Radical Tenderness: The Value of Vulnerability in an Often Unkind World - Hardcover

Fetterman, Gisele Barreto

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593852885 ISBN 13: 9780593852880

Verlag: Penguin Putnam Inc, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

An inspiring manifesto from philanthropist and advocate Gisele Barreto Fetterman that explores her surprising source of power and strength—vulnerability—and how we can all harness it to effect meaningful change.

As a society, we shy away from public expressions of vulnerability, mistaking it for weakness or a lack of grit. To even talk about crying, much less shed tears publicly, is seen as shameful or cringeworthy. But for Gisele Barreto Fetterman, accessibility advocate and wife of Senator John Fetterman, showing strong emotions has always been her default—at events, during speeches, in her car or even at the grocery store. Friends and family warned Gisele that the world would eat her alive if she didn’t toughen up. But over the years Fetterman came to a realization: her emotional tenderness was not her downfall, but her strength—one that could be incorporated into her leadership style to show a different way to create true social and cultural change.

In Radical Tenderness, Gisele Barreto Fetterman courageously shares her story of power through vulnerability—from her childhood survival years as a Brazilian-American undocumented immigrant, to the prejudice she experienced in corporate and political settings, to her hardships and resilience stepping into her husband’s role when he suffered a stroke. Through it all Gisele learned that leading with tenderness—whether at the office, as a boss, or as a human being—can help us face challenges in a healthier, more authentic way, and in turn guides others to do the same.

Ultimately, Gisele redefines strength and leadership for our modern times, presenting tools for surviving and thriving in a world designed to wreck the tender-hearted. Because by embracing those emotions publicly—laughter, vulnerability, and, yes, even tears—we not only honor ourselves but open a path toward changing the world.

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gisele Barreto Fetterman is a Brazilian-American activist, philanthropist, and non-profit executive. She is a founder of the non-profit Freestore 15104 and co-founder of the non-profits For Good PGH and 412 Food Rescue. Her efforts have rescued millions of pounds of food and clothed several hundred thousand people. Fetterman was the first woman recipient of the Rodef Shalom Congregations Peace award. She currently resides in Braddock, PA with her husband, Senator John Fetterman, and children.

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Chapter 1

We Are All
Deserving of Tenderness

Tenderness, I believe, is inherent in all of us. Think of young children: sweet, earnest, wide-eyed. Naturally, some retain it more than others. Some of us are more in tune with our inborn sensitivity, our warmth, our compassion. But at our core, when we are safe and well taken care of, we are capable of and lean toward softness.

At least that's what I believe and how I've lived my life. It's when we are exposed to people and situations that demand toughness that we lose that side of ourselves. I was lucky to grow up in an environment and intergenerational home that embraced my tenderness.

I was seven when I landed in New York City in December 1989, a child-sized suitcase in tow. My mother, who I call Mamãe, had come to the United States ahead of my brother and me, and we followed soon after with Bibi, my grandmother. My mom was newly divorced from my stepfather, and Bibi explained that we would be flying on an airplane to a new land that would offer a fresh start. But what does that mean to a child? All I knew was that I was shivering, ill-prepared for the blistering cold in my canvas sneakers and summer clothes. I remember vividly that I arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport nursing a broken fingernail that had been torn off by a car door before I left Brazil. Those physical sensations-an unfamiliar chill in the air, a throbbing finger-are ever present in my memories of that time.

I did not fully understand then that we would not be going back home, in my case for a long while, and in my mom and brother's case, not at all. It had all happened so fast. Back in Rio de Janeiro, Mamãe had only said that we were going on an adventure. She had told us to pack our things, instructing us to take only what felt important. I struggled to decide what to pack, because everything felt valuable. My favorite teddy bear. My first doll. A diary. Some clothes and books. I figured I would eventually go back for what I left behind. But for decades, I would not set foot back in Brazil.

Once my mother made the decision to leave, determining this was the best path forward for our future, she quickly severed all our physical ties to Brazil. She sold our home and furniture and resigned from work. She made it so that we had no choice but to go, locking herself into the move. And after a few months in the United States, we had overstayed our tourist visas and become undocumented, which meant we had to stay if we wanted to make the United States our permanent home. Leaving would have made it difficult for us to come back.

My life in the United States was markedly different from my life in Brazil. In Rio, I had lived in a neighborhood called Tijuca, where we grew sugarcane and coconut in our junglelike backyard and sometimes saw monkeys climbing the trees outside our window. Uncles and cousins lived nearby and would visit often, and the whole family gathered weekly on Sundays. My earliest memories were of a warm, boisterous family and spending weekends and afternoons running around with my feet in the dirt or swimming and rollerblading with my cousins and friends.

In New York City, our first home was Jackson Heights in Queens. We were surrounded by neutral-colored homes, red-brick buildings, and a thundering overhead train. Under the dark, loud tracks, vendors sold food and products from the neighborhood residents' varied cultures-authentic tacos from Mexico, arepas from Colombia, pupusas from El Salvador. My family arrived at the apartment of a friend of a friend of my uncle's, a fellow Brazilian woman who lived with her husband in Queens and let us crash with her until we found an affordable rental of our own. We did not stay there for long, but for the time we were there, they fed us and never made us feel like we were intruding. That is how many newly arrived immigrants survive-through community, kindness from strangers, bonds forged over the shared experience of leaving behind the only home we knew. People we may never have met open their homes, wallets, and workplaces to help us settle into life in a new country, and then we pay it forward. Arriving in a community where schoolchildren and neighbors spoke a variety of languages and were comfortable with difference made transitioning into life in the United States a lot easier. No one in Jackson Heights looked at my family with suspicion. Our differences united us.

The transition to America must have been challenging for Mamãe, though she never let it show. In Brazil, she had been an accomplished professional woman who had earned multiple advanced degrees in education and nutrition and ran multiple hospital nutrition programs. But in the United States, her undocumented status made her educational achievements useless. She found a job as a housekeeper, working long hours to make ends meet, and sometimes I would ask her to take me with her. I'd help with small tasks like vacuuming and wiping down counters but spent most of my time roaming the halls of the big fancy homes she cleaned, in awe of American-style luxury.

Though my brother and I were too young to quite grasp our change in social standing, thinking back, I can recognize the ways in which we were treated differently compared to Brazil. I remember the way people stared at my mom when she walked around with her caddy of cleaning supplies, or when she stumbled over words while speaking English. Or, once I had mastered English, how they would direct questions at me even though she was fully capable of answering them. It was clear that some folks looked down on her for her accent and line of work. They would lose patience with her if she couldn't explain herself or raise their voices as if this would help overcome the language barrier. In Jackson Heights, we were able to blend in and be seen as equal members of the community-there were plenty of other Brazilian immigrants, and particularly in the 1990s it was very much an economically and culturally diverse part of New York City. But when we were in primarily English-speaking spaces or in neighborhoods where few people looked or sounded like us-dark featured and clearly foreign-the same did not always prove to be true.

I remember one time, on the way to the beach, my mother was pulled over. I do not recall the context of the stop-it could've been a routine check or a broken taillight-but I do remember the officer's attitude toward my mom. For context: My mother learned English quickly and was fluent. She had a heavy accent, of course, which is often the case for people who learn a new language as adults, but she had taken night classes and was an ace at Scrabble. Her vocabulary was extensive. But the officer was impatient during the entire interaction. He kept asking her to repeat herself in an annoyed tone and looking back at us kids, silently requesting that we step in as translators. I was frozen in place because I was so afraid of cops, but my mom stood her ground. She was firm and calm as she handed over her license. She did not let the officer's frustration faze her and, rather than get flustered, she worked to get her point across until the officer was satisfied.

Despite some isolated incidents like this, our lives never once felt sad or tragic. On weekends when she wasn't working, Mamãe, my brother, and I would "get lost" across the city, getting off at random train stops to explore our new surroundings. We wandered around parks and crashed parties (once at a fire station, which would prove prophetic); we window-shopped or popped into thrift stores. Mamãe always used language that made any activity feel exciting. Dumpster diving or curb shopping was going on a "treasure hunt"; getting lost was a "game." We were not undocumented migrants stumbling through the unfamiliar and often forbidding city. We were adventurers exploring a new land.

We learned...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Penguin Putnam Inc
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593852885
• ISBN 13: 9780593852880
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 221
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: G.P. Putnam's Sons; https://www.penguin.com/putnam/; ; 1745 BROADWAY Attn: Madison Forsander; NEW YORK; NY; 10019; USA
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar