Tasteful Rude l January 21, 2022

Julian

About the existence of cats, our father encouraged us to ask, “Why?”

He couldn’t stand them.

Cats annoyed and disgusted him and because of these effects, they also annoyed and disgusted my mother. Rarely did Mom or Dad simply utter gato. Gato always traveled alongside cochino.

Gatos cochinos.

I never asked Dad about his anti-catness. He did once mumble something about cats’ historic ties to the devil, but the comment didn’t explain his unique distaste. His grudge seemed personal, not infernal.

Nat. Catholic Reporter l November 1, 2021

Death Becomes Us 

My mother was raised near the second-oldest cemetery in Guadalajara, Panteón de Mezquitán. Established in 1896, murals cover the high walls surrounding its terrain. Some of these artworks feature incarnations of Death herself, and, depending on the weather, one can find Mezquitán’s graveyard dogs sunbathing, hiding from the rain or scratching mosquito bites. During my grandmother Arcelia’s funeral procession, a yellow canine appeared beside her coffin. My mother nudged me.

“It’s your grandfather,” she whispered. “He’s accompanying my mother.”

The Rumpus l June 7, 2021

Kristy’s Invisible Hand & Das Baby-Sitters Club Kapital

My first encounter with girls as ardent capitalists happened between the covers of Ann M. Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club books.

That my parents continuously thwarted my entrepreneurial dreams made me wonder what was wrong with them, and, by extension, me. First I wondered if they weren’t so weird about my tween bootstrapping fantasies on account of us being Mexican. Then, as I got a little older, I started to wonder if they weren’t being such assholes about my moneymaking schemes because I was… a girl. After I had that second epiphany—and this was before I’d ever heard the word intersectionality—I fused these concerns. I then spent time wondering what it was about my being a Mexican girl that provoked their restrictions.

Luz Media l March 2, 2021

America Prefers Teachers Who Offer Themselves as Tribute

As the coronavirus continues to take lives, the lives of teachers and school staff included, the good-educator-as-unflinching-martyr trope is being used to shame those of us who express concerns about IRL instruction. Last month, New York Times’ columnist David Brooks penned a screed that all but accused educators critical of their working conditions of laziness, stupidity, and cowardice.

Brooks seems to prefer stoic teachers ready to become ill and die and I imagine the columnist watching Stand and Deliver, nodding in approval at a scene set during a night school session. Escalante, who has taken on a second job as an English instructor, shuffles about a classroom, clutching at his chest while he leads adult students through a set of language drills.

Tasteful Rude l February 11, 2021

FRAMING BRITNEY SPEARS DEEPENED MY DESIRE FOR JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE TO EAT A BAG OF DICKS

Watching Britney Spears shave her head in 2007 made me want to do it too. The bitch looked good bald, better than Demi because she wasn’t doing it for a film role, she was doing it because life, and I recall feeling liberated by proxy as I watched Spears snatch hairdresser Esther Tognozzi’s razor and drag it along her scalp, using it to carve her femininity away, the precise curve of her cranium set free by her own hand. This incident and others appear in Framing Britney Spears, a new documentary by the New York Times. The film casts strong doubt over the legitimacy of the patriarchal legal arrangement under which the megastar has been stuck for the last twelve years. Framing Britney Spears also deepened my desire for Justin Timberlake to eat a bag of dicks.

Harpers Bazaar l January 28, 2021

Mental Illness Does Not cause Misogyny

At the end of last year, musician FKA Twigs, born Tahliah Debrett Barnett, brought allegations of romantic terrorism against her former partner, actor Shia LaBeouf. Barnett’s lawsuit, which was filed last month in Los Angeles County Superior Court, alleges that LaBeouf perpetrated sexual battery, battery, assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and gross negligence.

Like Barnett and millions of other women, I am intimate with romantic terrorism. After a whirlwind courtship, a man I dated used romantic terrorism to trap me. I remained with this batterer for a long time, and, like Barnett, one of the ugliest questions I’m asked is, “Why didn’t you leave?” The question is audacious considering that I did leave. That’s why I’m able to freely discuss the experience.