I don’t write about my Dad (“Papi”) as much as I write about my mother. My father hightailed it when I was 4. My younger sister was one. He came back after they were divorced and made me another sister. While my parents were still married, my father made me a half-sibling which I later… Continue reading Dreams of My Father
I’ve only ever been inside a store (Macy’s) on Black Friday once and that was enough to terrify me for life. I won’t set foot inside any store on Black Friday these days. I don’t care what’s on sale. I will pay extra just so I don’t want to get trampled. But this year, I… Continue reading Black Friday Withdrawal
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
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?
The many, many kosher Asian restaurants in New York City is a testament to the Jewish obsession with Chinese food (and now sushi). In Jews and Chinese Food: Love Affair”, an entertaining talk based on her book, “The Fortune Cookie Chronicles”, New York Times Metro reporter Jennifer 8. Lee dissects the longtime love affair between… Continue reading Cool Jewish Events: What’s with Jews and Chinese Food?
The Jewish Week (New York) just did a nice little feature on the new Hebrew language charter school in Brooklyn: “For Now, Hebrew Charter School Is ‘Sababa’”. Don’t blink or else you’ll miss (yeah, right) this line: “The level of racial integration is unusual in a school district that has several overwhelmingly black public schools… Continue reading Too Many Black Children?
I’ll be speaking on the radio tomorrow (Oct. 20) at 12 noon EST on a show called Public Think Tank on Brooklyn College Radio. If you’d like to listen in, check out the Public Thinktank website for details on how to listen in.
I’ve never been to Jewish summer camp (but I hear it rocks!). And the most Jewish learning I’ve done at a Jewish school was one summer spent at Pardes and an ultra-Orthodox conversion school in Israel. If I could, I would have already run away for a year (or two, or three) to learn in… Continue reading What are YOU doing this winter?
When the recession hit, I got laid off pretty quickly from my college tutoring gig, a job it had taken me forever to land with my fibromyalgia. Okay, I admit that I was kind of glad I wasn’t returning to the gig. Despite being part-time, the job aggravated my fibromyalgia and provided nearly none of… Continue reading The Conversion Recession?
From New York Magazine: Son says to father: “Where are you getting this racist nonsense?” Father says to son: “On the Internet.” And that is the premise of this piece in The Huffington Post, “The “Post-Racial” Mainstream Media and the New American Racism”, which claims the racism we’re not reading about in our newspapers is… Continue reading Barack Obama and Peace in America
Memoirs of a Jewminicana 