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Articles by Charlie Vázquez
Drawing Our Impermanence
A mournful violin echoes hauntingly as “Anna” stills her wrinkled hands to draw. The 70-something concentrates on the task at hand with her eyes closed. After initially resisting instruction, her defiance softens as she learns to trust her instincts; a smile of surprise spreads across her lips as she allows her creativity to express itself. Despite her advanced years, she exhibits a youthful verve while arriving for our weekly workshops, even as she works in silence.
How Meditation Helped Me to Stop Drinking
At age 52, I quit drinking to see what it would feel like. This step was the final phase of a gradual purification that began with giving up cigarettes when I was 44. Next came giving up hard liquor. Then came kicking marijuana, a habit I had formed as a teenager and that I had continued to use daily during COVID-19 lockdown. Rather than allowing the stresses of the pandemic to accelerate my addictions, I used lockdown as a catalyst for cleaning up.
Women's Networks Drive Puerto Rico’s Decolonization Work
Representatives from the Ford, Mellon, Hispanic, and other foundations gathered in New York in September for a briefing by Open Society Foundations on recovery grants awarded to organizations in Puerto Rico following Hurricane María in 2017. The intention was to rally for sustained interconnectivity between the stakeholders doing the rebuilding in Puerto Rico and the diaspora and its allies advocating for longer-term investment from the mainland.
Teaching Seniors How to Meditate on the Lower East Side: What I’ve Learned
Something bothered her. With eyes closed, the Vietnamese elder rocked forward and backward while following my instruction at the Good Companions Senior Center in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, a sprawling facility run by Henry Street Settlement.
Charlie Vázquez
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On Controversy, Looking Back, and The Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier
I met Emanuel Xavier right after returning to my native New York City in 2006, after a 17-year West Coast transformation from musician to writer. During my final weeks in Portland, Oregon, I was introduced to the author and poet Trebor Healey, who offered to meet up again in New York soon after, since he was scheduled to read at The [LGBT] Center. Sharing the bill with him was the poet Emanuel Xavier, whose work I’d learned about in California.
On Controversy, Looking Back, and Selected Poems of Emanuel Xavier
Author: Charlie Vázquez June 14, 2021 I met Emanuel Xavier right after returning to my native New York City in 2006, after a 17-year West Coast transformation from musician to writer. During my final weeks in Portland, Oregon, I was introduced to the author and poet Trebor Healey, who offered to meet up again in New York soon after, since he was scheduled to read at The [LGBT] Center. Sharing the bill with him was the poet Emanuel Xavier, whose work I’d learned about in California.
Daily Legal News
Common Pleas Workers' Comp Date Filed August 19, 2020 Case Number 936151 Case Type Workers' Comp Judge Judge M. Shaughnessy Plaintiff Filed by. Charlie Vazquez 3621 Cypress Ave. Cleveland, OH 44109 Plaintiff's Attorney Patrick Merrick Attorney at Law LLC 14701 Detroit Ave., Ste 415 Lakewood OH 44107 Defendant Walmart, Inc., et al. 30 West Spring St. Level 30 Columbus, OH 43215 About your information and the public record.
Latinx/POC Arts Nonprofits Deserve a Fairer Share of Funding (OPINION)
Photo from the The Clemente Soto Vélez Cultural and Educational Center (Provided by author) Life took on a new meaning while I learned to read symbols printed onto lines and spaces, what they meant in relation to the pitch, silence, transitions, and duration of voice I was to produce through a trumpet. Music taught me to perceive the world differently in the third grade.
Puerto Rico Governor Disrespected Our Dead
Demonstrators protest against Ricardo Rosselló on July 17, 2019 in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) Puerto Ricans on the island and in the diaspora are marching in several cities, demanding the resignation of Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló. A nearly 900-page Telegram document was leaked recently, exposing hundreds of online chats shared by the governor and members of his cabinet.
How the Arts and Fame Drive Puerto Rican Hurricane Relief
Individuals and organizations around the globe have come together to demonstrate the power of crowdfunding campaigns launched to provide disaster relief to Puerto Rico. Ineffective federal and local aid contributed to a death toll that has swelled to almost 3,000 people (if not more) after Hurricane María struck on September 20, 2017.
Irony: A Queer and Nuyorican Crossroads.
I was born and raised in the Bronx in the 1970s and 1980s. My childhood was, in many ways, a classic Nuyorican postcard snapshot—quenepas, Fania, abuelos, familia, but that comfort and familiarity swiftly drifted away as I came to accept profound truths about myself in my later adolescence. In 1988 I left for the West Coast, spending most of that time in Portland, Oregon, and some in Southern California and Rosarito Beach, Baja Norte México.
A Cultural Oasis Inside a Bronx Bodega – Electric Literature
There are several bodegas in my neighborhood, the most convenient being Yaffa Deli and Grocery on the corner of Lydig and Cruger Avenues. Yaffa attracts residents from the various peoples that call my Pelham Parkway neighborhood home. This international working-class district shaped my youth and adolescence in the 1970s and 1980s, when I grew up and went to school in the nearby Fordham and Allerton neighborhoods that still bring movies such as The Godfather and Taxi Driver to mind.
Can We Stop Erasing Latinos from the Orlando Massacre Narrative?
Alexander Chee’s heartfelt essay “The Courage of Being Queer” (published in New Republic on June 14) takes a bittersweet look back at his heartache over his first boyfriend’s torments, something many of us who identify as queer or LGBTQ can relate to. Chee’s touching musings on his growth as a biracial gay man during the AIDS era of televised Right Wing hatred toward our community needs to be heard.
David Bowie Will Always Matter to Me as a Latino Artist
David Bowie, a musician and pop culture visionary known for his appearances in movies such as The Hunger and Labyrinth, first appeared before me on MTV sometime in the early 1980s. I’m pretty sure it was the video for “Let’s Dance” — when my exposure to music happening outside the United States and Puerto Rico began to explode. I wasn’t an instant fan, but my first impression of the gaunt and pale Englishman was that there was something very unusual about him. In a great way.
Jaime Manrique & the Apocryphal Quixote
Celebrated professor, novelist, translator, memoirist, and multiple Lambda Award Finalist, Jaime Manrique, discusses his new project, a historical novel based on Cervantes’ life, the future of Latino LGBT literature, the greatest novel written by a Puerto Rican, and Robert Rodriguez’s new film Machete. Charlie Vázquez: Your most recent book is based on Cervantes. What was your motivation to write it? Was it a lifelong fascination with him?
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