After spending a year teaching English at a teachers training college in Northwest Argentina, I decided to put my experience to use back home in New York.  I learned about Mixteca Organization, Inc. from a friend and quickly started a position as an instructor for the English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) program.  I knew that this experience would be different from what I was doing before, serving as a teaching assistant for students who would become English teachers,… READ MORE

Rayuela is one of the best Latin fusion restaurants we’ve ever tried, hands-down. (What does hands-down mean anyway? We don’t know, but the food at Rayuela is off the gancho. And we should know—between the two of us, we’ve spent 10-plus years working in Latino restaurants muy fancis. Trust us, Rayuela makes most of those other places look like McDonald’s.)
What the name means: For you monolinguals, it’s “hopscotch”. Why? For one, the novel Rayuela by Argentinean Julio Cortázar is… READ MORE

The concept of aphrodisiac foods has fascinated the world for approximately 5,000 years.
According to lore, certain foods increase sexual desire and potency, mostly based on their provocative shapes and textures. For instance, the word “avocado” comes from the Aztec “ahuactl” (which translates to “testicle”), hence the belief that avocados are a great form of culinary foreplay.
In reality, there are no foods worthy of an x-rating.
That said, here are some thoughts to keep in mind when sharing dinner… READ MORE

Perez Hilton isn’t the only Latino out there with a blogspot account…  Here, we give you the lowdown on some of our favorite NYC-based Latino blogs, rated for sarcasm, humor, sample posts, hipster quotient, and more for your reading (and surfing) pleasure.  Let us know your favorites and who we might have left out (’cause there are MANY more!)
And now, in alphabetical order……

GUANABEE (guanabee.com)
Slogan: “Spicy coverage for the Latino in you.”

Writers: Texas native Cindy Casares (Editor), 35; Carlos… READ MORE

I finally finished reading last week’s New York Magazine (I borrow it from my roommate, thanks Mari!), the one with Steve Jobs on the cover. In was pleasantly surprised to find an article on the Puerto Rican Day Parade, titled "Watching the Parade-Watchers" in the Intelligencer section, with the subhead reading “The police were on edge about the Puerto Rican Day Parade, even if the city’s ritziest neighborhood wasn’t.” Maybe I read the headline too fast, but I was expecting… READ MORE

New York-based cosmopolatinos with roots en la isla flock to San Juan when they want to escape the city’s chaos, visit their friends or see their families. If you don’t know anybody who lives here, chances are you will be forced to eat at overpriced fusion restaurants or fast-food joints, hang out at bars that are still into trip-hop and where their idea of high-fashion is anything that sparkles and has spandex (and i’m not talking about cute American Apparel… READ MORE

If at Chichen-Itza we saw one of the most awe-inspiring places in the Yucatán, the next day we saw the saddest one.
On a wide grass lawn in front of the convent of Maní, 445 years ago, a Spanish bishop named Diego de Landa destroyed at least 27 Mayan sacred texts, 5,000 statues, and 13 altars, among other treasures. That day came after he had ordered the torture of over 4,000 local Maya and the killings of more than 100,… READ MORE

Let Loose.
Boricuas love to party, with our without an excuse. We celebrate everything, from birthdays to our boxers’ victories (once, the government gave the day off the  Monday after Tito Trinidad won a match). So, when it’s time to let loose and get extremely drunk we like heading down to the places mentioned below. Be warned, these chinchorros aka dive bars to all you nuyorquinos don’t allow pretentiousness like some other locales like Shannan’s, or any of the overtly-faux… READ MORE

Shop.
Shopping is the Puerto Rican national sport. The post-Thanksgiving sales are televised, the shopping malls are the meeting grounds of the masses, and did I mention that we have the BIGGEST JC Penny in the world, with a cosmetic area that bears an uncomfortable likeness to Saks or Neimans? Unfortunately, most Puerto Ricans suffer from window-shop syndrome where they will copy from top to bottom whatever they see displayed in store windows, no matter how unflattering, ridiculous or meant… READ MORE

“O te emboricueas o te abochornas!” Así lo resumió mi amiga María T. Laboy y así fue: we came, we saw, we conquered, gozamos y nos emboricuamos. Acá algunos de nuestras reflexiones después de ir a la Parada Puertorriqueña el 10 de junio del 2007. Considérese Parte II del artículo que postée hace dos semanas, “Perspectivas de la Parada Puetorriqueña.” Tampoco se pierdan las excelentes fotos tomadas ese día en nuestra galería de fotos. Y a los que todavía no… READ MORE