Tag: memoir
-
Nicaragua Was Not My First War
In 1969, when I was seven, we made a trip to El Salvador for the summer. My parents had plans: they considered moving to my mother’s home country, for financial reasons. Life was cheaper in Central America, even for a financially strapped gringo family. Mamá still had kin in the country. We could build a…
-
Finding My Latino Roots in a War Zone
Michelle and I flew into Nicaragua in the fall of 1985, a country that gringos weren’t supposed to visit. Ronald Reagan was at war with the country. The Nicaraguans had run Somoza out of the country, the bloody dictator whom the United States had propped up for decades. The Sandinistas were now in charge. And…
-
El Testimonio, capítulo 1: El Nacimiento del Pocho
¡El primer podcast en español! (But, like any Salvadoran party, everyone is welcome) Aquí hablo de la vida del pocho–que significa, una fruta podrida, y un Latino que no sabe nada de su cultura, que no habla español, que está lejos de sus raíces. Pero, este pocho decidió, en su juventud, meterse en la cultura salvadoreña para…
-
A Check-Up at the Home Asylum
It’s now been two months since my psyche broke with reality, on Christmas morning. I started feeling better about three, four weeks ago; at least, I started functioning again. My family and I know this pattern all too well, one that began when I turned seventeen, almost forty years ago. In my first journal, in…
-
Journal Writing 2
The one thing about keeping a journal–your subconscious leaks onto the page. That is, if you let it, which you should. This means dealing with disturbing images, notions, thoughts that come and you don’t know why. Unwelcome thoughts, perhaps. But the one who is a committed journal writer will allow that to happen, will even…