My grandmothers were immigrants to this country. They brought my parents here as children. Funny enough, my parents were from the same city in the Dominican Republic but they didn’t meet until they were in high school together in Washington Heights. I didn’t get to spend too much time with my father’s mother but my… Continue reading Anti-Immigration=Anti-America
Sometimes I think I must be going crazy. Never before in my life have I stumbled across so many well-meaning (and not well-meaning) white people (usually Orthodox Jews) who consider themselves “not racist” but make all manner of racist comments in front of me. Growing up, I heard racist comments from my family members but… Continue reading From Safe to Unsafe and Back Again
Thank you for being my friend. Here are some guidelines so that our friendship can be a pleasurable experience for all of us. Please don’t make fun of gay people. Please don’t make fun of black people’s hair. Please don’t tell ask me why I don’t straighten my hair. Please don’t make fun of Mexican… Continue reading Please don’t…
In The NY Post story, “Prof busted in Columbia gal ‘punch’”, a black Columbia professor punches out a white female university employee while discussing white privilege. Punching people doesn’t teach them anything about racism. It just makes you look racist. And violent. Duh. Unfortunately, the comments section on the story devolved into a bunch of… Continue reading Racism with a Punch
The Chicago Tribune story “Korean-Americans learn Spanish to help out at work” profiles Korean-American employers learning Spanish to be able to communicate with their Hispanic employees. That’s kinda awesome. I mean, I know people who won’t learn Spanish and are Hispanic. I’ve heard of Jews in Washington Heights tutoring Hispanics in English but maybe we… Continue reading Habla Español?
I’ve already picked out my baby names. No, the babies haven’t actually been conceived yet, it’s something my sisters and I have been doing since we were little kids. We used to go through our baby names book and pick out names for our imaginary children. There was even a period where my dolls were… Continue reading Baby Names
As a Latina and now a Jew, I write for both audiences. But a case of writer’s block has gotten me nowhere on an article I was supposed to be writing about interracial dating for a Latino audience weeks ago. I just don’t know where to start. This is coming from the girl whose mother… Continue reading Post Redux: Aliza’s Guide to Interracial Dating
I always wondered as a child what my kids would look like. (Actually, I still do.) Despite sharing the same parents, my sisters and I look nothing alike (except for two of us having similarly tightly-coiled curly hair). I was so much lighter-skinned that my sister that growing up people would ask if I had… Continue reading What color is your Skin?
Obama has (almost) survived his first year in office unscathed—the anniversary of his election was Nov. 4–and how better to celebrate that than a bunch of juicy articles on racism….you know, that crisis, the mini-daily civil wars, most people thought he’d solve (before healthcare, before wars in distant lands) by entering the oval office. Do… Continue reading Obama’s First Anniversary Celebration
Set up a Google Alert for news on Dominicans and mostly you’ll get news about Dominican sisters (nuns) and other related news. Oh right, you’ll also get news about Dominican baseball players because if anybody in America knows where the Dominican Republic is on a map, it’s because these baseball players put the Dominican Republic… Continue reading White Skin…in a jar!
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 