people-from-mexico-city

"His learning was extensive, covering theology, canon law, philosophy, mathematics, and letters, to which was added an exceptional gift of oratory."

"At times man falls prey to man himself."

"We realize that we are all brothers and sisters and that together we must build a cleaner, more beautiful city"

"The debt I have with my heritage becomes a declaration of love for what I’ve lost..."

"A language is historical memory. Sometimes it preserves information and turns of phrase that people have forgotten, but the language doesn’t forget. In the case of the Sephardic community, language served as a binding agent that linked men and women across faraway geographies, carrying those words like an unconscious and pleasurable way of remaining united."

"Identities can be an obstacle and a source of conflict between people and nations when they are erroneously carried like a flag. But it’s a different story when we recognize that nothing makes us better as beings in the world than our differences."

"What I find is never definitive—that would be a pretension and an idiocy."

"Catharsis consists in getting out from under something that’s been there constantly, buzzing around irksomely in your ear. And, when you do that, there’s a certain state of emptying that almost immediately initiates another disturbance. If it were any other way, it wouldn’t be possible to keep writing."

"Ladino is a unique cultural and linguistic phenomenon. I think that well beyond the question of community belonging, it’s tremendously interesting for any Spanish speaker. To listen to its words is like seeing your own language in its infancy, and even earlier: in a nascent state. This language was spoken for five centuries by people who were totally distant from Spanish. That is, the mother tongue of all those speakers could be Turkish, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Italian, Greek, French, Romanian, etc. Doesn’t it seem unique that they’d speak their mother tongue in the street and inside their homes they’d switch to this archaic Spanish? The biography of Judeo-Spanish is wonderful and tragic. Whether or not it has a future is up for debate, occasionally between very antagonistic positions. Listen, it’s hardly used by anyone at this point. The last speakers of the language are dying. There are many academic initiatives seeking to preserve it, and there are also isolated writers, but as you know, a language does not stay alive by decree. What is indisputable is that there should be some kind of souvenir—sound-based, literary, or poetic—marking its passage through the world. It makes me sad to talk about that. It’s as if I were beside a beloved person on their deathbed. I don’t know. There are surely other opinions on the matter. There are those who think it won’t die. I’d like for them to be right, but if there aren’t kids anymore who hear it daily, if it’s not used by anyone other than a handful of older people, how could it stay alive, then?"

"...it’s an idea of displacement that has animated my work. I get bored always doing the same thing. On top of that, I have no interest in purity or fidelity to a genre or a tone or a single channel of exploration. I’m not careful. I think that maintaining one foot outside the tradition we belong to is a good thing. And even if it weren’t, I’d do that regardless. That impulse arises from a restlessness within me that’s manifested in many ways over the years. All digressions eventually become a different peephole through which to glimpse that displacement I’m talking about. Displacement has marked my destiny: family displacement and also creative displacement. Imagine, how could you not love Judeo-Spanish (which had not appeared in my previous work): a language made from geographic, linguistic, and family displacements . . ."

"When I noticed that my priorities changed, I was very excited to get marry and have kids. It was clear to me that I had to retire. It was very nice because I made a decision for the right reasons. I retired in Morelia, Mexico while we played a very important tournament, it was in my country, my people, my friends and sponsors, it was beautiful, she smiled."

"When I played golf in Arizona, I noticed I was at a good level and I could compete against the best in the world. I became a professional player and got closer to my dream"

"My advice would be to not let anyone tell you or anyone stereotype, tell you that you can't pursue your career and dream in STEM. Really just practice, practice, practice, because that's what will eventually lead to success."

"I was always very inquisitive and I wanted to ask questions about everything and how nature works and all that. But [my mother] came from this background where women were mostly supposed to get married and have a family and not really have a career, and she told me it would be difficult to get married if I pursued a career in math or science. My teachers were unfortunately not much better. They told me that physics was for geniuses, and...that it was not a very feminine career."

"[A fellow female student and I] basically confronted the administration and said that we were wondering why there was so few women that graduated from the program and so people started giving us the statistics and we became sort of known for sort of digging in and researching a little more to help women advance. We created the Association for the Advancement of Women in Physics. That's when (one of the professors I interviewed) told me, "Looking at all these stats I realized that we've never had another student from Mexico. If you finish the program you'd become the first one.""

"Physicists tend to train very well to solve problems and to think on your feet. To not be intimidated by the problem."

""The greatest ballplayer was Ty Cobb". (Spanish: "El más grande pelotero de la historia ha sido Ty Cobb".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

""Football has 14 variants; baseball has millions". (Spanish: "El futbol tiene 14 variantes; el beisbol, millones".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

""Being a Tigres del Mexico baseball fan, by definition, is deciding to walk on a rocky path rather than a smooth one; they know the euphoria of victory, and the heartache of seeing their team leave its place of origin. Being a Tigres del Mexico baseball fan is the story of joyful painfulness and painful joyfulness." (Spanish: "El aficionado al Tigres, por definición, ha decidido caminar por el empedrado en lugar de la plana vereda; conoce tanto la euforia de la victoria, como el dolor de ver a su equipo irse de su lugar de origen. Ser del Tigres, es la historia del placer sufriendo, y del llorar gozando.) Pedro Septién circa 2005"

""Numbers are prophets that look backwards (in time)". (Spanish: "Los números son profetas que miran hacia atrás".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

""Baseball is too good a business to be a mere sport and too much of a sport to be a mere business". (Spanish: "El beisbol es demasiado negocio para ser un simple deporte y demasiado deporte para ser un simple negocio".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

""To know the baseball player who is alive, you need to know the baseball player who is dead". (Spanish: "Para conocer al pelotero vivo, tienes que conocer al pelotero muerto".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

""There's no defense against the walk". (Spanish: "Contra la base por bolas no hay defensa".) Milenio Newspaper (October 29, 2021)"

"A writer is always so conflicted about their work, so it was liberating to be able to be in this space of my words, without being judgmental or changing anything. I vividly remembered the ideas that I had, where I was when I had them, how I imagined this moment of holding this book, I was emotionally connected to it. I reflected on the story of my arrival, and then my time as a young woman. I cried during the scene of my rape, and I found myself rooting for my character as I read on! I laugh about it now because I am the character, she is me! The process of narrating completely transformed my relationship to the memoir, even after I never imagined that it would."

"Imagine this story as if you were telling it to your mother. I always write with this in mind. Keep in mind this doesn’t necessarily work when writing a memoir, but it helps to focus on telling the story to one person. I didn’t have an image of a reader, per se, but I knew that I had to use my voice to connect to them. When you connect to somebody’s writing, it is powerful because it is such an intimate experience, but imagine an added element—the element of your voice. You can use your own voice to exude sensuality, anger, love, raw emotions. I go into the studio a lot, so doing this wasn’t particularly hard for me. I just close my eyes and go into a space."

"The hardest part of my narration was when I read about my assault. I cried. It took me a while to get through it, maybe because of the way I wrote it. It was very graphic and one of the parts of the book that I wrote while crying. It felt like the scab was off, and I was diffing deeper into my wounds when I talked about this moment and others.…"

"I don’t really like to talk about politics, I just find it hilarious…. You know I’m very proud of where I come from and my heritage. I know that we’re a very hard-working culture, we work so hard to be where we are. We are disciplined, we are determined. I just really get offended when people try to mock us in any way because I don’t find it hilarious in any way. Because it’s a struggle. The struggle is real, let’s say that."

"Just to really embrace who they are. What I feel has been working for me right now is just the fact that I embrace who I am. I embrace my culture and where I come from. You have to be very patient and very positive and never lose your hope. It's hard. I know a lot of people who just bail on their careers. If you really analyze it, there are so many people in the world, and only a couple make it as actors. You just have to focus on the positive."

"…I think Disney personifies some of the American ideals in art and in culture in total, because what he was trying to do and specifically with Fantasia. And it was the spirit of the thirties, I believe; it was the post-Depression period, where people were trying to think popular art, art that was consumable by the masses high art that could be put in a tin or another form, a package…"

"At some point in our lives, each of us realizes how really finite we are. For me this realization has been a driving force in my creativity and in my life in general. I paint with a new abandonment almost trying to deny the fact that I too will someday pass on and the only thing remaining will be the images that I leave behind."

"…there was the portrait of John the Baptist draped in furs, with a long furry beard, long hair, bushy eyebrows, and so covered in hair. Well, to a child of I must have been, I'm like four or five now, and this would have been one of our return trips because to a child of that age, it could very easy look like a gorilla. And one of the reasons I mention this story is that, for me, my first impression of art was both horrifying and absolutely magical, because I really believed that was a gorilla…"

"Every time there is an attack I am sure there will be a few pictures of me around. The last time it happened I knew that a picture was being shared before I knew about the attack. I think there's a few people controlling a lot of accounts. Their attacks are coordinated and sometimes they make sense and you might get a feeling about how they're connected to the political situation in Mexico. Sometimes it's just hate."

"Trolls did what they do. All kinds of harassment: death threats, rape threats, everything.But after terrorist attacks from then on, they would post my picture. Whenever anything happens in Europe, they do it.The first time it happened, it was disturbing but now I feel bulletproof. It was something new, something I didn’t know they did. Luckily nobody who knows me thought it was real."

"thanks to @plaqueta [De Anda’s Twitter handle] a lot of women are now aware of Article 23 of the Civic Culture Law"

"I received an email for a casting call from Aeromexico specifying that they don't want anyone dark-skinned. Tsss."

"In Mexico, a striking majority of station guardians and policemen are men and they dissuade you from reporting harassment.If you go and tell them, many would tell you "think twice, are you sure that was harassment?", "do you really want to spend half a day at a police station to report it?""

"I broke Mexican internet."

"In his parents' home, on his bedroom walls hung only three items - a copy of the United States Constitution, the Bill of Rights and his boot camp graduation certificate... Yes, Virginia, there are still heroes in America, and Sgt. Rafael Peralta was one of them. It’s just too bad the media can’t recognize them."

"Be proud of me, bro...and be proud of being an American."

"I consider animal rights also very linked to human rights and to environmental rights. For me it's just one issue."

"We’re both vegans and living a vegan lifestyle is important to us but we think it’s more important to get the message out there about what that industry creates. We’re not trying to make everyone turn vegan, we’re just trying to raise awareness – we’ve worked with PETA and many other big organisations – it’s more about connecting all the societies in the world and getting that information out there."

"De todos modos yo ya estoy acostumbrado a recibir los golpes que me da la vida. (Spanish for, Anyways I'm already used to receiving the blows that life gives me.)"

"Tenía que ser el Chavo del Ocho. (Spanish for, It had to be the Chavo del Ocho.)"

"Y no te doy otra nomas porque.... (Spanish for, And I do not give you another one because ...)"

"Yo le voy al necaxa... (Spanish for, I'm going to the necaxa...)"

"Cosa bonita, cosa bien hecha, cosa hermosa. (Spanish for, Pretty thing, thing well done, beautiful thing.)"

"¡Qué pasó qué pasó vamos ay! (Spanish for, What happened what happened, let's go!)"

"No hay trabajo malo... lo malo es tener que trabajar. (Spanish for, There is no bad work ... the bad thing is having to work.)"

"Well, I actually don't know him personally. I would like to, he is very handsome."

"No, well, first of all let me tell you that it is carefully, because you never know when the little elf of the bottle is going to get out of it and will hit you with it and will let you watching little stars."