Am I responsable?

“Stop, when you get old I’ll be sure you got locked up in an Asilo*. Come on, hit me again, let’s finish it for today. Tomorrow we’ll star over again. I didn’t ask you to bring me here. I prefer that you beat me up, not that you look at me like I am guilty of something. If I am guilty is of being your son. Son of a single diabla* whom took away my natural environment, and throw me in a desierto*, in a posilga*, in a jungle, in an unknown place. Whose mother will do that to a child?” The mother cried, cried, and she is still crying. Now rolling up herself, and with robotic movements, she went to her right hand side corner of the room and sat on a cold wooden floor. On a cold wooden floor, just like her feelings were before today. “The child voice was heard faraway in the distance, “come on, hit me, hit me again, let’s finish it. Tomorrow we we’ll start over again.” And tomorrow one more time, he said to himself “she will throw her frustration out on me with her correa*.

Silence was heard. The mother sat on a cold wooden floor, defrostes her pass, and tears of her childhood were over the room. She saw herself kneeing on top of a guayo* when something like this happened with her mother. The child interrupts “I am not making the bed, hit me again Mom.”

She tears off sitting on a cold wooden floor, and her memories run back to her pass. She finds herself in front of her father in a moment that her body was slidely out the chair while eating diner at the table. Her father was talking to her, but she couldn’t understand, because continuously he was steering off her as a crazy man. His eye moved from one corner to another of it orbit. Suddenly, he stands up, went to the bedroom, and came back with a correa* on his right hand. Suspicious, of what might happen, she got scared, and started to run. “Stop right there,” he said, he got closer, and hit her in an unforgotten way.

She, still sitting on a cold wooden floor, raised her heads looked at her son whom was waiting to be hit “come on Mom hit me again; I am not making the bed. Do not send me to the Bodega, because I am not going. Do not ask me to throw away the basura,* because I am not, but when you get old I’ll be sure you get locked up in an Asilo*”.

Silence was created, then she turns her head where it was before, and puts it between her legs. She uses her hand to cover up what was happening in her own house. She deeply went into herself; memories of her childhood were raining in the room.

1) Asilo: Nursing home, but in the Hispanic Culture has a different mining. The one here is that when one got old would be nice if our own children take care of us, not a stranger.
2) Diabla: bad person
3) Desierto: desert
4) Posilga: pigs` farm
5) Correa: Belt
6) Guayo: grate
7) Basura: garbage
Juan Nicolás Tineo

Florece la Cultura

En el condado neoyorkino de mayor diversidad racialmente hablando, existe una comunidad dominicana que mantiene el apego a sus raíces. El 28 de febrero, durante la celebración del Mes de la Herencia Dominicana, con el auspicio del Asambleísta José Peralta del distrito 39, Health Plus y el Comisionado Dominicano de Cultura, un servidor Juan Nicolás Tineo y Rubén Sánchez Coordinamos: Lectura Bilingüe en la Biblioteca Pública de Corona, Queens.

Los escritores participantes fueron José Acosta, Osiris Vallejo, Modesto Galán, Joseidalgo Martínez (leyó en inglés), Santiago Gutiérrez Campos, Juan Nicolás Tineo y Rubén Sánchez. Terminada la lectura de los textos, algunos de los asistentes agradecieron esta iniciativa y expresaron su interés por la continuidad de eventos similares con más frecuencia. Ademá, el Asambleísta Peralta entregó un diploma a cada uno de los escritores agradeciendo su participación y reconociendo la importante labor que han realizado para el avance de la cultura dominicana.

Parece que la cultura dominica ha florecido en Queens. Esta actividad cerró todo un mes de celebración de la Independencia dominicana. El 15 de febrero en el Hall of Science conjuntamente con Helen Marshall presidenta del Condado y el comité organizador del mes de la Herencia Dominicana 2007, se montó un evento artístico cultural, donde también se reconoció a miembros destacados de la comunidad de Queens. El 25 de febrero, en el teatro Native, Dinorah Coronado, Dr. Agustín Rojas y FUNDOCOM presentaron la obra teatral Manolo y Minerva: Amor y lucha.

Promover la cultura dominicana en la urbe neoyorquina es de suma importancia no solamente para los jóvenes nacidos aquí de padres dominicanos, sino también para que otras culturas puedan conocer las diferentes facetas del pueblo dominicano que va más allá del béisbol y la música. Este tipo de evento muestra otro lado de los dominicanos en la urbe neoyorquina y, el Asambleísta Peralta conocedor de ello se ha propuesto apoyarlo. “La cultura engrandece a los pueblos,” de ser así, nos beneficiaremos todos dominicanos de New York.

Hasta en los buenos días alguien muere

Hoy será un buen día
Azotó la última tormenta del invierno, quizás
quizás mañana podamos despejarnos de la ropería
hoy como ayer, los poetas y hasta soldados por la vida mueren sin algarabía.

Ayer fue como hoy,
mañana será como siempre
hoy salió el sol, hasta en los buenos días alguien muere
quizás mañana sea un buen día…

Juan Nicolás Tineo
NY., 1ero de abril, 2007