Living el Alto: Not waiting in vain | The Manhattan Times

By Gloria Pazmiño

I scheduled an interview over coffee the other day. It went something like this:

Me: how’s 11 a.m? I’ll see you there.

Subject: yes that’s perfect, see you at 11, looking forward to it.

I entered the coffee shop, found a sunny spot before all this rain started coming down, ordered an octane-high caffeine fix, and waited.

And I waited. And I waited on to coffee number two. If I carried Bailey’s in a flask, this is where I would’ve put it to good use. My subject was late, so I recaffeinated and waited.

Yes. My subject was Latino, and this begged the question: Is there really such a thing as Latino time? Call it what you want – Dominican time, Puerto Rican time, Colombian time – are we always late?

Now before you start throwing stereotype and stigma arrows my way, know that as a Latina myself, I often suffer from the time bug. By often, I mean it’s chronic. And Living el Alto has only perpetuated my condition. As I slide into the culture and absorb its characteristics, I realize that maybe things are just a little bit slower in Northern Manhattan, and that’s not such a bad thing. Perhaps we should call it Alto time.

via Living el Alto: Not waiting in vain | Living el Alto.