#catholic latinos UNITE !

[dreamersbcll]

Chinese Satellite

it’s just a matter of time before i’m hearing things

2/4

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Sam comes home two years later.

She’s twenty years old, on the cusp of her twenty-first. There wasn’t really a good reason for why she came home. Regret for all the relationships she left behind. Maybe it was the curiosity, wondering what had changed and what stayed the same in the sleepy town she grew up in.

Mostly, it was the guilt.

One thing Sam Carpenter excelled at was dwelling in the past. Stagnant. Never moving forward.

It probably explains why she couldn’t enter the house that raised her.

A couple of minutes past midnight, Sam rolled into Woodsboro, and within half past the hour, she sat outside her old home.

The car she was driving wasn’t hers— much like the house she was outside wasn’t either. It was funny. She didn’t have a plan for coming back. She just got into Stacy’s car and drove.

She could be anywhere else. Doing anything else. But yet she was here. Living in the past again.

Getting out of the car, she wrapped her sweater around her, shivering. It was a hot May night, but this was her second time trying to get clean. Detox didn’t care for the weather. She would freeze anyway.

Sam ambled across the street, her hands digging into her skin. She walked slowly, carefully, ensuring no one could see her. If someone saw her, she wouldn’t have a good explanation for why she was here.

And if Tara saw her, well, she would have to break her little sister’s heart a second time.

As she approached the house, she noticed two lights were on. The kitchen light, and Tara’s room. The kitchen light wasn’t a shock- their mother needed it for her drunken late-night escapades. Tara’s, however, was a shock. Sam can’t recall her little sister staying up so late.

She probably missed it. A lot fell through the cracks in the last seven years.

If she squinted, she could see a cross above Tara’s bed. Funny. She doesn’t recall that.

Sam stood right outside the kitchen window, peering in. Not much has changed. The same wooden table with two functioning chairs still stood, with the same old paintings of fruit on the walls. There were still photos of the sisters- even cracked and crooked- posted all over the walls. It was comforting to know that even though she was gone, her face was still on the walls.

Her free hand fell to the cross around her neck, twirling the chain around her fingers. She knows leaning on her history with religion wasn't the right move. Nor the smart one. All it ever did was maim her and leave her barely breathing.

Sometimes, she likes to think that maybe if she prayed harder, somebody would listen.

It never worked. But maybe standing outside the house she grew up in and staring through the windows she knew well would lead to something.

Who was she to question God’s ways?

Her eyes flitted up to a picture on the wall. It was the sisters, somewhere around Sam’s eleventh birthday. The two sisters were squished together, both in their nicest church dresses. Easter Sunday.

Sam closed her eyes, taking in the photograph. She remembers that day well. In fact, she could probably relive it. The sickly sweet scent of Easter lilies, the scratchy dresses, the smell of coffee after service. She remembers Tara crying because she kneeled on a hairpin during prayer and her mami scolding both girls for being too loud.

Opening her eyes, Sam looked at the photo again, noticing the cross tightly held by Tara’s fist. It clicks. Sam does know that cross. It was the one their mami gifted both of them, one to keep and talk to God with.

She shrugged. It couldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like anyone else would be listening anyway.

Breathing out, Sam stared at the photo and spoke.

“We haven’t spoken in a while, have we?”

Already, she wasn’t very sure if she was speaking to Tara or God.

“I’ve got to tell you what a state I’m in…” she trailed off, collecting her thoughts.

Laughing a bit, Sam ran a hand through her hair. This was ridiculous. Standing outside her old home in the dark, staring into a kitchen that was never really hers. Pathetic almost. But some sort of gravitational pull kept her rooted in the spot, stuck in place.

“Fuck. I guess I don’t know. I have to tell you that I’ve started looking for a warning sign. A warning sign that maybe I shouldn’t come home. A sign that I shouldn’t look for more excuses, yeah?”

Sam bit down on her lip. Hard. Lying was a sin.

Good thing she was racking them up.

“That’s a lie, I guess. The truth is, I miss you. That’s my warning sign. Yeah. Yeah, the truth is that I miss you. I miss you so fucking much. I can’t-” she hiccups, a sob caught in her throat.

Sam clears her throat, wiping her nose hastily with her sleeve. “And I’m tired. God, I’m tired. I shouldn’t have let you go. I’m sorry.”

Looking down at the cross around her neck, she shuddered. “I shouldn’t have let you go.”

She shook her head, hand grasping the chain tight off to snap it. “But I did. And now I’m twenty years old. She’s fifteen. And you probably aren’t real, so what’s the point of all this?”

Nobody answered. Nobody heard her. It was silent. Like it always was around Sam.

“I don’t know. I just wish someone would hear me. Point me the right way,” she shrugged.

Groaning, Sam let go of the chain. “But no one is there. There are just echoes. That’s it.”

Sam looks around again, waiting for someone to come out. Anyone. Someone to hear her, talk to her. Point her in the right direction. Tell her what she was doing was wrong, and there was a fitting way to fix it.

Yet, God was silent. So was her childhood home.

“Why don’t you help me? Why weren’t you there for me? Were you ever there?” she half-shouted, snapping her mouth shut.

Fuck. She shouldn’t have yelled. Someone could hear her. Someone could find her.

But nobody answers.

She turns around, almost robotically, and marches back to her car. Sam is sure if she turned around, she would be met with silence. But if she marched forward to the car, maybe she could find someone to hear her. Maybe.

And so Sam crawls into the empty arms of someone she loves, the only love she hadn’t screwed up.

Empty arms with the name heroin. The only light that bathed Sam’s face from then on was the lighter she used to spark up.

If God wasn’t going to listen, neither was she.

[handsomewickerman]

Some thoughts on Eddie Diaz vs. Fanon Gay Eddie

I wanna preface this by saying that i'm latino, gay, raised catholic, heard the phrase "you gotta be the man of the house" my whole life. So on paper the idea of "repressed gay Eddie Diaz" should be appealing to me, right? well not exactly and here's why:

when I started watching the show I was aware of buddie, but I never engaged with the fandom. It wasn't until Buck came out that I started interacting with it.

when you join any space online the algorithm feeds you the most popular stuff, in this case, all my 911 recommendations were buddie, at the time I saw the vision, after all I love queer rep! but after the date episode and all throughout the hiatus I realized something very quickly:

most buddies don't actually care about queer rep, they just wanted their ship to go canon.

this realization came after weeks of seeing them spew bi/homophobic rhetoric and claiming it didn't matter as long as they got buddie, some examples:

- saying they wanted Buck to play into the bisexual cheating stereotype.

- calling Tommy a groomer, creep and predator.

- being unable to fathom the idea that Tommy was just hanging out with Eddie as friends

- claiming Eddie being a pos shit to women was ok "as long as he's gay".

- the insistence that Eddie should only be read as gay (not even bi).

- the idea that Buck and Eddie should only be "gay for each other" and no one else.

(these talking points still get repeated and if anything they have gotten more hateful the more time has passed).

Buddies insisted that they could've made buddie canon every ep, but that's simply not true, even leaving the GA and network aside, if you watch the show without shipping goggles you'll realize how much work they'll need to write that arc for Eddie as well, and if you care about queer rep you would want him to have his arc too, right?

they also claimed that his religious guilt is "clearly tied to queerness" when in reality Eddie is one of the most stagnant characters in the show as his religious guilt is tied to his inability to secure a "traditional family unit" and be the "man of the house" he was told to be. He drove Shannon away (something he admitted), then lost her forever and hasn't been able to move on for 6 seasons. It all circles back to that guilt about Shannon, the expectations put on him and his feelings of failing her, his parents, his kid and himself. Could there be an space for queerness too? Sure, but that's not what the show has portrayed at all so far.

the heavy mischaracterization of Eddie, the choice to strip him away from all his flaws or excuse them, the character assassination and malicious reading of Tommy while engaging in homophobia, their inability to allow Buck to be his own character with his queerness having nothing to do with Eddie and the desire to have him play into negative stereotypes told me everything I needed to know about where these people who want to gaslight you into thinking that "gay Eddie and buddie is the only correct answer" actually stand when it comes to queer rep.

it is not inherently wrong to find relatability in Eddie as a queer person and read him as such, but it is incredibly dishonest to claim that's the only valid way to read him.

in the end, I should find Eddie more relatable as a character and truth be told? I do, but I find Ryan's desire to tell a story about men being vulnerable, emotionally open and close without having to question their sexuality or masculinity far more realistic and honest for the character and Ryan himself.

[nicosraf]

It's my birthday! And Angels Before Man's second birthday from the original publishing! And almost three years since the original draft of it! Wow! Thank you all a million times for being here. Really, genuinely

I'd like for this extremely long post to be happier ! But a lot of people are really troubled by the United States election. There's a lot of fear-mongering online about what'll happen and a lot of real threats to marginalized people in the U.S. and abroad. I don't talk about my own identities a ton. I'm a gay, trans, Mexican from the US-Mex border. The vast majority of my family, community, and friends are immigrants of varying legal statuses. I could lose everything!! I fear for my family! My friends! For my body and my heart!

My mom called me yesterday morning, though, basically asking for an explanation. She told me she was shocked, she was scared, and I said that so was I, then we said, "Pos ni modo." Ni modo!! Oh well!!! What can we do now? We can keep doing what we've always done. Survive. That's all you really have to do at the end of the day, you know, survive.

My family is from a rough Mexican city that fell apart when I was little, a place where my own family has been kidnapped and bodies have been left mutilated in the street for everyone to see. The radio spoke in code to let you know not to go outside when things got really bad. There used to be mariachis in the street to greet American tourists but by the time I was little, they were mostly gone. Boarded up, abandoned stores and boarded up, abandoned homes. I remember being scared, and I remember not knowing what to do listening to a shoot out right outside. I remember my heart stopping when my family was stopped by the soldiers and they demanded money out of us for the first time.

(And I can talk also about living on the other side. The hyper policing, ICE, the racism when my school played against other schools, my parents forbidding me from speaking Spanish outside our Mexican enclave and to stay close to them, and I can talk about the aggression from the white nuns at my catholic school toward the latino kids, I can talk about having to see the border patrol every day just to go to school, I can even talk about Trump-supporters coming down to the border and making a mess of the place and I can talk and I can talk but why? what for??)

My family is all (mostly) still around. I'm here also. We're still here. All of that horrible stuff happened and is still happening to us y ni modo!! Ni modo ! The fight continues. You'll be fine if you allow yourself to be, and if you're not, then you really gave it your best shot, and the people around you will see that you did.

I know for a lot of people there might be the urge to spiral into doom and grieve, but you don't need to borrow the grief of the future. Today you can get up and roll up your sleeves and clean the house. That's what my parents tell me to do when I'm sad. Ponte a limpiar. Ponte a trabajar. I used to get mad at them for it, but in the end, you're only in charge of yourself and the places/things that you upkeep.

I was raised around nopales (prickly pear cacti) and, many years ago, I threw one out of my parent's house because I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't want it. I figured it'd get eaten by something or die somehow. The nopal started growing instead, and it's still there. It even grew a flower, though it hasn't given us a pear yet. My dad doesn't like the pears/tuna but my mom does, so we went out to check on it and while we were there, we heard a bird singing. He looked up and he told me it was a cenzontle and that it was singing a little song for the nopal. I had this thought about how even though I basically tried to kill it, the nopal was growing, thriving. it's an easy metaphor to make, but the earth gives you simple lessons sometimes.

(The monarchs pass by every year. They don't even do it legally. They cut the border line and don't wait their turn to talk to the Customs guys!!! They just fly overhead then look back at us like we're crazy. How can we explain this to them? How do I tell them that there's a place that hates us both)

All you have to do is survive. Whatever happens to me or my family or my friends, we will find a way to grow and find birds to sing along with. If there's so much grief in the future, then we can grieve when that time comes. In other words, canta y no llores. All you have to do is survive. Take it hour by the hour. Pick up the broom and get to work while you can.

Because I've talked too much, I wanted to remind everyone that my ebooks versions of my writing will always be free to read.

Maybe it'll come as a shock to you that a lot of ABM was about coping with losing a home forever, of remembering the feeling of wall paint that you will never feel again. But it's about survival too. I hope you all take care of yourselves as much as we can. This isn't a sad post! Go out and enjoy what you have! Go for a snack. Protect yourself however youre able to. I'm so lucky to have a birthday, to have lived this long. I hope my work will live on no matter how much the world might despise it. I've survived this far despite the world too, and so will ABM... I hope ! :)

[brucewaynehater101]

I was wondering what Tim's racial traits are? Because I know that Bruce is Jewish, Dick is Romani, Jason is possibly Latino (I don't know if it's canon but his own traits wouldn't change because Latinos are very diverse, some may be white… The Latina who lives in Latam speaks uwu) , Cass is Asian, I think Chinese?, Babs is possibly white, Duke is Afro-American, Alfred is obviously British, Steph is white and Damian is mixed Arab-Jewish.

This is because I have seen him portrayed as white, Jewish or Asian, specifically Chinese, Japanese or Cambodian. I also love the possibility that the Batfam is a target of the Pro American (Damian would be a frequent victim) and Neo Nazis (Here they put everyone in the bag , even Tim if he were a white man the Nazis also persecuted homosexuals) and I feel that it would be something that would unite them as a family because it would be them against the world sjfshsaj and DC is a coward, possibly they put those things. and i lov your work uwu

Hello! I've seen a ton of cool AUs that portray him (and more specifically his mom) from different backgrounds, but I believe he is canonically white.

For Tim, I've seen some posts mentioning that some comic book creator was going to make him Jewish. They never quite added that into canon (his dad is atheist and his mom is implied to be Catholic), but that might be another reason why he's been portrayed as Jewish or other cultural backgrounds in AUs. Personally, it's rad to see how his storyline, characterization, or choices may or may not change or be affected by changing his upbringing, cultural background, or race. I've seen some cool AUs with Red Room or Russian decent Tim Drake.

I'm honestly not positive on Jason. I don't think DC quite confirmed a specific ethnicity for him, but he's implied to be white. I was trying to find anything that mentioned it, and someone talked about how, when he was researching who his bio mom is, he seriously considered Lady Shiva. This could indicate that he's racially ambiguous.

I personally hc him to be a third or fourth generation immigrant on his dad's side. This, in the hc, could be examined for how his dad may face social and structural barriers to obtaining work. Combined with his dad becoming a father at a young age (anywhere from 18 to 23), Willis was forced to find illegal work just to pay his bills for his family. At least, that's my hc if we're going with a good parent Willis.

You are correct that the Waynes, due to their mixed backgrounds, may face hate or be targeted by hate groups. Barbara may also be included with this due to her visible disability (I hc that some of the Waynes have, at the very least, some invisible disabilities). If we're going strictly off of canonically proven backgrounds/traits, Tim would face hate for being openly bisexual.

I am not aware of any hate groups residing within Gotham. I could 100% be wrong about that. There is the possibility of eugenicists, anti-meta groups, and supremacists (especially in positions of power) existing in Gotham. On the other hand, some of the Rogues would probably decimate those groups if they tried to root themselves in Gotham. That city is chaotic, but I love the hc that the Bats and some rogues (like Harley, Riddler, and Ivy) protect Pride events and other such gatherings. I find it more healing to think about the Rogues, despite being mass murders, drawing the line at being a bigot.

I've seen some fics that chat about the Waynes coming to Damian's defense when he's being racially targeted at school or galas. I haven't seen any for the Waynes as a whole being targeted by hate groups, but that is a possibility to explore. At the very least, there may be some awful shit online that Barbara stumbles across (even if the users aren't based in Gotham due to the Waynes being famous).

I'm glad that you enjoy my work! Stay safe, everyone, and fuck the pieces of shits that hate folks for being themselves.

[diiwata]

my district 4 masterpost!

to me, district 4 is a mix of se/east asian, lat-am, and even a bit of black influence. had a bit of help from @blackoutdays13, creds to her too <3

let's dive in (joke intended). more below the cut!

CULTURAL TIDBITS

i like to think dance is an important part of the d4 culture. many artists that contribute to hip-hop culture originate from california, especially dances :) not to mention cultural latam dances, the dragon dance from china, and maybe even tinikling (projecting so hard rn)! movement is how they get through the day.

their diet may consist of mostly seafood, but grains are also a staple. rice, bread, noodles, and tortillas are often paired with meats and vegetables to make meals more fulfilling. of course, they aren't the same to the grains we produce now, but it's close enough to what they are able to get their hands on.

as stereotypical it is to asian culture, i like to think education holds some importance there, too. it doesn't just involve hitting the books, but also street smarts and survival skills. even if you're working, there's some downtime saved for learning/passing on knowledge from the older to younger generation.

there is a large sense of community in the districts. it's a staple in asian culture to identify with your community. your achievements and your failures are not just yours, but is a reflection of the people you identify with. this is touched more on my asian d4/d7 analysis.

since california legalized this, they definitely had... recreational uses for certain substances. you know. mary jane, the 🍃. it's a whole thing in the district and a "hidden gem". it's more popular with the lower class, but the capitol thinks it's used by the best of the best. they don't have to know, though ;)

LOCATIONS

their marketplace is concentrated in the docks! similar to the piers of santa monica and san francisco, there's a lot of street vendors, kiosks, and street performers.

the further away you are from the shore, the more impoverished you are. the people of the "inner lands" probably process the food for safer consumption, or travel to the shore to find work (hence the kiosks and such). grains could also be grown in the inner lands, which is how they're able to supply the district with rice and such w/o having to rely on d9 imports too much.

a train or trolley system helps large capacities of people travel to and fro their work. the trolley might be a bit more for tourists, though.

lots of cliffs. lots of mountains. houses on cliffs and mountains are seen as a privilege. I imagine the victor's village is somewhere here!

the houses in the victor's village look like italianate homes in san francisco (1). houses by richer folks look like malibu/southern californian beach houses (2). inner lands houses are either the older, fenced homes or apartment units (3)!

RELIGION

(i read these in some fics!!) considering that latinos are also big in california, and that a lot of asians share a catholic faith in the state, i could see them using rosaries or crosses. not because of a belief in it, but as an equivalent of a good luck charm.

to add onto this ^ they celebrate ash wednesday, but with their own twist. the ash on their foreheads is instead a reminder of who they lost.

speaking of holidays, the festival that they celebrate during the victory tour months probably closely mimics lunar new year! of course, they don't follow the lunar calendar, but their traditions and rituals to celebrate that day look awfully similar. red envelopes could be passed around, but I highly doubt that there's much in there if you're from the inner lands.

dia de los muertos is celebrated too! possibly during the victory tour months, too. imagine a festival that's just spilling with the golds and reds of lunar new year and the vibrant colors associated with dia de los muertos!

NATURAL DISASTERS

earthquakes. wildfires. droughts. those are the holy trinity of natural disasters in d4. protocols for all three are drilled into the minds of d4 citizens since youth.

thanks to the indigenous practice of controlled fires that persisted during the building of panem, they are often able maintain these wildfires. but sometimes, the wildfires do get out of control and turn the sky orange.

their structures are relatively stable to help accommodate for the earthquakes, but of course, damage will be done especially during a huge one that occurs in california every few centuries.

in my finnick/oc fic, "the big one" occurs before the 65th games. after finnick's victory, they paid more attention to d4.

droughts are not to be taken lightly in d4, especially in the inner lands. don't shower for more than five minutes. turn off the faucet while brushing your teeth. never keep the sink running. fix leaking faucets whenever you can b/c every drop counts.

a water limit is imposed on them. most of the water goes directly to the upper class and the capitol resorts by the coast.

CLASS DIVISIONS

the inner lands' lower class, the coast's merchants, the officials, and the victors are all classes in district four. the lower class harbors some resentment towards the upper class, and it's the other way around, too.

since most of the water travels to the upper class, that's where the main resentment lies. everything is for tourism and to maintain appearances.

because of this maintenance and carefully curated appearance, I can see the capitol citizens romanticizing d4 to an extreme degree. with finnick as the "face" of the district, it only worsens. they think of d4 as beaches, tropical fruits, and a sunny paradise. but once they take the train that passes through the rural lands and the poorer urban areas with the fog limiting their view, they realize that district 4 isn't all what they shaped it up to be.

I also imagine the upper class trying to dismiss the lower class because they don't look appealing enough to the capitol. they ARE a career district, after all. this could tie into the model minority myth, which I discuss in this post using hannah's ask, as well as the d4/d7 hc I linked previously. to summarize, reputation is ingrained in asian cultures. this need for a good rep could bring d4 to try their hardest to appeal to the model minority myth and keep up with the other career districts.

all in all, d4 is my little try-hard district rich with culture, mary jane, and the impending doom of "the big one". I love it with all my heart. if you have anything to add, or things you want me to touch up on, feel free to drop an ask or say something in your rb!

stream "california love" by 2pac 🙏🏽

[racefortheironthrone]

OK, I'll bite - what's the deal with the United Farm Workers? What were their strengths and weaknesses compared to other labor unions?

It is not an easy thing to talk about the UFW, in part because it wasn't just a union. At the height of its influence in the 1960s and 1970s, it was also a civil rights movement that was directly inspired by the SCLC campaigns of Martin Luther King and owed its success as much to mass marches, hunger strikes, media attention, and the mass mobilization of the public in support of boycotts that stretched across the United States and as far as Europe as it did to traditional strikes and picket lines.

It was also a social movement that blended powerful strains of Catholic faith traditions with Chicano/Latino nationalism inspired by the black power movement, that reshaped the identity of millions away from asimilation into white society and towards a fierce identification with indigeneity, and challenged the racist social hierarchy of rural California.

It was also a political movement that transformed Latino voting behavior, established political coalitions with the Kennedys, Jerry Brown, and the state legislature, that pushed through legislation and ran statewide initiative campaigns, and that would eventually launch the careers of generations of Latino politicians who would rise to the very top of California politics.

However, it was also a movement that ultimately failed in its mission to remake the brutal lives of California farmworkers, which currently has only 7,000 members when it once had more than 80,000, and which today often merely trades on the memory of its celebrated founders Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez rather than doing any organizing work.

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

The Origins of the UFW:

To explain the strengths and weaknesses of the UFW, we have to start with some organizational history, because the UFW was the result of the merger of several organizations each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

In the 1950s, both Dolores Huerta and Cesar Chavez were community organizers working for a group called the Community Service Organization (an affiliate of Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation) that sought to aid farmworkers living in poverty. Huerta and Chavez were trained in a novel strategy of grassroots, door-to-door organizing aimed not at getting workers to sign union cards, but to agree to host a house meeting where co-workers could gather privately to discuss their problems at work free from the surveillance of their bosses. This would prove to be very useful in organizing the fields, because unlike the traditional union model where organizers relied on the NRLB's rulings to directly access the factory floors, Central California farms were remote places where white farm owners and their white overseers would fire shotguns at brown "trespassers" (union-friendly workers, organizers, picketers).

In 1962, Chavez and Huerta quit CSO to found the National Farm Workers Association, which was really more of a worker center offering support services (chiefly, health care) to independent groups of largely Mexican farmworkers. In 1965, they received a request to provide support to workers dealing with a strike against grape growers in Delano, California.

In Delano, Chavez and Huerta met Larry Itliong of the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), which was a more traditional labor union of migrant Filipino farmworkers who had begun the strike over sub-minimum wages. Itliong wanted Chavez and Huerta to organize Mexican farmworkers who had been brought in as potential strikebreakers and get them to honor the picket line.

The result of their collaboration was the formation of the United Farm Workers as a union of the AFL-CIO. The UFW would very much be marked by a combination of (and sometimes conflict between) AWOC's traditional union tactics - strikes, pickets, card drives, employer-based campaigns, and collective bargaining for union contracts - and NFWA's social movement strategy of marches, boycotts, hunger strikes, media campaigns, mobilization of liberal politicians, and legislative campaigns.

1965 to 1970: the Rise of the UFW:

While the strike starts with 2,000 Filipino workers and 1,200 Mexican families targeting Delano area growers, it quickly expanded to target more growers and bring more workers to the picket lines, eventually culminating in 10,000 workers striking against the whole of the table grape growers of California across the length and breadth of California.

Throughout 1966, the UFW faced extensive violence from the growers, from shotguns used as "warning shots" to hand-to-hand violence, to driving cars into pickets, to turning pesticide-spraying machines onto picketers. Local police responded to the violence by effectively siding with the growers, and would arrest UFW picketers for the crime of calling the police.

Chavez strongly emphasized a non-violent response to the growers' tactics - to the point of engaging in a Gandhian hunger strike against his own strikers in 1968 to quell discussions about retaliatory violence - but also began to employ a series of civil rights tactics that sought to break what had effectively become a stalemate on the picket line by side-stepping the picket lines altogether and attacking the growers on new fronts.

First, he sought the assistance of outside groups and individuals who would be sympathetic to the plight of the farmworker and could help bring media attention to the strike - UAW President Walter Reuther and Senator Robert Kennedy both visited Delano to express their solidarity, with Kennedy in particular holding hearings that shined a light on the issue of violence and police violations of the civil rights of UFW picketers.

Second, Chavez hit on the tactic of using boycotts as a way of exerting economic pressure on particular growers and leveraging the solidarity of other unions and consumers - the boycotts began when Chavez enlisted Dolores Huerta to follow a shipment of grapes from Schenley Industries (the first grower to be boycotted) to the Port of Oakland. There, Huerta reached out to the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union and persuaded them to honor the boycott and refuse to handle non-union grapes. Schenley's grapes started to rot on the docks, cutting them off from the market, and between the effects of union solidarity and growing consumer participation in the UFW's boycotts, the growers started to come under real economic pressure as their revenue dropped despite a record harvest.

Throughout the rest of the Delano grape strike, Dolores Huerta would be the main organizer of the national and internal boycotts, travelling across the country (and eventually all the way to the UK) to mobilize unions and faith groups to form boycott committees and boycott houses in major cities that in turn could educate and mobilize ordinary consumers through a campaign of leafleting and picketing at grocery stores.

Third, the UFW organized the first of its marches, a 300-mile trek from Delano to the state capital of Sacramento aimed at drawing national attention to the grape strike and attempting to enlist the state government to pass labor legislation that would give farmworkers the right to organize. Carefully organized by Cesar Chavez to draw on Mexican faith traditions, the march would be labelled a "pilgrimage," and would be timed to begin during Lent and culminate during Easter. In addition to American flags and the UFW banner, the march would be led by "pilgrims" carrying a banner of Our Lady of Guadelupe.

While this strategy was ultimately effective in its goal of influencing the broader Latino community in California to see the UFW as not just a union but a vehicle for the broader aspirations of the whole Latino community for equality and social justice, what became known in Chicano circles as La Causa, the emphasis on Mexican symbolism and Chicano identity contributed to a growing tension with the Filipino half of the UFW, who felt that they were being sidelined in a strike they had started.

Nevertheless, by the time that the UFW's pilgrimage arrived at Sacramento, news broke that they had won their first breakthrough in the strike as Schenley Industries (which had been suffering through a four-month national boycott of its products) agreed to sign the first UFW union contract, delivering a much-needed victory.

As the strike dragged on, growers were not passively standing by - in addition to doubling down on the violence by hiring strikebreakers to assault pro-UFW farmworkers, growers turned to the Teamsters Union as a way of pre-empting the UFW, either by pre-emptively signing contracts with the Teamsters or effectively backing the Teamsters in union elections.

Part of the darker legacy of the Teamsters is that, going all the back to the 1930s, they have a nasty habit of raiding other unions, and especially during their mobbed-up days would work with the bosses to sign sweetheart deals that allowed the Teamsters to siphon dues money from workers (who had not consented to be represented by the Teamsters, remember) while providing nothing in the way of wage increases or improved working conditions, usually in exchange for bribes and/or protection money from the employers. Moreover, the Teamsters had no compunction about using violence to intimidate rank-and-file workers and rival unions in order to defend their "paper locals" or win a union election. This would become even more of an issue later on, but it started up as early as 1966.

Moreover, the growers attempted to adapt to the UFW's boycott tactics by sharing labels, such that a boycotted company would sell their products under the guise of being from a different, non-boycotted company. This forced the UFW to change its boycott tactics in turn, so that instead of targeting individual growers for boycott, they now asked unions and consumers alike to boycott all table grapes from the state of California.

By 1970, however, the growing strength of the national grape boycott forced no fewer than 26 Delano grape growers to the bargaining table to sign the UFW's contracts. Practically overnight, the UFW grew from a membership of 10,000 strikers (none of whom had contracts, remember) to nearly 70,000 union members covered by collective bargaining agreements.

1970 to 1978: The UFW Confronts Internal and External Crises

Up until now, I've been telling the kind of simple narrative of gradual but inevitable social progress that U.S history textbooks like, the Hollywood story of an oppressed minority that wins a David and Goliath struggle against a violent, racist oligarchy through the kind of non-violent methods that make white allies feel comfortable and uplifted. (It's not an accident that the bulk of the 2014 film Cesar Chavez starring Michael Peña covers the Delano Grape Strike.)

It's also the period in which the UFW's strengths as an organization that came out of the community organizing/civil rights movement were most on display. In the eight years that followed, however, the union would start to experience a series of crises that would demonstrate some of the weaknesses of that same institutional legacy. As Matt Garcia describes in From the Jaws of Victory, in the wake of his historic victory in 1970, Cesar Chavez began to inflict a series of self-inflicted injuries on the UFW that crippled the functioning of the union, divided leadership and rank-and-file alike, and ultimately distracted from the union's external crises at a time when the UFW could not afford to be distracted.

That's not to say that this period was one of unbroken decline - as we'll discuss, the UFW would win many victories in this period - but the union's forward momentum was halted and it would spend much of the 1970s trying to get back to where it was at the very start of the decade.

To begin with, we should discuss the internal contradictions of the UFW: one of the major features of the UFW's new contracts was that they replaced the shape-up with the hiring hall. This gave the union an enormous amount of power in terms of hiring, firing and management of employees, but the quid-pro-quo of this system is that it puts a significant administrative burden on the union. Not only do you have to have to set up policies that fairly decide who gets work and when, but you then have to even-handedly enforce those policies on a day-to-day basis in often fraught circumstances - and all of this is skilled white-collar labor.

This ran into a major bone of contention within the movement. When the locus of the grape strike had shifted from the fields to the urban boycotts, this had made a new constituency within the union - white college-educated hippies who could do statistical research, operate boycott houses, and handle media campaigns. These hippies had done yeoman's work for the union and wanted to keep on doing that work, but they also needed to earn enough money to pay the rent and look after their growing families, and in general shift from being temporary volunteers to being professional union staffers.

This ran head-long into a buzzsaw of racial and cultural tension. Similar to the conflicts over the role of white volunteers in CORE/SNCC during the Civil Rights Movement, there were a lot of UFW leaders and members who had come out of the grassroots efforts in the field who felt that the white college kids were making a play for control over the UFW. This was especially driven by Cesar Chavez' religiously-inflected ideas of Catholic sacrifice and self-denial, embodied politically as the idea that a salary of $5 a week (roughly $30 a week in today's money) was a sign of the purity of one's "missionary work." This worked itself out in a series of internicene purges whereby vital college-educated staff were fired for various crimes of ideological disunity.

This all would have been survivable if Chavez had shown any interest in actually making the union and its hiring halls work. However, almost from the moment of victory in 1970, Chavez showed almost no interest in running the union as a union - instead, he thought that the most important thing was relocating the UFW's headquarters to a commune in La Paz, or creating the Poor People's Union as a way to organize poor whites in the San Joaquin Valley, or leaving the union altogether to become a Catholic priest, or joining up with the Synanon cult to run criticism sessions in La Paz. In the mean-time, a lot of the UFW's victories were withering on the vine as workers in the fields got fed up with hiring halls that couldn't do their basic job of making sure they got sufficient work at the right wages.

Externally, all of this was happening during the second major round of labor conflicts out in the fields. As before, the UFW faced serious conflicts with the Teamsters, first in the so-called "Salad Bowl Strike" that lasted from 1970-1971 and was at the time the largest and most violent agricultural strike in U.S history - only then to be eclipsed in 1973 with the second grape strike. Just as with the Salinas strike, the grape growers in 1973 shifted to a strategy of signing sweetheart deals with the Teamsters - and using Teamster muscle to fight off the UFW's new grape strike and boycott. UFW pickets were shot at and killed in drive-byes by Teamster trucks, who then escalated into firebombing pickets and UFW buildings alike.

After a year of violence, reduced support from the rank-and-file, and declining resources, Chavez and the UFW felt that their backs were up against a wall - and had to adjust their tactics accordingly. With the election of Jerry Brown as governor in 1974, the UFW pivoted to a strategy of pressuring the state government to enact a California Agricultural Labor Relations Act that would give agricultural workers the right to organize, and with that all the labor protections normally enjoyed by industrial workers under the Federal National Labor Relations Act - at the cost of giving up the freedom to boycott and conduct secondary strikes which they had had as outsiders to the system.

This led to the semi-miraculous Modesto March, itself a repeat of the Delano-to-Sacramento march from the 1960s. Starting as just a couple hundred marchers in San Francisco, the March swelled to as many as 15,000-strong by the time that it reached its objective at Modesto. This caused a sudden sea-change in the grape strike, bringing the growers and the Teamsters back to the table, and getting Jerry Brown and the state legislature to back passage of California Agricultural Labor Relations Act.

This proved to be the high-water mark for the UFW, which swelled to a peak of 80,000 members. The problem was that the old problems within the UFW did not go away - victory in 1975 didn't stop Chavez and his Chicano constituency feuding with more distinctively Mexican groups within the movement over undocumented immigration, nor feuding with Filipino constituencies over a meeting with Ferdinand Marcos, and nor escalating these internal conflicts into a series of leadership purges.

Conclusion: Decline and Fall

At the same time, the new alliance with the Agricultural Labor Relations Board proved to be a difficult one for the UFW. While establishment of the agency proved to be a major boon for the UFW, which won most of the free elections under CALRA (all the while continuing to neglect the critical hiring hall issue), the state legislature badly underfunded ALRB, forcing the agency to temporarily shut down. The UFW responded by sponsoring Prop 14 in the 1976 elections to try to empower ALRB, and then got very badly beaten in that election cycle - and then, when Republican George Deukmejian was elected in 1983, the ALRB was largely defunded and unable to achieve its original elective goals.

In the wake of Deukmejian, the UFW went into terminal decline. Most of its best organizers had left or been purged in internal struggles, their contracts failed to succeed over the long run due to the hiring hall problem, and the union basically stopped organizing new members after 1986.

[musings-of-a-rose]

Jump Then Fall - Part 1

Pairing: Javier Peña x ofc “Vanessa Morales”

Word Count: 5300+

Rating: M for mature - 18+ only!

Warnings: Please be aware there is an 11 year age gap. Mature themes and some canon mentioned. Just like ao3, “creator chooses not to use warnings.” If you click Keep Reading, that means you agree that you’re the age to handle mature themes. Also by clicking Keep Reading, you understand warnings may not be complete in order to avoid spoilers for the story.

Notes: I’ve had this idea bouncing around in my head for a while now and finally decided to put it down. From the beginning, this story always felt like it needed an original character and so it does! When the story starts, Vanessa is 19 and Javier is 30.

**Shoutout to @vanemando15 for listening and bouncing ideas from me, and for her guidance with being a Latina herself. Without her, this wouldn’t even be a thing, just another line on my WIP spreadsheet. And also to my husband, who is also Latino and answered any questions I had (along with taking me to Colombia back in 2014). And to @wyn-n-tonic, who listened to my rambles and insecurities about writing an oc in first person.

**If you want to be added to the taglist, join here or let me know!

❤If you enjoy the fic, please consider giving me a warm beverage! (It is not required in any way!)

Jump Then Fall Masterlist

General Masterlist

Javier Peña Masterlist

1988

"Welcome back to the United States."

I thank the border agent as he hands me back my passport, tapping the brim of his hat as he steps back and waves me through. 

Coming back to the States after spending the summer in a small village in rural Nuevo León, teaching kids English and helping to build both a school house and a church there was surreal. The village had been quite remote, having a well for water and simple huts for shelter. I had gone for a new type of program through my very Catholic, private university, one that would put missionaries and new teachers in the same places, so the people could learn English while having new facilities built for them. 

My parents were hesitant at first. I am only 19, one of the youngest in the teacher program. But several of the missionaries were a few years younger than me and since we were all traveling together, my parents eventually caved and gave me permission to go, as it was obvious that God was calling me down this path.

The summer passed by quickly, my students eager to learn English and ask me questions about life outside of their small village. When it came time to leave, the missionaries were all called away to another village, while my university called me back. They wanted to know how the program was and to have me speak to several administrators from the university and others, as well as other members of the Diocese not directly involved in our university, as they were interested in expanding the program should it prove successful. 

Which is what lead me, a young, 19 year old woman, to drive by myself, back across the border to the US. Probably not the smartest idea, but the idea thrilled me as I have never really been allowed to go places on my own. Or even make most of my own decisions. 

My parents were pretty strict, always needing to know where I was and mostly keeping me home. It was hard to make friends, even within the church, and the few I did have, my parents had arranged. Corpus Christi wasn’t the biggest city but it wasn’t the smallest either and my parents kept a tight grip on me, especially when I hit puberty. I wasn’t allowed to cut or color my hair the way I wanted to, or pick my own clothes. If I ever came home with nailpolish on, I’d be scrubbing it off and reciting bible passages for a month at least. 

Even when I started college, my parents kept their hands on me, demanding I go to the Catholic college close to home so I could continue to live there until I found a husband and got married. One they approved of, of course. I know they were just trying to keep me safe, but sometimes it would overpower me and I’d feel like I was suffocating, unable to make any choice or have control of my life.

Which is why I’m here, driving across the border and stopping in Laredo, Texas for the night. I pull into the first hotel I see that I think I can afford, the “Vacancy” sign lit up outside. Lucky for me, they do have a room I can afford and I pay the clerk, taking my key with the enormous keychain and heading off to find my room. This is the first time I’ll have ever slept somewhere by myself. Even in the village we had dorm style rooms and I shared with a few different girls. 

The room is quiet. Turning on the tv helps but soon I’m overwhelmed by the sheer amount of choices - 13 channels is way too much. When the box clicks off, my stomach growls and I realize it had been hours since I’d eaten, possibly since breakfast. I pick up the phone and call the front desk to ask about food. They tell me the closest place is 2 blocks down, a bar called Pit Stop. Everything else would require a cab or is closed and yes, they’ll let me in under 21. I just can’t order alcohol. 

I’ve never been in a bar before, but my growling stomach demands I get food. I pull on my sweater and head out, deciding to walk to the bar since it’s so close. I can hear it before I see it, bass thumping as I round the corner and see this square shape of a building, neon letters glowing in the night sky like lighthouse beacons. It’s pretty busy, cars lining the parking lot and people walking and milling about outside. I take a deep breath and pull my sweater a little tighter around me, my empty stomach urging me forward. 

Inside was chaos. At least it was to me. The jukebox was blaring some country song that people were dancing to all in a line. People were packed in at the tables, chatting loudly and flirting, drinks coursing through people’s veins. Most weren’t completely drunk yet but many were well on their way. I spot a seat at the bar and slide into it, taking a look at the massive wall of liquor bottles behind it. I had no idea there were so many choices. I thought it was just beer, not beer, and sangria. 

The bartender somehow spots me, giving me a once over before he asks what I’d like. When I request a menu, he laughs, saying they only have burgers and wings tonight. He takes my order for a burger and fries, assuring me the burgers “aren’t bad”, dashing any hope I had for a decent dinner. People come up to the bar, shoving around everyone to order and leave, drinks in hand as they turn back to their group. The seat next to me opens up and is immediately occupied by some drunk man who tries to hit on me. When I don’t respond, he calls me a slew of bad names, his face getting dangerously closer to mine and for the first time I realize that this may have been a bad idea, no matter how exciting the thought of it had been.

“Looks like you’ve had too much to drink, friend.” 

A man claps the drunk man on the shoulder and he turns to look at him, his eyes unfocused for several long seconds.

“I–h-have?”

He nods. “Why don’t you go sober up? You may have a better shot if you can string 2 words together.”

The drunk man thinks about this for more time than is typically needed before nodding slowly. “Y-yeah. I’ll do that. Th-thankssss.”

He stands and the man helps him away, letting the crowd take the drunk man and shuffle him off to a corner where he promptly sits and falls asleep. The man turns back to me, a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

“Sorry about him. He has a big bark but no bite.”

This man is..gorgeous. He’s taller than me, dark hair that curls slightly at the nape of his neck, a Burt Reynolds style mustache that somehow works for him, and the deepest, darkest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. He’s wearing a leather jacket and some tight jeans, a white button up shirt with the top few buttons undone, exposing the tight muscles in his neck. 

This man is trouble.

“May I sit?” He asks politely, gesturing to the now empty barstool next to me.

I should say no, tighten my sweater around my neck and take my burger back to my room. But something in me says make your own choices! Take back your life! and I find myself nodding, watching the man sit and and order another drink. 

“What are you having?”

“Oh, I’m-” that voice comes back. You said this was your summer to try new things. He’s looking at me, eyebrows raised in anticipation of my answer. 

“Surprise me.”

The man smiles and I almost fall off of my stool. It’s like the entire room lights up with it and I feel this intense urge to put another smile on his face, just to feel that warmth again. His eyes scan my body, chewing the inside of his cheek while he thinks. He turns to the bartender and order me a rum and coke, saying he’ll keep it simple for me. 

“Why simple?”

He gestures to my clothes. “It doesn’t look like you get out much.”

I scoff. “Well that’s rather presumptuous to say.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Well….I mean, no. You’re not wrong. But I just came back from teaching English in Mexico for an entire summer while building a school and a church so excuse me if I don’t look the part.”

He holds his hands up. “I didn’t mean to offend! You just don’t look like…” he gestures around the room before turning back to me.

“I’m Javier, by the way. Javier Peña.”

“Vanessa Morales.”

He extends his large hand to me and I take it, the warmth immediately englufing my own and we let go of each other entirely too soon. 

“So what’s a pretty, young, teacher doing in a place like this? Did you leave your group somewhere?”

I blush at his description of me, tucking my hair behind my ears. “Well, this was the best place to stop on my way back to Corpus Christi. And no group. Just me.”

Why did I tell him that? He could be a creep or worse. Not that I would mind a little worse. 

His eyebrows raise. “You drove here from Mexico by yourself?”

I nod. “Probably not the best choice, but it’s my summer to try new things so…” I shrug, taking the drink the bartender had just set down in front of me and taking a small sip. I cough, choking on the strength of the alcohol burning my throat and to my horror, I see Javier holding back a chuckle. 

“It has been a long summer then, I take it?”

I cough again, clearing my throat. “It was. I’m just not…used to rum.”

“Ok. Sure….so what do you do for fun, Vanessa?”

What do I do for fun?

“I uh…I go to Mexico and teach English-”

Javier shakes his head. “No, that’s your work. What do you do that’s entirely for you and not to help or please someone else?”

I have to think a lot longer that I probably should, which is pretty depressing.

“I…read?”

“Is that a question or your answer?”

“Both?”

“Let me guess…strict parents? Wouldn’t let you just be you?”

“Am I that obvious?”

“No, hermosa. But the sadness in your beautiful eyes, and the way you struggled to answer that question about yourself, told me.”

“Oh.” I look down at my hands, tracing little lines in the condensation on my glass. The song changes and Javier touches my hand lightly. 

“I do not mean to make you sad. Come dance with me? You can’t be sad if you’re dancing.”

My cheeks flush red. “I’d love to but I..”

He leans in to my ear, speaking just for me. “It’s ok if you don’t know how. I will show you.”

And before I can talk myself out of it, I nod, letting Javier take my hand and pull me to the dance floor, his hands on my hips, pulling me close to him as he guides me on how to move, how to sway and dance to the music. I’m feeling a warmth between my legs, one that I think I’ve felt before but I can’t be sure. What I do know is I’d like to feel those hands elsewhere on my body. 

“You catch on quickly, hermosa.” Javier whispers in my ear, sending goosebumps down my neck.

The song ends and I don’t want to stop, Javier guiding my body through several more songs before we have to stop, breathless from the dancing, Javier trying to stealthily adjust his pants as we make our way to the bar again. We get another drink and, this time, I’m nearly gulping it down in my haste to hydrate, Javier pulling the glass from my lips, cutting me off. 

“You need water, hermosa. This shit won’t help you.” 

We spend the next hour huddled together, knees touching and Javier’s hand on my upper thigh, gently squeezing my leg. If he can see the way my cheeks flush, the way I’m squirming in my seat as I start to feel a wet sensation between my legs, he doesn’t let on, his eyes solely focused on mine. Except when they dip down to my lips. I know he's just being nice, flirting with me to get what he wants, but I also know that I don't care. 

I announce that I’d better get back to my room as I still have several hours of driving ahead of me. When he asks if he can walk me to my car, I tell him I walked from my hotel a couple blocks away. 

“Oh no, hermosa. I can’t let you walk alone this late at night. Not around here. May I walk you back?”

“Oh. Really, you don’t have to.”

“I insist.”

Your summer of new things.

“OK….walk me back, please, Javier.”

We make it back to my room, chatting the entire way. He raises his arm, leaning his forearm against the doorframe and cocking his hip to the side, his other hand resting on his hip.   He tells me he’s leaving the country for work tomorrow and I apologize for taking up so much of his time. He waves his hand, shaking his head.

“There is nowhere I’d rather be, hermosa.”

I blush, reaching into my purse to find the room key with the giant keychain on it. I fish it out and stare up at him, those brown eyes somehow darker with…something. Like a tension between us, pooling between my legs. Wait, is this..am I turned on?

His hand comes up to cup my face, his thumb swiping gently at my cheek as he leans in, stopping just half an inch from my face.

“Can I kiss you?” He whispers. I nod furiously and he presses his lips to mine as my eyes close. 

His lips are soft, gentle, his moustache tickling me slightly as his lips investigate mine, his tongue gently trying to push its way into my mouth. I open my mouth slightly and he takes advantage, his hand wrapping around the back of my head, holding me in place as his other hand grips my hip, pulling me flush against him, a hardness in his jeans poking at me. It takes me a moment to realize exactly what that hardness is and when I do, it sends more heat between my thighs. I drop the key in my haste to open the door, the loud clanging disrupting our heated kiss. 

“S-sorry,” I mumble, kneeling to pick it up. I push the key in the lock and turn it, opening the door and walking inside. Only, Javier doesn’t follow me. I turn and look at him, hesitating in the doorway.

“Are you sure, hermosa? I don’t want to pressure you.”

Am I sure? The nerves in my body are going straight to my head, making me feel giddy at the prospect of having relations with a complete stranger. A complete hot stranger.

Your summer of new things.

“Y-yeah. Come in, Javier.”

He enters and closes the door behind him, sliding the bolt into place. He takes off his leather jacket and tosses it on the chair by my sweater, kicking his boots off as well. We both wait in silence for a moment, before Javier walks up to me, pulling my face to his as he resumes kissing me with a deep passion, as if I’m the only person he ever wants to kiss again. Once my shirt and pants are gone, I push back from him, crossing my arms over my body and sitting on the bed. He sits next to me, a worried look on his face.

“Hermosa? Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Talk to me. Please.”

I wait several long moments, gathering up my courage to tell him. “I…I don’t know what to do.”

“What to do?”

I gesture between us and Javier gets a look of comprehension on his face.

“Are you a virgin?”

“Yes? No? I’m not actually sure.”

“What do you mean you’re not sure?”

“I…well I mean, when I was with my now ex boyfriend from chuch, we…messed around a little. And I think he put it in? But it was over in just a few seconds so I’m not entirely sure if he did or not. And he ran out so quickly after and we never spoke of it again so I’m not really sure what happened.”

Why am I talking so fast?

“Oh, hermosa. I figured you didn’t get out much but that…ok, here’s what we’re going to do. That time? Doesn’t count, ok? Push it from your mind. If you couldn’t even tell if he was in…no. What’s going to happen is, if you’ll let me, I’m going to take care of you, make you feel so good that you’ll forget all about church boy. How does that sound?”

Do I want this? Do I want my potential first or possibly second time to be with some random guy at a random bar that I’ll never see again? But the way he moves, the way he touches me and speaks to me, and the way my body responds to him tells me it would be fun. Like really fun. And no one is here to tell me otherwise. 

Summer of trying new things.

“I say…that sounds amazing.”

He smiles and I melt under it, more heat pooling between my legs the longer he looks at me. 

“If at any time you wish to stop, tell me, ok? If it hurts or does not make you feel good, you tell me, ok?”

I nod.

“I need to hear you say it.”

“Y-yes. Yes.”

He caresses my face, gently pulling me to him and presses his lips to mine. His fingers brush against my skin as he reaches for the clasp on my bra, quickly undoing it and sliding it down my arms with the speed of an expert. Once it's off, I feel more self conscious, having never really exposed myself like this before. Javier crooks his finger, tipping my chin up to look at him, his eyes black with lust in the shitty hotel light. 

"You're so beautiful," he says, kissing me again as he puts slight pressure on my body to get me to lay down. 

I do and he lays on his side, propping himself up with his arm as he looks at me, his eyes sliding down to my chest. He lightly trails his fingertips across my shoulders, slowly moving down to my boobs. He gently cups one and I let out a puff of air, the touch sending tingles between my legs. His thumb glides across one of my nipples and a whine comes from somewhere within me, my back arching. He takes advantage of this angle and brings his mouth to my nipple, warm and wet, licking, sucking, and slightly biting at me. 

"Oh!" Is all I can seem to remember how to say as he shifts to my other boob, giving it the same treatment. 

His hand is on my stomach, gently resting and grounding me here. But as he starts to suck harder, my back arching more off the bed, his hand starts to trace small lines down, pausing at the line to my underwear. He pulls his head up, looking down at me until I open my eyes, not realizing I had closed them in the first place. 

"I'm going to touch you now, Hermosa. Is that ok?"

I nod, my chest heaving with anticipation. "Yes."

His light touch down the inside of my thigh, tracing the line of my underwear and going up the other side sends jolts of something through me, gathering between my legs and I find myself begging him, for what I'm not exactly sure. But then his hand slides under my panties, his finger gliding through the slick he finds there and I almost launch myself off the bed, a sound I’ve never heard before erupting from my throat. He uses the pad of his pointer finger to rub small circles on a very specific spot on me and I cry his name, and overwhelming feeling coming over me, like I was about to explode.

“S-stop!”

Jaiver immediately stops and pulls his hand from me, his eyes on my face, his brow furrowed with concern. “Did I hurt you?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“What did you feel?”

“I…I…” 

“You can tell me, hermosa.” His eyes are so big and concerned and I know he just wants to make sure I’m ok.

“It..it felt like…I don’t know, like…like I was about to…explode? I think?”

The furrow releases and he cocks his head at me. “Hermosa…have you never?”

“Never…what?”

“Had an orgasm?”

I blush, feeling warmth spread across my cheeks at the mention of this taboo word. Well, taboo in my house anyway.

“I..I don’t know?”

He places a hand over mine, the warmth from his palm spreading across the top of my hand. “It’s ok. Just…let yourself go with it. Don’t fight it.”

I can’t meet his eyes, embarrassed by my lack of knowledge. “Will it…will it hurt?”

He smiles. “Quite the opposite.”

I nod, a little relieved at that. “Ok…just..relax?”

“Yes. Just feel it, feel how good it makes you feel and just let it come.”

I nod, giving him a little smile and his hand slides back down me, rubbing little circles in what I’m calling my magic spot. The heat comes back, my hips lifting to get more pressure and I can feel the explosion building, trying to claw it’s way out of me, my mouth hanging open until-

“OH!” A string of gasps and sounds rip from my throat as the explosion fans out from where Javier was touching me, gliding along all my nerves and out to everywhere, my fingertips, my toes, my head tingles as I continue making sounds I’ve never heard before. Only when my legs start to shake does Javier stop, placing a kiss to the inside of my hip as he waits for me. I open my eyes, chest heaving as I try to process what happened.

“Feel good?” He asks.

“Is that…is that what it feels like?”

“If someone knows what they’re doing. Or you do it yourself.”

“You can do that to yourself??”

He chuckles. “I’ll let you figure that one out on your own. But right now, I really must taste you.”

“What does that mean?”

He looks at me darkly as he shifts over me, pushing my legs apart like it was nothing and slotting his shoulder between them. He smirks at me before lowering his head and-

“Oh shit!”

His tongue is on me, caressing the places where his fingers had once been, and my skin is still sensitive from before. I can feel my thighs banging on the sides of his head, but this seems to urge him on further, his nose nuzzling into me to coax more breathy sounds from my lips. 

He lifts his head slightly, looking up at me before licking his hand and placing it on me, sliding his fingers down and circling me before slowly, gently, pushing in a finger. It’s warm, his finger, as he pumps it in and out of me, moving it in a circle as if to stretch me, just a few times before he lowers his head again, his tongue on me as he pushes in a second finger. I’m moaning, hips trying to wiggle away from him but he’s pinned me to the bed, lapping at me like he’d never tasted anything so good. I look down at him and the sight sends the explosion between my legs again, a yell erupting from me as he keeps pumping his fingers, curling them to hit something inside of me that makes the explosion more intense than the first one. He sits up, wiping his face, smiling at me.

“You taste amazing, hermosa.”

“That’s..yeah…ok…I…uh huh…”

Javier chuckles but moves up my body, slotting his hips between my legs, the bulge in his jeans rubbing against me, that now familiar warmth spreading quickly. His lips press to mine and I taste a tang, which must be me, and he deepens it, pushing hair off of my face before he pulls back and looks at me. 

“How are you doing?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been this good.”

He chuckles, but slides off my body and stands up, his arm muscles rippling as he pushes himself up. He reaches for the button on his pants and pops it open, sliding them down, revealing that he was not wearing any form of underwear. When he stands straight his dick bounces slightly, and I swallow hard, my eyes glued to him. I try to look away, embarrassed by my staring, but Javier assures me it’s ok to look. 

“Will you fit?” I ask, nearly whispering.

He lowers himself to the bed, crawling over me until he pushes his hips against mine, his hard cock pinned between us. 

“I will. I made sure to stretch you out before. But if anything hurts, tell me, ok?” 

“I….ok.”

He kisses me, grinding his hips down and against that spot he rubbed before and I feel the heat coming back, tingles shooting through me as he increases the pressure. He pulls his hips back and I can feel him, hesitating a moment as he looks down at me before slowly pushing in.

“Oh! Oh, what…ugh!” 

I have nothing to compare him to but I imagine he’s not exactly small, pushing slowly into me and pulling out to give me time to adjust. 

“Stop!”

He freezes and starts to pull out but I grab his arms. “No, just…don’t move. Give me a sec, please.”

He doesn’t move, his eyes on me as I take several deep breaths. It does hurt a little, but it also feels good. Really good. Like he was made for me and I for him. I nod, telling him I’m ok and he starts pushing in again. Eventually his hips can go no further - or so I thought. He adds a small little thrust and I’m seeing stars, my hands reaching for him but stopping just short of grabbing him, unsure of where to be.

“You can touch me, hermosa. Whatever you feel, just follow it.”

He slowly melds his hips to mine, thrusting deeper and I wrap my arms around him, fingernails digging into his back. One of my hands finds the back of his head and I run my fingers through his hair, scratching at his scalp. He moans, practically purring, so I give it a little tug, loving the sound of the growl he makes when I do this. He snaps his hips a hair faster, my breathy moans echoing in the small room, and the newly familiar tingle between my legs comes racing back. Javier wraps his arrms under my legs, pushing them up and further back, changing the angle and rubbing against something inside of me that pushes me over the edge, my body feeling like it’s exploding all over again.

“Ja-Jav-Javier!” I cry out, my head pushing back into the pillow, my mouth hanging open as my fingernails carve even deeper crescent moons into his tanned skin. A few more thrusts from him and he grunts, little breathy moans spilling from his lips, his eyes closed as he leans over me, nipping at my chin. 

We lay like that for a few moments, each of us heavy breathing against the other before Javier pulls out with a small grunt, heading into the bathroom and remerging with a wet cloth. He kneels on the bed and presses the cloth to me and my legs twitch, a smirk appearing on his face as he continues to clean me up. He tosses the cloth towards the bathroom and places a kiss on the inside of my knee, resting his jaw against it as he looks at me, his eyes soft in the dim light of the room.

“How do you feel, hermosa?”

“I feel…” How do I explain this feeling? Complete relaxation, a pleasant, low vibrating feeling throughout my body that makes my eyelids heavy, and what I know is a dopey smile on my face. 

“I’ve never felt this good in my life.”

He smiles and I melt under it. “Good. I wanted to make sure you were properly taken care of. It’s a crime that it’s taken this long for someone so beautiful.”

I’m blushing, looking away as if he wasn’t buried impossibly deep inside of me mere minutes ago. He turns, looking around at the ground for his clothes and suddenly I find myself more insecure, vulnerable. I know he was leaving for an extended work trip in the morning, and I was leaving to head home, which is hours away. Still, I didn’t want him to leave just yet.

“Um..Javier?”

He pauses in his search for a sock. “Yes, hermosa?”

“Could, um…I mean, would you…”

He looks up at me and his face softens as he realizes what I’m attempting to ask. “Do you want me to stay?”

“I…only if you want to. I don’t want to impose…”

Javier sets the pants he was holding down on the table and crosses the room to the bed. He pulls back the blanket and slides in next to me, pulling me close to his chest. 

“I have an early flight but I can stay until then.”

My body relaxes into him. “Are you sure?”

He nods, kissing the top of my head. “There’s nowhere I’d rather be.”

—-

Javier

It's early, the sun not quite cresting over the horizon to start the day. A glance at the clock told him that he needed to leave to make it to the airport in time for his flight to Bogotá. 

Javier runs a hand over his face, pinching his eyes to try and help him wake up. He turns to look at the woman beside him. She's still fast asleep, her bare chest rising and falling softly with deep sleep, her mouth hanging slightly open. Her hand is on his bare chest, like she didn't want to let him go.

He didn't want to go. He wanted to stay and learn more about this woman. He'd intended to go to the bar and get one last fuck in before he went to Colombia, not knowing what he'd find waiting for him there. But when he saw Vanessa, something intrigued him. She was young, and most likely lying about her age a bit, but she seemed confident, although a tad naive. She was smart, damn was she smart, and a wit to match his own. Plus she was easily the most gorgeous woman he'd ever laid eyes on. 

Javier picks up her hand from his chest, pressing a kiss to the back of it, gently laying it on the bed next to her. His eyes raked over her face and the words of his late mother came back to him, words she'd spoken to him when he was just a young boy. 

"Javier, if you like a girl, give her flowers. But if you love her, give her roses."

Javier wouldn't say he was in love with her already, but something inside him said there was the potential for love. It just wasn't the right time. He had to go fight Escobar and she had to go back to Corpus Christi, the only memory of him some possible soreness between her legs. 

He almost missed his flight but it was worth it to find a place that sold roses, buying a single one to leave on the pillow next to her. He wanted her to know she was more than an easy fuck to him. That she, in that moment, was cared for and not taken advantage of. 

He lays the rose down, tucking some hair behind her ear and placing a soft kiss to her slightly parted lips before he leaves, quietly closing the door behind him and heading towards what would be the hardest 6 years of his life. 

—----

In the morning he’s gone, the clock on the beside table telling me it was nearly 10am. I stretch, feeling a sore but pleasant feeling between my thighs and I sigh, remembering the nights activities. I turn and, on the pillow next to me, is a single red rose. I smile, picking it up and giving it a sniff, it’s sweet perfume filling my brain with even more images of last night. I liked Javier and I got the feeling he liked me, despite the obvious age gap. And the fact that I lied a little about my age. We seemed to have a connection and it makes me a little sad that we won’t get the chance to explore that.

“I’ll never see that man again,” I say to myself, sighing a little before getting ready to leave.

If I only knew how wrong I was.

-------

>>Part 2>>

General Taglist:

@frankie-catfish-morales @chaoticgeminate @janebby @astoryisaloveaffair @balekanemohafe @greeneyedblondie44 @hoeforthefictional @marvelousmermaid @hauntedmama @giuliarogers @icanbeyourjedi @wretchedmo @sunnshineeexoxo @livingmydreams13 @adventures-of-a-noodle @sara-alonso @theewokingdead @punkerthanpascal @giggly-otter @f0rever15elf @phandoz @dirtytissuebox @gallowsjoker @lovesbiggerthanpride @sarahmilesbendrix @booksarekindaneat @mrsudontknowme @swol-bear @charlispersonallyhell @xoxabs88xox @amneris21@gooddaykate @alindeluce @avengers-fixation @paintballkid711 @harriedandharassed  @ladykatakuri @marrianena  @practicalghost @withakindheartx @batdarkladyvampir @justanotherkpopstanlol  @mermaidxatxheart @alexxavicry @ichigodjarin @justreblogginfics

[laviejaguardia]

Is Latino not an ethnicity????

It isn't (and it isn't a race either). Latinidad is a political identity with some sociological, cultural and historical background. What it does not have -and I cannot stress this enough- is shared genetics/common ancestry which is how I see it most referred.

Here's the definition of ethnicity from Wikipedia:

And to use roughly the same source, here's the Wikipedia disaggregation of Latin America today (which ofc I have issues with lol I'm not missing the irony of telling you "Latin America is sooo diverse" while using the "Asian" category, but I need to make do:

See what I'm getting at?

Let's continue, you can say "well I didn't mean genetics, I meant everything else"

Okay language:

Latin America includes hundreds of native languages like Quechua, Mayan, Guaraní (oficial language of Paraguay!), Aymará or Nahuatl, and always has! Without counting the beautifully mixed and improved Spanish, Portuguese (which I called Brasilero for years as a kid lol) and French, or even later additions like Welsh, Japanese, Chinese or Arabic from immigrant clusters that still speak it or are currently arriving into the continent.

So language isn't it either.

I don't even need to get into traditions c'mon look at Carnaval in Brasil, día de los muertos in Ecuador, an 9 de julio in Argentina and tell me those are all the same. Look at empanadas, tacos, humitas, pizza brasilera, tequeños, asado, sudados, etc

Religion? Argentina alone has the second biggest Islamic and Jewish populations in America after the US. Sure Christianity is paramount given the invasion and imposition by Catholic monarchies by the Spanish and Portuguese, but to say it's the only religion is to spit in the face of again, hundreds of native people's whose religions have been systematically erased since 1492. It is also quite reductive to only take institutionalised religions as valid forms of worship, or to ignore the fact that most Catholicism here would give European orthodox Catholics a stroke.

Now, history and social treatment, here's where the good stuff is.

Independencias:

These all look super different but these are processes and most of them took place in the first 3 decades of the 1800s so they're not that far off. These were carried out with an idea of hermandad. They used to be virreynatos under the same rule, we (patriotas) were all getting independence from the same monarch power (realistas). There was a lot of collaboration between administrations and armies. This was a decision from the leaders of the time, to seek strength in numbers.

The fact that we had to gain independence is a point of contact as well. At that time "patria" was understood as the desire to be independent, there were no neat lines to separate the territories. At this point in history you'll find lots of key people like San Martín, Juana Azurduy and Bolivar talking about "pueblos americanos" as a way to claim independence from imperialist/colonial European rule. (Brasil had a different history with the Portuguese court moving there)

The term Latin America or Latinoamérica came by a little later, the earliest it's been found used is 1856 by a politician from Chile, as you can see, the context it is used in is purely political.

Historically, the term when used by Americans is heavily tied to a way to gather strength in solidarity for independence and rejection of foreign imperialist aspirations, from the United States, France, Spain, etc etc.

I think latinidad is in a way a self fulfilled prophecy, we were invaded and as such "unified" where before were hundreds of different peoples. We took that very same unification and made it ours, in part because the rest of the world insists on putting us all in the same bag (included with things like the School of the Americas in the 1960s-1980s where all of Latinamerica was deemed safer for the US to be ruled by genocidal military governments than democracies that smelled just a little communist. Spoiler! it wasn't safer for us who had to actually live under them)

I reject the idea of latinidad as an ethnicity because it stems from the idea of "la raza latina" which is very very racist ("latinos" were the white Europeans from Romance language countries aka Spain, Portugal, France and Italy, there was a clear hierarchy there usual to the era that still affects our social and economic framework). It's reductive and it pretends to obscure and muddle a very clear and deliberate political choice that is to identify as latinoamerican.

This also applies to the latin people who emigrate to the US and their descendants, both the ones fixing the lawns and the ones emigrating without need of a visa to work a stable 9-5. Even if it seems only the first ones get the name.

So what's latinidad? It's whatever we say it is, hope this helps ✌️

[r4v3nr0s3]

HELLO!

SEPTEMBER 22 is my B-day, I am trying to get my completed series THE EMERALD FORMULA, published.

So I’ve started a GoFundMe! Please check out my story below and if you could like, share, or donate it would mean everything to me.

LEARN MORE BELOW

I'm Raven Rose a queer, Latino, chronically ill, and disabled author and artist. Welcome to my journey as I get ready to be on my own for the first time in 15 years, go back to school, try to get on federal disability in the United States, and get my first novel published. September 22 is my Birthday month so if anyone is feeling extra festive, in lieu of gifts, I'd appreciate help here!

I’m restarting from scratch after a near decade of health problems, and despite great efforts to re-etner the workplace, 6 months time doing what I used to love, put me back in the hospital. For more about me visit my web page !

My lifelong dream has been to become a writer, but I can't do it alone. You can help me reach my goals and achieve my wildest dreams, and I could not be more grateful! Please do whatever you can do - like, share, and/or donate. I'm finally investing in myself and I believe my ideas and this story deserve investment too, so that's why I'm asking for your help.

Now for the goods!

THE EMERALD FORMULA is a series I've been working on close to 20 years.

The Working BLURB for novel 1 is as follows:

Renata Salcedo has never made a wave in her life. In the last few years though, she's broken up with her long term boyfriend, moved into her own place, and was diligently working towards the career of her dreams: a spot at the Smithsonian.

Fine... Adrenaline Junkie, Renata was not. She learned to stay small and figured out how to move quietly enough to stay unnoticed and survive. But it wasn't like she was unsuccessful. Her carefully planned path of baby steps lead her to exactly where she wanted to be: living her boring life and people leaving her alone to do her job. If anything, the job provided her all the excitement she needed. Unearthing old civilizations? Cataloguing the past through objects and art? Thrilling stuff! All done from the safety atop of an orthopedic pillow from behind a desk.

There was only one teensy problem with Renata's goals.

An entire world she knew nothing about existed right under her nose, and it's going to disrupt her boring little life whether she's planned for it or not. And really she can't complain too much, as it all starts with one of her absolute, most favorite things...

A Book

(Story EXCERPT at the bottom too)

REALM OF MATTER is the first novel in a complete 3-Book series called THE EMERALD FORMULA. At this point, the series needs refinement and editing, so both developmental and line editing. Funds will go towards paying the editors. Whatever is left over will go towards my publishing goals, and my intent to get an art degree and start doing marketing and making book covers. The three mock ups below were all created by me in Vector and Photoshop.

This Epic tale is a paranormal adventure with elements or horror, humor, fantasy, and an underlying slow burn human/humanoid monster romance. It features a diverse cast of human characters who break the mold of the Hero's Journey, and reject its sanctity all-together.

Its universe is heavily based on the History of science, magic, and folklore, focusing mainly on Pagan and Catholic mythology to give this Hero's journey a darkly poignant and comedic edge that digs in and punches up. The magical system is highly elemental, and dives deep into Alchemical and Spiritual theory from thousands of years ago. All of the artwork you see was done by me, a self taught artist (thought I'd like to go back to school next year).

I created my own language and phonetics system, also an alphabet.

All so I could make these transmutation circles based on sacred geometry.

YOU CAN READ CHAPTER 1 HERE

THE EMERAD FORMULA: REALM OF MATTER is a snarky thriller that features a bunch of traumatized, relatable saps often thrust into magical and extraordinary circumstances with not much but found family and magic on their side. But if they can't find hope in a hopeless situation against the ultimate evil, no one can. If you vibe with sacrilege, and enjoy flawed, funny characters, family antics, awkward slow burn romances, complex but accessible lore, legacy heroes, ancient monsters, chaos, magic, and mayhem? You've found the series for you.

Please do whatever is accessible to you: liking, sharing, and donating are all extremely important to make this project a reality. This means a lot to me and I greatly appreciate your support.

Thank you for your time,

Raven Rose

[foreverlogical]

One of the greater indignities of the Dobbs Supreme Court decision—besides stripping millions of American women of their bodily autonomy—was how deeply out of step it was with the majority of Americans’ beliefs. According to a 2023 Gallup poll, a record-high 69 percent of Americans believed that first-trimester abortions should be legal. Considering this statistic, it’s surprising that Democrats haven’t more robustly rallied people around this issue. One reason may be that they just don’t know how.

Roe gave American women decades of false comfort: Abortion access and reproductive rights could remain firmly in the dominion of feminist causes. Keep Your Hands Off My Reproductive Rights T-shirts became nearly as ubiquitous as Girl Boss tote bags. But although most Americans support abortion access, feminism remains more polarizing. Only 19 percent of women strongly identify as feminists. That number is far higher among young women, but among young men, the word has a different resonance: Feminism has been explicitly cited as a factor driving them rightward. Democrats might not like how this sounds, but what they need to do now is reframe a winning issue in nonfeminist terms.

One way is to talk about abortions as lifesaving health care, which more women have been doing. Another model is to talk about it not as a women’s issue, but as a family issue. This is the strategy of the National Latina Institute for Reproductive Justice. For 15 years, NLIRJ has worked in states such as Florida, Texas, and Arizona, training community leaders it calls poderosas to speak with their neighbors. The conversations don’t necessarily begin with abortion at all.

[Read: It’s abortion, stupid]

Most Hispanics in the United States are Catholic. Despite a deeply ingrained religious taboo against abortion, 62 percent now believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases. That number has risen 14 percentage points since 2007. This remarkable change is partly a reaction to draconian abortion restrictions in several Latino-heavy states. But much credit should also be attributed to years of grassroots work by organizations like NLIRJ to shift the culture.

“We ask them what keeps them up at night,” Lupe Rodríguez, the group’s executive director, told me. Rodríguez holds a degree in neurobiology from Harvard and was a scientist before she shifted into reproductive-justice work. That opening question might yield answers about problems at home or a lack of functioning electricity in their neighborhood. The point, Rodríguez said, is to go past individual “rights” and to connect  “reproductive autonomy and bodily autonomy to the conditions that people live in, right? Like whether or not they’re able to feed their kids, whether or not they have money to pay the rent—like everyday concerns.” In this way, reproductive rights go beyond a niche women’s issue to something that affects every aspect of a community.

None of NLIRJ’s materials uses the term feminist. Rodríguez said this wasn’t a conscious decision, but she stands by it. “Our approach is a lot about certainly freedom, certainly bodily autonomy, certainly folks being able to make the best choices for themselves and their families. But it’s very connected to community and family.”

Poderosas are trained on how to discuss faith and abortion, and voting and abortion. Crucially, they are not required to personally hold pro-abortion views. The organization is nonpartisan. Involvement has no ideological requirement other than believing that everyone should be entitled to make decisions that are appropriate for themselves and their family. “We’re bringing people in that way, by not casting them aside” if they don’t share the same perspectives, Rodríguez told me.

This has proved an effective strategy for Latino advocates across the country, and one that Democrats can learn from. In Florida, NLIRJ and other organizations, such as the Women’s Equality Center, have shifted the narrative around abortion bans to be about the government interfering in private family matters. In Arizona, a recent poll by LUCHA, a family-oriented social-justice organization there, found that 75 percent of Latino voters agreed that abortion should be legal, regardless of their personal views on the matter. In New Mexico, male Hispanic Democratic politicians are campaigning on reproductive rights even in conversations with Latino male voters, whose primary concern is typically the economy. Representative Gabriel Vasquez is banking on this being a matter of family and personal liberty—exactly what drove so many Latino immigrants to America in the first place. “It is not about whether we are pro-choice or pro-life,” he recently told The New York Times. “It is about trusting the people that we love to make those decisions for themselves.”

Latinos have played large roles in getting abortion-rights measures on the ballot in Florida and Arizona this fall. And although just 12 percent of the general electorate considers abortion access a leading issue, according to a 2022 national survey, that number was 19 percent among Latinos.

[Read: Are Latinos really realigning toward Republicans?]

So often, political analysts look at how Latinos vote without asking why. It’s as if they assume that Latinos’ rationales are too foreign to understand. Democrats should not make that mistake now. This pragmatic approach is appealing to Latinos because they are largely politically moderate, working- and middle-class people concerned about their family, and about kitchen-table issues—just like much of the population in swing states. The Republican Party seems to have caught on to this; Democrats can’t afford to miss it.

No self-identified feminist who deserves the title will be supporting the intergenerational-bro ticket of Trump-Vance in 2024. The Democratic Party doesn’t need to pander to those voters, or pass a rhetorical purity test on women’s rights to galvanize them; they’re voting Democratic no matter what. Democrats need to focus on all the other voters—who may not care about feminism but do care about their families’ health and ability to thrive—and reframe abortion as an issue that affects everyone.

[dreamersbcll]

Chinese Satellite

instead i look at the sky and feel nothing

1/4 - inspired by this

——————————————————————————

Tara didn’t need anybody’s help. It was just her, the vacant bodies beside her, and an empty echo that made its home in her head. Over and over again. Repeat until death.

She wasn’t always like this. Cynical. Cold. Careful. Withdrawn. There was once a sweet little girl inside her, one who lived and breathed for family, bedtime stories, and sleepovers with her friends.

There wasn’t a particular moment where Tara realized that everything had changed— that everything wasn’t exactly what it seemed. She was a good girl, obedient, even to a fault. All she wanted to do was please her family and be just like her big sister.

Sam was an excellent big sister. She made Tara dinner every night and kissed Tara’s face all over. Nothing was better than the ages of five and ten, innocent to the world around them. Mothers could be good. Fathers could stay. Everything was going to be alright.

But around Tara’s sixth birthday, she suddenly understood and grew a conscience. Her father wasn’t always there, and Mami wasn’t all that nice. She understood why Sam had her listen to music on her iPod at night and why she never spoke to her father until he spoke to her.

The most confusing part was how everything was smoothed over, a rug over a million little toys. The Carpenters never spoke of their irregularities, their lack of proper family. They barely talked to each other in kind language, as the house was divided into three groups: the father, the mother, and the prodigal daughters. Tara didn’t understand why they weren’t the parents she thought she knew. She also didn’t understand why they didn’t talk about it.

Yet the Carpenter family was good at doing one thing together, and that was going to church. They went to church on Sunday, and the girls went to bible study every Wednesday.

There were so many rules. So many hymns. So many confusing messages. Tara was overwhelmed each time she crossed the threshold, her body tensing and her breathing growing ragged.

Somehow, Sam could see Tara’s cowardice and her fears, so her big sister took care of her. The two learned how to talk to God, how to pray, and how to listen for the voice that they yearned to receive.

Together, never alone. Two sets of bony knees hit the wooden floor, two sets of elbows pressed against unforgiving pews. Two heads bowed in unison, and two mouths moved quietly to words they hoped would save them one day.

Soon enough, Tara knows the rules inside and out. She must keep her head bowed and let the stiffness of her body in prayer become a permanent fixture in her body and mind. Eyes averted, preferably closed, but at least turned away from God’s sight. She wasn’t worthy of his glance.

However, it was the last part of prayers she was awful at. No matter how hard she tried, it always ended in numerous Hail Marys and lashings from her mother, all for the sake of correcting Tara’s sinful behavior. God wanted her arms up, hands grazing the heavens, close enough to touch but never meant to be touched.

Tara thought that was ridiculous. She knew better. It was all about making sure God knew that she was raising everything in her life up to God, letting him know that her piggy bank, her teddy bears, and even Sam were all offerings of surrender to God. She raised her hands to God, hoping he would reach down and touch her, even bless her sinful skin.

It didn’t make sense. She can’t touch God.

She’s not sure she would, even if she could.

But she couldn’t deny the hold that religion had on her. The comfort and safety of something that would always be there, even when Tara turned her back on it. Nobody would ever stay with her like religion had, as her father soon left two years later, taking Sam’s heart with him. She soon realized that her mother was never her friend, and she couldn’t depend on her comfort once Sam decided that Tara couldn’t worship her anymore.

Religion would always have her. God would always be there. Or so she thought.

God, to her, was Sam. It was the way Sam smiled at Tara when she did something right. Or how her big sister’s hands could soothe Tara’s worries and fears with the touch of a hand. God shined through Sam and bathed Tara in light and unconditional love. Sam loved her the way God was promised to love her— even though he never could rival her big sister’s love.

And then Sam leaves in the middle of the night, vanishing into the unforgiving darkness she would never be able to fight through.

Tara’s suddenly alone, no one else around her to care for her or love her.

Her Mother tried to reason with Tara, and tried to force her to understand that Sam’s departure was actually a blessing in disguise.

Christina would find Tara in the dead of night, staring out the window to a starless sky, trying to find her light. Her mother would wrap a hand around Tara’s shoulder, nails digging into the skin that she made.

“You don’t need your sister anymore. She is a sinner, and sinners choose their destiny. Do not follow her down the devil’s path. That only leads to pain and destruction,” she whispered, her mouth grazing the edge of Tara’s ear, forcing goosebumps to grow down her body.

“Samantha made her choice, mija. It’s time for you to choose now: God or the Devil. You know what the Devil wants. You know where he lives. Don’t be stupid. Ve con Dios.”

Tara tries to ignore her mother’s relentless demands and efforts to force her down the path she lived. She knows that God isn’t real because why would someone like that strip Sam away from her? Why would God take away someone that Tara believed in more than him?

The answer was clear. God wasn’t there. The Devil wasn’t real.

But damn it to hell, she would be lying if she said she didn’t pray anymore.

God ripped it all from her hands, all her hopes, dreams, and love, and swore it was all gone. She only had him now, and she had to trust in him if she ever wanted to feel loved again. Nobody else would ever love her unconditionally as he did. Tara had to give in. It was all she had left.

God ripped out all she had just to say that he had won.

God won.

But she gave him all.

And it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Religion was futile. It was an echo. Nobody was there. Nobody was going to save her. Why bother? Why pray for her sister to return when Sam left her just like God did?

Yet, Tara still finds herself at the mercy of the book and a chain of heads dangling from her hands.

She knows, and she knows well, where this path leads her. An echo in her head, words falling on ears that were never there. Always the disciple, never the divine. Always the believer, never the chosen.

And yet, she still sank to her knees and lowered her head, signing her fate away to someone who wasn’t listening.

[angeltreasure]

What if we don't have a vocation? I've been so worried about that for years

In the view of the Catholic Church, a vocation is the way God calls you to serve Him in the world. The process of finding out God’s call for you in this life is discernment.

(Keep in mind that no vocation is greater than another. All are holy if we pursue to serve God and love Him.)

There are four vocations:

Single Life. “Commit their lives to serve others in their work and prayer.”

Married Life. “ Faithful commitment to each other consecrated by the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, they strive to please God through their devotion to each other and building a faith driven family.”

Priesthood. “Conformed to Jesus Christ through the Sacrament of Holy Orders, priests are called to be chosen instruments in the world.”

Religious Life (deacons, sisters, brothers, monks, nuns for example). “Commitment in life to live as Christ lived through vows of poverty, chastity and obedience.”

———————

Everyone starts off as single because that’s how we are born. God has a plan for your life. If you would like to learn how to discern we must learn to listen to the still, small voice of God in our heart. Do not be afraid: everyone can discern. Here’s some awesome link….

I can offer more if you are interested! May God bless you.

[zooterchet]

The Play of "Dune"

"Dune", is used by "Piter de Vries", any Romalian, to assassinate a Protestant Irish financial interest, out of any resource through a major police political source.

"Hasimir", the reader, if rich in wealthy mansion, and converted to any Jewish belief (Liturgy, Islam, Rabbinical, USMC, Judaism, or Episcopal), will contact "Irulan" (a wealthy woman in control of a husband) to make her "Margot" (a woman with her labia and vagina removed, a Nun), through an act of rape.

The target, is "Yueh" (a famous foreign intelligence operative, loyal to the Federal Republic of Germany, against Catholic interests, in interests of the United Kingdom or any British Commonwealth state), targeted by "Paul Atreides" (a spy, military agent, or police agent, incarcerated, the model being "David Berkowitz", called a "berk" in slang, as the method of assassination of the inmate, "Yueh").

The work functions a standard diopsy press, a surgeon's tool, hence the "diopsy" (the test of the lung function) will press down the major valve of the "artery" (the "Jamil", the cuckold), to place "Piter", in control of "Jamil", to marry him to "Jessica Atreides" (the female spy, of a "fete", an author, to repeat the sequence).

The purpose, is to breed fresh operatives, to take Irish Protestant finance and interests, and separate them from Catholic Arabian interests, on behalf of the Mestizos (the Latinos, Natives, or Caribs).

It's a wonderful novel set, but all of it is just a knife fight for Piter, to have a weapon, when Hasimir reads the book and finds himself in need of a Wight (a witch hunter, a psychic, Piter).

[lboogie1906]

Representative Ritchie John Torres (born March 12, 1988) is a politician from New York. A member of the Democratic Party, he is the Representative for New York's 15th congressional district. The district covers most of the South Bronx. He served as the New York City Council member for the 15th district from 2013 to 2020. He was the first openly gay candidate to be elected to legislative office in the Bronx, and the council's youngest member. He chaired the Committee on Public Housing and was a deputy majority leader. As chair of the Oversight and Investigations Committee, he focused on taxi medallion predatory loans and the city's Third Party Transfer Program. In July 2019, he announced his bid for New York's 15th congressional district. He won the November 2020 general election and assumed office on January 3, 2021. It made him the first openly gay Afro-Latino elected to Congress. As such, he is one of the nine co-chairs of the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus in the 117th United States Congress. He was born in the Bronx. He was raised Catholic but says he is no longer practicing. He was raised by his mother in Throggs Neck Houses, a public housing project in the Throggs Neck neighborhood of the East Bronx. His mother raised him, his twin brother, and their sister. He was upset by the $269 million city-subsidized Trump Golf Links built "across the street" in Ferry Point Park rather than housing for struggling New Yorkers; the course was built on a landfill, took 14 years to be developed, and opened in 2015. He vowed then to fight for their well-being. He attended Herbert H. Lehman High School, served in the inaugural class of the Coro New York Exploring Leadership Program, and worked as an intern in the offices of the mayor and the attorney general. He enrolled at New York University but dropped out at the beginning of his sophomore year. resumed working for council member James Vacca, eventually becoming Vacca's housing director. He conducted site inspections and documented conditions, ensuring housing issues were promptly and adequately addressed. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/CpsF1aDrQme/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[molsons112000]

Here's a drastic shift in America. First of all, Europeans are not immigrating to America anymore. Things are going extremely well in europe, and they're not immigrating. Now you get also Asians, aren't immigrating? And europeans that were here are returning home repatriating, and so are asians not only are they not emigrating, but they're leaving america to go back to europe and asia!!!

Then we have whites and asian women having extremely low birth rates!!! Then you throw in any abortion in n e l g b t q, and it's just compounds to these issues of the unbelievably shifting demographics in the united states!

As you will see black Americans, Latino Americans and Arab Americans, their birth rates are extremely high, and they are also migrating to the United States still from Africa. The Caribbean, from Latin America to the United States and from the Middle East to the United States. So not only do they have high birth rates, but they also have high immigration rates to the United States and they have low amounts of LGBTQ and low amounts of abortion, because latinos are mostly Catholic and they do believe it's a sin and arabs, Muslims, same thing. So they don't have abortions, and they're very much not a fan of l g.B t q!!! 🤔 white people tend to be more liberal, then Asians with accepting LGBTQ. Agents have less of that problem and less of the abortion problem. White people tend to have more of the LGBTQ more of the abortion problem, and then there is no white people immigrating, tell America. They're leaving america!!!!

So you have a rapidly changing face of america, whites and asians are shrinking rapidly and blacks.Latinos, an arab population, is growing rapidly! As you see below, over the seventy percent of growth in america between twenty twenty two and twenty twenty three was latinos, they made up seventy percent of the population growth in one year they made up seventy percent!!!!

So whites and Asians are in the same place in America. Dying and whites are doing a much worse job then Asians, why? Because we accept lgbtqmore, and we accept abortion more, we tend to be more liberal. Most Asians tend to be more conservative, and they also tend to have a solid family. Divorce is very shunned upon And white people are more accepting of divorce, destroying family dynamics!!!!

So that means both asians and whites are going to get immensely screwed, because they're going to have no control over their future... Remember, I told you, the latinos screwed the chinese in chinatown by redistricting the they screwed him out of their aldermen... And then who did they put in?A gay latino... Not promoting in the Asian community family truly children. But a gay latino promoted, and having no children and being gay, and then you have them as the leadership of the asian community isn't that the devil!!!! Teaching asians to be more accepting of the l g b t q and teaching them also not to have children.It seems pretty f****** satanic to me!!! And before my asian friends, they were p***** once they understood the redistricting and everything that happened to them, they were just a pawn and they got f***** and then they got a gay latino as their leader.Oh yeah, a gay latino.As the leader of the asian community, their alderman!!!! So white people and asian people are getting totally screwed!!! 🤔 and a lot of it has to do with them doing it to themselves, because none of this could have happened without them promoting it... so they have a lot of internal people promoting very evil things in the community!!!!! So you have a lot of leadership, and this is where god told you be very careful on who you choose to mentor yourselves!!! Because you're doing a very bad job of choosing leadership!!!!

[chicagocatholicman]

54% of Gen Z Catholic adults and 50% of millennial Catholic adults in the United States are Hispanic, according to data released on September 4 by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). The USCCB’s report defined Gen Z adults as those born between 1997 and 2005 and millennials as those born between 1981 and 1996. The 17-page report includes a map of percentage of Hispanic/Latino Catholics by diocese (p. 9) and other information about the Hispanic population of the United States and Hispanic ministry. 4,479 out of the 16,279 parishes in the United States have Masses in Spanish, according to a survey recently released by the bishops’ conference.