Last summer, I found myself sitting on a couch opposite a 38-year-old Filipino man named Peter who smelled like stale tuna, dirt, and a dream deferred. “Where are you from?” I asked. “Here.” “What made you homeless?” “I need my green card.” “Where do you stay and get food?” “I need my green card. I […]
The hit teen sensation, Justin Bieber is over-rated. He is a fifteen-year-old boy singing about loving and doing girls. In the song “Love Me”, Bieber sings, “Love me, Love me, say that you love me. Fool me, fool me. Oh how you do me.” I think that this is inappropriate for such a young boy […]
It was a chilly. fall forenoon in 2011. My household and I were merely get downing to pack up our material and carry the bags to the new wave. Since we were traveling to Hawaii. on history of my stepdad being in the ground forces. we had to travel rapidly so that we’d make our […]
Beep. Beep. Beep. It is seven in the morning, December 14th 2020. I walk into the hospital in New York, reviewing my appointments for the day. I smile when I reach my office and see a plaque that says Emily Cookson Pediatric Neurosurgeon. My office is a warm yellow and decorated with crayon drawings, all […]
They were storming the castle – the enemy were dressed in a disguise and armed with little colorful rocks, that if they made their way into your mouth, they would rot you from the inside-out. While they slowly crept towards me in a swaying motion, I knew I had only one option. I ripped through […]
I raised my hand and it fluttered in the air for a moment. “Yes?” asked the woman, before my fingers could retreat. “What occurrences in your life influenced your writing?” I asked, softly at first, then louder as I was encouraged by her nod and smile. She looked around the room, thinking. The day was […]
Will Rogers once said, “If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple. Know what you are doing. Love what you are doing. And believe in what you are doing.” When determining the laws of life that appealed to me, this quote emerged in my mind. The rising generation has the potential for great […]
Nothing in the room moved. I looked up, stared at my friends, and looked back down at my knees. In a matter of seconds something in the room had changed. We had gone from laughing and joking to sitting in complete and utter silence. I looked up again. A quick furtive glance and then it […]
My dad died when I was ten. That was the first domino to fall. Then my mom took over his business and in her spare time, escaped her accumulating problems by focusing on religion. Since her attention was elsewhere, her six kids had to take care of themselves. We struggled in different ways to overcome […]
African-Americans used singing the blues as an escape path; although pain, suffering, and disappointments were the topics of the blues, the reason for singing them was for a temporary relief f the pains and struggles of their oppressed lives. (Townsend, 1997) Later on into the sass’s, when slavery had long been abolished, African- Americans were […]