An American in Lima

Artist’s depiction of discriminatory laws at some Peruvian beaches that prohibit maids from swimming during daylight hours (until 7 p.m. at Asia beach) It sounds like a scene straight out of the Jim Crow era in the American South, but it’s happening today in coastal Peru: discriminatory laws in some exclusive seaside resorts prohibit maids (nearly all of whom are poor [...]

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  Bring on the inflatable breasts! It’s summertime in Lima It’s summer in Lima. It’s hot, there’s no air-conditioning, all the pitucos are at the beach, and the city street-sweepers are roasting in their masks and full-body jumpsuits. I haven’t mentioned the pitucos before. I was going to get around to it. The word roughly [...]

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tourism company in Cusco is sponsoring an intriguing photo project to highlight indigenous beauty and women’s growing influence in South America. No prize money or payment is involved, but chosen photographers have their projects featured in a select Web-based gallery.

The Inca Princess Photo Project invites professional photographers to submit ideas for “spectacular open-theme material celebrating the beauty and unique nature of South American women.”

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Who is Peruvian? Who is Andean?   Can a Peruvian dancer who’s made a new life in New York City return after 15 years to her remote hometown in the Andes to reclaim her heritage? Can a young American of mixed Peruvian and Puerto Rican heritage find her “inner Andina” (as I like to call it) by studying folkloric dance techniques [...]

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“…like a Lima tower, cutting my boat in two” Rereading yesterday’s post on writers and Lima’s weather, I became curious about Herman Melville’s riff on Lima as “the strangest, saddest city thou can’st see.”  When did Melville visit Lima? What prompted him to go into spasms of melancholy? A quick Google search revealed that the [...]

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The Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics are officially over, the winners have scurried home with their medals, and the losing athletes are either chastised, pitied or forgotten by most of the world. No laurel wreath, no glory, the Olympic equation goes. Not on this blog, however. In the same spirit of honoring athletic excellence that inspired [...]

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Because the g-word is (1) too loaded to serve as my moniker, and (2) I am more American than I care to admit.  Some reader is probably wondering, ‘Isn’t it incorrect nowadays to use the term American when referring to someone from the United States? Aren’t all people from South America Americans as well?”  Well, yes, for a long [...]

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