Afro-Caribbean Gothic
Growing up you remember your mom speaking in Spanish to family back home in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Florida on the phone. She was always speaking to someone back home on the phone in Spanish, even when storms have knocked the power out.
The resplendent vibrant painting of the Dominican countryside filled with colorful tin roof houses, wicker baskets, huge wooden pilons, tienditas, farm animals, palm trees and faceless little multicolored country folk shopping always brought you joy as a child, especially when the people changed colors or sometimes started dancing.
You can’t help but laugh when your other Latinx friends talk about being afraid of La llorna or el Cucuy. If only the beasts of old Arawak and West African legend were so quaint. Suddenly, you hear the distinct shriek of a Ciguapa in the distance.
Your mother offhandedly refers to one of your relatives by a name you have never heard before, and you go “Wait, who is that?” and she looks at you bewildered. It is the real name of your favorite aunt, didn’t you know? You didn’t. You’re 18.
Your father, usually terse and quiet, suddenly seems arrested by an unspoken fear and starts to fret at you about andando po’ la calle even though you’re 24 and, frustratingly, makes you miss your 5 o’clock bus. En route on a later bus you see there was a horrible accident…
