1
The truth is usually left for us to hunt and gather independently, if we are so inclined.Raquel Cepeda
2
This thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.Raquel Cepeda
3
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.Raquel Cepeda
4
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.Raquel Cepeda
5
If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess’s playground.Raquel Cepeda
6
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.Raquel Cepeda
7
When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.Raquel Cepeda
8
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.Raquel Cepeda
9
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.Raquel Cepeda
10
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.Raquel Cepeda
11
For some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.Raquel Cepeda
12
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.Raquel Cepeda
13
More than anything, this place feels familiar. I bury my hands in the hot sand and think about the embodiment of memory or, more specifically, our natural ability to carry the past in our bodies and minds. 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. I quietly thank this ancestor of mine for surviving the trip so that I could one day return. .Raquel Cepeda
14
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.Raquel Cepeda
15
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.Raquel Cepeda
16
To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy.Raquel Cepeda
17
Hip-hop...has been the proverbial key that’s opened the door for me to roam this breathtaking planet.Raquel Cepeda
18
The past is buried deep within the ground in Rabat, although the ancient walls in the old city are still standing, painted in electrifying variations of royal blue that make the winding roads look like streamlets or shallow ocean water.Raquel Cepeda
19
I fall in love with ParaÃso. It’s like a giant playground where I’m never scolded for running around recklessly, where I’m almost overwhelmed with the amount of attention and love I receive from Mami’s family. In New York, I’m invisible.Raquel Cepeda
20
Lately, Mami’s eyes have been so dark, I don’t like looking into them because I’m afraid I’ll fall in.Raquel Cepeda
21
I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.Raquel Cepeda
22
Hip-hop is storytelling.Raquel Cepeda
23
I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.Raquel Cepeda
24
...being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.Raquel Cepeda
25
Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.Raquel Cepeda
26
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.Raquel Cepeda
27
Alice’s razor-thin blond hair is what people in Santo Domingo call bueno, but I don’t understand how that kind of hair can be good. It doesn’t move at all, or ripple like the water in Boca Chica when I throw shells at it.Raquel Cepeda
28
Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?Raquel Cepeda
29
The things that come to us easily, our propensities, are carried on a deep subconscious level into our next life. There are no coincidences.Raquel Cepeda
30
Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.Raquel Cepeda
31
Listen kid, it’s just you and me now, so let’s help each other out. Always be honest with me, and show me how to be the mother and father I never had. I’ll make a mess of things sometimes, and I’m sorry in advance, but I’ll try. My word is bond.Raquel Cepeda
32
She looks like an empty shell of a woman with her soul hovering above her. We believe in spiritual guÃas in Santo Domingo. Hers is her own self. I can see Mami’s soul desperately trying to find its way back into her small body.Raquel Cepeda
33
This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.Raquel Cepeda
34
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.Raquel Cepeda
35
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.Raquel Cepeda
36
Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.Raquel Cepeda
37
Women destroy me. I allow them to.Raquel Cepeda
38
We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.Raquel Cepeda
39
You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.Raquel Cepeda
40
Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.Raquel Cepeda
41
Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and RocÃo were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.Raquel Cepeda
42
The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.Raquel Cepeda