Entry Questions
Please discuss the following questions with a partner. Each person will speak for 2 minutes and the other person will listen.
Who benefits from policing?
Who suffers?
Whose interests are advanced?
Who pays the costs?
Who/What is protected and served?
Who is bullied and brutalized?
What might be some alternatives to policing?
Bio
Alejandro Heredia is a queer Afro-Dominican writer and community organizer from The Bronx. He has received fellowships from Lambda Literary, VONA, the Dreamyard Rad(ical) Poetry Consortium, and the Dominican Studies Institute.
How does your experience as an immigrant shape your writing, if at all? How does the history of where you are from affect your identity, and in turn, your writing?
AH: I suppose that’s where it all begins for me, being an immigrant. I migrated to New York from the Dominican Republic when I was seven, so I had to learn a new language at a young age, and more, learn how to translate myself into a new set of words and linguistic patterns. And it wasn’t all easy and pretty. I didn’t have a choice but to learn English to survive the classroom, doctor visits with my mom, and run-ins with authority figures. In that way and in so many others, being an immigrant, a Dominican immigrant to be exact, informs so much of what I write about and how I write about it.
For example, when I was growing up, I was surrounded by kids from all over the African diaspora—kids from the Caribbean, West Africa, and Black American kids whose lineage in the United States goes back half a dozen generations. There’s so much richness there. This place was where all these ethnic groups were forced to share schools, apartment buildings, supermarkets, etc. I’m endlessly curious about the connections we made, the stories we created together and about each other across differences. There’s an endless pool of inspiration there, in those cities and barrios I come from.
I don’t pretend to represent anyone else. I can barely represent myself entirely. But through my work, I do hope to expand the narrative possibilities for people like me who come from The Bronx and Santo Domingo.
The Case that Inspired the Story
Muchacho
In “Muchacho,” Heredia portrays the aftermath of a police killing in a Dominican community. He delves into the multifaceted process of mourning, from individual experiences to collective grief. By investigating the significance of a name, Heredia exposes the dehumanization of Black and Brown lives caused by police brutality and media coverage that reduces individuals to anonymous bodies. Additionally, Heredia examines the politicization process within a community that is often marginalized and strives to remain inconspicuous.
Furthermore, Heredia employs the narrative perspective of the mother to emphasize the contrast between private and communal experiences, shedding light on the emotional burden of a missing son. Through the mother’s voice, Heredia conveys the intimate pain and suffering that is often overlooked in discussions of police brutality and its impact on marginalized communities.
Class Presentations
Policing in NYC
The Hunted and the Hated: An Inside Look at the NYPD’s Stop-and-Frisk Policy
Reactions
Please discuss the following questions with a partner.
How do you feel after watching/listening to his story?
Why this story is pertinent to Dominican and Latinx Communities in NYC?
How do you connect this video with Heredia’s short story?
Writing Exercise
Write a 7-word story about how you feel about the police killing in the story and the myriad ways the community responded. You can choose any aspect of Heredia’s narrative. Here are two examples:
No son. Justice, people yell his name.
Saw what happened. The memory won’t fade.