Latina Moms | Daughters
If navigating parenthood is tough, navigating childhood is tougher. We’ve all heard the horrifying stories of kids committing suicide because of bullying—bullycide as it being called. In California, a new law, named after 13-year-old Seth Walsh who killed himself after being tormented at school because he was gay, was passed last year. California is the [...]
Watching The Iron Lady on the big screen, I was suddenly taken out of the film by a flash of recognition. For a moment, I saw my great aunt Concepcion—known to us as To (my brother and I called her Toe)—come to life before me. Like Margaret Thatcher, Toe had a rather sharp nose, wore [...]
In Proust’s novel, Remembrance of Things Past the narrator is transported back in time with the taste of the soft cookies called Madeleines dipped in tea. For me it is hearing the laughter of adults at a party. My parents threw great parties. The year would begin with a party on January 6, known as [...]
Sometimes I wonder if true, deep, and meaningful friendships are of a bygone era. A neighbor of mine called on New Year’s Eve to wish us well. When I asked her plans for the evening, she said she and her husband were having dinner and martinis with the same group of friends they had spent [...]
Just when I thought all was safe, the clown appeared. It was a Saturday night. Everyone was having a grand time. The men were watching college football, drinking beer. The women were drinking wine, nibbling on crackers with brie and salami, exchanging tips on skin exfoliation. The kids were under control playing E-rated video games. [...]
Last December at school, my daughter sang Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer alongside Celebrate Kwanzaa and Chanukah, Oh Chanukah at her winter recital. One night after her recital, we paid one of our regular visits to my parents’ home. As we greeted each other, my daughter looked around the house and asked my mother, “Abuela, [...]
Growing up Mexican in the bowels of Orange County, California, was lonely. On a whim in 1977, my parents sold everything they owned in Mexico City and moved us to the United States. From the beginning we were freaks. We were the only kids on the block whose mother would yell out in Español—YA VENGANSE [...]
I stared at the picture with a curious mix of mortification and amusement. There I am in all my pregnant glory on a website for all the world to see. Could this woman with a tiny head, a trapeze zebra-striped dress stuffed into an enormous body with thick arms, gigantic breasts and a butt so [...]
As we sat around the dinner table the other night, my ten-year-old son seemed a little confused as to what to do when pushed or shoved or kicked on the soccer field. We all had words of advice for him, but it was my mother who captured the essence of what needed to be done. [...]
