Blend of Cultures,
Blend of Flavors
A Memoir of Travel, Sexuality, Flavors, and Historical Experiences
Creating Your Own Identity
A blend of culture and flavors with a sense of sensuality. As I remember the story related to my dad starting a new life in a new home at the age of 10, I am reminded that I also had to make major adjustments to my life when I lost my dad at the same age of 10.
Important Letter
In the same way, his family was notified by his oldest brother Samuel they were migrating to Mexico. I also waited for a very important letter that changed my life again at the age of 23 when I started a new life in a new home, the USA. In 1976, I received a letter from the University of Pennsylvania notifying me I had been accepted at the Annenberg School of Communications graduate program in Philadelphia. I had to be there by September 1st to start my master’s program.
My Thesis
While my undergraduate thesis was based on developing the best message for controlling the Mexican population's high growth, my Master’s Thesis at Penn included analyzing network television to define minority portrayal on prime time television drama. That subject matter has become very relevant in the 21 century. I also worked on content analysis for the CIA, analyzing newspapers through Latin America and other Spanish-speaking countries daily. I had to provide top-line results for policymakers.
Career
My career took off, and I had a weekly show on PBS for 8-years, which garnered several journalism awards, including an EMMY award from the NY Chapter of the television Arts and Sciences. I was still in the closet for my family and professionally bought a brownstone property and made it into several apartments. Together with my partner, we bought a second property in the Queen Village area of Philadelphia, where we opened a gourmet Mexican restaurant. However, my secret would be in danger as a local gay newspaper in Philadelphia recognize me and wanted to out me. I asked them not to do so as I had not yet come out to my nuclear family. I believe that I was fluid at the time, like many young people these days.
That is when I received an offer to move to the big apple and work in the recent Telemundo Spanish Network launch in charge of Programming. After several months of commuting from Philly, we decided to rent out the local we owned for 20 years.
New Home
My new home journey also took me back and forth from NYC to Miami (where I experienced hurricane Andrew, which I had never had experienced before) with Robert I was together with for 32 years. The second time I moved to Miami, he had a tragic accident and passed away in 2010.
My Family
I was the youngest of four siblings and the favorite. Jack was the oldest, then 3 years later came the twins Jimmy and Nancy, and I was born 5-years later. My sister Nancy was my father’s daughter who followed the expected life of a nice Jewish girl. She turned 15 in May in 1963, a few months before my father passed away. I’m glad he could “introduce” her to society during her as a Quinceañera debutant.
The party was at home in the garden and terrace, setting a wood floor and a tent. Our living room library and formal dining face the garden with floor-to-ceiling glass sliding doors throughout. There were round tables to sit more than two hundred people and a buffet in our double-sized formal dining with large ice sculptures to decorate the two light mint green Carrara marble tabletops.
Two orchestras took turns to keep the party alive during dinner and until the wee hours of the morning on a Saturday night. I was very attached to my sister, and when my dad passed away October 20, 1963, Nancy and I moved to sleep with my mother at my parents’ master suite until Nancy married 1n 1966.
My Sister
Nancy got married at the age of 18 and had three beautiful children and a wonderful marriage until she was told by her husband Sammy he was having an affair with his secretary. The marriage ended. Nancy’s husband was very handsome. He had suffered a mild polio case when he was little with one leg thinner than the other one and walked with a slight limp. In contrast, Nancy was a tennis and golf champion. She inherited the sports gene from my father, who had won 2nd Place in the Category “B” the same year he died in the Country Club’s dressing room.
I still have the engraved silver trophy/plaque at home. Nancy was good at everything she competed for. She was also a Bridge champion and represented Mexico in the Bridge Olympics tournament traveling all over the world. My brother Jimmy, Nancy’s one-minute older twin, was also an excellent golfer and won a tournament a year later the Country Club Bellavista named my father's honor.
My Brother
My oldest brother Jack was the family jet setter and a great shidach until he decided to marry a goy. He was going to Law School but never finished after my father died. The day that he was a picture in a full page of LIFE magazine in Acapulco watching and applauding a beautiful girl shown from the back without the top of her bikini at the Villa Vera, a spot for Hollywood stars, my mother had to send the coffer to buy every single edition to avoid anyone seeing it, although a bit too late for those who called all week as they received their subscription ahead of the newsstands.
I’ll never forget the day that I stole a photo from his drawer when I was in sixth grade and became the most popular kid in school. It was Marilyn Monroe's photo during a press conference at the Hilton Hotel in Mexico City when she crosses her leg, and the press was able to get a snapshot of her not wearing underwear. Unfortunately, my nanny found it in the school bag and burned it. It took me 40 years to find it again on the internet and return what I had taken from him.
My brother Jimmy, my sister’s twin brother, was studying business when there was a strike at the National University and unrest due to the Olympic Games coming to Mexico in 1968. He decided to go overseas to study. He was first in Switzerland, then Paris, and finally moved to London, where he had a childhood friend.
Accepting of Being Gay
