ABSTRACT
“Dropping Dimes” is set on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. A “from the window” perspective, where a young Latina contemplates her place in the world as she watches The Brady Bunch from her parents’ bed. She recounts time spent with her parents, always separately and differently. Both Puerto Rican parents, Mom is a younger, more urban presence, while Dad is from the rural reaches of a smaller island of Puerto Rico. The child still longs for the easy unity she sees on the screen. All the while, the sounds of her relatives chatting, the aroma of the food and warmth of home make the process a grounded one. In looking out the window at the “silent TV world” of her neighbors’ windows, she also compares an Italian family to her own. They seem more in line with the Bradys, yet somehow accessible, if only for the fact that they are a real family. Are they something to aspire to, or simply to acknowledge? Does simultaneous physical presence in the same house truly equal emotional connectedness? Or, are we missing real connections while looking through the filters of screens, both produced and self-imposed?
