I love working in the neighborhood of Washington Heights. What I like the most is the idea of seeing the faces of so many of my Dominican people in the neighborhood. It gives me a sense of belonging. Once you get to know the people in the community, they give you lots of love and positive energy. I like being able to buy our food and our products in the bodegas, listening to people talking in Spanish or English with our particular accent, and listening to the bachata and merengue beats on every corner. 

I also suffer a lot when I see that our people are being displaced because of the high cost of rent and when women come to our Center with so many needs. When I see women taking their children to school in the morning I wonder about how much food they have in their apartments. Are they happy in their homes? How many of them are being abused? Why is it that so many of our women cannot find jobs? Why do we have so many people in our community dying of preventable diseases? I feel bad every time somebody tells me that they want to learn English or learn to use the computer and we don't have space in our program and nowhere to refer them. 

In reality, it's a mixture of pain and pleasure to live and work with my people in my community. What makes the pain bearable is the sense of hope that things can change; that things can be different, that things can be better. That's why I continue to organize and to do my work. Hope keeps me alive. Hope and the love that I have for my people keep me going.