When I was in sixth grade I got sick one day after returning from Christmas break. I was out for another three weeks with a horrible cough, and a host of other symptoms that, for whatever reason, came during the night. That illness, because of too many missed classes, cost me a full year of …
In order to understand how necessary undocumented immigrants are to the economy, you must read (from a variety of sources). If you get your information from soundbites, tweets, and agree with friends who say stuff like, “What about ‘illegal’ do these people not understand?” then I guess you probably don’t want to know the truth. …
Almost everyone is familiar with the phrase “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” a proverb that’s used to encourage optimism in the face of life’s misfortunes. Years ago, as a seven-year-old second-grader, I did something that had the opposite effect. On a Sunday much like today, I made a very short trek to visit …
For the past few weeks I’ve been on binge watching the sitcom Cheers on Netflix. After all of these years, it’s still funny. Sam Malone, still cool; Carla, still hilarious, Diane, still uptight; and Coach, still dumb. A few weeks prior to the show’s debut on September 30, 1982, I was wrapping-up my first season …
“You’re coming, too. I’ll wait for you.” As the youngest boy cousin on my mom’s side of the family, I constantly worried about being “left out.” And because I was the youngest, I couldn’t always depend on my older brother to extend an invitation. To that end, I habitually hoped that one of my older …
Of all the memories people recall, childhood “firsts” have to rank near the top: first day of school, first time riding a bike, first crush, first kiss, first dance. More on that in a second. Back when I was a child, before life removed all the innocence, there was something that I both loved and …
By now you’ve probably heard about 45’s alleged “sh**hole” comments during a private immigration meeting regarding DACA in the Oval Office. While 45 denies using disparaging language, albeit – well after severe condemnation and backlash, he acknowledges that the words he used were “tough.” (Based on the evidence, I believe that the comment was said.) …
About 42 years ago, I met the person you see pictured here in Room 9 — a third grade classroom on the campus of Cedar Grove Elementary School in East San Jose. Today, August 15, 2017, he hit the half-century mark: 50! While we met at a pretty young age, we didn’t develop a brotherly …
If you were a ‘70’s kid like I was, chances are that you had at least one poster in your room. I had several — from the classic Farrah Fawcett bikini poster, to Magic Johnson, to the “He’s the DJ, I’m the rapper” poster of the Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff. One of the reasons …
When I was a kid, orchards, ranches, and barren land were within walking distance from our house. Nowadays, it’s hard to find any of these things in my hometown of San Jose. In those days, signs like the one you see here were all over the place, and the message was pretty clear: Stay off …