As the author conveys a biography of her mother, herself and family, she walks us through the history of Playing the Numbers, and the importance of the industry in Black communities. While the business was illegal, the author provides historical…

Entire generations emerged from the Caribbean in the 1950s, 1960s and 70s, ready to write some new chapter in the making of America. Many were lured to New York City by the promise of factory jobs (that were not-quite-there on…

* Having grown up in poverty herself, as it traveled from generation to generation. In her time, and in the area of the country that she grew up in in rural Iceland, it was common for children to be given…

About halfway through the 90-minute journey, Adriana reached behind the pilot’s seat, pulled out a mask attached to an oxygen tank, and passed it to Francisco as he flew. Ana Cristina and I, in the back, looked at each other,…

Here’s a series of nested footnotes (a footnote and the footnotes to it: toenotes) for an imaginary Pop Science bestseller called something slightly silly, but fun, like: “Pain and the Brain”    1. Despite being the representative illness of modernity…

Below are three experimentations with footnotes. The first (1st) is from a memoir entitled HTAAH: How to: 22nd Century Woman I ran away to Milford Pennsylvania with a notebook that I filled last fall. From August until December I wrote…

* Was it union activism or gay cruising at the opera? Red scare or Lavender? President Eisenhower’s Executive Order 10450, in 1953, which effectively banned LGBTQ+ people from federal employment? Between 5,000 and tens of thousands of gay workers lost…

* There are many Vijverbergs in the Netherlands.  One of the streets near the center of The Hague close to the Parliament is called “Vijverberg.”  The elder Wim Vijverberg I knew married his wife Plonie right after the Second World…

My book project is something on daughterhood, working on new language and ways to understand myself (and maybe for others to understand themselves) in a family not always in relation to mothers; or, if we were once daughters to our…

Footnote for my memoir. A visit from my mother’s friends: The friends were like my mother. They put words together, “d’-ya’-know-what-I-mean-like”,  “I-donno”, “bloody-‘ell”, They called the broom a brush, dustpan a shovel, television the “telly”. They were loud, boisterous, familiar.  They…