Category: Voices
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To Be or Not to Be…Alejandra
My story began at birth. Original, right? My father was born in Jalisco, Mexico, and was an undocumented immigrant when he met my mother in the United States. To my knowledge, he still lives in Mexico today. My mother was born and raised in California, US, but her side of the family is from Durango,…
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Who Am I?
For most of my life, I didn’t embrace my heritage as a Mexican-American. I didn’t know how, and honestly, I didn’t know what that meant. I grew up in a border town- Brownsville (Tx)- Matamoros (Mx) border, and even though we grew up with the border Spanglish slang and the cultura of the border- it…
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Latinos in Medicine
Let’s not lose our culture In times of COVID-19, we need you. We needed you before, we need now even more. We need you in the hospital, in clinics, over the phone. We need you to bring what you’ve learned at home to the wards. We need your compassion, your calidez, your warmth and your tone of voice…
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Que Dios Te Bendiga
“Maria, Maria, Maria, Maria, all the beautiful sounds of the world in a single word.” Inspired by Shakespeare, the epic rivalry between the Jets and Sharks is a theatrical masterpiece describing the tension between the Puerto Rican Sharks that are taunted by the White Jets in America’s most notorious concrete jungle, New York City. I…
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El Jardín de la Muerte
Our livesare the roadsthat end upat the garden of death. There growrare budsin unknown waysand color variants: black plants,pink cacti,dwarf willow treesand flowers as stars. Gardenersof bony handswith great tendernesscare for the bushes; hummingsweet tunesand even smilewhen they water the plants. Their smilesare the hopethat spawns when they seeas everything turns green. Biography: Gabriel González…
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Por Estos Días en mi Patio
Everything I feel is kneaded together because these months I lock myself up,Words do not hide the feelings of these moments,From each drop of anxiety, my spirit frees me to know of another new day. So that, because you wonder about this uncertainty of the future,I know that every day more, even though I risk…
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Presente Present
Time passes slowlyClock hands floatSlowly moving between the hoursAnd here I sit, I wait My mind mixes memories and dreamspast and futuretrapping me in a confusing cloudof hope and disappointment The mechanical sound, silence of the wage earnerwho tries to place his mind in the jobwhile his volatile heartescapes looking for meaning And the depth…
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Más Fuerte Juntos
“Más fuerte juntos!”the first comment amid the long list of names and numbers.Stop with the clichés, but, yes,Thank you, Marisa $300 Isaac $25 Anonymous $100 Cristina $1200 Anonymous $150 [Submit] … The total now reads $733,159 … Scrolling down, There it is: Anonymous $____ … Together withJose, Eliza, Anonymous,Palmira and Marcos, Anonymous,Eric, Rachel, John, E,…
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Latino Heritage – Daniel Castro
I grew up as a white dude. I grew up speaking English in white suburbia that had zero Latin culture. There was only one thread connecting me to my Latin roots, my dad. As an immigrant from Peru, my dad fought against the tide to keep my siblings and I connected to our heritage, but…
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Zoila Cortes
What does identitad mean to me? It means perseverance and resilience. It means immigrating to the United States at the age of five to a space that did not want my family and does not want it twenty years later. Every year pierdo un poquito de mi Español and I am scared that I am…