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Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.

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We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.

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Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.

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The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, in...more

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Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.

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...being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.

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I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.

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I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

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Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.

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While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labe...more

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Alice’s razor-thin blond hair is what people in Santo Domingo call bueno, but I don’t understand how that kind of hair can be good. It doesn’t move at...more

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Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?

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You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.

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This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.