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STAFF WRITER

About Maitri Pamo

Matri was born in Guatemala City and emigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was a toddler. Her childhood years were spent in Washington D.C. She was fortunate to have been aided and encouraged to apply to a great school in Virginia by a teacher who saw a spark in her when she taught her in the DC public school system. Maitri was disadvantaged in that she then became the only Latina in her class for many years. When it came time to go to college, she left for New York City, the place of her childhood dreams, to attend Barnard College, Columbia University. She graduated with a degree in Foreign Area Studies, with a concentration in Latin America. When she finally realized what she wanted to do professionally, she enrolled in three extra years of undergraduate coursework in order to fulfill the requirements for application to veterinary medical school. She graduated from the Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine with a degree of Doctor of Veterinary Medicine.

In addition to her professional life, a life she finds not only rewarding but constantly challenging, Maitri is a wife and a mother of three young children. She is an activist, interested in furthering knowledge, participating and directly involving herself in the areas of human and non human animal rights and environmentalism. She tries to engage in the world around her to influence it as much as she can to help secure a healthy, peaceful living environment for her children and all other living beings on the planet. She is a benevolent misanthrope, a polyglot, a lover of travel. She has wild plans of obtaining a law degree when her children are older. She is currently practicing emergency medicine and volunteers her services wherever they are needed.

Immigration provides opportunity for a much-need GOP makeover

Scott Applewhite, AP

Never let it be said that Republicans cannot take a hint. After a significant majority of Latino voters favored the president and his policies over the fare that the GOP was offering, there seems to have been a change in the attitudes among some of the Republican faithful. Some of them are looking at their Read More

Una charla between Señor Presidente and Univisión

Photo by Getty Images

I am a supporter of the President. Still, I was tapping my toe and cradling a cup of coffee as I prepared to watch President Obama interviewed by Maria Elena Salinas and Jorge Ramos on Univisión. It is worthwhile to note that Univisión produced interviews with both presidential candidates. The company stepped in to fill Read More

Family Latinization

Getty Images

I wondered, listening to the whispers in the early morning, if my aunt in Guatemala resented getting up early to take charge of the care of her youngest grandchild. Her daughter would deposit the baby in the waiting arms and then hurry off to her job. She was happy to have integrated and free child Read More

The beauty of the hive

extended family

I often think of the courageous decision of my parents to leave their families, friends and country to seek out a more opportunity filled life for their children.  Undoubtedly, the benefits of the immigrant journey for our nuclear family unit have been many.  However, one aspect of being an émigrée that has been disconcerting for Read More

Learning to save our frijoles for a rainy day

Getty Images

I do not enjoy speculating on stereotypes.  I am particularly peeved when the stereotype involves gender.  Yet, what factors may account for the recent data that signals that in addition to attending college in larger numbers, Latinas are also likely to plan more ambitiously for their near future than are Latino men.  The referenced report cites Read More

A Latino and a Latina walk into a university…….

Photo by Getty Images

The news broke her heart. Even though my cousin was well on her way to becoming the first person in our family to go to college, my aunt was dismayed that her youngest, my male cousin, had decided not to follow in his sister’s footsteps, but enter the workforce instead. He was lured, my aunt Read More

Worshipping the sun from afar

Photo by Getty Images

I admit to this vanity: I love my café con leche skin. In the summer, after some time at the ocean, I spend a little extra time primping and admiring the tint of more café and less leche that come with some time spent sun worshipping. But I do so with not a small trace Read More

US Catholics behaving badly

Photo by Getty Images

The Vatican is not pleased. It fears that a liberal, secular society is eroding the international Catholic community by infusing the U.S. church with ideas that do not conform to modern Catholic orthodoxy. To reign in what the Vatican perceives as dangerous dissent, it has started to appoint conservative bishops and chastise members of the Read More

My Guatemala, ‘Land of Eternal Spring’

Antigua, Guatemala

My knowledge of my birthplace has been mostly gained  in the past several years. Having been raised in the United States, I have returned as a prodigal daughter to the place where I was born. As a child, my visits consisted of seeing family, but as an adult, I have been able to discover the Read More

What’s in a (nick)name?

baby with pierced ears

“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose/ By any other name/Would smell just as sweet.” I would like to think that I was invoking the words of the immortal Shakespeare when I started calling my newborn Chanchito. He was a glorious, fat baby, and I have always been charmed by the cuteness Read More