I’m not a neo-Luddite. I love technology, which is why I still remember my first electric typewriter. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – “What’s that clacking noise?” I asked my 13-year-old son a few days ago. “It’s just an app on my iPod, Mom.” “It sounds just like a typewriter,” I told him. “I haven’t heard one [...]

While terrorists were crashing airlines into buildings, a grungy stranger on a San Diego street was hurling racial slurs at me like Molotov cocktails. Hatred ruled on both coasts that day, just as it did on that public tram in London. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – It happened in that eerie, dreamlike space after the Twin [...]

  Please, Come Home for Christmas. Mom said the Eagles song reminded her of me, the long lost daughter who had bolted from home for college at 17, and had wound up 3,000 miles away. My teenage self had wanted to get away, but a Colorado Christmas taught me that the mother-daughter bond could transcend [...]

Uncle Frank is smart, funny, witty and caring. What I didn’t know was how much he has given to his country. On Veterans Day 2011, I honor him and countless other unsung Latino/Hispano heroes. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – The sound of his voice could stop a poor, bookish Hispanic girl in her tracks. My great [...]

If accents are so charming, why do some bother so many Americans? HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – Several years ago, a longtime friend shared a story with me about the time she phoned an Amtrak ticketing agent to inquire about fares on the legendary California Zephyr. As soon as the agent heard my friend’s accented English [...]

Along with curves and almond-shaped eyes, I inherited my mother’s small, stubby feet. Can a girl with inelegant Giselles dance her way to self acceptance? HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – My mother and I sat side-by-side in a suburban Colorado cineplex recently, bonding across generations as we watched “The Help.” The lights dimmed and we were [...]

Latinos are new immigrants to the United States? Really? So why can so many of us trace our family roots back hundreds of years in the USA? HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – A perplexing phrase stubbornly continues to pop up as fact in newspaper and magazine news stories, in presidential speeches, in online content, and in [...]

When you are an American kid who loves to read and write in English, the idea of getting paid to do the things you love is thrilling – and that’s why I became a journalist. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – My surname is Spanish, but English is my lengua materna. I learned it organically as a [...]

The novel “The Help” has stirred memories of my grandmother’s stories, and what life must have been like for the countless Hispanic women who worked as maids in Anglo homes during the 1960s. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – There’s a lot of buzz going around about the best-selling novel “The Help,” a fictionalized account of the day-to-day [...]

From the moment he arrived, my son began to rock my world and challenge my perceptions of The Opposite Sex. But I had already steeped myself in girl speak, girl attitudes and girl fights. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – I saw my son for the first time in 1998 as he thrust a tiny pink arm in [...]

As I sat in a hospital waiting room wearing a little pink poncho, I experienced something that reminded me of the powerful bond that develops quickly between women. DENVER – Allow me to get something off my chest. Every year I cringe when my doctor schedules my annual mammogram. I dread the process so much that [...]

All of us would like to think we are smart enough to second guess another person’s intentions, and that we have it – the world – all figured out. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – Blink. That’s how best-selling author Malcom Gladwell describes the cognitive process that takes place every time we give someone the once-over and [...]

She was our girl. She was our anchor of happiness. When no one else was there for us, mom was. PUEBLO, Colo. – Let me tell you about a 25-year-old girl dressed in knee-high boots and an A-line mini dress. It’s 1966, and her hair is teased at the crown and flips at her shoulders. She is so stylish [...]

Like other immigrants who have come to my home to lay carpet, install countertops or complete exterior painting, the landscaper and his crew seemed grateful to know Latinos could live the American Dream. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – My husband and I hired a landscaper to do a little work in our suburban backyard last year. [...]

  For those of us who grew up in southern Colorado, what occurred on April 20, 1914, will forever and always be known as the Ludlow Massacre. Today,  I honor the memory of those lost souls, and all they sacrificed to help build our nation. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – April 20 is a date that is [...]

My brother didn’t headbutt his way into the world. He sprang forth feet first, a breech baby running toward life in 1959. Sadly, his life would end painfully and all too soon in a New York City AIDS ward 32 years later. HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. – My brother and I were what some might call [...]