LALATOWN LIFE

I was walking through Miramar in Puerto Rico,
and somewhere between the buildings and the quiet streets,
I realized—

I found it.
I found my LALATOWN.

But it wasn’t just about the architecture.

Finding it…
meant something much deeper.
Something that had been living quietly inside me
for a very long time.

When I was little,
I was not loved by my grandmother on my father’s side.

Not for any reason.

They said it had been that way since I was born.
Everyone knew.
And no one questioned it.

She was harsh with me.
With everything.

The way I closed a door,
the way I held a spoon—
nothing was ever right.

I remember my father once shouting at her,
his voice louder than I had ever heard—

What are you doing to her?
Do you want her to grow up and treat you the same way?

But even then,
I didn’t understand.

What could a child possibly have done
to be treated like that?

Eventually, I was sent to my mother’s family.

I was very young.
Old enough to remember,
but too young to understand why.

That place was Donam-dong in Seoul—
a quiet neighborhood,
where traditional houses and older homes stood side by side,
with walls and gates that, somehow,
felt a lot like the ones here in Puerto Rico.

There were flowers everywhere.
Overflowing, uncontained.

I don’t remember their names.
But I remember the feeling.

Peace.

My grandparents’ home wasn’t rich,
at least not in the way people usually mean.

But it was quiet.

And it was full of something I hadn’t known before.

Love.

There was a small courtyard,
a simple outdoor faucet,
and an open wooden floor—

a place where I would sit
and draw for hours.

In one of my childhood photos,
I am there,
drawing quietly,

while my grandmother and uncle talk softly beside me.

There was a piano in that house.
There was warmth.

Every evening,
my grandmother would take me to the market.

I still remember the smell of fish,
the air shifting as the sun went down.

Everything there was different
from my father’s home.

There, it was noise, people, movement—
constant voices.

But here—
it was slower.

I played with the neighborhood kids.

They had birthday parties.

I was invited.

But I never went.

I knew I was supposed to bring a gift.
And I didn’t have the courage
to ask for money.

So I stayed home.

One day,
I was briefly invited into a friend’s house.

In the yard,
flowers were scattered everywhere,
and there was a swing.

I don’t know why that moment stayed with me.
But it did.

And now,
walking through Miramar,

seeing the balconies,
the flowers hanging freely,
the quiet between houses—

I realized something.

This place…
feels like that memory.

That’s why Miramar matters to me.

Not because it’s beautiful.

But because
it feels like something I once had,
and almost forgot.

This is my LALATOWN.

And for the first time,
I found myself thinking—

I want to live here.