Raquel Cepeda, Bird Of Paradise: How I Became Latina Quotes
Individually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation.
Globalization by the way of McDonald’s and KFC has captured the hearts, the minds, and from what I can see through the window, the growing bellies of the folks here.
Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.
The truth is usually left for us to hunt and gather independently, if we are so inclined.
Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?
I have never bought into the idea that blood is thicker than water. Love and respect are meant to be earned from our children, our spouses, our families, and our friends.
When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.
This thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.
The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.
We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.
Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.
This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.
Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.
The things that come to us easily, our propensities, are carried on a deep subconscious level into our next life. There are no coincidences.
I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.
Even the juncture in history and the zeitgeist we live in is something we choose, setting the scene for the spiritual fodder we need to grow and achieve deeper elevation of our souls.
While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.
For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.
Lately, Mami’s eyes have been so dark, I don’t like looking into them because I’m afraid I’ll fall in.
If it weren’t for her setting me free, I may still be a caged bird today, holding my own daughter captive on a shit-laden perch.
Come to think of it, maybe God is a He after all, because only a cruel force would create something this beautiful and make it inaccessible to most people.
Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.
Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.
If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess’s playground.
Perhaps finding out that we carry New World history in our genes will transcend racial checkboxes altogether and enable Latino-Americans to rethink what America is supposed to look like.
Nobody, she felt, understood her--not her mother, not her father, not her sister or brother, none of the girls or boys at school, nadie--except her man.
I think Dad wanted to feel the pain, to feel his body cry, an urgent reminder that he was still alive. I pretended not to notice.
I wish she’d said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can’t hide from it, not even here.
The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.
To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy.
...being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.
Hip-hop...has been the proverbial key that’s opened the door for me to roam this breathtaking planet.
