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friends pronounced her name Jew-lee-ah instead of Hoo-lee-ah. I, her
namesake, was known as Hoo-lee-tah at home. but at school I was
Judy or Judith, and once an English teacher mistook me for Juliet.
It took a while to get used to my new names. I wondered if
I shouldn’t correct my teachers and new friends. but my mother
argued that it didn’t matter. “You know what your friend
Shakespeare said, ‘A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.’”
my family had gotten into the habit of calling any famous author
“my friend” because I had begun to write poems and stories in
English class.
by the time I was in high school, I was a popular kid, and it
showed in my name. Friends called me Jules or Hey Jude, and
once a group of troublemaking friends my mother forbade me to
hang out with called me Alcatraz. 1 I was Hoo-lee-tah only to mami
and Papi and uncles and aunts who came over to eat sancocho