I probably started drinking coffee out of a baby bottle. As a kid, I drank it after meals and mixed it in my milk for breakfast after late nights. When I discovered Starbucks as an adult, I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get a caffeine fix from it. That’s when someone tipped me off that… Continue reading Cafe con leche, por favor!
My writing teacher sent me this quote from a recent New Yorker profile of novelist Ian McEwan: “You spend the morning and suddenly there are seven or eight words in a row. They’ve got that twist, a little trip that delights you. And you hope they will delight someone else. And you could not have… Continue reading My quote
My energy level is dropping quickly but I hate to finish the day without remarking on my talks at Brooklyn College today. A really cool professor there had me come in to speak to his students, another professor’s students and the broader Brooklyn College audience. Incredibly, I was representing the Judaic Studies, Latino Studies and… Continue reading Brooklyn College Take Two: Ruminations on my latest talk
Read this: “Rape Trees” Found Along Southern US Border” and you might throw up but learn why Phoenix has apparently become the kidnapping capital of the US. Latina magazine further explored this atrocity in an article, “The Steep Price of Immigration” that discussed how common rapes are for women who are coming over the border?… Continue reading What is a rape tree?
Why can’t people tell the difference between Puerto Ricans and Dominicans? There need to be some more Dominican TV characters so people recognize. Meanwhile, have you seen this oldie but goodie clip from Scrubs? (Okay, confession: I’m at least 1/16 Puerto Rican.)
She’s right. Being a Latina American Jew just makes me culturally greedy. Grin. Grin.
From Selina Alko’s new book. All of my sisters are a different color and the color of our skin changes in the sun, with the seasons and darkens as with age. I started out a milky white with Asiatic eyes so it wasn’t just for my brains that I was called “white girl.” But the… Continue reading What Flavor are you?
Yes, I’m a hybrid and I’m proud of it! But do you agree with Andre Cordescu’s point that “setting apart one’s tribe or nation ends inevitably in war.” Obviously, Jews set themselves apart. We’re the “chosen” people and by that we mean that G-d gave us a whole bunch of rules we werent meant to… Continue reading Hybrids aren’t just cars
I want to crawl in a hole and lie there for days. I am in so much pain. On the bright side, my blog was talked up in the Manhattan Times, Manhattan’s bilingual paper for Northern Manhattan. In a word (or two): muy cool. Check it out.
My first boyfriend was gay and when he came out, it caused me permanent damage. He had used me in his attempt to live out a lie, to survive in our cruel high school world. My world went upside down suddenly when I realized my best friend, my boyfriend, was not really either of these… Continue reading Gay and Orthodox
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 