BY BIANCA SANCHEZ This morning, I sent this email to Porchlight Theatre, a Chicago theatre that cast a white man as a Latino in their production of the musical In the Heights. If you agree with my sentiment, use your voice too. Hello, I am a young Latina, born and raised in Chicago, who was thrilled to find out Porchlight was putting on In the Heights. Now, for obvious reasons, I am not. In the Heights is not a silly romance, or universal comedy. You cannot swap out ethnicities in a story that inherently argues for the promotion of the Latino narrative as told by Latinos. Porchlight is roughly 3 miles away from the city’s epicenter of Puerto Rican culture, Humboldt Park, a community grappling with gentrification as I type. You see, the plot of In the Heights is playing out in the theatre’s own backyard, and yet it still cannot grasp the overarching theme of the musical. It is a shame that the casting decision has not backtracked. No matter how you spin it, Porchlight …

Back in May, I wrote a guest blog for this website. In the blog I discussed feminism. A comment was made on the blog, calling out the legitimacy of my arguments. I, along with the help of my sister Bianca, have decided to kindly refute the assertions of the comment and better explain our own beliefs. HERE ARE OUR 4 MAIN ASSERTIONS  The Wage Gap is REAL, and partly caused by discrimination                   Bianca, 18                   ( Note: This video, and all sources listed in the description, are the basis of all my evidence https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=it0EYBBl5LI). While some people refuse to acknowledge the existence of a pay gap between men and women, research has found that it exists. The size of the pay gap depends largely on what is being calculated. The pay gap by hourly wage is 16% – by weekly take home pay between 18 and 19% – and by annual earnings around 20%. This does not account for differences in education, skills, and experience. However, when that is all accounted for the wage gap …