Kiara Alegría Hudes

OK, when I grew up, it was like heroin chic.

Kate Moss, all these supermodels are very skinny.

Anorexia and bulimia almost becomes a fad.

And here I step into North Philly and women are showing their curves.

They're not covering up their curves like bike shorts and and tank top curves.

is an outfit where someone's belly can spill out and they're showing it.

And so I savored the cultural treasures that this segregated community was able to develop.

By the same token, there was terrible municipal services.

There was very little trash pickup.

There was blight, extreme blight, where there were blocks and blocks of abandoned lots where it just was scary to walk down them.

It's like there's no witnesses if I scream here, you know.

So this is Philadelphia to me.

It's a long answer, but it was an incredible place to have a local culture and also feel that in relief against our kind of national historical mythology.

You know, the feeling I remember is there's so many identities, and oftentimes they're directly at odds with each other.

And so really, it's those friction points that

become my identity?

Do I fit squarely in the Puerto Rican community?

Do I fit squarely in the white community that my biological father was part of, even though he left when I was fairly young and now I'm with my mom and my Puerto Rican stepfather?

You know, where do I belong?

Well, I kind of belonged – maybe this is why I remember that border of Girard Avenue so well because that border between spaces is what I felt like the most.