Voices From the Archive
Four of the “Central Park Five” were initially sent to the Spofford Juvenile Detention Center, where they participated in a writing workshop run by Youth Communication (the publisher of YouthComm Magazine). Raymond Santana published this poem in our prison newsletter, Spofford Voices, protesting his incarceration and proclaiming his innocence: Time I’m wasting time for a […]
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University of Kitchen?
“We’re halfway through the summer. Are we going to New York or what?” I asked my older sister Yasmin. She had come to visit us at our house back in my country, Yemen. We were in the room we’d shared until she got married and moved away. “Do you really want to go?” she replied, […]
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A New World Full of Strangers
I could hear nothing over the deafening engine of the airplane, but I certainly could see their faces. They waved wildly as though this was a happy occasion. They seemed so thrilled that I was finally going off to the rich and prosperous city of New York. I was sad beyond the limits of my […]
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Don’t Call Me Puerto Rican, I’m Ecuadorian
When I was in 7th grade, our principal asked me, my best friend Tatianna, and another friend if we wanted to ride on a float in the Puerto Rican Day Parade. The three of us had the highest grades in the entire 7th grade, and since we were all Hispanic, we were given this opportunity. […]
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