tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88460066363966877592024-03-14T02:45:50.599-07:00Odilia Rivera-Santos, on the art of writing, observation and genre envyOdilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.comBlogger156125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-60424141691062131232019-03-31T20:43:00.000-07:002019-03-31T20:45:05.664-07:00Ephemera Thinking about James Joyce’s Dubliners and Katherine Hepburn’s hair pins on her dresser backstage in her dressing room reminded me of a man whose house I visited years ago. He had a converted barn filled with theatrical props and my friends and I were thrilled to see a chair on which the great Ms. Hepburn sat in a production of a Broadway show. We spent the afternoon in his beautiful home, left, went for a walk in the woods and found a pristine lake. We stripped down to our underwear and slipped into the cool water. A couple walked by and stopped to watch us and when we came out, I noticed she was pregnant.<br />
My friend and I spoke to the couple for a while as we put our clothes on over hot sticky skin. The woman said if she had a girl, she would name her after me.<br />
We said our goodbyes and disappeared from each other’s lives. We made the trip from Connecticut to NYC in silence.Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-65736845984701039242019-03-29T17:24:00.003-07:002019-03-29T17:28:09.668-07:00In Your FeelingsSome moods can make me crave avoidance of any kind of expression and being on automatic is a substitute for presence and feeling what you don’t want to feel. But, I’ve learned to lean into the mood and see what seems most purposeful in the moment — poetry, a short story, the skeleton of a novel, a scrapbook for future horror stories or a soliloquy. <br />
The writing muscle continues to grow some girth and eventually, some definition. Being who you’re meant to be as a writer requires curiosity about the inner workings of one’s mind and the audacity to have opinions about everything and to envision the possibility of becoming an authority on something or someone. In writing through uncomfortable feelings, such as impatience, pain and grief, the writer wins. Boethius wrote in prison while awaiting execution, which reminds me to be a little tougher. <br />
A hint of melancholy is just another shade in the color palette and not a reason to run from what has made life worth living on so many occasions.<br />
Dark moods might inspire a radical departure from the norm. Writing through feelings is another experiment and what is creativity but a series of experiments?Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-23610546528264546182019-03-28T11:08:00.001-07:002019-03-29T10:30:21.737-07:00Writing Advice...Books and classes on writing will fill your head with disparate ideas about how to approach your story. Some authors will tell you to write about what you know and others will tell you to write about what interests you. Because I believe there is freedom within structure, I think it's a good idea to create an outline of each story. An outline is like a trail of popcorn leading out of the woods. You can write short stories of ten pages or more with no expectations of what they might become. <br />
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<i>Working Outside Your Comfort Zone</i><br />
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Keep writing playful and lay off the cash-and-prizes pressure. To keep your creativity limber, choose to focus on something outside your comfort zone. And to assuage the terror, write down what you'll have to learn to write about historical figures, true crime, hospital settings or zombies. Writing about things that engage your mind, imagination and make you run to the computer or notebook each day is the samadhi of writing. <br />
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<i>Fictionalized or Heightened Creative Nonfiction</i><br />
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It's tricky writing about family, old friends and childhood contexts. I always wonder how much we have permission to reveal about others' lives. Any criticism of an individual's behavior begs an exploration of his or her character and how that person became the evil-doer in a family or among a group of friends. Would you write your personal narrative as a fable? Would you consider stating the facts as they were with no regard about where you'd spend Christmas? <br />
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<strike>Where SHOULD ideas come from?</strike><br />
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There is no such thing as a magical spout of story ideas from which we all fill our cups. We writers are wanderers in search of the next interesting thread and the desire to see where it leads. All art begins with desire. Writing from your navel has some definite advantages and staying there in the nebulous imagination of your past can be something that stunts creative growth.<br />
Sometimes, I find it important to explore why I want to limit myself in my writing choices. Is it laziness to want to write from and about one's personal experience? Is there are a fear of being inadequate as a researcher that keeps some writers from writing a historical novel? <br />
As a person who loves writing advice, I can say the best advice is to follow what motivates you to get to the pen and paper or computer. When you compare yourself to those writing in your favorite genre, you might become immobilized. And picking up on the latest writing trends feels like a cash grab in a clear booth on a game show. Ideas come from everywhere and the stories we weave can become bigger as we trust our abilities to learn new things and ask questions. Being an introvert and writer doesn't mean you never talk to librarians -- they are great resources. The human touch has not yet lost its touch, and when you're stuck, making calls to connect with your tribe or talking to humans at the local drugstore can break the spell of obsessive focus on rearranging the alphabet.Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-58167079445871588022019-03-22T15:03:00.002-07:002019-03-30T05:14:21.791-07:00Morning PsychographyI have been writing morning pages every day for years and after a couple of weeks or months of writing accumulates, I do a quick scan and see if there is anything that could be transformed into readable text. I pick through, find words or sentences that flow well and save them for later and the rest goes in the recycling bin. A morning freewrite unencumbered by purpose, lets ideas breathe and some poems and stories have emerged. From freedom to structure is a process I enjoy. It feels good to know each word isn't precious and is just a mental warm-up or purge if I have been particularly challenged by something or someone. A quiet rage on the page is a rare event, but happens sometimes. <br />
The guideline for those morning pages is to write quickly as a way to kick up what might be hidden from my consciousness but bubbling to the surface in one way or another.<br />
And I focus on balance - keep it light on complaints and heavy on the gratitude. <br />
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Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-83319518559658641132019-03-21T09:13:00.003-07:002019-03-21T09:14:08.808-07:00Rock-Climbing for WritersWinter is the time to be in the cave unless prodded out to go work outside your home, which I’ve avoided for the most part. <br />
Cold is great when you're inside looking out; but to be in it, in the snow and hail and blasting cold winds is to play with the worst bully in the playground.<br />
I have been editing and writing as a remote worker, which allows me to work with a blanket around my shoulders. <br />
In my meditation groups, I get to socialize with people who are seeking enlightenment and those who are just looking to drain the excess information from their nervous systems, so they can concentrate and sleep and remember where they put their keys.<br />
My Writer friends and I talk about the excessive amounts of information we ingest on any given day and it isn’t to be smart or the hit of the party we would never attend... it is just our football.<br />
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My latest obsession is persistence and those who exemplify this trait — particularly rock climbers. Persistence with the added flair of possibly falling off a rock to be eaten by bears is fascinating to me. <br />
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I can compare it to running long-distance with a fever, a cold and in severe weather. <br />
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What was it that made me run in horrible weather and, sometimes, in pain?<br />
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I think a solid hour of self-imposed and controlled suffering strengthened me for the day and also made me feel tougher than any weather. <br />
Running was the old Transcendental Meditation where every problem fell away and nature seemed closer.<br />
Life got simple and tasks organized themselves in my mind without my help.<br />
As I write this, I realize my writing could use some rock-climbing persistence, so I will definitely brave the cold and run tomorrow morning.<br />
I'll let you know how it went.<br />
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Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-21799721493036895372018-11-13T19:57:00.001-08:002018-11-13T20:14:38.756-08:00SubmissionsI recently submitted some poems to a fancy magazine with a glossy cover. The photos are artsy and writers deftly place their adjectives in exactly the right places and I admire that. I also emailed two short snapshot pieces about my relationship with my sister and mother to a writers’ group. <br />
I wrote these vignettes while they were both alive, so it’s strange to revisit the two most important female relatives in my life only on paper and in dreams. Editing scenes between us now gives me a sense of wanting to grasp each detail and hold it until I re-remember what each woman said and did. As I read about the dead, my mind polishes fragments of memory, so I can take a closer look and see the white hair framing my mother’s face and my sister laughing as her fat cheeks turned red. <br />
The three of us had an interesting synergy: my mother was often exasperated about something, my sister was always mischievous and I attempted to be a mediator, even though no one asked. Reading through pages I hadn’t seen for a while helped me be slightly more objective and I was in awe to see myself left to tell their stories. In writing nonfiction, I make an effort to be understanding and compassionate in order to have a balanced view of people — writing with compassion is much more challenging than a flat dismissal of people and the hard work that may have been their lives. I’ve often heard writers speak about how writing about the dead proffered a sense of liberation because they could ‘write things as they really were,’but I feel a deeper sense of responsibility to tell stories about the dead. As I write about complex and painful experiences with certain people now deceased, I also have a desire to show each person from as many angles as possible; in their lifetime, a multitude of perspectives told their stories. <br />
In telling of the flawed and wholly human time a person spends on this earth, forgiveness, compassion and understanding allow for a more compelling portrait.Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-60435662877898770382018-11-08T18:24:00.002-08:002018-11-08T18:29:27.285-08:00Documentaries Make Me HappyVibrationally speaking, documentaries really rev up that whole invisible system that fills your subconscious with joy and excitement. I just watched Filmworker, a quiet, low key doc about one of my favorite filmmakers: Stanley Kubrick. The film focused on Kubrick’s relationship with a humble man named Leon Vitali. Vitali left an acting career to work as Kubrick’s shadow. He handled highly technical work as well as taking care of Kubrick’s cat.<br />
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Vitali left center stage, where he had been a respected Shakespearean trained actor, to work in the service of someone he considered an artistic genius. To Vitali, Kubrick’s work was more important than his own family and health. I say this without judgment; Vitali’s behavior showed where his priorities lay.<br />
His children played in the office while he worked diligently in the background to provide all the necessary assistance to insure a Kubrick film would be made in the filmmaker’s very exacting way. Kubrick, like Vitali’s father, had a bad temper and Vitali learned to step back when Kubrick was having a meltdown. Sometimes, we work out confusing childhood relationships with coworkers or bosses ...<br />
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Listening to versions of a story in a documentary is always the most fascinating form of storytelling for me - multiple perspectives and to hear the exact details others notice about the subject. I wonder how much time we would save in life if a documentary could be made of our lives every five years.<br />
A documentary is an epiphany for its participants and viewers and, for some reason, this kind of film makes the audience feel like participants. <br />
And if you haven’t seen Barry Lyndon, do it now!Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-13537275611919966552018-11-07T08:32:00.001-08:002019-04-12T16:49:16.224-07:00Watching to Write VisuallyI have been watching a lot of TV, doing my TV writing Masterclass homework, and I see a strange theme in ‘family’ shows. The old formula of innocuous parents who at 40 already had no clue about how the world works and the smart-ass teenagers who never look at their parents as human beings is disappearing... but maybe, this still exists on network TV, which I don’t watch.<br />
But on the streaming channels, there is a prevalence of dystopian parenting in which family members live like roommates with the occasional reminder that some of the humans are parental units (to quote Saturday Night Live). The Family Ties, The Cosby Show and Family, which were stalwarts Of family normalcy and unity have been replaced by Transparent, Ozark and Girls — and in all these shows, the parents haven’t figured it all out and, in some cases, major parts of their identities are still up in the air.<br />
The ‘Father Knows Best’ Type Of shows with nuclear families, family meetings to discuss issues concerning the family and making big life decisions was meant to be prescriptive. And it was an idealistic goal for families that most didn’t even attempt. Families sat together to watch shows in which families never sat down to watch families on TV because they were too busy being families. Real families really admired fake TV families and nodded in agreement at the lessons in the end.<br />
So, I think TV families, unless you’re talking about a comedy, have become descriptive — taking cues from the most nightmarish headlines about family dynamics.<br />
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The new Tv families are definitely not prescriptive.<br />
There is enough struggle, misery and disaster in each episode to yell ‘Don’t do what we do!‘<br />
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But in the new family dynamic, we see the family version of a breakup - whereas a lover might say ‘let’s just be friends,’ Tv family members say, ‘Hey, let’s just be roommates and if you want to be an emancipated Minor, just let me know what I need to sign.’<br />
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-82713855199831473682018-11-01T06:26:00.002-07:002019-04-03T07:25:34.167-07:00Write Like No One is ReadingI carry a notebook and pen everywhere I go, which is a habit I've had since childhood. It's often the case that a sentence or character will come to mind while I'm on the elliptical or doing squats at the gym. Snippets of people and places can be fleeting, so I take notes and put the sweaty pieces of paper in my exercise tights.<br />
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There are times at which the day flies by so quickly that it would be easy to say I had no time to write, but if I don't write, the day is lost -- ingesting information without a product seems like a waste. Pun intended.<br />
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I’ve studied writing in several colleges and really enjoyed the workshopping experience because the writing was private and critiquing was public.<br />
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In ‘group-write’ classes, writers would sneak glances at each other as they tried to decipher how each other’s process worked. I listened to the click of a keyboard, the scratch of pen on paper, loud nervous gum-chewing and I wondered how I had ended up in a room of competitive writers. It was a private act made public.<br />
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And as the sharing time came around, there were people who refused to read. After they listened to someone else and decided to allow self-centered insecurities to open up a sink hole in front of them, they leapt in. The sinkhole people interrupted the flow. Writing needs listeners and viewers to be fully realized. Looking at the audience’s faces, one can see where the beats are and should be and if the jokes and irony are landing.<br />
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Writers have to own their authority and embrace it. Readers won’t follow a writer whose authority is in question. But, in most cases, the authority thing is easy because we love the sound of our own voices, in our heads, and sometimes, out loud.<br />
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I love process, discussions of a character’s possible trajectory and analyzing data for the love of process. And my people are out there — overthinkers And overreachers...<br />
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Right now, I’m focused on writing scripts and studying in order to improve my talent in this area. For me, writing dialogue brings a character into being. In a script, unlike short story, you have the help of an actor to add necessary nuances, gravitas and special sauce to mere words. A script is the garden without the interesting weeds or background foliage.<br />
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The script is an underdressed story, so it’s a lot less work than short stories. Someone will disagree with the idea of writing scripts as being easier than writing fiction. But, that’s how playing with language works. What’s easy for one person is torture for another.<br />
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I'm considering the need for balance on a daily basis. Although I would love to read for 8 hours and write for 8 hours, I'm still on the road to that magical place: lying on a couch in my office as I wait for an idea -- that's the dream.<br />
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I slip out of this dream as bedtime nears and considers how writing happens - magically without constant scrutiny, learning to compartmentalize in order to write after you’ve suffered a loss or had someone scream at you for being selfish. Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-82970130272903047242018-10-25T19:36:00.002-07:002018-10-25T19:43:10.059-07:00Writing about Nothing As a writer, self-acceptance is, at times, on the run with self-doubt nipping at its heels.
And the beautiful thing is too few people really care about what you’re doing because everyone else is fidgeting in his or her own way.
I was talking to a friend about the nature of work and being kept in one small place like calves raised to become veal and agreeing to an exchange of time for money.
Internally, a worker wonders what the price tag on an hour of time should be and begins to yearn for hours back — those sold too cheaply.
When I was in high school, I would listen to Howard Stern talk about his sex life, marriage,
In-laws, parents and his child-rearing methods as he chewed a bagel with cream cheese into the microphone. His vitriol was very much a part of New York City life because we lived and talked the same way we rode the train - the person with the sharpest elbows won.
I remember the realization of how his radio show tone and topics affected my perception of my little part of the world from The Bronx to my high school in Manhattan and the in-between Of interacting with people while walking to the train station and onto the train. All the faces seemed
more meancing and fed up. I also noticed I cursed a lot more while listening to Stern. And one day, I decided to take a break from listening and took back my lens.
I was very interested in how one’s thought processes could be so easily influenced and how easily the Koolaid
was undrunk (I invented a word because I’m a word professional). As I walked down the street and took the same train, people’s faces were more expressive and not as intimidating as before. I was also a teenager. Impressionable teenagehood can last for a long time for some people or forever for others. When I listened to Stern on the radio again, his words weren’t entertaining anymore.
Which makes me wonder how a spell is broken and broken for good.
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-22594966005610547812018-10-02T20:23:00.001-07:002018-10-02T20:37:47.041-07:00The Deep DiveI took a break from caring about writing and getting published, but kept writing. I said I wasn’t a writer and wrote even more. Teaching was helpful because I had the prescribed amount of interaction with the humans.
I love the humans but can’t spend a lot of time in big gatherings because it’s exhausting to introduce myself so many times after I reach the point at which I want to be home, reading a book in bed.
I had a short-lived editing gig; one of the assignments was writing about a very famous celebrity I had never heard of and lipgloss. And this left me thinking I needed to find out who was famous and important and although I am addicted to lipgloss, I had higher aims than to write about it...
Unless, there were free samples and then, I might have caved. My fantasy life continues —
it really started in childhood while watching musicals and discussions with my sister about Our goal to work together as adults.
My sister Rebeca and I were going to open an all-girl detective agency. And In retirement, well into our seventies, we were going to ride the bus to museums in New York, competing to see who could prepare the worst smelling lunch. Sardines, hard boiled eggs and tuna salad seemed the best offering to unwrap on a bus to the horror of fellow bus passengers.
I miss my sister every day.
I miss hearing her chuckle.
And I will miss watching her get old.
So, the deep dive into writing has a lot to do with her. We were both striving for something else beyond the ordinary we had seen pass for life in our early years in New York and Puerto Rico. I’m diving in to get the sunken treasure,
so sunken I had forgotten it was there.
Thank you for reading.Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-20334134303045641332018-08-17T15:28:00.000-07:002018-08-17T15:37:54.490-07:00Listening to Many Voices and None of Them in My HeadI haven't visited this blog in a long while. My adventures have been of the nerdish variety -- teaching writing, math, research methods, professional chit chat, social media managment and overusing the gerund. I quit teaching as a full-time gig and decided to do other things as I keep up what makes me me. I know life is about experimentation and a slip into fantasy is part of that experiementation.
I just ordered E.F. Benson books from Amazon because my local bookstore hasn't been built yet, and I ordered the books to do research on my childhood. These books allowed me escape from a culture that always seemed foreign to me. My childhood was full of noise and unexpected catastrophe. Benton allowed me to slip through a secret escape hatch to daydream about being a 1920s woman whose only concerns were the guest list for a party, what flowers to put on the table and to whom she should send 'thank you' notes. Without having looked at the books in decades, I may have forgotten any allusions to World War I, its suffering, privations and aftermath. But, the human memory is always convenient like that.
I finished a novel, mainly by hand, and like a sweater, I unraveled it -- I pulled a string of words and changed its direction. I plucked a character out of some cruel troubles and placed him on stable ground. How magical to be able to pluck someone out of a landfill, allowing him to shake off the gruffness of experiences I put him through to start again down another road with a new pair of shoes, a new suit, a new past and a new trajectory. I love the power of us powerless little writers to make magic even if for an audience of two. Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-72959296214693235642016-06-18T14:30:00.000-07:002016-06-18T14:31:16.549-07:00Mermaids, sparkle and the Parade of HumanityBy Odilia Rivera-Santos
He caught my eye because he was shirtless, his chest covered in blue sparkle that matched his pants and winged shoes; his skin was rosy and beautiful.
"Mermaid Parade?"
He smiled wide.
"Yes! My first time!"
He let me take his picture. And others asked. Jostled together, different races, ages,and foci. Workers, shoppers, parents, marrieds, sinks and dinks.
NYC has been appearing too crowded as of late. People walk down the streets trying to capture someone's attention and the disruption of someone else's flow.
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-16392319670833652352015-09-06T04:41:00.001-07:002015-09-06T05:31:35.188-07:00Writing a novel by hand... how novel! by Odilia Rivera-SantosI started a new novel or novela and will write the whole thing by hand. There is something about pen and paper early in the morning that jives with the sinews of my brain and the brawn of my intellect. It is 4:30 in the morning and the swish of traffic is sluggish and not as oceanic as it gets at around six, the small lamps are on illuminating bits of wall here and there, and the drip of the faucett -- which seems to be like the building passing gas -- is steady. I get up to tweak it and make the drip stop, it stops, I sit and it starts, another building fart.<div>The coffee is here to my right and a new collage devoted to ambition, stakes its claim, stares back at me, and tells my mind to write something commercial... no more La Diana-inspired ephemera, no birds'nests of urban blight.</div><div>Although birds'nest, urban blight, pastoral novels and fantasy are at the tip of my tongue. No, I resist the un-being of me. And I wrestle with ambition and pin it to the linoleum floor. The novel is being written in the wee and I'm good. Be-ware peaks and valleys and surprises and ellipsis to fill in spaces for yourself for your own self. </div><div>Right now, I am feeling the cool breeze between my toes from the terrace. And the novel?</div><div>There are two women named María, one Mexican and one Puerto Rican to be played by a Mexican and a Puerto Rican in the film, and there is an elderly Chinese lesbian, an alcoholic super/carpenter/electrician, and the Jewish surrogate grandmother of course. It is set in New York City. </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>I will be reading from this new novel, new poetry and new short stories at Uptown Roasters on September 27th from 3 to 6 along with some other very talented women writers/performers</div><div>Uptown Roasters</div><div>135 East 110th St between Park and Lexington Ave
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-89289021919628899822015-07-31T14:24:00.001-07:002015-08-02T16:10:40.093-07:00Do you 'suffer' from writer's block? by Odilia Rivera-SantosThere is no need to mourn those days when writing is in the foreground. IT is like a leopard held back by a well-groomed trainer -- the strength, power and agility ready at the swoop of the trainer's arm. Suffering is such a part of the Artist's backstory that comfortable people crave a bit of sympathy... <div><br></div><div>Baby got backstory?</div><div>You worked on an oil rig, someone stole your laundry, you broke your key off in the lock, you dated an exact replica of your mother, you dated an exact replica of your father, an eighty-year-old beat you in a race, you lost your new water bottle at the gym, you dropped your phone on the subway tracks, you forgot to mind your business, there was no ring in the box just in the apartment in which you sparred, etc.</div><div><span style="font-family: 'Helvetica Neue Light', HelveticaNeue-Light, helvetica, arial, sans-serif;">Every writer has at least one really good, dramatic backstory and this is a theme we can use as a unifying thread sewn through all our work.... a profound authenticity that bespeaks of a memory. Leaving out the particulars gives the re-telling legs and the strength to leap at the swoop of my arm or yours if you're writing. </span></div><div>This colossal salt lick of a memory we return to when we're low or low on creativity and intellectual electrolytes is everpresent. My salt lick is the journey from there to here, a gray, dark gray, medium gray void --- devoid of green and the closing of that exit wound. </div><div><br></div><div>"As the curtain slowly rose, I had the feeling that throughout the ages man had always been mysteriously stilled by this brief moment which preludes the spectacle."</div><div>- Henry Miller (On Writing)</div>Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-12705491220667342522015-03-09T11:27:00.001-07:002015-03-09T11:45:54.041-07:00the silence is eclectic by Odilia Rivera-SantosI have been on a long sabbatical from blogposting. .. watching the whirlwind of social media activity from a safe distance and racing through winter as I overuse the gerund. <div>I've been teaching four completely different groups of students, which served my writing well. </div><div>There are new voices added to the tidy collection of voice possibilities.</div><div>I've worked with students from K<span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">azakhstan, Brazil, Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, France, and the Dominican Republic. </span><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In-between the busyness of working with human beings, I have continued work on creative projects -- on the bus, in bed right before falling into the magical realms of sleep and on the elliptical.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">In-between snippets of Frida and other movies I'd never seen, I painted my apartment gallery white, imagining the sketches I will draw to decorate the walls. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">For some reason, after so many thousands of words, I've begun to crave an exploration into visual art. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I want gray ink and gray pencil to draw on bright white paper to see what else is rattling inside this brain. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">It is a sleepy afternoon in Manhattan with the faraway sound of ambulance and cart and child and honk and squeak from a faulty faucett. </span></div></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br></span></div>Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-45934501324027853382014-10-13T05:41:00.001-07:002019-04-01T10:09:49.754-07:00Artists loose in the World by Odilia Rivera-SantosIf you are an Artist and you enjoy utilizing your creativity in everything you do, beware the non-creatives who will label you as strange. You are strange to those who've had a steady bu·reau·crat·ic education -- professional-filers-of-papers who hold the direct deposit form in their hands. Once you've said your poetry has been published, your paintings have been shown somewheres or you've acted in a play, the brutocrat will be suspicious. Wear monochromatic suits and use monochromatic language and ignore the condescencion of those who don't understand why you would mix the real world of the real world and the real world of art. But engagement with a world beyond one's self has great value -- to not be in an environment where every 'artistic' bit of whimsy is not appreciated has the power to shape parts of the mind necessary for discipline and timing in art or in Art. I am on my bed where I do a lot of writing and reading since my insomnia was resolved by my Chinese TCM Doctor years ago. I am drinking a delicious cup of organic coffee and just finished a bowl of eight-grain cereal and there are a couple of birds swishing their wings and a car or two rolling by and I started to think about how important it is for Artists to engage with the everyday world so as to avoid a drift into the nothingness of doing only for ourselves and our need to produce something with the creative impulse beating inside of us. To be disconnected from those who are unlike us and from those who suffer or struggle in different ways than us would be to disengage from social responsibility. What kind of art could one create without a sense of responsibility toward others? Did Proust ever leave his bedroom to give away stale madeleines to local peasants?<br />
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-21862879810043664982014-08-18T06:30:00.002-07:002014-08-18T06:30:36.411-07:00Should we ask those who appropriate Black culture to be activists? by Odilia Rivera-Santos<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">American culture is Black culture.</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><br />White Content Creators appropriate ideas from Black Communities and earn billions. And everyone wants to be Black<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> until it's time to look for a job or deal with police.<br />The demarcations of cultural appropriation are set so that Content Creators and Performers, who aim to loot the stores of Black brilliance for their own gain, can keep walking when shit gets real.<br /><br />Appropriation and protest.<br />Black kids imitate White performers who got their ideas from Black kids. Ironic, no?<br />This points to the lack of understanding Black kids have regarding their own value and the intrinsic and monetary value of the culture they help create.<br /><br />Do White Performers and White Content Creators owe the Black community some recompense?<br />Do these people who have the inner resources to take ideas from our 'hoods' and run with them owe the families of murdered Black kids something?<br /><br />What are inner resources?<br />The belief you deserve to earn a lot of money from ideas.<br />The belief you can change the trajectory of your life.<br />The belief that family and friends will offer you support in success and in failure.<br />The belief you can ask for help without being labeled stupid or weak.<br />The belief that asking for help in completing a project is a sign of strength and intelligence, not weakness and incompetence.<br />The belief that YOUR culture, YOUR ideas and YOUR vision all have value . .. even if you're Black.</span></span>Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-32454740134343630562014-08-16T18:49:00.002-07:002014-08-16T18:49:46.957-07:00Writing, dreaming and sensing after the death of my Mother by Odilia RIvera-Santos<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">Grief has many tentacles. they tighten around your heart & throat, leaving you awake when you should sleep and pull you under when you should be awake. I really missed my mother today; the strong beautiful tall fragrant version of Her.</span><br />
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After my mother died, my sisters and I were in my parents' home, and the stillness was overwhelming. The hours spent in prayer, the endless Catholic vigils, and steady visitors offering condolences really cleansed the suffering from the space. My sister came out of my mother's bedroom and asked who was wearing perfume.<br />
None of us was wearing perfume but we all smelled the overpowering scent -- flowers ... the smell of flowers enveloped us in our grief. I was sad, especially thinking about the things I wished she had done and the person I wished she could have been. But those are selfish notions, unrealistic and a means to injure my own psyche more. My mother was a traditional Puerto Rican woman, respectable, faithful to the vows of marriage and committed to a relationship in a way I could never understand and perhaps never imitate.<br />
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flowers keep following me at times when I miss her and want her to let me sit on her lap until I fall asleep like when I was a little girl and kept falling asleep with gum in my mouth, which caused cavities and the dreaded visit to the dentist.<br />
On Thursday, I was talking to some friends about her and the familiar aroma filled the room and I looked around to make sure and sure enough . .. no one was holding flowers. And the fragrance came on too suddenly to be a mundane thing.<br />
Along with this beautiful perfume, there was a sense of childlike joy, which entered my mind and warmed me up for a couple of seconds as if I were receiving an embrace.<br />
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And I know she wants me to let go of the grief I carry over wanting her to have seen more and done more and been 'liberated' in a way I thought would have made her happy, but that is selfish.<br />
In 2001, when I was trying to convince her of something and we were wrestling as we often did, she said "Everyone has a right to live the way they want."<br />
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I had to shut up and remember the wisdom she could impart in her calm stoic way.<br />
She was very strong and beautiful.<br />
<br />Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-71262123378211854002014-08-11T10:44:00.001-07:002014-08-18T07:51:40.844-07:00The Writing Life by Odilia Rivera-Santos<br>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am a Writer, happily agonizing over the challenges of earning money as a Writer. There is something to be found in the marginalia of that 'struggle'</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">and with those odd scraps, you build a life. I watched a documentary on a Writer considered so fresh and radical in his approach to creation and I thought he was one of those delicate creatures who could not stand the strong glare of fame, and his plumage and bright colors faded quickly. Some people are not meant for the big time. Their sense of self wavers and enters into a relay match with sycophantic admirers -- never a good kind of admirer. I'd rather the admirer who smiles at a turn of a phrase or sees the farce in your overly romanticized language and sees when you're just being silly,</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am sitting in a café, watching people come in and out and for a moment, it feels like Northampton and for another it feels like Berkley.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Two heroin addicts talking in circles and walking in a fog sit next to me with giant coffees in hand and sticky eyes looking around for something to casually palm on the way out. .. some distracted laptop-CEO's phone charger, wallet, iPad mini, retainer.</span><br>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">The behavior is the same, the eye scan is the same and the effort to imitate normalcy is the same -- the heroin addict's attempt at normalcy always looks like silent film acting.</span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am interested in information, dismantling it, re-formatting and re-imagining it and defying my own expectations and limitations, so I am exactly where I am supposed to be... in the middle of the Artists' hustle.</span></span><br>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">At present, I am teaching Spanish, writing curricula for Creative Writing, Math, and Poetry courses and test-taking strategy. And I am enjoying the process of being in the process and knowing it's all going in the writing soup.</span></span><br>
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I will be teaching a six-week Creative Nonfiction Course in NYC<br>
Location: Inwood / Manhattan<br>
Start Date: August 24th<br>
For Info: odiliariverasantos at yahoo.com</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">I am a bilingual, educated, culturally saavy Latina Writer and Social Media Consultant for hire!</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">If you would like to engage the 'other,' connect with me.</span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">The 'other' is a huge market and we're not at the margins, </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">we're right in the middle of everything. </span></div><div><span style="-webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);">odiliariverasantos at gmail.com</span></div></div>
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<span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><span class="kvS6Rb" data-actualurl="http://yahoo.com" jsaction="click:JqyzWe"></span></span>Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-61656855300246357272014-06-23T22:00:00.001-07:002018-11-16T08:35:48.857-08:00Writing and the beauty of loneliness by Odilia Rivera-SantosI was watching Manhattan, which is an exquisite film. After having a strong cup of coffee late in the afternoon, real sleep was outsourced to the outskirts of an Indian village near a cow with big, beautiful serene eyes. I am in bed, listening to the traffic, pretending it's rain or the ocean or a giant hushing my brain and telling it to shake the caffeine out of its crevices.<br />
Manhattan is a beautiful film and I watched it for the shadows and listened for patterns in the conversations and threads to see how one Allen film and idea is strung to another. The city as protagonist is ideal; architecture is always easily polished to remain static in its presentation and beauty -- always blithely reminding us of how much longer it will stand than us.<br />
We become rubble and dust as tourists continue to pour out of planes and boats to examine what had once been our daily sightseeing tour. I suppose feeling melancholy at one in the morning is to be expected.<br />
I welcome melancholia and the reminders of childhood loneliness and how loneliness led me into labyrintine worlds to people who'd kindly left behind artifacts to serve as proof of their existence and moments of acute awareness or beautifully orchestrated insanity.<br />
My books are neatly organized on a shelf -- not too close to my bed because they might wake me up from my non-slumber if kept too close. Kafka stares at me from the cover of his diaries with his sultry eyes,<br />
Monday was a truly magnificent day with synchronicity steering the wheel. People stepped onto my path on a continual basis as if waiting offstage reviewing their lines. And, in essence and in literal terms, we all are actors.<br />
I thought about people who cannot bear to be alone today because I've met several of these characters lately, and I wonder what it is about being alone that shivers people's timbers so.<br />
I fell in love with an Artist recently and climbed back out unassisted because this is pretty nice -- this quiet, false oceanic sounds and overuse of adjectives on a long summer night alone and happy to be lonely in my insomnia in my pajamas.<br />
I can wax poetic some other time, and for now, I would ask you excuse any misintended words, inventicated language or missed spellings... I'm half asleep.<br />
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Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-4787226499593177542014-06-19T12:34:00.002-07:002019-04-03T07:27:52.464-07:00Odilia's Metropolitan Diaries by Odilia Rivera-SantosThe winter was some kind of purgatory, trunching through the feet of snow with a wind made of sharp rocks and a clearing only to receive another avalanche, and then, the glory of forgetting. .. it was ever cold. I was out and about, running errands on Wednesday and the sun was the most brilliant engaging company. The sun kept up as I marched up and down Manhattan's streets in search of a new market and lo and behold!<br />
<div>I found a great Russian market near my new apartment, which also sells Ukrainian and Greek food. My friend, not the sun -- a human one, looked damp and wilted and as if he could take no more of the heat. It was beautiful though. Steady breeze, steady sun, and the fire hydrates are not supposed to be opened because of fires, but there were two chubby three-year-old boys running in and out of the water, looking so gleeful and content to be in that space and time. </div><div>I thought about the beauty of the city and its myriad challenges, moods, poses and opportunities to get lost in her wake. I stepped aside and let her pass, so I could respectfully admire her gifts and thank her for enlivening my life with her presence. </div>Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-88390798571985887422014-06-14T09:40:00.003-07:002014-06-14T09:40:51.756-07:00Free Writing Workshop in the Bronx TODAY AT 4! led by Odilia Rivera-Santos <div style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px;">
<span style="font-size: 12pt;">RSVP: <a href="https://061414bwcworkshop.eventbrite.com/">https://061414bwcworkshop.eventbrite.com/</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">This Saturday, the 14th, we’ll conduct a free creative writing workshop with the writer and educator Odilia Rivera Santos. We will explore ways to ignite the creative spark through meditation, use of music, and free-writing with prompts. Each writer will share his or her writing, receive feedback from fellow participants, and do a short Q&A, in order to maximize one’s interaction with others. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">The result will be a portfolio of rough drafts in three genres: poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">Buy my book here: <a href="http://www.editorialtrance.com/">www.editorialtrance.com</a> </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;">LoveWhenYouSayLove</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1433457636">www.fashionloveandneuroscience.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1433457636">www.nycpoorbutcool.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/goog_1433457636">www.peopleforpuertorico.blogspot.com</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 12pt;"><a href="http://www.latinaauthor.blogspot.com/">www.latinaauthor.blogspot.com</a> </span></div>
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-52998087877975119272014-06-10T13:34:00.001-07:002019-03-29T23:31:44.606-07:00Puerto Rican Day Parade 2014<br />
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Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8846006636396687759.post-29738345002051905762014-05-24T07:21:00.002-07:002014-06-29T18:23:51.129-07:00Portrayals of Latinos ... what they don't know about us by Odilia Rivera-Santos<i>What they don't know about us Latinos is that a lot of us went to art school. </i><br />
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While there are plenty of Latinos interested in the traditional, many of us have never adhered to prescribed roles or expectations. The 'norm' in my culture was to marry in your early twenties, have children, have a family gathering every week and never divorce. A woman was not to focus on herself, her goals and even self-care could be viewed as selfish. She was to pin herself to the cross and happily resign from her role as a woman and give up any hopes of self-actualization -- if she had the opportunity to learn about self-actualization prior to her headlong dip into 'womanhood.'</div>
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As a kid, I started reading and writing and decided, by age eight, to pursue being in the here and now of thinking over any traditional role. I learned to cook, clean, sew, crochet and take care of babies, and it was not enough for me.</div>
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I dated a man once who said 'I know you want a child. All Latinas want kids.'</div>
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This was one of those moments at which I questioned dating non-Latinos because the statement was so incredibly stupid and simplistic. </div>
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I never dreamt about a wedding or having kids. As a child, I dreamt of an artistic partnership. Being with people who were as creative, smart and hardworking as I was. </div>
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We went to art school and met others who were born like us: creative, independent-minded, strong sense of self, and not tethered to others' constructs of reality or self.</div>
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All of the Latinos I know are bilingual, autodidactic college educated and at work at creating a life/work balance that allows for the expansion of an old vision of who they might become and what they might accomplish in the world.</div>
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<i>Laughing at our accents and our hopes and dreams</i><br />
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It is acceptable to have a Latino with a heavy accent as a 'sight gag' on TV because we don't make hundreds of thousands of calls to television stations or send hundreds of thousands of letters or emails or protest in front of a studio, and because everyone, including Latinos, says 'the guy is making a lot </div>
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of money doing that. How many Latinos get to be on American TV?"</div>
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If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out Sofia Vergara and the sidekicks on late-night talk shows: Chelsea Lately, Jimmy Kimmel, etc.</div>
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Ricky Ricardo played the buffoon card well -- representing himself as a clueless Latino and being in complete control of an empire behind the scenes, but why do we have to be smart behind the scenes?</div>
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Why are we not representing ourselves as smart and instead choosing to continue the buffoon roles?</div>
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Jokes about Latino immigration are also considered acceptable. Were people to read what the immigrant from a poor family endures to come to the United States in the hopes of obtaining a menial job, they might not see humor in their plight. But a stone-cold racist would not be softened by any story of a person of color's suffering. </div>
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But the idea of playing dumb for the cameras to make your money, in 2014, is absurd and unacceptable. The Latinized Sambo to appease those who could not see a Latino as an equal or who is a gatekeeper whose goal is to prevent Latinos from being seen as equals. </div>
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And the real question is what are we doing for ourselves?</div>
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We accept crumbs and we get crumbs<br />
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Photo Credit: Rebecca Beard</div>
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Photo Credit: Rebecca Beard</div>
<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/love-when-you-say-love-odilia-rivera-santos/1118760837?ean=2940149592470">Love When You Say Love, Poetry by Odilia RIvera-Santos</a></div>
Odilia Rivera-Santoshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03561766718958880209noreply@blogger.com0