Heriberto Yépez makes me go coastal!

Sir Francis Drake Circumnavigation World Map

It’s been a long time (maybe never) that I felt this euphoric with a writer. I mean, like sighting new land, unapologetically Columbian in my discovery. And cocky, too, amid familiar landmarks. That is, until I brush the shores of otherness. Tijuana. Matamoros. True, my hybrid gear, my half-ass ability to code-switch, my dubious passport got me invited to a dinner of chicken flautas and toothpaste flavored cool whip pie in the kitchen of an undocumented family in the southwest side of Chicago more than once. I enjoyed the cozy satisfaction of the insider, even as I knew damn well I never really left the “simulated sky” of my “indestructible egg”.

“Soy parte del deslinde. Solamente que no soy uno más de los migrantes hacia el norteamiento. Todo rumbo es autoritario. El zig zag que llevo todavía no tiene nombre. Y al que se lo ponga: balazo. No lo olviden: soy francotirador, a.k.a., tu paranoia.”

--Heriberto Yépez
La Bifurcación de las Cosas