20:10 I who am pretty smart.

20:15 Can also be successful. Can also live a life that will be fulfilling and will allow me to do things and and use my faculties in the way. That was that was a rewarding and that I knew that all I had to do was get my shit together, get back.

20:38 On top of my academic life, find a way to leave Trinidad.

20:45 And that was, that was literally. And I, I say this story, and it's not meant to indict this entire nation Island. They're very nice people there and it changed.

20:57 Immensely the twenty years. I've left at a time. The only way at the only path for myself, was out of it. So, it worked in at Berkeley. I think I worked up there. I never went back, but I left there saying, okay, whatever, whatever I'm going through it and with my little, you know, depressed mindset, I got to press pause and get back. I'm like, literally, you know, thankfully, I was able to do that. I was able to just get back on track after chemically, which meant my parents were happy with her back off my back, which meant that my mom is

21:44 When the time came, I was able to put together a strong Up application for college.

21:50 I guess scholarship, which I used to go to Morehouse College in Atlanta.

21:56 And I'm in really never look back, you know.

22:01 And that's amazing. It's it it sounds like you said, you didn't have a path, right? When you're this gay teen in Trinidad. You're like, what is the password for me? What does my future look? Like? You couldn't even imagine that for and in some Twisted way, right? This psychologist in that moment.

22:20 She gave you a path. Are you if you found your path, right? In the face of his?

22:27 Apologizing of you like and who you were perhaps. I kind of knew it deep down because again, they were no Real Models at the time. I exchange my birth time for me to think that I can leave the game management.

22:44 What is a happy life of the people who I knew were?

22:51 Notah Begay, I'd not that they were compact, come out, but they were more offended. And so when I went to go, boys, they were tortured. They were teased, they were bullied. And so I knew that

23:05 To live is like I'm have to leave. I think that's that. I don't think that was false the time. I don't think I could have done it. But thinking about when I was 13 14 going through, some really know. I had a crush on this boy and I was thinking about my peers in class who were, you know, asking girls out and then talking about dating and having relationships. So there's literally

23:41 Think of a way to get like four more like a sustainable relationship. Get married. Like I'm a look at who I am now. My husband and I will be married for 10 years. This December realized marriage. Equality was, Massachusetts.

24:14 Play. I mean,

24:17 Yeah, I did not see that to myself.

24:21 Such an amazing like Turning Point. Like you said, it could have very easily gone another way. And I mean we know people are really harmed by it and in the face of that you were like, oh no, no. No, I'm not sick. And now I know what I need to do to take care of myself and at least start to create a life for yourself, and if you can't imagine what I was trying to go somewhere else.

24:59 Gun, that, that road, Joe and I might message you and I had neighbors. Who met

25:09 While they were both going through two men conversion therapy.

25:16 And,

25:18 And it was their older, there's a different time but but hearing their stories of how so much of their life Decades of their life was kind of lost episode.

25:32 Happy that we found each other lyrics. Yeah. Yeah, I mean

25:48 Like I said, it was a formal experience.

25:54 I am able to identify so many of my current personality traits.

25:58 You know, in that moment where, you know, as the great philosopher RuPaul says, you know, if they aren't paying your bills, pay them no mind my language by like I just really don't create a lot of space for people to belittle me, especially based on amitabul. Trace like razor sexuality, but I just don't have a lot of patience and I've actually Mellows Woodbrook.

26:35 None of it, you know, suffer. None of it. If somebody said something.

26:40 Moderately homophobic and let them know subsequently. I did go through some ups and downs with my own mom. With regard to my sexuality. They're very trying time. But you know, it's supposed to say that my mom for a long time. Perhaps to the state wishes. I'm straight. I'm approximately 3 years where we literally did not talk to each other.

27:27 Devastated for me.

27:30 And I got to a point where I had to.

27:34 Work on being a person who would not let anybody be able to hurt him in that way. So that's something. Yeah, so

27:56 Rejection really right by this therapist by your mother already created a strength than a resilience and sort of a Defiance in you which is like an amazing strength and I see it in you and also I imagine it probably created a sense of of Gardens and kind of always keeping some Part of Yourself protected and hidden. So that people who you trust and care about can't touch it and it has affected some of my relationships. I disable to identify and try to work with how I can let him and others were close to me a little bit more in. Because I realize that, I just did not even the people, I love most dearly and, you know, it

28:50 Take us to the core. When a mother, who you think.

28:54 That's it. That's the one job is to love you. The way that I think I need to continue to work on the positive.

29:14 I think of another close call that Joe. And I went through before marriage equality, became a national thing. When we were literally preparing to prepare to be kicked out of the country, 2012 and 2013. I had been on a series of visas. I was a student for many years and then I was on a work visa and if it if people are familiar with this house and you have an end date, it's not forever. And so even though Joe and I were married legally in the state of Connecticut, the federal government still had a lot of which they call the chances that prevented the federal government from recognizing our marriage and federal government is the entity that oversees immigration.

30:14 Since I was not able to petition for permanent residency in my behalf, but it was taking its own time. And so literally when the Supreme Court struck down Doma as unconstitutional in 2013, it was a time when I had less than 60 days left on my Visa. We were working with our lawyer made us lie privilege to be able to

30:51 You know, confidence that we would be able to to write it out, but we were prepared for, you know, a lot of worst-case scenarios that had extensive operations in the UK immigration, experts ourselves. Until we we knew that that was a country that we could both live in on on our passports for, at least, 6 months now, that was the one. I think we're going to be read like literally had those conversations with her and then no answer for Anthony, Kennedy relationship.

31:50 The Braves closer together in some ways because we had each other, we were like each other support 5 weddings in 6 weeks and I was a little resentful. I was jealous of planning for, you know, housing in your decorating and children and whatever, whatever they live future was, they can plan for it, where it's due and I were thinking about should we even repair this washing machine?

32:31 Yeah, I mean that's just a really pretty precarious vulnerable. Scary situation. Just stay there and not really knowing where you're going to be like, literally, you know, I was thinking of other ways to extend my Visa. I was not easy. But yeah, so what is your immigration status? Now? I am proud to say that. I was able to petition for a green card, which was granted in 2014. And then eventually I gained in 2017.

33:21 I literally that was kind of my motivation for running for local. I was at least voted in very homophobic ways during his tenure and it's been, it's been really fun to be able to exercise to my phone, franchises American. He has that more natural.

33:58 Appreciate it. Yeah.

34:02 Yeah, I know something that you obviously had to work really hard for a man that does the citizenship process, the immigration process, but you know.

34:21 It's not a matter of being better at the process or not. It's just being able to have the resources to.

34:30 Last year, and it just takes many many years and cost a lot of money. And the reason that many immigrants can't have the resources, we had the time and and, and and I didn't have to work for a while. I couldn't really but I don't know for sure that it is for most people. So how does your history or background knowledge and things you got there? How does that prove inform the different roles that you have now, especially this role on the board of education. I think it's giving me the energy like you said. I mean there are certainly feels like too many but more there. More days where I am actually just grateful for the opportunity to

35:29 Make even a small difference in an hour. Working at ECC allows us to see the great need for the for these resources even here in Southwest Connecticut for people. I just am grateful for the opportunity. And so when I feel my energy flagging, like, I think back to what it took to get here and I can make it one day further.

36:08 I want to ask you one more question, Jill has come into this conversation many times. And I would like to hear about how how you met your what's your A Little Bit of Your Love Story there?

36:24 El Tequila brief, but when I move to Connecticut from Brooklyn and 28th in 2008, and I've been single for about 23 years and I signed up for online dating, which is when you meet people, there might be some connection. Sometimes, the chemistry doesn't translate them in person. And you're like, wow, this person is insane. So there's a lot of pain yourself a lot of First Dates, not me S.

37:17 I'm a drink a lot of coffee. And this is like reading profiles on a website. Legendary also, add 2627 finding himself, wanting something deeper longer-lasting.

37:40 Systematic Elena does Howard little literally decided to take a week off from work. You signed up for all the websites.

37:51 Make connections online. We express exchange messages on a Tuesday and made plans to meet that Thursday for coffee.

38:02 And that's kind of.

38:04 And the rest is history off of work. Like this is when I'm going to get all my dating it. I'm going to get my husband. Yeah, really? This is a true story. So, how did you know or when did you know that? Like, he was the one I can very early on and how do you know? I mean, so funny and unwavering Lee supportive during some tough times for me and I hope I've been able to do the same for him.

38:47 And you know, it takes work. It's not a cakewalk. But, you know, we've been together for 13 years and a stem.

39:01 We're still in our good place.

39:06 Is there anything else you wanted to share that? I didn't ask you about?

39:13 You know, I kind of I just wanted to maybe and on that same of gratitude intentional gratitude, and I I think it's it's really helped me through some trying times of taking stock of again how far I've come how lucky I've been and using that energy to take me through, whatever comes next. Now. I'm good for it for you today. I mean like you've been a really great presence in my own life, even though I want of a colleague and friend. And I want to thank you for your, your engagement. Thank you. Thank you for asking you to do this. I love having conversations with you.