Discrimination is evil, but evil does not discriminate. - Rudy Ruiz

But now those days seemed long gone, as distant as the feeble stars dimmed by the growing lights of the city. And although his father would assault him no further with his fists or with his belt, a lonesome wrath twisted through him like a venomous knife, like the hunger he had known as a child, eating the thrice-refried beans that tasted like the dirt that mingled with the tears on the floor beneath the kitchen table. Maybe he had been given a chance at this Sueño Americano, but he felt inexplicably robbed of something greater.

If you're not careful, the blood that you carry inside will turn those dreams that you so love into nightmares.

The idea for the curse fit perfectly into my passion for magical realism, but it actually stems from a family legend that indeed the men in my family were cursed. Fortunately, for me, I believe it to be a very colorful – if symbolic – fiction, a more palatable way of explaining our human flaws and failures, our past inability to overcome the burdens of our own histories, social barriers, and bad habits.