Author Archives: Rosa Isabel Chavez

‘My cousins want me to get a job so I can move out.’ she offered as we walked towards the corner store. Angel is a junior in my fashion class.‘How old are you? 16?’Angel : ‘I’m 17, I’ll be 18 this October‘.My mental calculations did the math; she would be 18 in the beginning ofContinue reading “Little hostages”

21 marks a time when all young adults celebrate being Free.. I remember my 21st year on this planet and I was not happy..So not happy that I believed I was ‘better off dead’..so much for FREEDOM and being able to DRINK..I was DONE I lived in a 1 bedroom apartment on 189th street andContinue reading “21 and suicidal”

27 de Febrero This day marks the independence day of a small island in the Caribbean – Dominican Republic.It is the ONLY example on the planet where TWO countries SHARE land on an island. Two countries that SHARE a past, inherit more like it.. from two European powers – SPAIN and FRANCE France OWNED HaitiContinue reading “Independence”

How do porcupines mate? Very…. Very CAREFULLY This was a line from a movie I LOVE.. the updated version of the ‘Thomas Crown Affair’.. a millionaire who sees a psychologist? And engages in criminal activity? And has a hot red-head come after him? And takes place at The MET? Yeah! That’s my kind of movie.Continue reading “Communicating”

I had to take Childhood Psychology in college for my teaching certificate (circa 1996) and there was a lesson that stayed with me. There are events in a child’s life that can change and sometimes dictate their future, the first time I dived into the term ‘trauma’. I learned at that time that things suchContinue reading “Awakening Old Pain”

‘Tu eres una Mierda! Tu eres nada! Tu no tienes nada! Tu no tienes a nadie!’ translation – ‘You are shit. You’re nothing. You have nothing. You have no one.’ These words were yelled at me while I fed my grandmother. The words came from her daughter.. her eldest daughter, what can classify as anContinue reading “Words never really mattered”

My first language is Spanish (romance language), therefore my sentence structure will be awkward to some ‘English only’ readers.. don’t judge I was programmed. And so have you, programmed to believe, so many things.. Many of those programs have served me.. yet the others have buried me.. I was taught to keep silent about anythingContinue reading “Fuck it.”

We are born with the ability to reason, maybe for our benefit first, but no less to reason. We are born with the ability to cry out for what we need when we are hungry, when we are in pain and when we want what is not in our grasp. Then there are those thatContinue reading “Grateful Immigrant”

It’s July in NYC and Covid is ‘gone’. And Covid is not gone… the restaurant below my apartment building abides by the social distancing rules. People wearing and not wearing masks. I bump into the proprietor of Solace, Dominican entrepreneur realizing his American dream and throwing in the towel as he tells me about theContinue reading “Today”

I’m a Latin American woman, born from a Dominican woman and an Ecuadorian man. My DNA is spread out through an ATLAS of so many cultures, which compels me to reflect on who I am, really? I thought I was what my grandmother’s told me I was or who they believed they were and whereContinue reading “I am who I am”