Ep. 101 – Can Authenticity Help Us Create a More Loving and Inclusive World?

TRANSCRIPT

Gissele: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the Love and Compassion Podcast with Gissele. We believe that love and compassion have the power to heal our lives and our world. Don’t forget to like and subscribe for more amazing content. And if you’d like to support the podcast, you can go to buymeacoffee.com/loveandcompassion. Today, we’re talking about authenticity, and

Gissele: We’re talking to Alexander Kopelman, who’s a writer, social entrepreneur, advocate, and coach who has been devoted 40 years to advancing social justice and personal empowerment. As the founding president and CEO of Children’s Arts Guild, Kopelman helped create and grow a nonprofit organization that supports children in exploring and developing their authentic selves. Kopelman has authored and co-authored 10 books, including For Real!, helping children remain their authentic selves in a limiting world. He lives in New York City with his wife, daughter, and very small dog. Please join me in welcoming Alex. Hi, Alex.

Alex: Hi, thanks very much for having me on.[00:01:00]

Gissele: Oh, thank you so much for being on the show because this is such an important topic in terms of authenticity and how we can cultivate that in children. I was wondering if you could get started by telling the audience a little bit about how you got into this work.

Alex: sure. It’s really, very much a life’s work and, very personal to me. I, grew up in the Soviet Union when there was still such a thing until I was 13 years old, and came to the United States as a refugee, not knowing any English. Um, and the process of, creating an identity as a teenager in a new language really gave me, I guess a glimpse into, how choiceful identity is and, the kinds of decisions we make as we, think about who we are, share who we are with other people, and, find our way in the world, and in the story that we tell ourselves about our own life [00:02:00] and, the people around us.

Gissele: Yeah. Uh, you know, your story resonated so deeply with me because I had a very similar immigration experience. So my sister and I and our family came to Canada from Peru, and I came when I was 10. And I saw the journeys that my sister and I both took. So for me, I completely erased everything that was different ’cause it wasn’t popular to be Hispanic when I immigrated to Canada.

Gissele: You know, now it’s, like, cool and… But when I immigrated, it was like, it was weird, or it was different. And I wanted so desperately to belong, I completely erased my culture. And my sister sort of took the other path, which was she actually held onto it so tightly, and I found that she had experienced bullying because it was different.

Gissele: and so I so resonated with your story because it reminded me of my experience. And we do so much to wanna belong, right? It’s so ingrained in us to wanna belong, but to our own detriment. And it took me a long time for me to come back to that culture to [00:03:00] embrace those aspects of myself. were you able to keep aspects of your culture, or did you find that you completely, you know, 180 like I

Alex: I had a similar,experience to yours. You know, people ask me, “Oh, do you still speak Russian?” And I do, but, you know, I have to, uh, preface it with that I speak Russian the way a 13-year-old speaks Russian. And, I made a choice.to me it was very much about either I could become fluent in English, which also equated in my mind to being, indistinguishable, that I would, I would not be standing out, which was very important.

Alex: or I could hold onto some Russian and some Russian culture, and I went full on to being, uh, as fluent as I could be, as