The Girl in Bomba Dress
They were dancing, dancing, dancing African-Boricua music, taking them to palm tree’d places they’d never been, in Pittsburgh’s aching center, not worried about the time.
Category: Fiction
Sacrificio & When We Speak
When we speak our languages, we claim our culture; we claim what’s ours, and like our ancestors, when we speak, there’s power.
Girasol and Paloma
Nothing could hurt me, I got married to a man I didn’t know and certainly didn’t love.
Edgar Alvarado and His Mal-Sueño of Real Estate
The dreams will get worse, and you will never sleep very well. Actually, you’ll get to a point where you won’t sleep at all. This kind of mal-sueño really will kill you.
Ms. Perez Plans Her Funeral
Since she couldn’t dream about life, she decided to spend time imagining her death.
This Is the Marrow Bone of Miguel
Then he announced and repeated to anyone who would listen, anyone who could hear that he was there to save the one who wanted to be saved, the one who escaped before becoming rock in that cloistered village, where the land scorches like burning embers.
Novela
I hadn’t the strength to put it away, I hadn’t the strength to do anything with any of her things, except pack and place them all in the living room. The small ornaments, her sandals, her ugly old television. Her life. I wasn’t ready to let her go.
Les muchá
Une es mexicane aunque el agua no sepa a Chak-Mol ni sepa une de serpientes emplumadas. Une puede ser mexicane incluso cerrando los ojos, pero si une los abre la gracia del nopal se hace a flote e indiscutiblemente todes somos mexicanes.
Por Inbox / Corona de Cristo
El dolor no cabía en mi corazón y las interrogantes no cabían en mi mente, llegó un momento en que mi cuerpo no soportó más y, literalmente, se hinchó: así conocí la preeclampsia.
The Many Deaths of Francisco González (or Frankie Is Alive and Well and Living in Manhattan, Kansas)
There is a rhythm to the chaos of the freeway. So much automation at once – gears shifting, the wearing of tires on concrete, the sound of various sized automobiles – semis, compacts, motorcycles – all racing along an east/west axis that slightly dips north and south at various points, curving to follow a path carved into the earth long before the concept of a freeway.
Nuyoricans Go Home
Evie realized the shape was a pig, smaller than the ones they’d seen. Its tiny front hooves were tied. They could see its eyes still open and its mouth curled open to show its small bloody teeth. A stream of blood trickled from a hole in its neck. Without taking the cigarette from his mouth, the man cut open the pig’s belly.