“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest
accomplishment.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
From a young age, I learned that identity is not a gift—it is a battle. Every morning at school,
when the teacher loudly called “Emiliano del Refugio,” my name felt heavier than my thin body,
heavier than my silences, heavier than my insecurity. I answered “Present” not as a declaration
of life, but as an act of survival.
The classroom turned into a coliseum of laughter, and I, small in size and clumsy in sports,
became an easy target. Sports rejected me, my body didn’t defend me, and my name seemed
crafted for me to stumble over.
But the origin of that name carried a story I couldn’t yet understand. Emiliano was my mother’s
father, Refugio my father’s father. Both names were tributes—not to perfect men, but to family
legacies, wrapped in nostalgia and duty.
Legacies that, when seen clearly, hadn’t always treated their children kindly. But like the Greeks
who believed that smoke-darkened statues proved the nobility of their lineage, my parents
honored what they thought their families had been, even if the reality was more painful than
glorious.
And so my full name became a fragile truce between two family histories: each side leaving its
mark on me, as if by naming me they could extend their legacy or heal their wounds.
Thus I was born, with a name as long as a prayer and as heavy as a sentence—an inheritance and
a debt, a promise and a burden.
Every day in elementary and middle school, from age six to fourteen, the same ritual repeated.
The teacher would take roll call, and a moment meaningless to others became the center of my
humiliation.
There, among dusty windows and worn notebooks, my full name rang out with cruel clarity:
—Emiliano del Refugio.
And I, heart clenched, responded with a “Present” that tried to sound strong but barely held up
against the laughter that followed.
At that age, one doesn’t know how to defend oneself with arguments—only with silences or
escapes. And since the ball didn’t welcome me, and the games didn’t accept me, I hid where few
children dared to go: inside books.
Where others sought glory on the field, I sought refuge in pages. Reading, in a country where
reading was seen as odd or even shameful, was both my salvation and my sentence.
A book in my hands became the perfect disguise: no one approaches someone busy with other
worlds.
Holding a book was like carrying an unpinned grenade: dissuasive, solitary, effective.
As Emily Dickinson wrote:
“There is no frigate like a book to take us lands away.”
And so I traveled, without moving, to worlds where names did not hurt, and where talent alone
made you someone.
In time, I learned that adult life does not reward goals or baskets—unless you are a professional
athlete—but the ideas you build, the words you speak, the work you sustain when no one is
applauding.
Words opened the doors to economic success.
Images from magazines taught me that in superficial societies, dressing well is a passport.
I learned to wear ties because, though they didn’t define me, I knew the world judged me by
them.
I learned to speak with elegance because society rewards form, even when it rarely understands
substance.
But insecurities do not disappear; they simply dress better. German cars arrived, finely tailored
suits, Italian shoes. Insecure as I was, I made sure everyone could see—though I never admitted
it then—the price of my cars, the shine of my watches, the perfect cut of my clothes.
It was the anger I had stored against all those who had looked down on me, those who laughed at
my full name during roll call, those who thought I would always remain on the margins.
It was the underdog driving a Mercedes, trying to validate himself through what he owned,
through superficial applause.
But deep down, I was still the same fearful child, the same insecure boy.
And the clearest proof was that I still hid my name. I had changed my car, my clothes, and my
bank account, but I was still running from those two words that once hurt me. I still feared “del
Refugio,” as if erasing it from my legal papers could erase my story.
But time—that silent teacher who does not shout but transforms—began to whisper a truth I
could no longer ignore: names do not define you unless you allow them to. And I understood
what Scripture had revealed over and over: the changing of a name marks the transformation of a
soul.
When God changed Abram to Abraham, He didn’t just give him a new title, He gave him an
eternal purpose: “father of multitudes.”
When Jacob, the deceiver, became Israel, it wasn’t just a new sound, it was the
acknowledgment of his struggle and his triumph.
When Simon was named Peter, he ceased to be a hesitant fisherman and became the solid rock
where something greater would be built.
When Saul, the persecutor, became Paul, he left hatred behind to become the apostle of
freedom.
It wasn’t the name that saved them. It was the inner change the name sealed, a covenant between
their past and their future.
History outside the Scriptures tells the same story: names as trenches and banners.
Malcolm Little left behind the name of his oppressors to become Malcolm X, uncomfortable
and indomitable.
Cassius Clay renamed himself Muhammad Ali, declaring his spiritual and racial independence.
Camilo Cienfuegos, whose name still sounds like a rebellious poem, evokes nobility and
revolution.
Virginia Woolf, who carried her own pain, signed a legacy that broke the molds of her time.
Even Lady Gaga reinvented herself to conquer stages that never would have welcomed Stefani
Germanotta.
I, too, believed that by erasing a name, I could erase a past. As soon as I turned eighteen, with
my first active bank accounts and some hard-earned money, I hired a lawyer and legally removed
“del Refugio.” I remained simply Emiliano: simpler, more digestible, less likely to be mocked.
But as Nietzsche wrote:
“The mature man returns with love to what hurt him in childhood.”
And one day, unexpectedly, I looked in the mirror—not as the boy who fled, but as the man who
finally recognized himself.
I reclaimed my full name, not as a chain, but as a flag.
“Del Refugio” stopped being a hiding place and became a banner.
Because I finally understood that it is not the name that imprisons you, but your fear. And it is
not your past that weighs you down, but how you carry it.
I understood that refuge is not cowardice. It is shelter. It is root. It is history. And no one can
build a strong future while denying their roots.
I have always been an underdog. By my frail body, by my awkwardness in sports, by my
complicated name.
I always started from behind, from the margins. But the margins gave me vision. In the places
few people look, you learn to see better.
Literature taught me to think. Solitude taught me to endure. Failure taught me to rebuild.
As Kipling wrote:
“If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, or
watch the things you gave your life to, broken, and stoop and build them up with worn-out
tools—then you will have won.”
Today I know that talent and personality, when strong, turn mockery into a medal, the margin
into the center, the shadow into light.
Because true refuge is not the silence of fear, but the voice that finally learns to say:
“Here I am.”
It doesn’t matter how many times you were called by a name you didn’t choose.
What matters is how you name yourself when no one is watching.
And today, I name myself without fear: Emiliano del Refugio.
Each letter of that name reminds me that I was forged in the fires of marginalization, but I do not
belong to the fire—I belong to the light built beyond it.
Life may give you a name, but only you can give it meaning.
There is no shame in your origin if your destiny is written by your own hand.
And today I say it without fear: it doesn’t matter what they called you when talent and vision
sustain your path.
Because true victory is not erasing the past, but looking it in the eye and saying:
“Thank you for forging me.”
Deja un comentario