8 minute read
City Voices
FIRST PERSON
An appeal for Rhina P. Espaillat to be Biden’s inaugural poet
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BELEN ATIENZA
Dear President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris,
Congratulations on your victory. As you prepare for the celebration of your arrival to the White House, I would like to strongly recommend Rhina
P. Espaillat as inaugural poet to carry your message of union, hope and equality. Espaillat is one of the most powerful and respected contemporary voices in the
United States and the Caribbean, considered “the urban new voice of Latinx poetry” (Dana Gioia ). As Poet Rhina P. Espaillat a woman of mixed Afro-Dominican, Spanish, French and Arawak descent, in her works she explores ambassador for the United States, the multiplicity of her identities, she embodies the best values of the pride of belonging to different America: freedom, inclusion and cultural traditions, and the joys of solidarity. She is a great communature and domestic life. nicator and public speaker, with
Espaillat writes both in a clear vision about the need to
Spanish and English and she has create bridges between different committed her life to creating generations of readers, as well as bridges between speakers of groups from different socio-ecodifferent languages in the United nomic and cultural backgrounds.
States, as well between American As a public intellectual, she is a writers and writers from other believer in bilingualism, in the countries. Deeply in love with the need for speakers of all languages 13, 2021 country that welcomed her as a child, aware of the complexities of history, and the challenges of being a woman of color and an immigrant in the United States, to shine and to coexist, because as she affirmed in an interview in the magazine Rattle when asked about assimilation: “those of us who have more WORCESTERMAGAZINE.COM JANUARY 7 WORCESTER MAGAZINE’S LETTERS TO THE EDITOR POLICY Letters to the editor are a great way to share your thoughts and opinions with thousands of readers and online viewers each week. There is no word limit, but we reserve the right to edit for length, so brevity is your friend. If handwritten, write legibly - if we cannot read it, we are not running it. A full name and town or city of residence are required. Please include an email address or phone number for verification purposes only. That information will not be published. Make sure your letter makes it into Worcester Magazine in a timely fashion — send it in by the Monday of the next issue. Please note that letters will run as space allows. Send them to Worcester Magazine, 100 Front St., 5th Floor, Worcester, MA 01608 or by email to WMeditor@gatehousemedia.com. she once wrote that for her, “poetry is not just for everybody it is from everybody.” Espaillat is the perfect cultural than one identity, who have multiple languages and multiple loyalties, [we] are not really divided people [we are] multi-
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plied. I tell my Spanish language students, immigrant students from all over — because I see Asian students also — I tell them, ‘You’re not less, you’re more. You’re more because you have more points with which to touch other people.’” (Rattle No. 38, 2012)
CONTINUED ON PAGE 11 HARVEY
2020 had us all in ‘Jeopardy!’
JANICE HARVEY
Time has never dragged the way that it has since January of 2020. The 100 Years War moved at a faster clip that the 12 months that began this decade. We’ve waited for Godot, Guffman and downtown Worcester’s sidewalks to be completed; we’ve stared at useless datebooks in anticipation of January 20th, Joy Reid’s latest hairdo and Ronnie’s clam shack reopening. Nothing compares to the 365,000 days that were 2020.
Putting the year into words is a daunting task. Most of us threw our copies of Roget’s Thesaurus out the window months ago. Since the calendar flipped last, up became down, friends became enemies and truth and lies became indistinguishable from one another. Coronavirus held all the cards and continued to grab us by the collar when we got too cocky, foolishly thinking we were in charge of anything. The ground shifted under our feet daily, as beloved figures like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and John Lewis lost battles with cancer. Chadwick Boseman should still be here. When Alex Trebek drew his last breath, we knew there were no answers.
As 2020 crawled to a close, it occurred to me that someday, this year could be an entire episode of “Jeopardy.” Some categories pertaining to 2020 might include the following:
Category: Selfishness on Parade (for $200)
The answer is: Toilet paper, sanitizer and pasta
The question: What are things we would cut a grampy for?
The answer is: masks (For $400)
The question: What simple piece of cloth can be the difference between life and death?
Alternative question accepted: What piece of cloth do some waitstaff and store clerks wear under their noses?
I’ve always found the year-end wrap-ups fun to watch and read. Not this year. I don’t want to recall
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WORCESTERIA
Everything’s coming up Wally!
VICTOR D. INFANTE
2020 HINDSIGHT: The president of the United States is still involved in trying to overturn a democratic election, it’s winter and we’re heading into what promises to be the darkest stretch of the pandemic, and as I write, about half the city has lost internet access, which is the only thing holding us together these days. Happy New Year? One wants to be optimistic, but there’s a lot of suck left to get through before we arrive at the Promised Land of vaccines and boring federal politics.
WALLY MAKES HIS MOVE: Meanwhile, on the Worcester City Hall front, District 5 Councilor Matt Wally has announced that he’s running for City Council at Large in the next election. You might remember we reported this rumor a while back. “The governing perspective of an at-Large Councilor is much more expansive than that of a District Councilor,” said Wally, when I reached out to him. “A good District Councilor puts the priorities of the District above all else. A District Councilor’s focus on ‘constituent services’ includes issues such as pothole repairs, snow removal, streetlight outages, etc. An at-Large Councilor deals with those issues as well but the main priority is to identify policies which impact the city as a whole. Three examples of issues which I would focus on as an at-Large District Councilor are the development of a municipally owned broadband network to ensure equitable internet access for all Worcester residents, the expansion of the downtown Streetscape Policy to commercial corridors and residential neighborhoods throughout Worcester in order to provide a more pedestrian safe city, and support for small businesses, especially restaurants, in order to expedite the economic recovery post-pandemic.”
MEANWHILE, BACK IN DISTRICT 5: Wally’s switch-up leaves the District 5 seat up for grabs. Some early reports had Thu Nguyen vying for that seat, but they’ve since settled on running at-Large, and there’s no evidence so far that’s changed. That leaves newcomer Yenni Desroches as the only declared candidate for that seat, although it’s VERY early and things could change. We had caught up with Desroches a few weeks ago, asking about her motivations for running. “I am running for the District 5 City Council seat,” she says, “because I want to bring my experience and enthusiasm to our City Council so we can better address the needs of this community. There are a wide range of infrastructure and accessibility issues that need greater attention or more urgent action. Our streets and sidewalks are in bad condition especially when many have no usable sidewalks. The city’s methods for parking bans, especially spring and fall cleanups, are inefficient and problematic, especially for people without driveways who may be elderly or disabled. We also need to move forward with a zero-fare transit system that is convenient and accessible. I will advocate for these and other infrastructure projects that impact our daily lives.”
ON THE BUS: Public transit – both during and after the Age of COVID – remains a simmering topic, a truth which was put into focus by disability activist Deb Ellstrom’s experiences on New Year’s Eve, which was, according to the WRTA’s website, supposed to be running normally that day. “I waited over an hour for an inbound #7, which usually runs a bus to that corner every 40 minutes during the day,” wrote Ellstrom, who uses a wheelchair. “Other people also commented on the slowness, and on the bus being extremely off-schedule. … Ghost buses would appear on the schedules, be announced, but no bus with that number would appear. I gave up on the #5, then then #26 — neither of which appeared. Other people I overheard were calling on their phones, telling similar stories, and apologizing to the people they’d called, explaining buses weren’t showing up. There was no one to ask in the kiosk. The doors to the customer service area were closed … When a #27 appeared, I grabbed it.” A representative from WRTA explained that they experienced a staffing shortage that day, with some of their drivers being quarantined for COVID-19, and were unable to find drivers to work overtime. That said, it seems there’s a growing consensus that infrastructure items — the little things that make the city run — need to top the city’s postCOVID agenda.
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