The poster bore an image of a tiny kitten dangling from a clothesline, hind legs kicking desperately against the abyss. HANG IN THERE, the caption read. Horatio Salazar, Westside High School Appropriations Officer, had hung the poster in an attempt to reassure the students who were summoned to his office. Occasionally, it even worked. Xinyu loved that poster, Salazar thought, back when she was Consuela. Back before her third strike. A sweet girl. But she should have known that piñatas originated in China, and that they only became “Spanish” through cultural appropriation.
