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Icon Clara Villarosa. Photo courtesy of Clara Villarosa

A VERY WISE WOMAN

by Carliese Wright

Nonagenarian Clara Villarosa has lived many lives. She's been an entrepreneur, author, bookseller, therapist, and motivational speaker. “The older I get, the wiser I get,” she says. One of the many principles Villarosa lives by is getting out of one’s comfort zone and sharing with the world. “Open yourself up and put yourself in situations where you might be a little bit uncomfortable,” she advises.

The 91-year-old African American icon cannot stress enough the importance of making an effort to learn something new. “Oftentimes we surround ourselves with people who look or think like us. We tend to have conversations with others that share our thoughts and feelings, so it’s rare to have discussions that bring something new to the table,” says Villarosa. “What you learn most, is somebody you can learn from.”

This includes teachers. Education is very important to Villarosa, who earned her bachelor's degree in education and psychology from Roosevelt University and a master's degree in social work from Loyola University. She also attended the Graduate School of Social Work Doctoral Program and College of Law at the University of Denver. For many years she worked as a social worker, only taking time off to be a full-time mom to her two daughters, Linda and Alicia. Later, she became the chief psychiatric social worker at the Department of Behavioral Science at Denver's Children's Hospital and later its director. As an author, Villarosa published “Down to Business: The First 10 Steps to Entrepreneurship for Women” that won a 2010 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work, Instructional.

Villarosa has been inspired by many fellow writers, colleagues, and educators in her time, but the group that inspires her the most is our youth. “You can learn a lot from young people,” she says. That's why Villarosa makes a point of spending time with them, especially her two grandchildren who are now in their 20s and whom she has the fondest memories of. Over the years, she has shared her life experiences with them and looks forward to “sitting back and watching them unfold.” She believes that once you give people a safe space where they feel comfortable enough to be themselves, they open up naturally.

One of Villarosa's favorite pastimes is going to the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. Through her experience attending operas at The Met, and as someone who studied social science, she realized the usual patrons were older white people. She also recognized that few younger people, particularly minorities, were exposed to the opera and subsequently assumed it was boring. “They have misconceptions about it [because] they hear it from a distance,” she explained. Villarosa dreams of diversifying the audience of the Metropolitan Opera, and indeed all operas, by introducing opera to people from minority backgrounds at a young age.

Villarosa's commitment to helping minorities, particularly the African American community, started years ago. In 1984, she opened the first Black-owned bookstore in Denver called the Hue-Man Experience that focused on books of interest to African Americans, long before buying Black was a trend. In 2003, Villarosa moved to Harlem and opened up another successful Hue-Man bookstore. In 2011, she decided it was time to close both the Harlem and Denver stores, but recently, she's come full circle. While still a resident of New York City, she reunited with another landmark independent bookstore in Denver, Tattered Cover, where she's offering a Hue-Man Experience by curating a monthly list of books that encourage diversity, equity and inclusion, and also connect to any poignant celebrations occurring in the month. For example, last June Villarosa celebrated PRIDE and Juneteenth by promoting books like They, She, He Easy as ABC by Maya Christina Gonzalez and Matthew Sg, Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin, and Juneteenth by Ralph Ellison.

One of the main reasons Villarosa was inspired to collaborate with Tattered Cover was because of the Black Lives Matter movement (BLM) that was ignited by George Floyd's tragic and unjust death. She's found inspiration in the BLM movement's positive energy for change and believes it will continue to spread across the globe, including to developing countries. She believes that these countries, often overlooked by wealthier nations like the U.S., want to get involved, but they just don’t know how to go about it. “Because we are so isolated and segregated, starting the conversation makes a change very difficult. However, I do think change can occur, but it’s going to take a while because it is generational,” says Villarosa.

She trusts that youth, and people in general, can make a change, but need to be proactive. “We can’t wait for it to happen automatically; we have to be intentional. That’s going to take a lot of time, a lot of effort, and feeling uncomfortable.”