I can't stop thinking about how my mother would have felt if I had been ripped away from her arms [...]

Scars of Exile

Portland Through a LatinX Lens

What she detested the most was to clean up after it, because the mutt pooped only at her front door.

Nudo de la Soledad

The Acentos Review

In 1988, a few days before Thanksgiving [...] my mother and I were sitting in a detention center in San Ysidro, CA.

The Institutionalized Cruelty of Separation: My Story

The Anarres Project
—Payaso yoooo, yooooo un payasoooo, sólo a las niñas se les ocurre decir algo así en una situación como esta.

José y La Estación de Autobuses

RIO grande review (RGR)

[...] first you need to know that La Limonada is not an indifferent town--it controls you--makes you ignore, overlook, and forget everything that happens here.

Aka La Limonada

Unbound Journal
I was angry and scared. As we took off from the land that had been our home for seven years, felt like part of my body was dying.

My Trail of Tears

Going Places: True Tales of Young Travelers

Synopsis

UNPUBLISHED SHORT STORY COLLECTION

Rip City: Stolen Stories from La Limonada

The city of La Limonada has just drafted Roboton (Row-bow-TONE), Jupa (HOO-puh), and Calicas (kah-LEE-cuss) to patrol, rob, intimidate, extort, kill, and, when necessary, protect those citizens who need it. Their tactics and abilities improve as their crime spree progresses, shaping them into criminal machines. The three new criminals will be tasked with the reality of destroying people’s lives to ensure La Limonada maintains its dominion over every citizen by controlling every aspect of their past, present, and future. Many of those citizens are clueless about how they are governed; it isn’t until their last moments that they realize they could have escaped the dictatorship of La Limonada. Other victims are just the waste of their circumstances and need to be dealt with by any means necessary. The few who survive an attack by La Limonada will have a choice to bring awareness to their fellow citizens; ultimately, they will be instrumental in sparking the rebellion that will lead La Limonada into a war. The victims of each story become the protagonist of their crude reality and their position on the social hierarchy imposed on them because a poor class must exist for La Limonada to rule them all.

CHAPTER LIST:

ANOTHER SWERE-FLOOD. AKA LA LIMONADA. THREE DAYS OF FALLING RAIN. ROBOTÓN (Row-bow-TONE): CORAZÓN DE CACA. ONE SECOND IN EL PALOMAR. DAUGHTER TO MOTHER. NUDO DE LA SOLEDAD. REJECT YOUR PAIN. PANIFICANDO LA PAZ. MANUFACTURING A GANGSTER. JUPA (HOO-puh): SOMOS LO QUE SOMOS. THE CURSE FOR TELLING. JULIA’S DENTURES: THE PERSUASION OF A SON. ACÁ EL PALOMAR: NO ERES UNA CUCARACHA. CALICAS (kah-LEE-cuss): ÁNGEL DECAPITADO. 50 CENTS WORTH OF GLUE. ROUTE 22. OPERACIÓN ÁNGEL DECAPITADO. LOS USADOS. ROBOTÓN: PRINCESAS DE TRAPO. PRENSA LIBRE: MATAN A OTRO CHOFER DE BUS. THE LANDFILL. JULIA’S DENTURES: DR. CIFUENTES OF DELTA SMILE. AMOR DE CONDONES. UNTITLED LOVE STORY. JUPA: LA VIDA ESTA DE LUTO. MORONIC INFERNO. 2 HOPE IS A DANGEROUS THING. JULIA’S DENTURES: JAIME’S APOLOGY. ROBBERY IN PROGRESS: SHOTS FIRED. RIP CITY. I’M A COVACHA, AND THIS IS MY STORY. CALICAS: UN PUTO MÁS. HABITANDO EL RECUERDO. PRENSA LIBRE: CHOFER DE BUS DEJA 88 MUERTOS. BALA, AKA THE STREET PEANUT VENDOR. LO CAGARON . LAS CUCARACHAS TAMBIÉN LLORAN. THE GANG OF THREE: APOCALYPSE WITHOUT CHANGE.

EXCERPT

Another Sewer-Flood

The moon yawns across the sky as La Limonada viciously flushes all its waste into the only sewer channel that runs along El Palomar. La Limonada knows what it does as the sewer water rises to overtake old Irma-Colocha’s shack. The corrugated metal wall facing the channel screams in pain to hold back the sewer water, but the force is too high, and the wall gives way. Irma-Colocha’s table tiptoes through the water, carrying with it the stove, a box of matches, a half-gone candle, and remnants of a spider’s leg. The red bucket responsible for safeguarding her one bowl, two and a half spoons, and four coffee cups drifts away, saving only itself. The nail that crucified last year’s calendar screams to the door that it will never let go. The small wardrobe tips and drowns. Her pillow swims away. The old mattress feels the cold stabbings of sewage water. Two bamboo plants shift and symmetrically screw themselves around the shack dragging it as the current devours what’s left of it. Once the flood subsided, water’s wake, used condoms, wet toilet paper, and fish skeletons swimming in shit mark a trail of desolation. And in the distance, filthy and gasping for air, Irma-Colocha stares at the vacant lot where her home stood, and she’s already planning her next move.