“Educate a boy, and you educate an individual. Educate a girl, and you educate a community.” ~ Adelaide Hoodless

I had the honor of helping with a second “Crafts for a Cause” set up by Buena Market, which also helped me come back to finally finish the essay I started writing about my first experience lending a hand over the summer. In truth, I’ve spent a significant amount of time reflecting on the importance of community…

Indeed, I believe we all have—times being what they are. So this is the second installment of what I hope will be a series of essays—each one examining how different communities I’ve been a part of have shaped & continue to shape me… I’m already looking forward writing the next (about our most recent experience)!

But before I get ahead of myself, I need to revisit last summer—which is when I first met the small business entrepreneurs & family behind Raíces Plant Truck & Taco Riendo Truck (who I’ll be focusing on in the third installment). For now, I hope you enjoy this flashback to the fateful day in June when our paths crossed.

I remember the exact moment—as though it were a movie in my mind—that I first felt proud to be a bilingual speaker. I was eighteen—a freshman at Florida State University paying a visit to the bookstore on campus… Having declared myself an English Major—with a concentration in Creative Writing instead of Literature—I was quite eager to show off my skills get to work. I’d already met some self-proclaimed poets around campus & begun attending their club, but hadn’t decided if that was my genre. My notebooks were full of play-writing, & I’d only just bought what was to become the first of many poetry journals… 📓

In fact, I knew painfully little about poetry—as most college freshmen quickly discover. English Professors don’t typically assign textbooks, so I had student loan money reserved for that purpose burning in my pocket… I high-tailed it to the bookstore to peruse that particular section, & there I picked up a copy of The Captain’s Verses by Pablo Neruda—a poet I’d heard my father mention before. It was a bilingual edition, but having been educated here in the United States (& therefore, in English) meant I wasn’t entirely comfortable reading in Spanish—unless it was a comic book, or a bedtime story designed for children.

As I thumbed through the book, I remember feeling relatively unimpressed by the verses—but I was skipping over the originals & only reading the translated versions. Eventually, my eyes tricked my brain as they rapidly skimmed from left to right: Only tasting the lines in Spanish, at first… Then I began to savor them, & then I began to devour them—skipping the translations entirely. “My goodness,” I thought… “The originals in Spanish are SO much better!” It’s likely I shouted at the shelves—my heart beating faster in my chest. So I bought the book (along with a stack of others), & have revisited it many times since then.

But it was a rather bittersweet moment—for it was standing there stumbling through the lovesick captain’s versus that I first felt proud about the fact that I was a native Spanish speaker. The pride was suddenly eclipsed by shame as I started to unpack all the reasons I hadn’t felt that pride before… As I started to unpack just how ashamed I’d been of my family (especially my parents), my heritage, & my rich cultural inheritance (up until that point). As the year went on, I realized I wasn’t growing homesick… I was culture-sick. After giving up on a Philosophy minor—I declared myself a Spanish Literature minor instead.

I wish I could say that my shame ended there, but it had only just begun... I’d go on to develop a stutter—which is purportedly more prevalent in bilingual children—when I volunteered to read aloud in my Spanish Literature classes. I’d go on to publish my own debut book of poetry—only to crumble the day I gifted a copy of it to my grandmother, & realized she wouldn’t be able to read it (since it was in English). I’d go on to move to France & become trilingual, only to discover that I had a thick Hispanophone accent when I spoke French. I’d finally move back to Florida—where I felt most at home—because of family.

But my chosen family, & my definition of what it means to be family, has been a fluctuating thing… I felt desperately alone as (I honestly appeared to be) the only Puerto Rican living in Paris. I found myself feeling desperately alone yet again early last summer, as (again I appeared to be) the only person shouting into the abyss about the escalating conflict(s) overseas. The horrific plight of the Palestinian people was triggering affecting me in profoundly unexpected ways, & I couldn’t help but wonder if it was my experiences as a Puerto Rican raised in the United States which flared my desperation & fueled my despair…

Yet it didn’t escape my attention that there were other first-generation folks—many with Latinx or Indigenous backgrounds—who also seemed to be openly struggling. This is when I reached out to friends who had just opened their bakery Bandidas to ask if there were any fundraisers on the horizon, & they redirected me to our mutual friend Steph—the absolute visionary behind the Buena Market brand & experience. After some pestering, she confessed that she was planning on testing out a new initiative called “Crafts for a Cause” & that the idea was motivated by her own desire to do something for Palestine.

I felt electric when she asked if I’d like to participate—as though the strings of fate were becoming knotted instead of flapping like loose ends in the wind… It was a crossroads at which nearly all of my passions intersected—language, justice, heritage, food, family, education, community, children, & the arts. I said yes, & tried not to freak these friends out with my enthusiasm. The truth was, I needed to surround myself with like-minded individuals as much as I felt the need to protest the war. I knew—I believe we all knew—there wasn’t much we could do to help the people of Palestine besides show our solidarity.

I’ve participated in a fair amount of protests throughout my life… Ever since I stumbled upon my first animal rights march while walking around Old San Juan with my cousin in Puerto Rico: We were both handed signs, & simply went along chanting until we reached the Capitol Building before breaking off again to continue our excursion of the city. I’ve linked arms & joined in song with fellow anarchists during Occupy Wall Street, helped surround the White House to protest the expansion of pipelines, & disappeared into a crowd of thousands who took to the streets in Paris during the 2015 Climate Summit.

I’ve also lost some of that fire in my belly—growing more bitter & cynical with the passing years, & watching as the world only seems to worsen in countless ways… I’ve discovered that I’m disabled, & only grown angrier at the appalling disenfranchisement of entire sectors of the population. I’ve learned that hope is an all too easy thing to extinguish—that it is far more challenging to fan the flames necessary to keep it alive. But I do still believe in the power of coming together—if only to break bread, to converse, & to help educate children. It seems to me that these simple tools are also the most powerful in changing…

Changing hearts. Changing minds. Changing the self. Changing the world, too.

None of these things can be done alone. In fact, the older (I won’t say wiser, though one can hope) I become the more I realize that nothing can be done alone… Yet there is ample medium between doing things in isolation & doing things en masse (French adopted by English meaning “in a mass”). It’s easy to feel like part of a movement—part of something massive—but difficult to feel like part of a community while participating in marches or protests. I do still believe in the importance of such demonstrations—there is a time & place for them—but I have also come to realize that it’s easy to be a face in the crowd…

Being part of a community—meaning being in actual communion with others—takes far more effort. Showing up is the only thing required to contribute to a protest, & to be one more body in an ocean of bodies chanting or shouting in unison offers a kind of high which can only be achieved surrounded by that many other humans acting as a single force… Like an army going into battle, or a stadium full of fanatics cheering for their team. It is quite another thing entirely to be on the team that is working together—each with their own part to play—towards a common goal. As the crowd dissipates—so does the high…

Eight months have passed since this unforgettable day in June—yet I still feel its glow. It lit a light inside of me which won’t soon be extinguished. It served to remind me of the goodness still thriving in the world, & of how I don’t even have to go looking all that far to find it. I can’t say for certain whether any life was altered or minds were changed or hearts were touched… I can’t even be sure that our fundraising effort made any impact whatsoever. I highly doubt that any amount of money can help alleviate the grief of an entire population suffering an ethnic cleansing or a genocide—when it is the root of these evils.

All I can say is that I was changed. All I can be sure of is that I felt connected to something greater than myself—something my ancestors would be proud of. Somehow, it felt more powerful than writing a poem. Even if all I did was show up—smile at strangers, teach a handful of children how to make art, & temporarily forget my sorrow in the company of friends. It was a balm for my soul, & provided a container into which I could pour my grief… Which in turn, helped me carry it better. Helped me carry myself into the future—not a dark & dismal future, but one where hope still blossoms despite the odds against it.

{ Shout-out to who I couldn’t have done this day without, & who quite frankly deserves an entire essay of gratitude for his efforts as my co-educator…

To be continued in Pt. 3! }

“What should young people do with their lives today? Many things, obviously. But the most daring thing is to create stable communities in which the terrible disease of loneliness can be cured.” ~ Kurt Vonnegut

I’m going to try my best to avoid committing that most elementary of mistakes it seems many writers make—which is to preface this ramble in a preamble with any specific definition of the buzzword which I’ve chosen to dissect below… 🤓

The word being community, it’s tempting to reach for a dictionary—yet such a simple (& seemingly) innocuous gesture could sabotage the integrity of my piece entirely… Since the point here is to offer my very own (perspective &) definition!

I would instead like to offer a bizarre tidbit about the autistic brain: I read our prefrontal cortex develops faster, but doesn’t mature until later, & begins to deteriorate earlier than that of allistic (believed to be baked by age 25) brains… 🧠

Enjoy the essay, friends! 🤍

At the age of 35, I decided to move back to my hometown in Central Florida…

I’d been abroad for five years—long enough to make France feel like home—even spent the majority of the lockdown there. But when travel became such a restricted thing, I began to miss my family too much. I finally cracked when my younger sister’s second little one was born. So in late 2021, I found myself living in “the sunshine state” once more. The last time I called this subtropical region home was when I rage quit & moved away for college at age 17… Which (if you’re enough of a dweeb to do the math—like I am) means that I had been away for another entire 17 years. Of course, I ended up crash-landing with my parents often enough over those adventure-filled seasons to keep tabs on the place. I simply never expected to be back heartbroken & completely broke yet again by choice—much less that this particular time around, I’d stay put… For long enough to allow my roots to begin to dig themselves back into the earth.

This past summer marked 30 years since my Puerto-Rican parents chose this town as where they’d like to raise their own children. As the eldest daughter, I’d already bounced from sunny island in the Caribbean to coastal (but rural) Tampa to the suburbs of Orlando with them… So I was already 8 (going on 9) when we arrived, & settled in Lakeland as a family of four. It felt strange that there were far fewer Spanish-speakers here—in comparison to the schools & neighborhoods I was accustomed to where we celebrated our heritage. Then instead, due to the racism in the form of bullying & comments under people’s breath & frequent teasing & other things I won’t describe, I eventually grew to hate the fact that we were the ones who spoke a different language. I grew to feel ashamed of my origins. I adapted—or rather, assimilated. It was far easier for me & my sister than it was for our parents, so I even grew to resent them…

It wasn’t until I moved away that I was able to see any of this… Or to feel any amount of pride in where I came from, & where I grew up. But it took longer than that to feel safe here—safe to be completely myself, or to even consider raising my own little children here. Last summer, I wrote about local pride & what that means to me. I was feeling aglow after attending a fabulous bake-sale fundraiser for trans-rights organized by Gabby ( of ) & her amazing wife Gio… Who together form Bandidas (favorite bakery & catering in town). This year, I was feeling increasingly depressed—due to world news—not to mention, deeply ashamed to call myself a citizen of this money-driven, war-mongering country. So in a desperate attempt to do anything besides doom-scroll on the couch, I begged our mutual friend Steph (the powerhouse behind Buena Market) to assist with any fundraisers for June.

That’s how I got to be a fly on the wall for a genuinely inspiring experience, & truly beautiful event. We provided easy, eco-friendly crafts to children & their families for free… Regardless of their ability or willingness to donate—or even discuss—the causes being promoted. We made it clear the organizations we’d chosen to promote were those which directly served children affected by this ongoing conflict abroad… Buena Market designed a flyer with a simple way to scan in donations to either the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, or Operation Olive Branch. But no record was kept nor receipt was exchanged, because the goal wasn’t in collecting funds—which we sadly knew wouldn’t make a dent in this horrific conflict. The goal was simply to raise awareness, & provide a safe space to broach the subject with one’s children... To help teach them what it means to belong to a far greater, global family. What it means to care—deeply.

As an educator, I can understand why so many guardians strongly hesitate to discuss such distressing issues as starvation with children. My folks certainly avoided many topics. I still hope to have a child someday, & I know I’ll hesitate strongly not to shelter them from harm. But I remember growing up feeling increasingly alarmed, because I knew few adults around me were being fully honest. My distress turned into suspicion of most adults—fear I’ve never fully shaken… However, I hope I’ve begun to now that I’m one of the adults making choices which will impact children for generations to come. I’ve often taught (or tried to teach) my students the importance of caring about more than just one’s family members—that all of humanity is one big family—but it isn’t often I’ve felt like I lived up to that example… This experience was one of those rare times, & I’m still unpacking many sentiments that came with it. { TBC in Pt. 2! }

But the more closely I pay attention to what’s going on in the world—the more self-indulgent it feels to post or promote anything personal… Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if carrying a perpetually broken & constantly aching heart is merely the condition of being alive today. To have made it this far, survived for this long, grown this resilient & this strong—only to continue to bear witness to such staggering destruction. Truly, there are days when the weight feels unbearable—yet we must find a way to bear it.

I’ve never liked just how easy it is to turn a blind eye—especially in countries such as ours—nor how powerfully sedated everyone in contemporary society seems. The hypocrisy of my own statement is not lost on me (as someone who relies heavily on meds to avoid falling apart)… But there are wars that wreck the world, wreak havoc on the collective conscience, & will haunt us for a long time to come. These are events we must shoulder & share the guilt for. I believe we’ve been witnessing one in real time…

I’ve been struggling to write this essay for well over 150 days… For over 150 days, we’ve all struggled to make sense of—struggled even to stomach—world news. Forgive me, dear readers—for perhaps I presume too much by including you in this collective grief… Yet how could you not be struggling alongside the rest of humanity? Unless you are one of those who has turned off & away from any & all news entirely—in an attempt to preserve your own faltering sanity.

But sadly for me, I swallow world news like a daily dose of poison… Every morning, the headlines wait patiently alongside supplements & prescribed medications—knowing I’ll eventually falter. Sure enough, before I’ve even finished my cup of coffee, one of the central causes of my depression enters my body & unsettles my nervous system… I surf through clickbait & start to doom-scroll as easily as I swallow the antidepressant that’s supposed to counteract these heavy feelings.

How long have I been this deeply depressed? More importantly, how long have I been this fearful? I can date both states of being back to age nine or ten at most… But my memory becomes difficult to trust before then—because of a series of distressing events that punctured several holes into an otherwise carefree childhood. Caring about others—sometimes far removed from myself—served as a way to distance myself from emotional dangers lurking closer at hand…

Still, until recently, I remained hopeful about the state of things. Pragmatic, certainly. Cautiously optimistic. Maybe even a party-pooper from time to time (okay, a lot of the time). But a doomsayer? Never! Certainly not one of those seers holding a cardboard sign & shouting at strangers about the coming of the end… Except lately, I find myself actively resisting making such a spectacle of myself. Or worse, fighting the urge to curl up into a ball & do nothing at all.

If you’re still with me, dear reader, I salute you… However, I cannot guarantee you a happy (nor even a truly satisfactory) ending. In fact, I can almost guarantee you will get nothing worth making it this far. If I seem to make light or poke fun—please know that it is only to keep us limping along to the sobering tune of reality. It’s no secret that I’ve been struggling to believe in the goodness of humanity… That I’m even beginning to doubt any prospect of seeing a better future.

Whenever I reach this point, I remind myself of the fact that I started referring to myself as an existentialist by the age of sixteen—just to cope with belonging to a blind-folded society in a cruelly unjust world. Here in America, we are hindered by our inherited fear & our bottomless greed… We are taught to mind our own business, to commercialize our every last breath, to make a profit from our pastimes, to grieve quickly, & to grin while we take our beatings.

If we dare complain, we are told to be quiet & grateful for the little we’re given because of a carefully constructed illusion that there isn’t enough to go around. When our neighbor has something we don’t have, we find it easier to covet & bad-mouth them rather than learn to share or celebrate the success of others. But despite being raised in what I was taught to judge as a morally bankrupt & impulse-driven culture, I held out hope for a gentler & kinder world.

I clung tightly to this hope—just as I did to the belief that I was doing the things that would help usher in a better future for all. I voted, I volunteered, I recycled, I rallied, I protested, I marched, I organized, I demonstrated, I educated, & I boycotted… In short, I showed up. I saw many small changes & kept right on hoping for a big change to come—to sweep the entire nation—maybe even in my lifetime. I prayed I’d live to see the day we joined hands & burst into song.

After the end of the first month of this relentless war—which is just another in a series of relentless wars against innocents—I shared some thoughts that started with the words: “These are not dark times we live in... These are simply the times—& things have been dark for quite a while.” I then lost the will to share my true sentiments almost anywhere except for in conversation—either fighting back or releasing tears. In those early days, I wept far more than I spoke.

I circulated the news relentlessly. Not because I felt like it made any real difference—but rather, to keep myself from going numb… I donated to relief efforts & tried to encourage friends to do the same. I, too, cried for a ceasefire. Then I, too, slowly stopped waiting for it. As our own government continues to unmask & reveal itself to be the fully unhinged monster it has become—perhaps always has been—I see how I, too, am complicit… How perhaps I always have been.

Westerners all over the globe have spent several lucrative centuries in blissfully ignorant slumber & will be waking to an incredibly grim reality. Some are waking sooner than others, while some will continue to deny the effects humans have had on the planet until they find themselves more personally affected… A handful might even remain miraculously unscathed—emerging on the other side of this tunnel we’re digging ourselves deeper & deeper into.

If I’m going to be brutally honest here, my friends: I will admit that I no longer see a light at the end of this tunnel… But I can still feel its glow. I’ve stopped praying to see better days—am in fact resigning myself to never seeing them with my own two eyes—but I haven’t stopped praying that our children or our children’s children might. I haven’t stopped praying for the innocent. Nor for the planet, itself… Which—as the poet Joy Harjo taught me—has personhood.

To be honest, dear readers… I thought I was done with poetry. I grew weary of the elitist gate-keeping at every level & found it frustrating to sit with what felt like intentionally complicated books. During the lockdown, I discovered a budding desire to belong to a broader community of caregivers & councilors—to a workforce that got their hands dirty. I’m grateful to have found just that in pursuit of art therapy with special education training.

Yet it seems poetry wasn’t quite done with me. I find the words spilling out of me & onto the page again—though it still doesn’t feel like the right time to share them. I don’t know if that time will ever come, but I can see in the eyes of my students the bitter cost of all this silence. I can see how weary the newest generation already feels. I put into their hands the work of poets such as Fatimah Asghar & Safia Elhillo because I trust their words more than mine.

Instead of imagining better days to come—which now seems to me just one more form of escapism—I’ve been trying to anchor myself in the love that I’m given in the moment that it is given, & in the glimmers of divine light I feel privy to in the presence of nature. My greatest remaining comfort is this: Somehow, strangely—& maybe even for the first time in my life—I’m not afraid. I’m gritting my teeth & committed to not going anywhere… I’m here for all of it.

If all I can do is bear witness, then I won’t look away until my heart gives out from fully breaking. I’ve rolled up my sleeves & I’m praying my knees don’t give way. I used to fear death, but I see it everywhere now—the way it weaves everyone together. I won’t let anything stop me from planting seeds & hoping they’ll grow—for the sake of those already born into this very broken world, & for the ones whose karma will bring them back… To suffer—or to feast off fruit we plant today.

“In itself, homosexuality is as limiting as heterosexuality: the ideal should be to be capable of loving a woman or a man; […] a human being, without feeling fear, restraint, or obligation.” ~ Simone de Beauvoir

Happy Pride to all who celebrate!

✌️ 💋 🤍 🏳️‍🌈 ⚧

“What is straight? A line can be straight, or a street, but the human heart, oh, no, it's curved like a road through mountains.” ~ Tennessee Williams

Pride isn’t something I have felt many times in my life… Growing up in a matriarchal culture within a patriarchal paradigm, there weren’t many opportunities to feel proud of identifying as a woman. I often heard that I looked prettier with my mouth shut—as many Latinx children are told—even if it was a seemingly innocuous expression shared teasingly amongst family. Growing up in the south exacerbated the experience, as there weren’t many opportunities to feel proud of the fact that I spoke a second language either… I leaned into my English despite Spanish being my native tongue, & lost many pieces of myself along the way. As a white-passing Puerto Rican, even my ancestry felt heavily fraught with conflicts of identity & colonial politics.

By the time I was maturing into my own sexuality, I was already deeply ashamed of several aspects of myself… It felt easier to accept the cookie-cutter conditioning of hetero-normative partnership even though I rarely saw it working between my own two parents. I pushed down my budding feelings for friends & peers the same gender as me, despite their blossoming as early as the first grade. If I’d had the words non-binary, gender-fluid, or even bisexual alongside those emotions & experiences who knows how much more OR less intense my growing pains would have been. Still, I hate that I never saw a woman kissing another woman until I was already 16 (despite attending magnet arts schools for much of my life)…

It wasn’t until I was an undergrad that I started seeking the safety & security which a queer community can provide. Yet even as a graduate student I found myself still asking my closest lgbtq+ friends (most of them have always been) the same question: “How do you know? I mean, how do you know—for sure.” How I wish I could go back to the first time I asked that question out loud just so I could answer myself: “Oh honey, if you didn’t already know you wouldn’t even be asking!” It took leaving the country—putting an ocean between myself & my multiplying fears—before I finally came out to myself in France. I never announced it because I didn’t need anyone (who didn’t already know) to know.

I didn’t celebrate when I came out (to myself) because it was (& continues to be) a gradual & ongoing process rather than one significant moment in time. I hadn’t changed, but rather come to accept who I’d always been… In hindsight, nearly everything sharpens into focus & becomes that much clearer. I did have a conversation with my mom before moving back to this country, because I wanted to feel safe about the fact that I was returning to the same, small town I’d never really felt safe in before... It was because I felt loved unconditionally during that call that I was finally able to buy my flight here. But it is because I continue to feel that love reflected back to me by an entire community that I’ve been able to stay. To make this place a home.

Never in my wildest dreams could I imagine Lakeland would turn into such a beautiful haven... After half a lifetime away, I can’t believe how much this town has grown & leaned into love—even as hate scratches at the window & prowls at the door—or how much it shows up in support! This Sunday was a testament to that solidarity, & I have honestly never felt prouder to be a part of a community… One that isn’t just queer—but also intersectional, inter-generational, & interfaith. One that has been shaped by Latinx & Trans Women. One that comes together to celebrate food & family just as much as it comes together to have a little fun.

Despite finding myself in hetero-normative partnership once more (I guess I’m just a sucker for a gentle soul, & @seanhults has the kindest of all 🤍)… I love that my partner is also my biggest ally. I love that we attend a church—an institution I was incredibly hesitant to return to serving—that is accepting & affirming. I love that we bumped into children we work with at that church at this local bake sale for trans rights. I love that we bumped into almost everyone we know here in town. I love how seen I feel—how appreciated for just being myself—& I love that I’m finally proud... Proud that I’m alive but not just proud that I have lived. I’m proud that I have loved—on both sides of the binary—& will continue to love deeply, fiercely, & gladly.