Latinx Community in the Time of Coronavirus

The flowers are still blooming outside our walls. The wind still blows even if we can’t feel it. My quesadillas taste like Purell. The cherry blossoms don’t know about the coronavirus. How can we tell them to wait for us?

Yes, being at home is not ideal. The anxiety is invading us. The fear and the incertitude inhabit every household (I don’t need to tell you how we feel, the pungent fog among us doesn’t need an explanation). But, not everyone is lucky to be glued to the news or finding new ways to entertain each other. And it’s time to support each other!

Like many other events, the Latinx in DC for Dignidad Literaria in Washington, D.C. (originally scheduled for March 13th) event was postponed. In the beginning, I was thinking: yeah, we’ll do it later in April or May. But to be honest, I have no idea if we are going to be able to do it that soon. So, in response to all the chaos in the world, we still want to get to know each other as a Latinx literary community, which was the main point of the event at the American Poetry Museum, besides talking about the elephant in the room and Latinx in the publishing world. The idea was to share what Dignidad Literaria(movement formed by Roberto Lovato, Myriam Gurba, and David Bowles) #dignidadliteraria means to us, to get to know each other and to support each other. I don’t see why we can’t start doing that virtually and start that support while we eat our feelings away (well, at least I’m doing that).

Our idea is to interview the readers and participants of the event. After that, we want to get to know as many Latinx literary citizens as we can.

Let’s get to know each other and help each other, shall we?

Ofelia (Ofe) Montelongo