Icome from a community-driven people;
my very large Dominican family and the
very Black and Brown neighborhood I
was raised in New York both put a strong
emphasis on building tight connections,
supporting one another when traditional
About the Author
channels failed us, and continuously communicating
the needs of ourselves and those we love to the
people in power.
In the midst of this COVID-19 Pandemic, I sit on
the phone with my mother, who is hundreds of miles
away, and yet, now that we are both quarantined,
and she and I are talking more, it seems like in many
ways the physical distance has collapsed. The only
thing that matters is whether or not I can find her
favorite brand of Malta on a grocery app. Shopping
together has become a new activity as I try to help
her stay indoors. It reminds me of grocery shopping
with her when I was little, only this time I don’t have
to anxiously wait in line while she promises she’s
just going to get one last thing! She’s even sent my
husband an invitation to join her siblings-only weekly
prayer call.
My best friend and I have FaceTimed more in
the last month than we did in the last decade; we
need to not only hear, but also see, that the other is
doing well. I did an Instagram Live event last month,
the first time I’ve connected with my followers in that
way, and although I set out to do a twenty-minute
reading, I ended up doing an hour-long craft talk—
because people had questions, and because I was
so dang happy to be interacting with other humans
my introvert-self leaned into the thrill. I’m emailing
other writers to see how to support debuts.
I’m talking with indie bookstore owners on
grassroots ways to be supportive. I tuned in with 200
other people to watch a close homie defend his
dissertation at Harvard.
My novel, Clap When You Land is a story
that circles a lot of these same themes: pain in
the face of an international tragedy, the ways
in which specific ethnic groups feel the crunch
disproportionately, and the ways in which the
personal joys and despair balance in comparison
with the public ones. The story follows two sisters,
Yahaira and Camino, who do not know about each
other until their father dies in a plane crash and one
of them receives grievance money from the airline.
It is loosely based on American Airlines Flight 587,
which crashed in 2001 on its way from New York to
the Dominican Republic. When that flight crashed,
two months after the attack on the Twin Towers, I
was 13 years old. I remember how that tragedy
rocked my community: Mr. Gallego, father to my
stoop buddy, was on that flight; one of my father’s
friends from the barbershop was on that flight; it
seemed everyone knew someone who knew
someone who died in the crash. There were
candlelight vigils in memory of the dead, hora
santas held in homes jampacked with neighbors,
and dedicated prayers at the weekly mass. As the
losses grew large, we knit ourselves close.
It is interesting to be in a moment where I
am releasing a novel in the midst of a very
different crisis. And yet, I’m finding an overlap
between how my community dealt with AA 587
and how it seems like we are currently dealing
with COVID-19; it seems more imperative than
ever that we keep reminding ourselves, we
are not alone.
We are not alone in our fear, in our hurt, in our
hope. We are not alone in our innovations for
holding space for one another. So, we plan Zoom
happy hours, and WhatsApp prayer circles, and we
order our viejitos groceries and dinner; we trade
recipes with old college friends and make book
recommendations for childhood friends, and hop
on phone calls with strangers who are trying to
understand our industry.
Because when the turntable stops for a
community of people, there is only one thing to do:
extend your hand and invite someone to stand with
you until the next track drops a beat.
s
chann
Clap When You Land
By Elizabeth Acevedo
LS
Want to comment or have any
questions on this article? Email us at
info@latinastyle.com
Elizabeth Acevedo is the author of The Poet X—which won the
National Book Award for Young People’s Literature, the Michael L.
Printz Award, the Pura Belpré Award, the Boston Globe–Horn Book
Award, and the Walter Award—as well as With the Fire on High and
Clap When You Land. She is a National Poetry Slam champion and
holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Maryland.
Acevedo lives with her partner in Washington, DC. You can find out
more about her at www.acevedowrites.com.
22 www.latinastyle.com LATINAStyle Vol. 26, No. 3, 2020
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