I Was Neither Black Enough For The

I Was Part Of That Group Of Kids Growing Up In The '80s Under The Reagan Regime, What I Used To Call 'living In The Shadow Of Dr. Manhattan,' Where We Would Have Dreams All The Time That New York City Was Being Destroyed, And That That Wall Of Light And Destruction Was Rolling Out And Would Just Devour Our Neighborhood.

My Mother Took Care Of Us Until My Father Scrammed, And Then She Ended Up Working In The Small-factory Sector Of New Jersey With A Lot Of Other Immigrants.

To Produce That Identity Among Young People Required Guinea Pigs.

I Write For The People I Grew Up With. I Took Extreme Pains For My Book To Not Be A Native Informant. Not: 'this Is Dominican Food. This Is A Spanish Word.' I Trust My Readers, Even Non-spanish Ones.

Mine (story) Ain't The Scariest, The Clearest, The Most Painful, Or The Most Beautiful. It Just Happens To Be The One That's Got It's Fingers Around My Throat.