Somehow We Got This Bad Rep...

ME: But now I also have to get cute for your wedding O_o

FRIEND: Lol it might be in DR. Can we stay at your family's house?

ME: What the...? Is she Dominican?

FRIEND: No. Destination wedding! After knowing you I can't date Dominican women.

ME: LOL wait, what?? What did I do?

FRIEND: You're a special kind of crazy.

I'm not sure if I should be insulted, or proud.

*smooches...with plans to crash the wedding anyway*
----------
who gon' check me? if they try to stop me, I'll have my uncles shut that whole shit DOWN! lol

When Twitter Catchphrases Get Real

An exchange between me and Mari during my Penzo Grandmother's birthday party...

ME: (saying something catty and/or snarky)

MARI: WHO HURT YOU?!

ME: This is the wrong place to ask that question...

At the scene of the crime

*smooches...finding the humor in my dysfunction*
-----------
you have to be able to laugh at yourself, folks!

Mari Speaks On...

...colorism and romance, without meaning to.

In all our dark-skinned glory.

 MARI: Um so this guy I am dating just told me that I am not light-skinned and am brown. He is a keeper! LMAO!

ME: O_o!! Then I'm definitely chocolate.

MARI: Right. Like he is so serious. That single comment boosted his daily ratings.

*smooches...basking in our joint delusions*
----------
listen, I own a mirror. I know what I look like. just let me live...

Laughs & Truths

So once again I want to point out that my favorite podcast, The Read, needs to be your favorite podcast, too.

This week's episode is full of the usual shenanigans, but also discusses the Zimmerman trial (and in case you're all "Ugh, I'm tired of hearing about this stupid trial!" well guess what- I'm tired of our black sons dying necessarily and the law saying it's OK. So there's that.).

And one point in particular, made by @Crissle during her read, stuck out to me the most: the idea of respectability politics, which can be defined as "a deliberate concession to mainstream societal values" in order to gain favor with the perceived "majority." I'll let you listen for yourself; start at 55:38 for Crissle's read and get your life.



I've been there, siding against my brethren regardless of the details just to keep the eyes off of me and not become a target myself. And mostly because remember, I denied my blackness for a big chunk of my life. Whenever blacks were portrayed negatively on the news or, you know, EVERYWHERE, I distinctly remember thinking "well that's not me because I went to a good school and I follow the rules and I do what I'm supposed to. Plus, I'm Dominican; I'm not even black!" Knowing damn well my black-ass was black.

So I connected to what Crissle was saying, and I understand both sides of the coin, but still, my black brothers and sisters: I urge you to wake up. Let's not turn against each other.

Amen and good day.

*smooches...growing and healing*
----------
reflecting on my own black guilt during these hard-as-fuck times

Politics & Self-Hatred Aside...

Happy Independence Day, Dominicanos!!

Google doodle from a couple of years ago. Que cute!

Que viva Quisqueya!!!

*smooches...playing bachatas all day just because*
---------
feel free to bring me some habichuelas dulce!

My Kids Are Not My Whole Life

So, news broke today about a nanny who allegedly stabbed two kids under her care in the family's Upper West Side apartment. While reading the article online I made the dire mistake of reading the comments/reactions to the story, and let me tell you...a lot of these judgy motherfuckers need to go somewhere. In particular the folks who are BLAMING THE MOTHER for having the audacity to hire a nanny in the first place.

Have several seats and a large tumbler of shut the fuck up. Please and thank you.

It does not matter if I have all the money in the world or barely two nickels to rub together- if I want to hire someone to help me take care of my kids, OR RAISE THEM FOR ME, that's my damn prerogative. The nerve of people to think this woman deserved to have her children murdered because she was what they perceived to be a spoiled, kept woman who handed off motherly duties to the hired help... WHO DOES THAT?

Do people really think that giving birth means your entire existence has to revolve around your kids now? Moms & dads can't have outside, non-kid interests? It's just house arrest until the college years? Fuck outta here with all that noise! If that were the case, do you realize how many parents would kill the kids themselves?

Listen up because I'm about to break it down for you.

YES, when you decide to have children, those children are your responsibility. You have to think of their best interest and arm them with the tools they'll need later in life. But do you know what's in a child's best interest? To have happy parents. Parents who've had enough respite to deal with whatever fresh hell the world (and their kids) will throw at them each day. Sometimes that means finding someone to mind the kids while pursuing a rejuvenating activity or some adult/nekkid time with your partner (don't forget your partner, ever; that's a sure-fire way to end up in divorce court. Trust.), away from the stress of diapers and whining and Nick Jr.

So let's focus on getting justice for these two children and not hate on this woman because she was able to afford an Upper West Side life, okay? I mean, two of her kids were just KILLED, for chrissake! She's a human being with feelings!

I swear, man, that keyboard courage be a bitch sometimes...

*smooches...vowing to never again read comments on news articles*
---------
now that all that's been said, can we please address the fact that this nanny is Dominican? UGH, BITCH, UGH!! Just ruining life for the rest of us!

The Mistakes Of My Fathers

Growing up, I was pretty much in the dark about the history of the Dominican Republic. The topic wasn't taboo or anything-Trujillo didn't run my family off the island-it just wasn't something we spoke about.

Then a few years ago I read Edwidge Danticat's The Farming of Bones, which included mention of a massacre along the border of DR and Haiti, and I was in total shock. I knew Trujillo was a "bad man" but the extent of his evil astounded me.

Today, in Dajabón, and through Saturday, the two nations that share the island of Hispaniola will commemorate the genocide committed by El Jefe.

From the press release:

Courtesy of CulturalDiplomacy.org

Among the notable artists supporting and attending the gathering is author and activist, Julia Alvarez. "Many Dominicans in the diaspora and in the country have been waiting for an opportunity to acknowledge a shameful event in our past, the 1937 massacre of thousands of Haitians, ordered by the dictator Trujillo, and carried out by Dominicans. We feel compelled to do what our governments and our treaties, our accords and our conferences have not done: to express our sorrow for this shameful crime. We would also like to celebrate our many collaborations, our brotherhood and sisterhood. We look to the future and our shared hopes for this whole island and small planet,” says Ms. Alvarez. The project has the support of other leading public figures, including Edwidge Danticat, Michele Wucker, and Junot Díaz.

I met Ms. Danticat years ago at a writing conference and felt compelled to apologize to her for that atrocious blotch on our common history. She looked at me as if I were crazy but that's OK. I needed to say it, for all the years I kept a blind eye to what had happened on the island and for everything my family didn't do to put a stop to it.

I'm still a proud first-generation Dominican American, for sure. Just a little wiser and little less snooty about it.

*smooches...moving on but never forgetting*
---------
one of these days I'll have to make a pit-stop in Dajabón...

Mari Speaks On...

...Mami and I telling stories about the "exorcism" she had as a baby:

"Y'all need to keep my demon possession out y'all's mouths!"

*smooches...still giggling to myself*
---------
and yes, all of this is true.

It's Funny Because It's True

From now on, when people ask me to relax, I'm just going to hold up a picture of this sign:

*smooches...wishing CALM was in my dictionary*
---------
if it's not one thing over here, it's another.

Tales From The Motherland, Part 2

In Los Mina missing Grandma

When I was little, I remember combing through Papi's record collection in awe. He had so much vinyl; artists and bands I'd never heard of but were clearly his favorites. Soon, a lot of them became my favorite, too, because every Friday, after a long, hard week of working at an envelope factory in Union City, New Jersey, Papi would play his records on full blast while polishing off at least a dozen tiny cans of Budweiser. No one said shit to him about it, either. This was his well-deserved down time.

When I visited him in April I was saddened to learn the fate of all those records. I spotted them, stacked (GASP!) in a corner of a shed in the back of the house, moldy, dusty and falling apart. If Papi hadn't been nearby replacing the gas tank on the house I would have sat there and cried. These records were such a part of my childhood and now they were gone.

The albums were pretty much indicative of the house, too. First time I'd ever seen it was when Grandma died, and it was your typical little Dominican "city" house, complete with full bars all around the property to keep thugs out, but it looked like home because it had all of my grandmother's furniture from NY in it. Even though we'd just come from her funeral it was as if she were going to walk into the room any minute to say dinner was ready; we were sitting on her sofa, where we usually waited for dinner, after all. The entertainment center was the same; our bunkbeds were in the third bedroom; Grandma's pots were on the stove.

This time around, I barely recognized the place. It was falling apart from water damage and it just had that "I don't want to touch or sit on anything" feel to it. I took into account that Papi lives there with his brother; two single men, who are used to women doing all the housework, could really give two shits about moping the floors. However it upset me to see the house this way and that this is where my Papi lives. And then the records...that was the last straw. All of it screamed: GRANDMA IS NO LONGER HERE.

And if I didn't know it before, surely I could no longer deny it when face-to-face with Papi's old records, stacked (GASP!) in a corner of a shed in the back of the house, moldy, dusty and falling apart.

*smooches...mourning all over again*
---------
also, I need my successful writing career to arrive sooner rather than later because I'll be damned if I can't help my Papi live better, after all he's done for me!

How The Kardashians Pissed Off This Dominican

"Keeping Up with the Kardashians" is my trash TV guilty pleasure. There, I've said it. I relish in all their crappy, fake problems and eat it up like an endless batch of delicious Buffalo wings. I also indulged in the spin-offs and specials; basically, whatever they televise I WILL WATCH. Don't judge me.

The latest episode, however, had me questioning whether or not I can continue to support their shenanigans. Why? Because they kept botching up the name and "image" of my beloved motherland!

FIRST OF ALL the entire clan kept referring to DR as The Dominican. *side eye* Last I checked, we were still a republic and it was reflected in our country's name.

SECONDLY, during scene changes, etc, they kept playing mariachi music and talking about going to snack on some chips and guacamole. *double side-eye* Listen here, non-Latinos, because I'm about to explain something to you once and for all:

DOMINICANS ARE NOT MEXICANS. MEXICANS ARE NOT PUERTO RICANS. PUERTO RICANS ARE NOT VENEZUELAN. VENEZUELANS ARE NOT PANAMANIANS. And so on and so forth. Yes, we all speak Spanish but each country is different, has different roots, a different history and even a different way of bastardizing the Spanish language. You can't just lump us together all the time and expect that shit to go over well, RYAN SEACREST (yes, I blame him. We all know he's the puppetmaster behind this bullshit).

Now, I'm gonna watch the rest of the season ONLY BECAUSE Khloe and Lamar cancelled their show and I'm obsessed with them and I hope to see glimpse of them in future episodes. Still, the Kardashians are officially on Jaded Alert!

*smooches...tired of TVs racial agenda*
---------
that's right, I SAID IT! TV has a racial agenda and I won't stand for it anymore...right after this season of "Keeping Up with the Kardashians"...

A Jaded Moment In History Presents: The Wrong Baby

Last year, I told you my birth story, as told to me by Mami. You remember; it's the one where I took a nap in the birth canal. It was all real funny and we all had a good laugh.

Here's another bit of information, relayed to me last by Mami after my birthday dinner; this is both funny and disturbing at the same time.

After I was born and the nurses brought me to my mother, she took one look at me and said, "That's not my baby!" Why? Because all morning she'd seen all these adorable curly-haired, brown babies all over the place, and as she eagerly awaited hers was instead brought a very white, rosy-cheeked, nearly-bald, golden-haired baby.

According to Mami, the only reason she finally accepted that I was hers was that she'd seen my aunt born just two years prior, and I was her absolute twin.

So thanks, Tia Rossi; you saved me from a life in foster care.

*smooches...wondering what I'll learn next year*
---------
I'm telling you; the older folks get, the crazier the shit they tell you gets!

Vanity Post: The Afro Break

I love my curly hair, I really do. We've been feuding my entire life but the love we share is incomparable to any other I've known. But lately I've been longing for my bone-straight, shiny, bouncy, fresh-from-the-Dominicans hair.

So on Saturday night, after a hellish day of working out until I literally dropped, I decided to dust off my blow dryer and hot iron, and did this to my hair:

Courtesy of Raquel's Dominican House of Beauty

The ends are looking pretty scraggily--a definite sign that I need to visit my stylist in Washington Heights for a trim--but overall it's healthy, strong and long.

My straightened hair was Mami's Mother's Day gift

Understand that I've not straightened my hair in over a year. I made a decision to stop killing my locks with heat in an attempt to hide my ethnicity n shit. Yeah, I got a bit too militant about my 'fro--the more my family complained about it the bigger I let my hair get.

However, all "politics" aside, the thing that has always made me appreciate my hair is its versatility. Not many people can go from super big curly afro to silky tresses in an hour without chemicals. I appreciate the curl pattern, texture and strength of every strand of hair on my head. These locks have dealt with Kool-Aid dye jobs, bleached streaks, chemical relaxers, henna coloring and deep conditioning with mayonnaise. Yes, the food product mayonnaise.

And still, here I am, with a full head of strong hair.

That said, I decided to straighten it. No offense to my African ancestors but I think I'll be rocking my Anglicized hair for a bit. At least until it gets too hot to go without wetting my scalp everyday. But I must warn you--my straight hair is wayyyy sluttier than my curly hair. In other words, hold on to your husbands...

*smooches...flipping my hair back and forth*
---------
no, seriously, I was in front of a mirror practicing talking with my hair, then I sat down to a fake interview with Wendy Williams where we discussed my hair for a full seven minutes. I may or may not need help.

Tales From The Motherland, Part 1

Last month I took a little trip to the Dominican Republic. It's been nearly 15 years since I'd been there last to bury my grandmother, and, coincidentally, this trip was right on the tails of K & N's paternal grandmother dying. We only had five days to make this a fun and memorable trip and we were determined to make it happen.

Let me tell you- we had fun. We saw lots of family, ate great food, relaxed and took in some sun. But my Santo Domingo is not your Santo Domingo. People hear that you're traveling to the Caribbean and they get all jealous and begin to daydream about white, sandy beaches, clear-blue waters and lush resorts. Well, honey, that's not where I stayed.

Remember East New York or Bushwick in the 80s? Well imagine that but 10 times more dangerous and gritty. Nearly naked kids in the street using plastic bags and strings as kites. Stray dogs so thin and lethargic they looked like they were about to die any second. Stray cats everywhere, begging for scraps. And everyone living behind metal gates and padlocks.

We did not have the key for that padlock.
Once we were locked in, that was it for the night!

I heard tales of a growing crime spree against women, similar to the violence occurring in Mexico. And before I could go shopping at the local Olé (aka the Dominican WalMart) I had to remove my nameplate. Apparently even a 40-year-old gold necklace with my name on it would mark me as a victim in the street. But they speak of it so casually, as in, "Oh yeah, this block is OK but over on 3rd Street? They'll kill you for five pesos." OH WORD?! Remind me to stay here on 11th Street, then. Thanks.

Not 3rd or 11th streets, but in the vicinity.

I'm from BedStuy, so I'm no punk. But the kind of crime and danger I was being warned about in Los Mina-the kind that made my grandfather's friend shove me into the house because it was after midnight and anyone could have snatched me and the girls off the street-that shit is definitely new to me. I mean, I'm used to riding the subway at four in the morning, traipsing up and down Minna Street without a care in the world (except for racoons; they're all over my block!). This snatching people for ransom...I just...

As we settled in for the night, Papi said to me (as he left to go sleep at his girlfriend's house-MORE ON THAT LATER), "Lock the door behind me and then prop up the chair up against it." EXCUSE ME, SIR??

I slept maybe two hours that first night, snuggled up with my babies in a full-sized bed, praying we'd see the morning and listening intently in case that chair began scraping across the floor...calculating in my head how much time it would take me to grab that shank Papi kept on the dresser.

For the record: 3.2 seconds. I wasn't going down without a fight.

*smooches...promising more uplifting travel stories soon*
------------
it wasn't all bad; I just had to keep it real for a second.

Back, I Guess.

Every time I take a blogging break, I reluctantly come back. Why reluctantly? Because I love not being a slave to this site. Why not just shut down? Because I'm no quitter.

Anyways, we're back- a little tanner, more relaxed, and with a few more reasons to smile. So I won't come back all crunked out as I usually do; instead, a little island love (because it's still on my mind):

Sergio vargas - si algun dia la vez by Junior Abreu

So yeah, the babies' paternal grandmother died and we still haven't dealt with that but eventually will. Instead, we went to Santo Domingo and chilled with family for about five days. I didn't get to see my grandma this time around but it's okay; I don't think I was ready anyway. I visited her sister instead and that helped.

This month I'll just focus on the energy I brought back with me from the island. I know I was born here but really, that place feels more like home to me. Damn shame.

Also, 37 is right around the corner. YIKES!

And I know I'm all over the place; it's still hard to focus. I'm on Santo Domingo time, where the days go much slower than here in Brooklyn. It was lovely. But we'll get into that later. For now, "Hello again. Pull up a chair. Let me share some tales with you..."

*smooches...cruising through a bittersweet homecoming*
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you'll please excuse my scattered brain for a few more posts. thanks.

Shit Mami Says, Part Cuatro

MARI: Mom, look at you with your college ponytail and your shorts on...I don't know about you.

MAMI: You are obsessed with me.

MARI: No I am not obsessed with you. What is that term called when you are in love with your mom?

MAMI: You mean incest??!

*smooches...packing up my stuff and leaving*
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of all the crazy things to ever have come out of my mom's mouth...I can't...

Dominican Heritage Month, Day 28

I love traveling down memory lane with my family. And there's no better way to do that than through our old photos. A while back Mami gave me a bunch of old black & whites to have restored, matted and framed, and last night I looked through them again to assess the situation and reconcile that with my bank account.

Among the pictures I found this one:

It was so fitting to this month's theme. And even though I can't recall who this is or what concert we were attending (my mom & I were concert rats back in the day, just all up and through the backstage area like VIPs) this man holding that flag in that moment in time, filled me with a strange feeling that I can only describe as pride.

Some of you know my cousin Gregory, from the Penzo side, recently passed. I always cringe at having to deal with that part of my family and funerals are so not my thing, but as soon as I saw (on Facebook, of course!) that Gregory had died all I could think of was his mother, Suzy, and her heartache. As a mom I just know that having to bury a child is devastating. I can't imagine it. And she'd always been good to me, and is a classy lady, and all I wanted was to see her again and hug her and ask for her bendiciones.

I sat in the back of the funeral home (as faaaarrrrrrr away from the open casket as humanly possible and still be in the room) and searched the faces of everyone who came in. "Is that a cousin? Great-aunt? Are we related?" It was a longing I didn't even know was there. Strange. I always run screaming from anything Penzo and it took a funeral for a cousin that I hadn't seen since he was about 9 years old (he was 32 when he died) to realize that, as ratchet and ghetto and just UGH as my biological father's family is, they're my blood.

And as much as I try to deny it, I'm a little proud of that, too.

*besos...just for my Tia Suzy, who buried her baby boy yesterday*
--------
I can't promise I'll stop making fun of them. in fact, I know I won't. but I think my days of denying my Penzo kin are behind me.

Dominican Heritage Month, Day 22

I bet if I ask most of you to name films with, by or about Dominicans, you'd name some Zoe Saldana/Dania Ramirez train wreck. Listen, they are very beautiful women, yes. Are they good actresses? Well...let's not speak ill of these ladies during Dominican Heritage Month, okay?

Instead, let me direct your attention to a few films that will entertain you while showcasing some serious Dominican talent.

1. Sugar. CHILD. Y'all already know I love beisbol and I thought this was about to be just another sports film, but it was so much more. OH BOY was it so much more!

2. Raising Victor Vargas. The grandmother in this film cannot act for shit, but I loved her anyway. She really was every old person I ever grew up with.

3. Washington Heights. What? I mean, eventually the neighborhood was going to spawn a flick. Manny Perez did it justice, though. This was a solid film.

4. Mad Hot Ballroom. This is a documentary but it features real students from the Heights and OH MY GAWD it's completely adorable.

5. La Hija Natural. I never got to see this film when it came to NYC, but the premise and the trailer definitely piqued my interest. One of y'all come over this weekend and we'll watch it!

Also, in case you want a starter list of actors and actresses of Dominican Heritage to ogle at or admire (for their acting abilities), here's a tiny starter list I discovered online. Enjoy!

*besos...anxiously waiting to see my name on a movie poster or marquee*
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it won't be long now before I'm on a list like this

Dominican Heritage Month, Day 21

This is Vick's Vapor Rub.

Growing up, this little blue jar cured all of our ills and then some. I remember having "vaporu" applied to my chest, back, throat, IN my nostrils, across my forehead and down the bridge of my nose. This was the surefire way to force all the phlegm out of the body. Apply hot washcloths to the chest and back that have vaporu on them and DING DING DING, instant cure for a cold or fever. A little sinus infection? Place some vaporu IN your nostrils and then sit in a steam room or with a towel over your head and your face over some boiled water (to get the steam all up your nose). This will also help.

This is Sancochito.

Not to be confused with my delicious meat stew, sancochito is a castor oil-based elixer that will not only cure asthma (it's true!) but force phlegm and other impurities out of your body, either through vomit or feces. Listen, I don't make this up. I'm just passing on the information. All I know is sancochito tastes like the fourth ring of hell but works like nobody's business.

This is Bergamot.

I'm not sure what it is but you put it in your hair to help it grow and thicken and shine. If you use the essential oil instead of the pomade it works even better. Just ask my cousin Vanessa whose mother used bergamot on the child daily...and Vanessa had hair almost down past her butt. It works!

This is Agua Florida.

Santeros use this stuff during "voodoo" rituals or healings and shit. OR it's a cologne used by Dominican grandmothers all over the world, sometimes rubbed into the skin to alleviate aches and pains. Fuck a BenGay- Agua Florida is all you need for your ouchies and honoring your household saints alike!

This is the Humphreys brand of medicines.

There's one for teething babies, for colds and to bring on your period (for late bloomers). There's even one to cure bed-wetting (I may have made that up. Or not. My memory is fuzzy from all the Humphrey's I was forced to take.) They, too, work like little pellet-shaped miracles. My medicine cabinet was FILTHY with Humphreys meds so I guess it works. At least, according to my dry, unstained mattress, it works.

I think this is all I'll share for now. Y'all ain't ready for the urine baths that bring down high fevers. You're not ready.

*besos...hoping this will help you stay well*
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you laugh, but we were very healthy children. thanks to all this crap we had to ingest and the fact that we had no medical insurance.

Dominican Heritage Month, Day 16

I wanted to write a post highlighting all of the amazing Dominican Writers that you should all be reading, so I went to my trusty nemesis, Google, only to come up short. Only the usual suspects appeared: Junot Diaz, Julia Alvarez, and Loida Maritza Perez. I asked Mari if she knew any and she found the same, with the addition of essayists Silvio Torres Saillant and Ginetta Candelario. Just tumbleweeds all up and through my mission!

And in my search I also found an old forum discussion that sort-of-but-not-really answered the question: where are all the Dominican writers?

I don’t know how many of those in the forum are fluent in Spanish, given the fact that most of the threads are in English – but I wanted to comment that to me it’s interesting that most of the worthwhile writers of Dominican ancestry are writing in English.


To me it’s an interesting statement on the shift of Dominican identity from a country whose culture was rooted in Hispanic "criollismo" to one whose Diaspora sets the tone of cultural and political dialogue as much as it does affect the country’s economy.


Think of Dominican writers and it’s Junot Díaz and Julia Álvarez who will come to mind. They’re mostly U.S. educated, Americanized, second-generation voices of the “Dominican” experience.


I’m not saying that’s wrong. I’m saying that it reflects the intellectual stagnation of the half-island.


If you ask about writers in the Dominican Republic, most people would only know of political "caudillos" like Juan Bosch and Joaquín Balaguer. Bosch was a good short story writer; Balaguer just an OK writer. Both were mostly politicos. Both are dead.


There are really no major literary works coming from the Dominican Republic. For example, Colombians can speak of “One hundred years of Solitude” and Márquez. Mexicans can choose between Carlos Fuentes, Octavio Paz, Juan Rulfo, Mariano Azuela, Elena Poniatowska and many others. Chileans have Pablo Neruda and Gabriela Mistral. Argentinians have Julio Cortázar and dozens others.


Dominicans can maybe cite Pedro Mir, but he’s not really that well-known outside the island; Salomé Ureña, but she lived a very, very long time ago; or Manuel de Jesús Galván, but he’s from as long a time ago as the period when Cuban poet José Martí was dreaming of one Latin America. In the last decade, Viriato Sención had some literary success, but that was mostly due to the political undertones of the book and the country’s fascination with Balaguer.


The point is, in my view, we do not have any transcendent literary masters in the country's language. The Peruvian Mario Vargas Llosa had to come and write the only blockbuster Dominican-themed novel in Spanish, "La fiesta del chivo”. I hate him and admire him for it.


So the question I am throwing out there is why is there no real literary tradition in the Dominican Republic? Why are there not writers surfacing that could tell the country’s story in a way that is universally appealing? I don’t expect any definite answers, just sort of opening the discussion.


I blame the country’s poor educational system and sort of anti-literacy, anti-intellectualism mentality of its popular culture.

This person brought up many good points... those in the know- what say you? Where are our literary representatives??

*besos...wishing there were others to look up to*
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Julia and Junot are great, but I hunger for more!