In many ways, even in 2012, life here was the same as it was fifty years ago: a patchwork of citizens—from farmers and business people to college students—going about their days as any other, separate and unequal.

Looney had told all the kids in the neighborhood that Granny was organizing an event at the recreation center in the Jordan Downs Projects. Most older kids couldn’t risk attending due to gang affiliation, but Sienna wore neutral colors and had a good time.

James Everett Stanley (b. 1975, Waltham, MA) lives and works in Wellfleet, MA — he received a MFA from Columbia University and is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He is an Assistant Professor of Painting at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His work is part of the permanent collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Palacio told me this morning that microplastics were found in human breast milk. Bet that mierdas in my brain too.

Her mother rarely smiled in public. Maybe the Women suspected it was on account of her missing teeth, or maybe they suspected it symptomatic of her mother’s apparent and seemingly persistent aloneness. No loud relatives spilled from their SUVs in the parking lot to greet her, no smiling daughter and no strapping son-in-law plucked a fat cheeked baby from a stroller to deposit into her shriveled lap. 

James Everett Stanley (b. 1975, Waltham, MA) lives and works in Wellfleet, MA — he received a MFA from Columbia University and is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. He is an Assistant Professor of Painting at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. His work is part of the permanent collection of The Studio Museum in Harlem.