Dear Mom: Don’t worry, everything is great here in New York (video)


In The Letter, based on a 1947 short story La Carta by Dominican-Boricua-Mexican Marxist author José Luis González, a migrant writes home to Mom.

“Everything is super here in New York,” he tells her.

Seventy-two years later and an ocean apart, the story is as true now for the African protagonist of this video as it was for the original Puerto Rican migrant.

Did you read this short story in school? Here is the complete text:

San Juan, Puerto Rico 8 de marso de 1947

Qerida bieja:

Mas…Dear Mom: Don’t worry, everything is great here in New York (video)

Watch: Moms in Peru punk sexist street harassers (video)


Fed up with ignorant cat-calls, lewd, rude and suggestive remarks from sexist men on the street, women in Lima set up hidden cameras and — dressed up as “MILFs” — went for a stroll down the calle…walking right by their ignorant, lewd, rude and suggestive…WAIT FOR IT…sons.

Cheap Chinese chanclas choke Chuy’s Choo Repair

chanclaszapatero(PNS reporting from CHICAGO) Chuy’s Choo Repair on Ashland has been fixing heels, stretching boots and giving new soles to tired oxfords since 1956, but owner Eddie Calderon doesn’t know how long he can keep his shop open.

Calderon (photo, right), whose father opened the business when he returned to Chicago after the Korean War, says he can’t keep up with cheap imported shoes flooding the country.

“Look at the pinches chanclas on sale at the Dollar Store!” Calderon told PNS as we toured the neighborhood (photo, top.) “If people can buy new Chinese chanclas for 60 cents at the stupid Dollar Store, why would they want to get them repaired if a strap breaks? It’s not worth it!”

Mas…Cheap Chinese chanclas choke Chuy’s Choo Repair

Obituary: Farewell to ‘La Chuy’

laloandmomMy mom, María de Jesús Alcaraz de López (or “Chuy,” as most of the Alcaraz family called her) was born in 1929 in Villa Union, Mexico, in the fertile Sinaloa land outside of Mazatlán.

She grew up as the youngest sister of five: Maria Luisa, Cany, Juanita and Esther. Their father, Inocencio, a ranchero, died young and left his widow Cirila and the five girls to farm their land.

My mom once described her father as having blue eyes and an extremely bald head. She told me about how he once had severely whipped a man who had injured her with his horse. Oh, the idyllic ranchero lifestyle….

Mas…Obituary: Farewell to ‘La Chuy’

Mami, it’s cold outside (video)

That awkward moment when your boogers freeze and you miss the nice warm playa back in the DR. ¡Mami!