In the 1980’s, the South Bronx of my childhood was the epicenter for AIDS in New York City, with one of the highest AIDS infection rates in the city, if not the country. Even during the early stages of the epidemic, the disproportionate impact on the poor, on […]
American Playwright William Saroyan once said, “A man’s [or woman’s] ethnic identity has more to do with a personal awareness than with geography”. This is doubly true with Hispanics. Unintentionally, by choosing the descriptor “Hispanic” in the title of this post, I am making a personal choice as […]
Psychology is my professional field. Politics is my hobby. I’m a political news junkie and can name obscure pundits the way most sports fans can name the entire bench of the New York Knicks. This being an election year, I can essentially mainline my addiction. Yesterday, Republican presidential […]
At a Happy-hour “Goodbye” outing last night, many of us at the table (with our basil lemonades in hand) pondered the question what happens now after the International AIDS Conference. What changed and what changes are to come? Are we going back to the humdrum of old? Was […]
Lies make the world go round. Especially mothers. As author John Green said, “Mothers lie. It’s in the job description”. We don’t like to call it lying. In fact we invent all sorts of euphemisms for it – gilding the lily, telling tall tales, inventing a fish story, […]
The ability to “pass” is often a loaded term and a loaded action. My son and I both can “pass” in different contexts for different ethnic or racial groups. When I visited Egypt, they thought I was French. When I lived in Spain, they thought I was Tunisian. […]