[from Enchantment of Land]

[Santa Fe, Viceroyalty of New Spain, 16--]

There was crypto-Jewish me, Maryam bint Rabbi Yusuf; my crypto-Muslim husband, Ibrahim ibn Yuhanna al-Muthallithi; and my big sister, Yasmin bint Rabbi Yusuf, who calls herself a "bruja of the old ways," whatever that means, though I suspect her of turning heathen. Ke Dio mos ( Read more... )

She was born in Cuba in 1809. Her father Diego Limón Ruiz was Spanish and her mother María Conchita Robles was a free Black Indian woman of the Taino nation. They lived a modestly comfortable life in a suburb of Havana. Juanita went to a high school for girls run by nuns in Havana, where she studied English. But Juanita's dad died when she was ( Read more... )

The only reason this is notable enough to post... is that... I have never actually studied Spanish. Honest verdad, yo juro. I did it all from memory without looking anything up. In high school the other kids were bamboozled how I could do their Spanish lessons better than they could even though I never took a day of Spanish class (I wanted to, but ( Read more... )

My two-year-old grandson asked me to read him a bedtime book. He handed me a bilingual book for toddlers titled My Family and Me / Mi Familia y Yo. So I read it in both English and Spanish (lasts twice as long that way).

A couple minutes after that, you know what he said to me?

"Abuela"Smartest little kid I've ever known in my life. I'm just ( Read more... )

As she walked the path and passed many places, some good some bad, some sticky traps that she got herself free from, everything on the path behind her trailed and accumulated, though most of the time the burden felt light enough to carry. Even when it felt too heavy she felt extra strength to bear it, so somehow she kept going and accumulating more ( Read more... )

Budget cuts have now slashed away all weekend hours at work (ironically, a place where I had started by moonlighting on weekends a few years ago). Saturdays make me lazy. I slept in late and took about 3 hours over a very, very slow breakfast still in my purple nightie. Then it was piano time. Even though it was half past twelve in the afternoon, I ( Read more... )

(in response to the facilitation team's account of their work sent out over various Reclaiming mail lists yesterday ( Read more... )