Freddy Rodriguez
Excerpt from response to the presentation of BUILD, Inc.'s
BUILDer Achievement Award
"BUILDing Our Future" Dinner
May 1, 2003
When I was about 13 or 14, a fork in the road appeared before me. It's a very common age in an inner-city male youth's life, one that will determine in what direction your life will go. It got to a point where I was starting to hang around the hood more often. Started dressing like the gangbangers, walking like them, talking like them, but I wasn't quite one yet. I started giving in to the anxieties. I was no longer walking that tight rope in the middle. I was tired of doing that. I began to lean towards one side. The allure and pull of the streets was too strong. I came from a good family. I had a good base at home. But sometimes, that's just not enough. At that age, we need more than school. If there are no options, then we turn to what's immediate. Our environment. At that age, we search for acceptance and camaraderie outside of home. So whether it's a baseball team, or an organization like BUILD, or a gang that offers those things, we will choose one. It's all a matter of whether those other OPTIONS will be there at that moment of truth, at that fork in the road.
...I want to tell you about the set of options that were presented before me at 13. Two, major, life-changing events happened at that age. I'm going to tell you the second one first. I became an actor. I auditioned and became part of my first theater company. It was a great concept. The company would go into the inner-city schools of Chicago and allow kids with no prior experience to audition and become part of the company. Kids who in normal situations would not have the opportunity to do so. Kids with raw natural talent. I was chosen and became part of the theater company. I was blessed to have starred in an original play that we developed after 20 weeks. We performed the piece at the prestigious Getts Theater. That day something happened to me. I think I had an epiphany. I knew what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. The following year I auditioned for Lincoln Park High School's Drama Dept. I was accepted, I attended and the rest is history. But before that experience I want to tell you about my first life-changing set of options.
One day a gentlemen by the name of Ray Deleon came to my school, a BUILD employee. I wish all of you would have had the pleasure of meeting this guy. He was truly a character. I was impressed by the way he related to us in a REAL way. What I mean by that is, he grew up in the same neighborhoods that we did. He knew about the pressures that we faced because he went through them too. He spoke our language and we knew that he was coming from a very real place.
Little by little he began to show me alternatives. Other options. I went to my first play as a young adult with BUILD. I went to my first hockey game, my first trip to an Indian cultural center and pow wow, my first camping trip. The first time I ever ate at a restaurant was with BUILD. You see, this thing happens. Your interests begin to shift towards something positive. Gang involvement becomes less important. As I became more involved with BUILD, as a kid you start to think that it's this weird place that anything you've ever wanted to do or ask for is possible. I remember one time, I said, "I've never been to the Indiana Sand Dunes." "Well guess what, we're going on a trip there next month." "Ummmm... I have a friend, and he's looking for a job, and his interests are..." Next thing you know I have this five-page print out of job listings that my friend could seek. Internally you begin to change when you experience more. Even though you still have to be aware, the street politics are not important anymore. Gangbangers could sense when you are affiliated, when you are on the fence, or when you're totally about something else. So when kids are about camping trips, plays and sports and not about gangs, it shows. It shows internally and externally. And when that transformation occurs, then organizations like BUILD have done their jobs. To some, this may seem like nothing. But to a kid like me, to kids like many, this is everything.
I want to thank you, BUILD. Thank you for the many options that you gave me as a kid. Thank you for showing me that the world is a bigger place than my neighborhood. Thank you for not being afraid to get your hands dirty in the trenches of our schools and streets. Thank you for helping me become a more well-rounded person, for contributing to who I am today. God Bless.