Sophia Romero, author of ALWAYS HIDING, a novel about illegal immigration published in
1998 by William Morrow & Company, is married with two children, and a Kerry Blue Terrier who goes by the name of Roxy. They all live
under one roof in Brooklyn, New York.

And she’s got a BRAND NEW BLOG, which is always good news in the Brooklyn Blog Zone. It’s called, SHIKSA FROM MANILA. it’s great and I for one will be a regular reader. I’ll be linking to it you can be sure. But here’s an excerpt from her very first post. WELCOME SOPHIA!

My name is Amapola and I am the shiksa from Manila. Twenty years ago I
married Glenn Gold. A good egg. He’s the Jew. We have two kids and a
dog. We live in Brooklyn, New York city. Glenn and I agreed to raise
the kids Jewish; I continue to remain Catholic. Yup, I eat the wafer
every Sunday; don’t drink before 5 unless I’m in a brasserie sipping
mimosas. Glenn and the kids go to Shabbat services every Friday much to
the chagrin of child Number One who thinks he has better things to do
other than be at Temple for an hour and a half. Number Two is catching
up with grumblings of her own but must come up with better excuses as
Number One has preempted most of them. I have every confidence that, in
time, she will.

By mutual agreement, Glenn and I decided to keep the
dog unaffiliated. She’s so screwed-up, she’s beyond redemption. Of
course, I could sneak over to the church two blocks from my house where
I am friendly with the parish priest and have him sprinkle Holy Water
on the puppy. I’d have to time it though so that it looks like we got
caught in the rain. No one would ever know. Dogs don’t talk. They just
bark. Come to think of it, I could have done the same with Numbers One
and Two but Ken would know. He always knows these things. Besides,
children talk.

Before I married Glenn, I had no idea what a shiksa
was or that there was a term for someone like me who married someone
like him. I thought bride and groom were it. In the Philippines,
practically every one would be considered a shiksa except for the
sprinkling of Muslims clustered around south of the archipelago. I
found out what a shiksa was on the day of my wedding, at the reception
no less, when one of my mother-in-law’s friends called me that to my
face. Since I didn’t know the meaning of the word (and she had a big,
fat smile as wide as the JFK runway), she walked away with her face
intact. Obviously, now I know better.