No, it’s not the kissing disease your friend caught in high school. That’s spelled M-O-N-O. MANO (“hand,” Spanish 101) is a platform for Latinos—and anyone, really—who finds themselves outside of the mainstream culture. By “mainstream” we mean whatever the media and corporate America hold up as a standard. There are a few mainstream Latino media outlets, and while they’re important in terms of representation, even they tend to present a narrow definition of Latinoness, stuffing Latino culture into neat little boxes. It’s unavoidable when you’re trying to be mainstream—they have to present things in tight packages in order to appeal to the widest amount of viewers, readers, customers… But as the saying goes: When you try to please everybody, you end up pleasing nobody. The categories offered by a mainstream outlet are confining, limiting. They leave a lot of people out. What about the millions of Latinos who don’t vibe much with the Latino mainstream? What about the Latinos who are Latino in their own ways? Enter MANO. MANO is a place for people to break free of the categories imposed on them, a place for them to be as authentic and raw as they dare to be. It’s also a platform for smart commentary and bold writing on topics no other outlet would cover, much less in a real way. Through articles, podcasts, videos and other forms of media, we offer strong voices from the Latino counterculture.