What It Takes to Build a Village—and Still Have Boundaries (Op-Ed)

It took me a while to find my tribe, even though I, technically, come from tribal families on both sides. My grandparents were always hosting family, friends, and vecinos. Until she developed Alzheimer’s in her 90s, my abuela Celeste was always cooking up food to send to a friend or church member going through a hard time. My grandparents lived by community, but that way of life got lost with my parents’ generation.

Both my parents migrated here as kids in the early ’70s, with little and without knowing a lick of English. Their parents’ community mindset helped them survive. But as everyone became adults, unhealthy family patterns surfaced. What might have been “innocent sibling rivalry” turned into resentment—not just toward one another, but toward my grandparents and the ways they had failed their kids. Stories of abuse were finally said out loud. Being fluent in English and educated gave family members the luxury of deciding whether they wanted to stick around.

My maternal grandfather died when I was 11, and the big gatherings with family and friends became less frequent. Everyone had their own kids, families, and careers, and the glue that had held the family together was gone. I began to realize that “survival” is often what keeps families and communities together. That’s where a lot of the loyalty came from.

By my teens, I spent most holidays with my nuclear family. Reunions were rare, and tensions between aunts and uncles often spilled over onto us cousins.

By my early 20s, I had zero faith that I’d ever have the united, healthy extended-family dynamic so many of my Latino friends had. I envied friends who counted their cousins among their best friends, who could trust relatives with secrets, and whose families found any excuse to gather over a meal and end the night dancing.

I experienced some of this during a nearly 10-year relationship with a Dominican man. I wished I had what he had: extended family, friends, and neighbors who showed up for holidays and birthdays and invited you over for sancocho on a random night just because there was extra food to go around.

But the last two years of that relationship also revealed why my parents and many of my extended relatives chose to set boundaries and love family from afar. When families and communities live in survival mode, there’s often codependency, a lack of boundaries, and unfair expectations placed on children, especially as they become adults. My parents wanted to protect my siblings and me from that.

In my 30s, I made numerous attempts to introduce my friend groups to one another, hoping to turn them into one big family—the primos and primas I never had. It wasn’t until my late 30s that it hit me: I think I’d finally achieved it.

Sometimes your village isn’t something you’re born into or supposed to find. Sometimes it’s something you build. I’ve met amazing people who have shown up for me in ways family never has, carrying me through challenging times and cheering me on when things were going great. And I’ve done the same for them.

These relationships haven’t been transactional—they’ve been reciprocal. Some haven’t been a match, and I’ve had to walk away or maintain a healthy distance. But my friendships and even acquaintanceships (because they absolutely matter, too) have enriched my life. This year—one of my most challenging since COVID—has taught me how central having a tribe is when your life and the world seem to be falling apart.

These days, there’s a lot of talk about a loneliness epidemic. Every other person of color I follow is talking about community this and community that, and for a while, it really resonated. But as a close friend recently said, “community” has started to feel like a buzzword. I’m realizing that a lot of people say they want it but don’t want to invest in it.

Showing up to cookouts, parties, and community events is just one part of it. It’s also making one-on-one time, asking people how they need support, checking in outside the fun group chats, and finding ways to be of service during hard times.

A village isn’t simply the people who show up for me. It’s the person I choose to become for other people. If we want community, we have to be willing to really participate in it, not just benefit from it. Community gatherings shouldn’t just be seen as networking opportunities—that’s when things become transactional.

And listen, I get it. My family had plenty of reasons for stepping away from traditional community: it often came with obligations, guilt, a lack of boundaries, overinvolvement, unfair expectations, and disproportionate caregiving labor—especially for the women. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve had to ask myself: What parts of the village do I wish I had inherited from my family?

There’s my grandparents’ generosity and hospitality—something that comes naturally to me. Before this year, I loved hosting dinner parties at home. That means showing up for friends’ milestones, checking in, making space when people aren’t doing well, and having hard but respectful, loving conversations.

Has it been challenging to build community today? Of course. We live in a capitalist country designed for us to spend far more time working than being with loved ones. Modern adulthood makes it harder still, especially when you add children, aging parents, and caregiving to the mix.

Even as an unmarried, childfree person, I have seasons when I don’t have the capacity to check in on everyone I love and appreciate. I’ve learned to stop romanticizing the old village or shaming myself for not having grown up with it. Instead, I’m trying to build a version that fits our lives now.

Even with our busy lives, with so many of us burned out by work and responsibilities, we can build a new version of the village—one that keeps the care and generosity without requiring folks, especially women, to disappear inside their obligations.

For many Latinos, family and community aren’t just emotional support systems—they’re part of how life is organized. When I was little, my grandparents were running the show. Relatives dropped by without calling. Some cousins were raised like siblings. Neighbors were considered family, and my parents taught me to call their close friends Tía and Tío. Food was always the language of care.

That expectation that life is relational is fading across generations, particularly in the States, where our lives revolve around work. We build careers, sometimes move away, and learn to prioritize ourselves. Add the pandemic, remote work, social media, and our phones, and we’ve become increasingly disconnected. Meanwhile, we watch other people experience belonging through a screen, making our loneliness feel even more obvious.

For Latinas in particular, we’re not just desiring community; we’re trying to recover something we recognize. We saw it in our mothers and abuelas. We experienced versions of it as children. What we’re really seeking is to be held by other people again.

I believe so many of us are hungry for community because we’re the first generation of Latinos being asked to build adult lives around independence after being raised to depend on others as a survival mechanism.

Creating and sustaining community can’t be about keeping tabs. Being part of a village doesn’t mean everyone gives the same amount all the time—the balance shifts.

Someone might have a baby or lose a parent and need more support. Someone might be broke, like I have been for most of this year, and not have the money to socialize or show up the way people expect. Meanwhile, someone else might have more to give.

Today, you might treat me to dinner, and tomorrow, I might help you move out of your apartment. Last year, I spent a lot of time with a girlfriend going through a difficult breakup. This year, that same friend has been keeping me sane through unemployment and health issues—she even picked me up after a colonoscopy. A few years ago, I profiled my friend’s salon after she gave me an incredible curly haircut that helped repair my heat-damaged hair. Today, she’s offering to color and cut my hair for free because she knows I can’t afford it right now. Two years ago, I wrote about a new friend’s feature film. Today, he’s one of my closest friends, and he recently bought me a ticket to a film festival. That’s la comunidad.

Reciprocity isn’t about keeping score. It’s trusting that care circulates. And this is precisely what we’re missing when we talk about “wanting community” these days without understanding what it truly entails.

When we say we want community, are we willing to be the kind of friend we’re asking other people to be? Are we calling, following up, inviting, and making plans? Many adult friendships become waiting games, with everyone hoping someone else will take the initiative.

Family—chosen or otherwise—comes with responsibility. Are we building chosen families, or simply looking for people who will make us feel less lonely? Those aren’t the same thing. We have to be intentional about creating the community that used to happen organically.

My mother and abuelas had community, but I also witnessed how it often came at the expense of their individuality. I believe we can keep the spirit of la comunidad alive while rejecting the idea that we have to sacrifice our peace and autonomy to belong—especially as Latinas. We can make time for the people we love, give and receive support, and respect one another’s boundaries.

I don’t think the goal today should be recreating the communities our parents or grandparents had. It should be to build a village where we can be deeply connected without losing ourselves in the process. That’s been my goal.