CREATIVE NON FICTION

TO MY YOUNGER SELF

To read the full piece you can buy a copy of Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education through La Casa Azul’s online store.
(Excerpt)
For years you will think that the decision to go to college was yours. You will look back at middle school and think that Mr. Wilson, your ninth-grade biology teacher, was the one who planted the seed in your mind. He will take you to the hallway, return your first exam of the year with a grade of 98, and tell you that you should go to college. As you return to your lab table you’ll glow like the morning sun. His voice, suggesting you attend the college fair at the high school in a few weeks, will echo in your mind.
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The night of the college fair will fall on Mami’s day off from cleaning bathrooms at the Long Island Lighting Company.

TO MY BROTHER IN KABUL

To read the full piece you can buy a copy of Consequence Magazine here.
(Excerpt)
July 5
Dear Frank,
Today I took a walk with Mandy, a colleague also attending the Summer Writing Institute. Mandy lives here in Plymouth and offered to show me some of the historical sites near campus. She said she hates driving along Route 3 because it’s hard to divert her sons’ attention from the howitzer on the front lawn of the Plymouth National Guard Armory. She doesn’t want them to become fascinated with weapons and the military. I thought about you and how Mami and I didn’t distract you from things like that. Right beside the cannon, a sign says that Plymouth State University now has ROTC; that people can call to sign up. I remembered you in your Air Force JROTC uniform in high school, how you loved that uniform, loved marching.

IDENTIFYING WITH AMÉRICA

To read the full essay you can buy a copy of Homelands: Women’s Journeys Across Race Place and Time (Seal Press)
(Excerpt)
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“Mis padres son de la República Dominicana,” I say in my crisp Spanish to another Latina after she asks me where I am from.  It is 2005 and I still have to answer this question as a thirty-two-year-old graduate student.  She is reluctant to respond as our classmates settle in their seats and the teacher begins the lecture on media and performance.  Her eyes survey my face, my body, making me feel like I don’t belong. I was born in the United States, yet she looks at me as if I can’t possibly define myself as Latina like her.  “Dominican Republic?” she asks.  Can she hear the waves crashing on the Malecón, the breezes rustling the palm trees?