Plants of My Neighborhood / Plantas de mi Barrio
A Little Book about the Plants of the Heights (with pictures!)
One of the things I love about my upper Manhattan neighborhood is the amazing number of plants – street trees, parks full of greenery, plants growing in and around fences, sidewalks, building walls, and alleyways. Many of these plants, especially the spunky kind that push through the pavements and pop up by the side of the streets, are very healthy and nourishing. The Earth, despite our rudely covering her over with sidewalk concrete, asphalt, and other sealants, insists on pushing through and offering us things that are good to eat, good to drink, and healthy for our bodies and minds. “Here, my rebellious children—take these wonderful foods and medicines! I care for you even though you are pushing me away — you will have these good things whether you want them or not!”
Available Now
¡Cuenta! Count! #1: Jugo de Mango
Observaciones de una Enumeradora del Censo 2020 en alto Manhattan
El Censo y Nuestro Barrio /The Census and Our ‘Hood
The first issue of ¡Cuenta! Count! is now available! You can get a copy for $5 below, or find it for free in select places in Washington Heights! It’s my graphic stories around Census 2020, the sometimes funny, sometimes exciting, sometimes poignant experiences I had while interviewing neighbors as an Enumerator in my home neighborhood of Washington Heights.
I include sketches of real buildings and some portraits of people (with permission!) in the neighborhood, which I got to know so much better during the course of working for Census 2020. Issue #2, “The Dream Team!”, is on the way: talking about the very special team of eight enumerators and two supervisors I got to work with toward the end–and how we communicated, used our various languages, and pushed until we brought Washington Heights to the highest response rate in its whole history: 99% response rate! In future issues, I will be talking about some Covid-related difficulties, what data is collected and how it’s used (legally), misgivings and enthusiasm for the count of our immigrant and marginal populations, and concrete benefits and drawbacks of the census.
Estoy escribiendo y dibujando una breve novela gráfica sobre el Censo 2020, basando en mis experiencias a veces divertidas, a veces emocionantes, a veces conmovedoras, entrevistando a vecinos como enumerador trabajando en mi barrio, Washington Heights en alto Manhattan.
Washington Heights as a community has been regularly undercounted in the decennial (10-year) census. I want to help my amazing, eclectic community make sense of these periodic counts, give some info and eyewitness experiences, and celebrate and take pride in the fact that despite some tech problems the Washington Heights community was 99+% counted for the first time in the history of the U.S. in 2020–a step toward really making our local Dominican, Cuban, Russian, African American, Jewish/Arab, Latinx etc voices heard and getting resources we need for schools, parks, health care, and more public amenities.
Estoy escribiendo y dibujando una breve novela gráfica sobre el Censo 2020, basando en mis experiencias a veces divertidas, a veces emocionantes, a veces conmovedoras, entrevistando a vecinos como enumerador trabajando en mi barrio, Washington Heights en alto Manhattan.
Incluyo dibujos de edificios y retratos de algunas personas (¡con permiso!), que llegué a conocer mucho mejor durante el curso de trabajo para el Censo 2020. Les mostraré a las personas increíbles que conocí, los lugares por los que deambulé, el equipo con el que trabajé, formación, idiomas y cuestionarios bilingües, dificultades relacionadas con Covid, qué datos se recopilan y cómo se utilizan (legalmente), recelos y entusiasmo por el recuento de nuestras poblaciones inmigrantes y marginales, y pros y contras al censo y lo que vi.
Washington Heights como comunidad ha sido regularmente subestimada en el censo decenal (de 10 años). Quiero ayudar a mi increíble y ecléctica comunidad a comprender el censo. Quiero dar información y relatar experiencias de testigos presenciales. Deberíamos celebrar y estar orgullosos: A pesar de algunos problemas tecnológicos, nuestra comunidad fue contada en más del 99% por primera vez en la historia de los EE. UU. en 2020. Es un gran paso hacia realmente hacer que nuestras voces locales dominicanas, cubanas, rusas, afroamericanas, judías / árabes, latinas, etc. se escuchen y obtener los recursos que necesitamos para escuelas, parques, atención médica y más servicios públicos.
GET THE FIRST ISSUE, “JUGO DE MANGO” / “MANGO JUICE,” NOW!
Link: Spanish “¡Cuenta!” counting song included purely for cuteness.
In Development (verrrry slow….!)
Theatre for the 99%
I am also excited to be working very slowly but surely on Theatre for the 99%, a graphic novel telling the story of Hallie Flanagan and other public theater practitioners of the 1920s-1930s, the era before and during the brief career of the Federal Theatre Project under the auspices of Roosevelt’s New Deal employment and infrastructure program, the Works Progress Administration (WPA). Could (and should) the U.S. have developed a sustained National Public Theater?
I have gotten a lot of help on beginning this project from Ellen Lindner, whose comics classes at Word Up Community Bookshop (and elsewhere!) I highly recommend!
