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A love story for Valentine’s Day: Amor Mio

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By Janie Isidoro

Yes, I’ll admit it.

I have had six Coronas too many.

I’m at the moment where everything is hilarious and I love everyone. I hug random people and tell them how great life is. I hug my brother and tell him how much I love him and hate him for reading my diary when I was 15, baboso!

Cleaning up after Gema’s wedding is so much easier now that I’m drunk. I keep seeing Hector out of the corner of my eye, watching me. We have been friends since we were in 2nd grade.

He comes over next to me grabbing the glass bottles of Coronas from the tables, “Let’s get married.”

I try and look over at him but my eyes are having the hardest time adjusting to his face, “Whatever! Hurry up and pick up the bottles I want to rap!”

He starts laughing and keeps grabbing the bottles, “¡Pues oralé, rap!”

Dammit if these Coronas haven’t made me brave!

Mas…A love story for Valentine’s Day: Amor Mio

Mexicans are becoming an endangered species

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Mexicans have officially become members of an endangered or hunted species in the U.S. (I’m not referring to our enormous demographics, as we’ll continue to multiply in el Norte — where individuals of Mexican origin represent over 40 million citizens/residents — despite the racist fantasies of Donald J. Trump and his immoral ilk.

Throughout the early 1800s to the present, Mexicans have been robbed of their lands, lynched, killed, imprisoned, segregated, subjugated, vilified, scapegoated, sterilized, raped, beaten by white mobs, brutalized by cops, racially targeted with violence, etc.

Today, the guilty of these heinous acts and crimes include the most powerful racist in the world (Trump), the morally bankrupt political party (GOP), state media (Fox “News”), deplorable Trump supporters, capitalists and state agents.

Mas…Mexicans are becoming an endangered species

Mexican immigrant parents: From my shame to my pride

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dignidadlaloWhen I first applied to UCLA, I wrote in my personal essay that I didn’t have any positive role models in my violent neighborhood.

Having grown up in East Los Angeles’ Ramona Gardens housing project, I wrote that most of the adults represented gang members, drug dealers, thieves, tecatos (heroin addicts), alcoholics, felons and high school dropouts (or push-outs). I also wrote about my disdain for housing authority officials and government workers for behaving like prison wardens and guards toward us: project residents who depended on government aid or welfare.

Moreover, I decried the police abuse that I had witnessed and experienced, like the time when a cop pointed a gun at me. My crime: being a 15-year-old making a rolling stop while learning how to drive.

Mas…Mexican immigrant parents: From my shame to my pride