Gay puerto ricans

My name is William Perez and I’m from Brooklyn, New York.

I went to Cornell University in 1987. I struggled my first semester so much that I had straight Fs and one D. So I was suspended from school. I returned the following fall semester in 1988 and I struggled again.

I had to arrive from a very needy background and just also being Puerto Rican, I just felt like I didn’t belong. I felt like a fraud. And so I struggled and again, I got very low grades that second semester and I was kicked out again – this time I was kicked out permanently. So for about a year and a half, I just just bounced around, hanging out with friends. I did a lot of clubbing. I met lots of men because I became promiscuous. I did lots of drugs. You know, I was getting into a really bad state.

I got counseling and then that helped me turn around and I went back to school. I went to community college, got my grades back up and then reapplied to Cornell University and was accepted.

When I returned, I met a group of immature men. They were all African American and same-sex attracted. There were five of them. And we basically just became our retain little family and we supported each other through the years that we were at Cornell