Finding a new connection: How journeying back home to Tucson let this adopted Iowan move forward
Editor's note: Erik Dominguez first told this story on stage at the Des Moines Storytellers Project's "Voyages: Life-changing experiences through travel." The Des Moines Storytellers Project is a series of storytelling events in which community members work with Register journalists to tell true, first-person stories live on stage. An edited version appears below.
Last fall, I was in the planning phase to speak at a conference for a global medical manufacturer, when a team member casually mentioned its location: Tucson, Arizona.
My first reaction was genuine excitement. We had moved from Mexico to Tucson right after my 8th birthday and I spent most of my childhood and adolescence there, leaving around the turn of the century for Phoenix. This would be a great opportunity to literally go home when I’m at the top of my game and see my dad who I had not seen since the pandemic hit.
But frankly, Tucson doesn't hold great memories.
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My early American experience had turned me into an anxious, nervous, unconfident kid always looking over my shoulder, constantly terrified to do or say or be anything wrong because when I did or said or was anything wrong it wouldn’t end well. Not only was I constantly picked on but I navigated the journey of being in a foreign city in a foreign country primarily alone.
The schools near us were not just terrible, but dangerous. So my parents worked jobs they didn’t like at hours they didn’t like to afford the best private school in the city for my brother and me.
I lived 15 miles from my school which in the world of poorly run, poorly scheduled public transportation was a crapshoot that could take anywhere from 45 minutes to three or four hours to get home. I would usually get stuck at the transfer station in downtown Tucson which — there’s no way to say this politely — was a dump.
Downtown was dominated by abandoned buildings, pawnshops, questionable restaurants, and failing businesses. Well, some businesses were thriving but not the kind that were “legal.” There were many questionable individuals who spent their time trying to recruit others into their questionable activities.
So I walked. A 2.5-mile loop around downtown Tucson every day literally to keep myself out of trouble.
Eventually, I kept myself out of trouble by getting a job setting up banquet and conference rooms at the Downtown Tucson Holiday Inn, one of the largest buildings in the area. It was a job that I got not out of merit, but as a favor from a family friend. I was the youngest on staff by at least a decade and felt wholly underqualified and out of place to be there.
I was an easy target and a young man with many contradictions. Though incredibly reserved, I was also incredibly intense, as if my authentic personality was raging against the machine of my self-contained persona As much as I wanted to be, I was not invisible.
My anger and intensity and frustration and fear all exemplified themselves through my identity as a metalhead. I rocked rebellious long hair, and oversized dark flannel shirts, and ended every conversation with "rock on!" while I held my hands up in a rock 'n roll salute.
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I don’t know why other than the fact that I thought liking rock 'n roll would make me seem more American. But I was truly addicted to my Walkman. I shredded in the unforgiven lands of Metallica, I sweat bullets in the mosh pits of Megadeth, and I used my illusion and danced in the jungles of Guns N' Roses. And I voyaged past the mission and behind the prison tower in the epically complex, equally rageful world of ... Tori Amos.
I listened to her because I had such a crush on her. While I was intense and rageful, I was also a deeply, incredibly hopeless romantic. I could listen to an entire shred-metal album and then write a poem to my crush describing how the experience of listening to said album made me think of you and how it amplifies my feelings for you ... my love.
And my poems, words, my intense romantic intentions were met with immediate rejection and ridicule.
In Tucson, I was somehow too much and not enough. Over the top and falling short. Shocking and forgettable.
Would Tucson bring back memories of my old life?
So my next reaction to the news that I’d be speaking there was dread: I feared that being there would bring up too many painful memories that I did not want to revisit or relive.
When I arrived in Tucson in mid-March of this year my first impression was that the town had not changed at all. It was as if someone had hit the pause button when I left and hit the un-pause button when I came back.
I delivered my keynote in Tucson which was a fantastic event and a great crowd and I left feeling energized but also ready to rest.
I booked a small AirBnB downtown more for convenience than nostalgia. As I drove downtown, the first building I saw was the old Tucson Holiday Inn. I found it was completely abandoned. Not only was the property fenced in, but all of the windows were boarded up, and the exterior paint was an off-pinkish 1960s pastel. Not only had the hotel not changed for the better, but it had also actually somehow regressed in time.
It was then that my sneaky little brain whispered to me: “If Tucson hasn’t changed, have you? Aren’t you still that same intense, too-much but not enough, anxious kid who can’t get anything done? Isn’t this hotel just a reflection of your career and your life?”
After settling into my Airbnb, which was tucked away in a side street not too far from the old Holiday Inn, I decided to explore how far my brain would take this metaphor. I walked around the corner to the main street and felt instantly discombobulated.
I had no idea where I was.
On the corner where I distinctly remember nearly getting mugged and chased was a yoga studio. A yoga studio!
The bar — you know, the college bar that every college town has that you only go to you have lost all hope and dignity — that bar was now an artisan craft brewery!
There were high-end restaurants, boutique stores, book stores, ice cream shops, art galleries, theaters, comedy clubs, crossfit gyms, and thriving legal businesses.
Downtown Tucson had transformed from angry to welcoming, from dangerous to healing, from vacant to vibrant.
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It was a place that was undeniable and in your face. It showcased murals and street art, individual expressions of communal unity.
It was a place of romance. I saw couples of all genders holding hands, walking, enjoying a meal or a beverage, and leaning a bit closer to each other.
I passed a sign that read: “Welcome to The Best 23 Miles of Mexican Food In the U.S.”
That sign didn’t surprise me as much. My love and I are addicted to the reality T.V. show "Top Chef" and there was recently a chef on the show who owned BOCA Tacos y Tequila in Tucson, Arizona.
I arranged to meet my dad there. I had not seen him in years and wanted to treat him to something special.
We barely ever went to restaurants when I was younger. It was not only a financial constraint, but my dad truly believed that he could make a meal significantly better than any restaurant. And he was right. The few times we did venture to eat anywhere other than home, my dad would replicate whatever meal we had with significant improvements.
He took one bite of his tacos, shook his head in disbelief, and said: “I can not make that.” He was genuinely impressed and I was so proud.
Later that evening, I put on my headphones and walked the 2.5-mile loop I had done so many years before.
It was the strangest experience.
My Tucson qualities and my Des Moines qualities are both right
I spent most of my life trying to outrun the Tucson version of me, in which I was out of place, embarrassed by my intensity and my passions, feeling underqualified for every job I have ever had.
My brain was right — I hadn’t changed at all. The insecurities that I had then, there, I still have now, here. The desires that I had then, there, I still have now, here.
But it was good I hadn’t changed. All those qualities that I spent my life running from are the exact qualities that make me successful at what I do.
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Because as I passed by the old Holiday Inn that evening, it was not lost on me that my first job was setting up banquet and conference rooms and my job now is being the speaker at those banquet and conference rooms.
I spent most of my life trying to change myself and prove myself, ultimately, as a legitimate member of this country. And it took a voyage home to Tucson to learn that change comes best when I don’t change anything at all and simply come home to who I am.
ABOUT THE STORYTELLER: Erik Dominguez is a keynote speaker and a communications and emotional intelligence trainer. He is an Enneagram 2, a CrossFit fanatic, and on a mission to build confidence in others by showing them how to speak their stories.
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This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Journeying back to Tucson brings new revelations for Iowa storyteller
