Tag: essay
They Don’t Tell You That You Can Never Leave
It doesn’t take much to set that feeling off in me—racing heart, the inability to settle my hands if I try to type. I no longer experience a temptation to raise my voice as I once did, though sometimes—like today—when my body gets that jittery feeling that adrenalin or cortisol Read more
On A Dime
“Ten films?” The X-ray technician looks at my referral while I stand anxiously next to the mammogram machine. “Who ordered this?” She sits down at the little desk against the wall, back to me, flipping my chart pages up and down. “My breast surgeon,” I answer. Ever since my cancer Read more
The Bitter Tree
1. I would like to make the case for bitterness, and I don’t want anyone to stop me. Don’t tell me how ruinous it is to hate the neighbors who voted for my demise—they’re hanging the Christmas wreaths alongside signs with that man’s name. I’m no stranger to bromides about Read more
The Brazilian Wax and the Unspoken Dignity Tax
Brazilian Wax. The distinctiveness of this practice only dawned on me after leaving my home country. In Brazil, wax is simply wax—just as there, I am a citizen, not a Latina, a South American, or an immigrant. Seeing the name of my homeland advertised on chalkboards outside gringo beauty salons Read more
Creatures of Habit
I remember with clarity the last time I saw my grandmother. As I recall, I stood on her doorstep, staring through the stained-glass door as her small frame moved inside. She was smaller, greyer, glassier in the eye, and as I also saw, annoyed by my arrival. She opened the Read more
I like being called exotic. Does that make me a bad feminist of colour?
In case you’ve missed the memo, calling someone exotic is not a compliment. As personal essays, academic articles and social media will tell you, the term reinforces white beauty standards, turning racialized people into outsiders, curiosities, and fetish objects. I understand this stance. As an Indian-Pakistani Muslim with brown skin Read more
THE LOST BROTHER: part 2
Four years later, Keith and I were married and living in New York City, and Jordan was no longer a “young bullock without blemish.” He still had his issues with school, and Mom and Dad transferred him from the suburban public high school the rest of us had attended to Read more