Hispanic Americans

"Music is my first love. Ever since I was a little girl I've dreamt of one day being lucky enough to share my music with the world."

"I've dedicated myself to ensuring that every word that I say, everything I write, every role that I play … I know that there's one girl in some corner of the world that's going to watch or listen to that, and I want her to feel seen and inspired or in some way empowered. That has been the guiding light in every decision that I've made in this business."

"Lyrics to me are of utmost importance and they mean so much to me — in every song that I write, the lyrics have to come from my heart and they have to be honest and true."

"When I was in the running for María in 'West Side Story,' they kept calling to ask if I was legit. I remember thinking, 'Do you want me to bring my abuelita in?' I will. I'll bring her into the studio if you want to meet her."

"We just need to normalise our hearts' not having boundaries. I think that there's this idea that we as public figures can't have thoughts or feelings because we are like paper dolls to a majority of the public."

"I'm a young Latina woman growing up in a primarily white area of town where I live. I've been called it all. My hate comments on YouTube tell me to go back to where I came from. I was born in Hackensack Hospital. I'll go back there."

"It's the most jarring feeling as someone who is quite literally in therapy for impostor syndrome. You're sitting at the table with the likes of these incredible actors, singers, activists, Olympians, models who have earned their due. They earned their seat at the table, and you can't help but think, 'What am I doing here?'"

"This is not more complicated than the fact that Trump wants a giant island with his name on it. He wouldn’t think twice about putting our troops in danger if it makes him feel big and strong. The US military is not a toy."

"I don't want to write the war in my next novel. I want to imagine peace...Maybe it's in code-switching that we can invent a language for peace. (in Callaloo Summer 2007)"

"She writes with confidence and compassion. She cleaves through the evasions and silences that obscure so much of what we call the immigrant experience."

"I know that I should be free to write any which way I want-tone, story, etc.-because if not, we're lying to ourselves. (in Callaloo Summer 2007)"

"It's always like that: just when I think I don't give a shit about what my family thinks, they find a way to drag me back home. (beginning of book)"

"I do think reading is an intimate conversation we can have with ourselves and each other. Even if we don’t explicitly say the horrors of our lives out loud, the characters in the books can bridge an understanding that we survived something or a knowing of something, between family members and our communities. (2020)"

"Thinking about it, sometimes I watch the news and say, "¿What kind of world do we live in? ¿Who are these people making these crazy decisions and why are we living in it? ¿And what can we do?" Fiction is one of those last places where the world is bound between these pages, and you can sit with it for a while and imagine humanity in a completely different way. Without all the gloss of image...It's a place to dream and it's a place to look at yourself through the characters; again, it's like the person you are connecting with, it's connecting with the issues that you have within yourself. (in Callaloo Summer 2007)"

"Art is about pushing at the edges, and we’re privileged, however uncomfortable and challenging it may be, to have the opportunity to walk on a tight-rope between multiple lingual, cultural, national, social entities. (2019)"

"I yelled. But who could hear me? How many people have died this way? (p15)"

"My name is Cara Romero, and I came to this country because my husband wanted to kill me. Don't look so shocked. You're the one who asked me to say something about myself. (beginning of book)"

"She writes with a rare combination of fierce passion and tender compassion for her unforgettable world."

"What are we teaching our daughters or sisters or cousins if we always pretend that we don’t need anybody? The truth is we all need somebody and I wanted to illustrate that too. Like, even if there is strength in doing certain kinds of things the celebration of resilience is also killing us. (2022)"

"Everything is alive around you (in Callaloo Summer 2007)"

"I encourage young people to take risks and to follow their hearts, and don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t do something you want to do. Just go ahead and try it; if you fail, it’s okay, just keep going forward. So take those risks and follow your heart – and work hard while you’re doing it."

"Change happens incrementally, it doesn’t happen overnight. I started the process on so many different issues, and some of it got passed, and some of it is still being worked on."

"I always enjoy coming (to CSU). One of the reasons I do is because this university changed my life, and I think it can change yours as well, but you have to be open to allowing change to happen."

"It was a challenging time, because as women we were doing something that had never been done. But it was an exciting time as well."

"I hope that the world will get better incrementally. As a realist, I doubt that there will be a dramatic breakthrough, though I will certainly embrace it if there is any! I hope we will be able to understand how to communicate better, so that the values that I espouse will be understood by those who don’t seem to have the same values, or those who seem to have the same values, but somehow can’t see that those values are not being advanced."

"I am fortunate to have come from a tri-cultural family, which has helped me to understand different experiences, different points of view."

"It is very limiting to have one life—but I can’t say I’m disappointed in having chosen the law. I love the law, I loved being a lawyer, I love being a judge. I’m not sure I can answer the question of whether or not my experiences as an immigrant or my childhood informed that decision. I don’t consider myself a brilliant person by any means. I’m smart enough, but I’m not the philosopher that I would like to be… But the law ended up being a great fit for me. I love the concept of an organized society where people can interact peacefully with one another."

"The racism we experienced really burned a flame in my heart that created a passion to help my community. Because of that scholarship, I felt this burden – I was one of the few people who looked like me to get this opportunity, so I owed my community to do well, and it wasn’t acceptable to fail."

"I think gender, racial, and ethnicity representation on courts and on boards is extremely important, because of its impact on inclusiveness and on the understanding that we are all part of the same world and need to have our group represented. Having said that, the more important thing for me in terms of diversity on courts is the diversity of viewpoints."

"I never thought I could be a judge; I didn’t know anybody; I was not politically aware probably as much as I should have been. But I applied anyway, thinking that I could take a year or two as a judge and see the law from that perspective and I could become such a great trial lawyer after that. I got appointed, and I didn’t want to leave the bench at all because I love being a judge. It was a terrific and has been a terrific experience."

"I want students that come to CSU to value their experience here and everything they encounter on this campus because it’s a unique opportunity. Not everyone is able to come to CSU. It’s a gift and an opportunity that you need to explore to the fullest extent."

"I didn’t just watch (politics evolve).I participated in helping the change happen."

"I don’t do any of the writing, but I’ve had a really great friend Mitch Watson, who helped shaped that version of Daphne and allowed us to explore her more. The writers also allowed me to lean more into my “stand up routine” with Daphne in “Be Cool, Scooby-Doo”."

"It was fun kind of getting off the hamster wheel a little bit, I was able to write a bunch of songs, I started this kids' band called The Roughhousers and I wrote like 11 songs and we just put that out and it's fun. It's really good rock and roll music for kids and it's for adults too, because I just hate kids music. I would put kid music on and go, "Ugh, let's just put on Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton." I never played kid music for my kid, but this stuff is actually really good and we have the drummer from X and we have my ex-husband Murry Hammond was in the Old 97's playing bass and we have just an all-star super group of people doing the music and it's kind of taking off."

"Chicanas are being called upon today to put their thoughts down in writing, to share their emotions with others, thus beginning the process, the chain reaction that might spur others to self-expression and creativity. Our depth as Chicana women must be shared, in fact, is urgently needed so that others might hear the prophetic voice. This sharing is essential; it is the spirit of our people. This process creates a new awakening, a breaking out of silence, a revolutionary act. The burden is finally on us, on all Chicanas to break out of silence, to be present to all others who may themselves benefit from a voice, one that is both fearless and the penetrating conscience of the people."

"More and more the Chicana woman is emerging out of a traditionally imposed silence."

"The Chicana writer, by the fact that she is even writing in today's society, is making a revolutionary act. Embodied in the act of writing is her voice against others' definitions of who she is and what she should be. There is, in her open expression and in the very nature of this act of opening up, a refusal to submit to a quality of silence that has been imposed upon her for centuries. In the act of writing, the Chicana is saying "No," and by doing so she becomes the revolutionary, a source of change, and a real force for humanization."

"By becoming a writer, the Chicana has to have already rebelled against a socialization process that would have her remain merely the silent helpmate. Everything in her society, the schools, the church, the home, has sought this goal for her: she must be sheltered from the evils, noise, confusion, from the realities of the outside world, from sex to politics, even at times from intellectual dialogue, to be considered acceptable. In short, she should make no intrusion into adult or male conversation. Now, the Chicana, by voicing her own brand of expression has rejected the latter in favor of telling anyone who wishes to read her work, hear her voice, exactly what she is not, and who she, in fact, is."

"As long as we remain silent, no voice exists. Our right to speak, to voice ourselves is stripped from us; if you do not hear us, no voice exists and no one will notice our absence. Verónica Cunningham through poetry admonishes our silence."

"Writing, breaking the silence, subjective as it may appear, becomes a monumental and collective act because it signifies over coming, freeing oneself from the confines and conditions of history."

"They’re not given the same curriculum [in segregated schools] that they get in a white school. I try and push forward to make sure that these schools that are segregated are getting the same critical thinking classes and AP classes so they can proceed to go on to a college and proceed to get their education."

"We are more segregated now than we were in 1945, with de facto segregation. As you well are aware, Mendez and Brown found that de jure, by law, we cannot be segregated. Now we have de facto segregation"

"We weren’t being taught to be smart. We were being taught how to be maids and how to crochet and how to quilt"

"What I tell my students is that they must persevere, and my mother always told me we are children of god and we deserve to be treated equally,” Mendez said during her speech. “Yes, we still have racism and prejudice, but we must persevere."

"It’s so important that students know that this kind of bigotry has been here forever, and there is no reason why we cannot stand up against it. And there’s no reason why we should let things like this that we see in the media, things that are happening, deter us from continuing our plight to make sure that all our students get an equal education. Mendez v. Westminster was not just about education; it was for civil liberties, for social justice."

"I was seeing this beautiful [white] school, large concrete courtyard, a beautiful playground,” she says. “I thought, ‘I know what they’re fighting for. They’re fighting so I can go to that beautiful school and have a playground.’"

"If you stand up for social justice or something that is right, people will stand up and fight for you, and they will help you try to reach your goals"

"I actually almost stopped acting to pursue soccer instead."

"I delete Instagram from my phone probably twice a week. I try to stay away from it as much as possible, but it's hard because now it's how young people connect. The important thing to remember is that social media isn't real and so much of what is being advertised isn't authentic or necessarily the best for your well-being, so you have to take social media with a grain of salt."

"I've never played such an iconic character who's someone that I grew up respecting so much. So I think, when you respect someone so much, you just want to do right by them and right by everybody else who fell in love with her for a very good reason."