Thank You!

So I'm sitting at the desk trying to figure out exactly what I can write about. In just that instant, the email below comes into my inbox:

Hi:

I have been reading your blog for a few months now, and I want to thank you for that window into my country. I left the DR in 1980, and I rarely visit. My last two years there I was going to clubs and having some fun, but I eventually wanted to have a gay life that was more than dancing and tricking, and I really needed some privacy. Santo Domingo used to be such a small city, and it was quite claustrophobic. The attitudes toward gay people didn't help either. I was a member of the National Choir briefly, and I remember some of the members making fun of Manuel Rueda (a great poet, musician, in any other country would have been a national treasure) justbecause he was gay. I have loved living in the United States, but I do miss my roots, and the men seem to have gotten more beautiful and more relaxed about their sexuality (the late 70's were not pretty, I tell you). Anyway, Ihave rambled enough. I just wanted to say thanks for the lifeline. Have a great day.

Ramon Figueroa

Department of Modern Languages

Millsaps College

Jackson, Mississippi

Thank you, Professor Figueroa for making my day!

I hope to have some other items and photos up later today.

Promise.