Hilo, Part 7 of an Ongoing Series October 2026 Issue. By Rosalinda Cruz, Founder of The Asor Collective Last month I promised we would step behind the curtain. This is that issue. Part 6 was about the valley: the mills, the tobacco fields, and the Puerto Rican community that stayed. This one is smaller. It

Hilo, Part 6 of an Ongoing Series September 2026 Issue By Rosalinda Cruz, Founder of The Asor Collective I went home to do research. That is what I told myself, and it is what I told you in Episode 3 of Common Thread. I packed my notebooks, booked time with the archives, and drove north

Hilo, Part 5 of an Ongoing Series August 2026 By Rosalinda Cruz, Founder of The Asor Collective When I started this series, I thought I was writing about history. I was wrong. Hilo has traced Puerto Rican and Caribbean textile heritage across five centuries, from Taíno cotton cultivation and the craftswomen of Moca to the

The Hilo, Part 4 of an Ongoing Series By Rosalinda Cruz, Founder of The Asor Collective When I started this series, I thought it would be four parts. I was wrong, in the best possible way. The more I have dug into this history, the more I have found that it refuses to be contained.

The Hilo Series, Part 3 of 4 By Rosalinda Cruz, Founder of The Asor Collective There is a sound that defines this post. It is the click of wooden bobbins meeting each other as threads weave into lace. Nellie Vera Sánchez heard that sound for the first time when she was seven years old, sitting