As a child, my way of being creative was to draw instead of write. I had so many thoughts running through my head because of ADD that I had to have some sort of outlet to let me express myself. I found love in creating drawings that were inspired by others’ artwork. Think back on this now, I probably could have benefitted from writing down my feelings. Like in “De lo que es Amor, de lo que es Vida”, the author found peace in her poetry. When I was little I thought that my drawings were the only way I could express myself because I wasn’t good enough to write incredible things. But that mindset is unhealthy in a sense because writing for yourself should not be judged. It should be just for you and no one else. When being creative or having an outlet to express yourself, everyone’s form of this is going to be different. And their meaning behind it is going to be different too. We express ourselves for different reasons- some people need to cope with depression or others may just need to pass time. For me, drawing was mostly something to do to pass time or being my Grandma said I was watching to much television. But as I got older, I needed to create for different reasons. Your problems become bigger as you get older and that was the case in my life. But while your problems become bigger, sometimes that distracts you from doing the things you love. I definitely fell off my wagon. There were years I didn’t draw because my mental health wasn’t in the right place. I wasn’t in the right mindset so I didn’t care about my art. I didn’t make my mental health a priority like I should have. When it became clear to my friends and family that I wasn’t well, they felt the need to reiterate to me that I should be doing the things that I love and being around supporting people as well. I eventually got better with the help of family and friends. But as I entered college, I had more of a recognition of the importance of stabilizing mental health.I began to keep a journal and write in it almost every day. It helped me a lot to get all my feelings out and was great to have somewhere to reflect on my life daily. I’ve begun to notice that everyone falls off the wagon sometimes. We go through phases where we forget to take care of ourselves. I forgot to journal for a very long time. And began to pick it up again when I transferred to New Paltz last semester. Journalling was the best decision I made for my mental health last semester. Even though I am on the right path and my mental health was pretty stable, it still gave me a place to vent during that transitioning time. In times where we’re making a big move or switching jobs, it’s important to have a place where we can reflect on how things are going. For me, this was exactly why I needed to start up a new creative outlet like journalling.

Sour and Hard

The taste on my tongue makes me miss you

It makes her

Put her heart out and scream her feelings out

The grape is like a ball

Like the knot I have in my throat of sadnesss

Hard like my battles

A room full of empty souls

Many dreams broken, still a lot of hopes to fill

Cherish the good and remove the bad.
Some people don’t realize till it is gone

Moving on is a way of life.

There will always be obstacles, pain, and strife.
although it may be risky like eating a forbidden fruit
never let anyone steal your shine and make you frown
So will you sit in the shadows and let darkness

Or will you rise up and with the Latinas lost in the room?

Dile Que Es Amor

Y eso fulls my life

I fell in love with the sound of hopes and dreams not sadness

Eating Mango

The way it shapes only the curves of a womxn can be explained

Reminds me of the islands

Pero tenemos que seguir luchando to make our womxn praised as much as a mango would

You and us as ONE

This is not the end but we will be back soon

De lo que es amor, de lo que es la vida

to me it is to think and clear out my mind

to let go of what you cannot control

the political themes  Ines Hernandez Avila touches on

is amazing to do through ones passion

the passion of writing poems

I wish I could be brave enough

enough  to express my thoughts and put them out there

This is just a little story I want to share with you so that you can understand the reasons why today I want to share my feelings about you. So, the other day I felt like I had lost my headphones. I looked everywhere for them, my jacket, my pockets, I even retraced my steps. By my reaction, a friend who was with me thought it was my phone I had lost. I said: No, but this is as important as my phone. And let me tell you why…

First, I would like to take this time to properly thank you. Thank you for always being there for me. You have never let me down. You seem to know my darkest secrets and have never used them against me. You know what makes me sad, happy, uncomfortable, angry, numb… Every feeling that you could ever imagine I go through it with you. Whenever you say something and I can relate to it, I turn the volume up and you speak loud to me. Loud enough that I learn from it every time.

Honestly, I do not know how you actually do it but you have magic. For instance, there is not much I can say that keep me connected to the world, but you do. At times, for sure. Because some other times when I listen to what you have to say I go to an alternative world and it’s just me and the voices. You have given a mission to these voices. Those strong, of sober thoughtfulness, sometimes hype or sad voices that guide me through my darkness and happiness. I also want you to thank the people that dedicate their time to make you better every time because through them you keep me sane. Their purpose have worked in my favor.

Without doubt, you have also put me on some sort of duty. Yes! Because of you I dance. While dancing I reflect on everything being said. I let it sink into my inner self, I feel the rhythm and finally express what the voices want to divulge through my body and energy. My passion for dancing would be nothing without you. Indeed, my passion is to dance; my desire is to listen to you. Music that change me every time from a broken person into a brave and more alive one.

I hope you do not get offended by this but I am proud to refer to as my drug. I cannot go a day without you, I am addicted. My headphones are like the needle that transmit the dangerous poison that is music. This substance always makes its way into my ears as if it was a vein and completely changes my day. All the different flavors and high that you offer… I mean, from the dembow to the reggaeton, bachata, salsa and boleros sometimes I do not know which one to pick “All I know is that I must have [you] to be whole.”

Thank you Music.

Poetry response to “Everyday Grace” by Mirtha Quintanales

The discomfort we feel in our bones when we see something we don’t like

How to detach oneself should be the types of lessons we learn in school

Because otherwise, we feel everything and I don’t always thinking feeling everything

Is okay.

Why do we let things get to us, let the things people say and do bother us?

Why do our bodies react to others?

Is it not so simple to detach oneself?

Or should we be feeling everything everyone does, even if it has no affect on us personally?

Sometimes I wonder if I should be fully immersed within my universe

Do I feel happiness, sadness, and pain with others? For others?

Or do I isolate all feelings in order to be content with my being only?

Selfless or selfish.

It all depends on the route I take.

What I found most interesting about the talk was the lack of representation in academia. This isn’t something new to me since I have always noticed that my professors and teachers tend to generally be white. However, it was very touching to learn that there have been significant people of color in academia, although their legacies have been suppressed.
I also really liked Ramona Hernandez’s talk on the importance of studying Dominicans. I feel like, up until college, I never learned about Dominicans and their significance. This is really sad for me especially because I am half Dominican. I learned a lot about Dominicans, particularly Dominicans in New York, through her talk. The number of Dominicans in New York is rapidly increasing, and we are a force to be reckoned with!

Norma E. Cantu’s piece “Bruja’s Fears and Desires” was so interesting to me because I feel like it highlighted the ways in  which a lot of Latina women in my life often experience the world. I think that the religion vs. spirituality aspect was especially interesting, because it pertains to my mother’s own interaction with Catholicism in her life. My mother also has an alter where she has La Virgen de Guadalupe framed in the center while pictures of her siblings, parents, husband and children are scattered around her. It is as if she is positioning La Virgen as the sun which the rest of us revolve around; without La Virgen’s light and guidance, perhaps she wouldn’t be lucky enough to have three kids pursuing higher education and her family back in Mexico still in good health.

So while my Irish grandmother will pray on her rosary and go to church every Sunday at noon, my mother quietly practices Catholicism her own way. Just this past Easter Sunday, we were not expected to go to church. Instead we helped around the house, paying special attention to make sure the flowers placed on the alter of La Virgen were vibrant and given enough water, while also making sure that the food that was to feed all of our hungry extended family members was being prepared properly. I think that my mother is a very spiritual person in the sense that she sees it as a personal, almost internal responsibility that she worships La Virgen in order to maintain homeostasis among her loved ones. Her alter to La Virgen and the crosses she has nailed above our headboards is less an imposition and more her own version of prayer–making sure that those she loves are safe and given every cosmic good fortune available.

Juggling,

When I look at this picture and when you look at this picture I want you all to understand what it is like to juggle life. I have been juggling with a sickness that I cannot control, but the biggest juggle of my life I have been struggling with is losing my mother. I am very attached to her; de qué vale el exilio si no hay amor en la familia. That is the message I want to send to Latinas we are all juggling something but the struggle in our lives is worth it. Death is something that everyone fears, but I have learned that to live does not mean you are alive. I will not allow the bad things to define me, I will not allow the bad to die on me but to make it positive. Hello?

Life? Do you heat my Latina roots radiating through me? I will strive anything, I am my juggle, my struggle.  

This is my first tattoo out of two. When someone sees it they don’t know the meaning behind it. They don’t know that story. Every scar, scrape, tattoo, birthmark on my body has a story. But these little spots on my body are only parts of the big picture that is my unique story. Everyone has marks on their body that we automatically look at if it’s visible. These markings on our bodies make up who we are! And whether it’s a stretch mark or mole, these “imperfections” are perfect. We must embrace every part of our bodies because our body is a forest- ever growing and changing. Our bodies are sacred to us and we need to keep our negative thoughts about the little spots on us in the back of our heads. My tattoo may not be for you, but it’s for me and that’s why it’s there. Because I love it and that’s all that matters.

Reading Night Terrors can be extremely difficult to anybody, even if you dont have experienced an assault like that. Sexual assault is one of the most dehumanizing types of abuse. It attacks you where you are most vulnerable and makes you doubt everything about yourself. It makes you wonder why victims tend to ask themselves was it my fault?.  Unfortunately, victims have the tendencies to believe that they brought the trauma upon themselves and that the assault is their punishment for being “bad” or inadequate, as it was showed when the first assault occurred and she asked herself Was I a bad girl? What did I do to deserve this?.

The idea that victims of sexual assault are somehow to blame because they didn’t take the necessary steps to protect themselves is something that is woven into the fabric of society and how people react to sexual assault, people tend to label or to accused the victim by saying things like she must have provoked him, she shouldn’t have been wearing that kind of clothes or the popular “ella se lo estaba buscando”.  Which is why it should really come as no surprise that survivors blame themselves; it seems that society only takes rape seriously when the victim was violently overtaken by a stranger jumping out of the bushes. However for most of the victims, the rapists were wolves in sheep’s clothing. They were their dates, their friends, their teachers or even their fathers.

As a child, we learn to protect ourselves from strangers, so we grow up assuming a rape cannot possibly occur between friends or family members, but sadly, most of the time a person is raped by someone they know, trust, or love. It is hard to accept that a person they spent Christmas dinners with, or someone who came to their birthday parties, had the capacity to commit one of the most heinous crimes known to humankind, but is possible.

It can happen to you, to me or to anybody and the most helpful thing we can do is to stop saying the classing lines that only help to reinforce the victim blaming.