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

The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.

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

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

Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation.

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

I wish she'd said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can't hide from it, not even here.