Tag: Salvadoran culture
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El Testimonio: César Vallejo y la búsqueda de mis raíces
Every once in a while I do a podcast in Spanish, and talk about what it means to be Latino today, in the U.S. Porque, para mí, el español siempre fue, y es, el idioma de amor–ese amor de la niñez, cuando las mujeres de la casa en mi pueblo natal, San Francisco, CA–las tías,…
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The Salvadoran, Hip-Hop, Mormon Voice of William Palomo
I was at the Associated Writing Programs conference in Tampa in March, where students and professor of creative writing gather for a weekend. I had a great time, because I was on the lookout for Latino writers, and I found them. And this young man was a true find! William Palomo is the son of…
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Witches and Tamales
My mother Romilia had a husband before she met my father. She was fifteen, he was twenty-even. They say that another woman was after him in the town, and her mother cursed him for not marrying her daughter. “May he die within the first weeks of their wedding!” Well, he did. Just a few months…
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What I Reap From Mamá’s Stories
It’s been fun to post my mother’s memoir here on The Writing Bull. And it’s just as fun, and even more meaningful, to listen to her stories. Which, I have heard all my life. I have known, for decades, about her murdered father–my grandfather Pilar Reyes–who was shot in the street by some guy named…
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The Holy Spirit of My Uncle’s Cojones, Part 4
I forgot to mention, the 1967 Mustang plays a big role in this novel. It’s practically another character. It’s the summer of 1978, a few months after Tony cut his wrist. The whole family knows about it, but, unlike other families who try to avoid such difficulties and pretend nothing’s wrong, the women of the…