Jose Najera starts his story with the arrival of a letter.
When did it arrive, the instructor asks him. I’m not sure, he says and then remembers: “Winter.”
“December?” the instructor asks.
“Yeah,” Jose says. “December.”
Jose Najera starts his story with the arrival of a letter one December day.
Jose is a senior at West High School. He is smart and engaging and curious about the world. At one time in his young life, his curiosity was married to a lack of common sense. That landed him in trouble, which is part of his story.
About a week ago, he went to the Denver Center for the Performing Arts to watch an evening of storytelling. It was put together by The Moth, a New York-based nonprofit group dedicated to telling stories on stage — personal, true stories. No scripts. No notes. Just a microphone and an audience. Actress Pam Grier told a story that night. So did the Rev. Leon Kelly.
“It was great,” Jose says. “The way they told it was like you bonded with the story.”
The performance last Monday was part of a national Characters Unite tour The Moth has embarked upon with USA Network. Local support comes from Comcast. After the stage performances, The Moth instructors hold workshops with students, teaching them how to tell their own stories. West was one of five schools selected on this tour because it is a school Comcast helps as it can. West might also have the worst reputation in the city, which makes it and its students easy to stereotype. Shattering stereotypes is what the Characters Unite tour is all about.
So here is Jose and here are Yasmin Hernandez and Adrian Muñoz, who decided to tell his story because Yasmin was telling hers and Yasmin is petrified by the whole idea.
Here is Deicy Quiñones. Deicy cannot believe she is going to stand in front of everybody in the West auditorium and tell a story about her life even if the story involves triumph over loneliness.
“No way I’m going to do that,” she says. Her mom tells her, “You’re so shy. You need to overcome that.”
Most of them know one another from Jose Mercado’s class. Mercado teaches at the University of Colorado Denver, but he offers a college-level class at West. For four afternoons, The Moth instructors guide students through their stories. The kids talk about being judged by other kids, about fights and homeboys and mean girls, about being sad and afraid. They talk about the search to fit in without sacrificing too much of who they are.
The act of telling your story holds a multitude of revelations. The first may be that you have one to tell. The second is that others want to hear it. Deicy practices in front of the mirror at home. Jose runs his delivery through his head as he grills burgers at work. Yasmin doesn’t sleep.
One by one, they stand behind the mike, beneath the spotlight, before a full house. A few voices tremble. But the audience cheers and claps. When the students finish their stories, they are radiant.
Jose is the last. “All right, so it was December of last year and I’m over here standing with a letter.” In middle school, he says, he ran with a bad crowd. One day, he was surrounded and beat up while his homeboys watched. “I kept saying, where’s my homeboys? Why aren’t they helping me?” Then, he says, he comes to West and a teacher sees his love of songwriting and urges him to join a college prep program. “Really, college?” Jose remembers replying. He makes new friends. “Real ones.” He does well in school. The letter comes from Colorado State University-Pueblo. “The first thing I read was, ‘Congratulations!’ “
The auditorium erupts in cheers. They drown him out as he describes how he was so excited, he turned colors “like a chameleon.” He says: “All I have to say is I’m looking forward to going to college and becoming an engineer and making this a better and safer world.”
And the audience roars.
Tina Griego writes Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Reach her at 303-954-2699 or tgriego@denverpost.com.
