New flash non-fiction: ‘Livin’ la Vida Pocha’

Some thoughts about cultural identity and assimilation into the Great American Melting Pot

For years, I’ve had a fascination with my Mexican-American heritage and how little I am connected to it–how there is little more to that heritage now than the surname, Careaga. Some thirty years ago, when I first learned there was a term for people like me, pocho, or pocha in the feminine (see more about the terms below), I started writing short pieces, mostly non-fiction or maybe autofiction, about coming to terms with this lost identity and claiming this pocho identity. “Livin’ la Vida Pocha,” published in Issue 4 of the outstanding literary magazine In Short: A Journal of Flash Nonfiction, is the first of these pieces I’ve had published. I’m working on others, so stay tuned.

My attempt with this piece is to express my mixed feelings about my cultural identity and assimilation into the Great American Melting Pot in a direct, deeply personal style. I hope you like it. Many thanks to In Short founder and editor-in-chief Steph Liberatore for her support of this piece and for her edits, which improved the piece greatly.

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‘E-vangelism’ revisited

Reflections on my first published book, which was released April 1, 1999.

Update: Since posting this Monday afternoon, Amazon has sold out of its copies of this book but some used copies are still available. The book appears to be available from other online booksellers, however, and if anyone is interested in a signed copy, please contact me and I’ll get one to you.

Twenty-five years ago next week, my first book, E-vangelism: Sharing the Gospel in Cyberspace, rolled off the presses of a Christian publishing house in Lafayette, Louisiana, and was shipped to Christian bookstores and, on April 1 of that year, an online bookseller known as Amazon.com.

It was 1999, the year made famous by Prince’s 1982 hit single of the same name. That spring also saw the release of The Matrix in movie theaters, the expansion of NATO in Eastern Europe, and the debut of SpongebobSquarepants on Nickelodeon. It was the spring of the Columbine massacre. It was the year Amazon broke the $1 billion mark in revenues for the first time and expanded their product line by introducing an ebook reader called the Kindle and a smart speaker called the Echo, which was used with the company’s Alexa personal assistant system.

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