(PNS reporting from EL BRONX) Almost every adult American remembers where they were on Sept. 11, 2001, but few remember more vividly than Bronx janitor Alberto Qaeda.
“That was the first time I ever got my ass kicked. And the second time. And the third,” recalls Qaeda, who used to go by the more informal name of “Al.”
Qaeda (photo), who was 17 in 2001, was a student at City College of New York studying to be a cashier when the first plane crashed into the World Trade Center.
From Chicago to the Bronx, Rebel Diaz makes music that fights racism and celebrates indigenous people. Is there something familiar about this song’s chorus? I’m An Alien includes a sample from Sting’s Englishman in New York.
When the camera stops rolling, she’s just Sonia from the Bronx. [NSFW audio.] Video by Roberta Valderrama.
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(PNS reporting from DA BRONX) Area resident Paloma Campos is fed up with the “familiarity” at her local bodega.
Campos, a molecular biologist, complained to friends last week about the exhausting personal relationship she’s expected to maintain with bodega owner Victor Martinez (photo, right.)
“Why can’t I just buy a can of soda without discussing my personal life? Just give me my goddam Jupiña,” Campos said.
Campos first started visiting the bodega on the corner of 182nd and Grand as a young teen when her family moved to the area. Though she moved away for four years to attend college, Campos was eventually guilt-tripped by her mother to move back to the West Bronx.
Campos ended up renting the apartment directly above the small store where she has lived for the past eight years. While she was able to sublet the apartment from her cousin’s step-sons’s girlfriend’s cousin at a great price, she cannot make a simple grocery purchase without a 20-minute discussion.
Mas…Local woman tired of having personal relationship with bodega owner