I got here when I was 12, I found out I was undocumented when I was 16, I became a journalist when I was 17, and all I ever did was write other stories to run away from myself.

America is White and Black and Latino and Asian. America is mixed. America is immigrants.

Citizenship to me is more than a piece of paper. Citizenship is also about character. I am an American. We're just waiting for our country to recognize it.

For Filipino Americans, it's a battle for recognition, for identity in a culture where, for the mainstream, Asians tend to fade into a monochromatic racialized 'other.'

I am not the 'illegal' you think I am, and immigration is not what you think it is.

When people call me illegal, calling me illegal says more about you than it does about me.

To be in America illegally is actually a civil offense and not a criminal one.

You have to stand for something bigger than yourself.

I have no control over what people call me. The only thing I have control over is my work, and that's really all I can be judged on.

To me, it's just that social media is allowing people to be in charge of their own narratives.

I always felt like I had the word "illegal" tattooed on my forehead.

Consider how blessed you are to have the things you do in life.

The oppressed peoples can liberate themselves only through struggle. This is a simple and clear truth confirmed by history.

I got to work with Jared Leto. Jared's cute. Oh, I'll tell you. Jared will make you doubt about your sexuality.

hindsight is gained through experience

Sometimes it is harder to deprive oneself of a pain than of a pleasure and the memory so possessed him that for the moment there was nothing to do but to pretend.

Pigs may not be as cuddly as kittens or puppies, but they suffer just as much.

You think publishing is tough but the music world is ten times tougher.

If I'm such a legend, then why am I so lonely? Let me tell you, legends are all very well if you've got somebody around who loves you.

O sinner, be not discouraged, but have recourse to Mary in all you necessities. Call her to your assistance, for such is the divine Will that she should help in every kind of necessity.

Either you defend the status quo, or you invent the future.