A Torch is a Terrible Thing to Waste

When I was younger and living in Mexico City I used to have a constant tan due to my family’s recurring vacations in the seaside town of Acapulco and the ever present sun amplified by Mexico’s choking pollution. Because of that, and because I grew up in a Jewish community where everybody’s skin hue was remarkably light, my nickname was “Negro” (pronounced, more or less, “neh-graw”) or its diminutive version, “Negrito” (“neh-gree-taw”) for closer friends. To this day, my parents still call me that. But just at home or on the phone. When I first moved to the U.S. and was working for Internet conglomerate marchFIRST, my dad was worried that during our e-mail exchanges someone scanning our correspondence would think that using t