Your Bisabuela's Secret Sauce

Twelfth installment of Writing and Entrepreneurship Workshop for Latinas in Tech, aka Brujeria Navigation 101.

In last week’s chapter, Maria spins backwards when her fourth baby’s Papi tries to seduce her. His touch is comforting after the Broadway show ends — especially since she still has NO PLAN for how she is going to transform her dancing career into a more lucrative rum-running operation. All she knows is:

• She isn’t doing a very good job of taking advantage of the “signs” Paquita told her to look out for.

• She refused to accept Angelina’s offer to go on tour with Shuffle Along.

• She refused to have dinner with Chucho to discuss details of leaving New York with him and returning to Puerto Rico.

• She wasn’t able to speak in English to Tex or the Queen of Rum Row.

• And she didn’t follow Josephine to the uptown after-parties, where she could be mingling with more power players in the rum-running world.

Did Maria miss all the opportunities flying toward her?

You gotta keep reading to find out. Pero, lemme just spoil it a little bit… this is when my bisabuela stops acting like Maria La Perdida and starts re-discovering her “secret sauce,” aka, her ability to tell anyone who doesn’t serve her agenda: “Pa’l Carajo!”

In a metaphorical way, of course…until she can sway them toward her own agendas.