Mexican American Quotes

“Yo no soy mexicano. Yo no soy gringo. Yo no soy chicano. No soy gringo en USA y mexicano en Mexico. Soy chicano en todas partes. No tengo que asimilarme a nada. Tengo mi propia historia.”
― Carlos Fuentes

“Esperanza leaned around the side of the truck. As they rounded a curve, it appeared as if the mountains pulled away from each other, like a curtain opening on stage, revealing the San Joaquin Valley beyond. Flat and spacious, it spread out like a blanket of patchwork fields. Esperanza could see no end to the plots of yellow, brown, and shades of green. The road finally leveled out on the valley floor, and she gazed back at the mountains from where they'd come. They looked like monstrous lions' paws resting at the edge of ridge. ”
― Pam Munoz Ryan, Esperanza Rising

“I held Angie Luna in that room for hours, and I remember the different times we made love like epochs in a civilization, each movement and every touch, apex upon abyss. In the luxury of our bed, we tried every position and every angle. I explored the curves on her body and delighted in seeing the freedom of her ecstasy. Her desperate whispers and pleas. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. We lay in bed with our limbs entangled, in a pacific silence that reminded me of existing on a beach just for the sake of such an existence. I couldn't imagine the world ever becoming better, and for some strange reason the thought slipped into my head that I had suddenly grown to be an old man because I could only hope to repeat, but never improve on, a night like this. I finally took her home sometime when the interstate was empty, and the bridges seemed to lead to nowhere, for they were desolate too.”
― Sergio Troncoso, The Last Tortilla & Other Stories

“If you've got a Mexican last name, you've got a strike against you.”
― Tracy Kidder, The Road to Yuba City: A Journey into the Juan Corona Murders

“At Harvard, the strong and savvy and confident thrived, while the nice or shy or quaintly moral were just bit players. In Ysleta, you believed in God because you were poor and needed something to hold on to. At Harvard, you believed in your good luck or bad luck, in all-nighters, in your political savvy.”
― Sergio Troncoso, From This Wicked Patch of Dust

“Be smart, but not too smart. Be beautiful, but not so pretty as to make other females mad. Be successful, but not bossy or overly ambitious. Nobody likes a mouthy brown woman. Be a declawed kitten.”
― V. Castro, Goddess of Filth

“My dad will win, I silently countered, even as I smiled sweetly. I couldn’t wait to spike the ball right through her block, no matter how tall she was. In health class we’d learned that if Barbie were human, she’d be six feet tall and weigh one hundred pounds, and Gisele seemed pretty close to those dimensions. By contrast, my doll representation would be more like Barbie’s Fat Mexican-American Republican sidekick.”
― Jennifer Lane, Blocked

“I believe we have reached a point where those of us who belong to this culture of la frontera in Ysleta and El Paso are not content to sit back and watch others tell us who we are. We know who we are, and we ourselves can tell others about what we love and what we fear and what we hate and what can save us. I believe our community has developed that confidence to step forward and start taking responsibility for the many images that are projected in the name of Ysleta and El Paso.”
― Sergio Troncoso, Crossing Borders: Personal Essays

“I am an undocumented transfer student to UCLA. This university has always been my dream, but being here has been on of the hardest experiences of my life. I do not receive financial aid, and I do not meet any of the requirements to receive any kind of scholarship because I do not have a Social Securty number.”
― Eileen Truax, Dreamers: An Immigrant Generation's Fight for Their American Dream

“Better have an immigrant without papers, than a child without parents.”
― Abhijit Naskar

“The either/or proposition that forces you to choose between your community and, say, your country has never been true. The very skills we learn to cross borders within ourselves help us to cross borders toward others outside our community.”
― Sergio Troncoso, Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in between Worlds

“Turi remembers this strange feeling repeated throughout his life: who he thinks he is in his mind is sometimes not who others see or imagine he can be. This gap never seems to go away. Sometimes this secret self is comforting, for its privacy. Sometimes it is amusing, when he witnesses what crazy assumptions others have of him. Too often this gap is dispiriting, a prison inside of him without any means of escape.”
― Sergio Troncoso, Nobody’s Pilgrims

“It was ironic, really, that the only reason I became eligible to adjust my status was because I married a U.S. citizen. I laugh when I think about the many times my mom told me, 'You have to be independent. You have to make your own money. Don't depend on a man!' I did. I made my own money. But I still needed a man to save me from my illegality.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“I learned the language, at the expense of my Spanish, only to find that in English I didn't exist. I read the American history textbooks in school that erased any trace of the deep Mexican roots in this country. Still, I forged ahead.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“Nobody saw what happened next, or else nobody admitted to it. A couple of people said they saw the Kid stand up, turn around quickly, and sit down again. But neither of those people was there at the time.

The teacher had turned her back to the class and was writing on the board. She heard something and looked around. Gordon Ritchie was coming towards her, reaching for her, whimpering. The Kid’s pen was sticking out of Gordon’s face. The Kid had stabbed him with it, stabbed him so hard that it pierced his cheek and impaled his tongue.

The teacher backed away from Gordon, trying to take in what she was seeing. Bubbles of blood were coming out of his mouth. Some of the children ran out of the room. Others screamed or cried. The Kid just sat at his desk, as though there had been no interruption to the class.”
― Barry Graham, The Wrong Thing

“Catboy slept that night curled up on the Kid’s chest. There was a huge windstorm that blew canopies of rain between the buildings of the apartment complex. Vanjii, of course, slept through it, but the Kid spent most of the night somewhere between waking and sleeping. He could hear the wind and rain all the time, and sometimes he could feel Catboy’s claws on his chest, kneading. He dreamed that the wind was an old bruja, a witch, wandering the deserted streets outside, looking for Catboy so she could take him away and hurt him.”
― Barry Graham, The Wrong Thing

“In the case of the Chicanx population, the US conquest and annexation of Mexican territory (a geographical area extending from Texas to California) following the Mexican American War (1846-1848) created a situation in which people of Mexican ancestry became subject to White domination...It was the general feeling among White settlers that they were superior to Mexicans...The question of how Mexicans should be classified racially was decided in 1897 by Texas courts, which ruled that Mexican Americans were not White. In California, they were classified as 'Caucasian' until 1930, when the state attorney general decided they should be categorized as 'Indians,' though 'not considered "the original American Indians of the US"'.”
― Beverly Daniel Tatum, Why Are All The Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?

“Latin not Lethal (The Sonnet)

Yes I am latino and proud,
That doesn't make me a thug.
Yes I am brown in color and loud,
That doesn't mean I'm a lethal bug.
Some of us can't speak English,
That doesn't make us second-rate.
We care for family as much as you,
In friendship we walk to the world's end.
Savage imperialists walked on our corpses,
While they snatched our lands and homes.
Yet you call us illegal and dangerous,
Showing no remorse or desire to atone!
None of us can undo the past I know.
Our kids may walk together, let's make sure.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Earthquakin' Egalitarian: I Die Everyday So Your Children Can Live

“Rather than speaking in terms of specific and distinct subgroups (Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, etc.) ‘Latino’ and ‘Hispanic’ have become the shorthand designation of choice among journalists, politicians, advertising executives, academics, and other influential elites.”
― Cristina Beltrán, The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity

“I've learned that Mexicans, our Indigenous ancestors, have always had a footprint in this land. We have many examples to follow of people who resisted assimilation, who fought for equality. We must shine a light on those who came before us, those who showed us decades ago that we are enough. Through them, I have learned this is where I belong, not because white people accept me, but because the same roots that ground me to Mexico ground me here, too.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“Many of us understand that America was built on the brutality of slavery and the looting of Indigenous land. Fewer recognize the colonization of Mexico by the United States as a third pillar in the creation of present-day America. The first colonization of Mexico was of course by Spain. But the second colonization of my people came at the hands of the United States during the Mexican-American War. In school we learn of it as Manifest Destiny, as the God-given right of white people to steal native land. The result was not only the taking of land...but the reluctant acquisition of Mexicans.
...The annexation of Texas into the United States and a dispute over where the Texas border should be drawn gave President James Polk an excuse to loot more Mexican land...There were between 80,000 and 100,000 Mexicans living in the land stolen by the United States. Polk wanted the land, but not the Mexicans on it. They were never immigrants; they didn't come to the United States or cross the border; the border crossed them. After the war, the Mexico-U.S. border was carefully drawn to keep as many Mexicans out as possible, a purpose it still serves. But the border never stopped out roots from growing on both sides.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“...Mexicans threw a wrench in the racial dynamics of America, and in turn, our place in the United States has been precarious ever since, because we became citizens at a time when only white people could become citizens, even though most of us were not white.
...The United States wasn't happy about giving citizenship to Mexicans. After all, Mexicans were viewed as racially inferior, primitive creatures who were ignorant and knew nothing of laws. New York Times articles from the 1870s and 1880s not how the 'Lazy Mexicans' were 'retarding progress.' We were described as 'the personification of tramphood' on the front page of the Times. Another racist piece stated, 'Greasers as citizens. What Sort of State New Mexico Would Make.' Our 'origin and character,' our 'hatred of Americans,' and our 'dense ignorance' made us 'totally unfit for American citizenship.' We were an undesirable compromise for manifesting a white destiny in the West.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“White supremacy is persistent, but so are we.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“Why don't you speak English? Why don't you speak Spanish? Being Latino in America means the answer to both of these questions holds us to an impossible standard to prove we're both sufficiently American and authentically Latino. I am tired of the interrogation, the unattainableness, the in-betweenness. I am enough to stand on both sides, fully and completely.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“We are finally seeing that success doesn't have to happen outside our community or in spite of our heritage. We are rejecting the notion that success is found in whiteness because that kind of thinking has never led us anywhere good. The antidote for the poison of the oppressor is to embrace our brownness, because it is our culture that is propelling us.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“...my racial identity is a concept that escapes intellectual conversations about race. My personal experiences contradict the idea that Latino is only an ethnicity and not a race. But suggesting that Latino should be a race confounds the situation even more, because we are all so different and experience the world differently, though the same could be said of any other racial group.

When others state, 'Latino is not a race, it's an ethnicity,' they ignore that not all Latinos have the same ethnicity, either. And though we don't all share the same ethnicity, the exact language, religion, customs, culture, food, and so forth, and though we are not the only ethnic group in America, we are the only people who are singled out by our ethnicity.”
― Julissa Arce, You Sound Like a White Girl: The Case for Rejecting Assimilation

“He says my name the wrong way (Jewlia), even though I already told him how to pronounce it. Amá has never let me say it the English way. She says she's the one who named me and that people can't go around changing it for their own convenience.”
― Erika L. Sánchez

“I’m just more Mexican,” I said. “Mexicans are a tragic people”
― Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe

“That's not how I want to live, Amá." I'm not sure if I'm supposed to speak, but I can't help it. "I'm sorry that I'm not Olga and I never will be. I love you, but I want a different life for myself. I don't want to stay home. I don't even know if I ever want to get married or have kids. I want to go to school. I want to see the world. I want so many things sometimes I can't even stand it. I feel like I'm going to explode." Amá doesn't say anything. We all sit in silence until Adelita tells us to hold hands for the closing play.”
― Erika L. Sánchez

“I get up in the morning every day because I want to read and see our voices on the page. I want to see them in libraries. I want to be writing stories about our community as a proud Chicano but also as a writer who has expertly crafted stories so that everybody will appreciate a different perspective. I want to show others that we have the ability to tell complex, innovative, even shockingly revolutionary stories that open people’s eyes.”
― Sergio Troncoso, Nobody's Pilgrims