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dancing on bridges -- aurora levins morales
loving deeply across differences of culture is like being an immigrant again, now that i'm finally getting used to this place.
...
when you stop being a tourist and start to *live* in someone else's country, the real, deep differences become visible... you have to be willing to give up the comfort of knowing what to expect.
...
and if one of you comes from a more dangerous life and bloodier history than the other, the one who feels safer in the world has to ask over and over again, "tell me everything that has happened to you..." it's the only way to get through the wall of silence opressing the oppressed.
...
but after seven years together, the intensity of my tone of voice still sounds like anger to him, and i can barely detect he modulations in his, so i always think he's bored.
...
you buy me plaintains, i buy you black-eyed peas.
...
throughout the years, it was my father [who was jewish] who remembered exactly who all the morales, moure and diaz cousins were and what they did. he spoke high school latin to people until he learned enough spanish.
...
while my father cooked tostones, my mother yearned for blintzes and kosher dills, and made latkes for hannukah... she was proud of the jewish history of activism. she took it as a personal gift.... she used yiddish as if it were a new spice invented for puerto ricans like her, and she would laugh with pleasure and affection, shrugging the way her friends' mothers had in new york, whenever she heard jewish music.
loving deeply across differences of culture is like being an immigrant again, now that i'm finally getting used to this place.
...
when you stop being a tourist and start to *live* in someone else's country, the real, deep differences become visible... you have to be willing to give up the comfort of knowing what to expect.
...
and if one of you comes from a more dangerous life and bloodier history than the other, the one who feels safer in the world has to ask over and over again, "tell me everything that has happened to you..." it's the only way to get through the wall of silence opressing the oppressed.
...
but after seven years together, the intensity of my tone of voice still sounds like anger to him, and i can barely detect he modulations in his, so i always think he's bored.
...
you buy me plaintains, i buy you black-eyed peas.
...
throughout the years, it was my father [who was jewish] who remembered exactly who all the morales, moure and diaz cousins were and what they did. he spoke high school latin to people until he learned enough spanish.
...
while my father cooked tostones, my mother yearned for blintzes and kosher dills, and made latkes for hannukah... she was proud of the jewish history of activism. she took it as a personal gift.... she used yiddish as if it were a new spice invented for puerto ricans like her, and she would laugh with pleasure and affection, shrugging the way her friends' mothers had in new york, whenever she heard jewish music.
