people-from-the-dominican-republic

"The eagle must age, renew itself, change its beak and remove its flying feathers. This is a natural process for humans."

"I wish to say that the right to life is not a religious question, but rather a moral and juridical one, and that is a commandment from God."

"You don't know what you have until you lose it."

"President Danilo Medina of the Dominican Republic has ignored our long-term partnership, the wishes of the people of the Dominican Republic, and the years of development assistance provided by Taiwan, to accept false promises of investment and aid by (mainland) China."

"I have received a lot of support from my family and that is priceless."

"I feel comfortable and safe when I am on the track. Mine is a natural talent that God has given me to develop. I trust him and therefore I am not afraid."

"I describe it as a miracle because a person who is only one year old at an event cannot do this. Only god does that."

"In Tokyo I hope to do a good job and be able to be a finalist or medalist, but I prefer that God's will be done at all times, he is my Lord who has kept me firm here."

"I consider myself a fighting, inspiring and faith-filled woman."

"My sense of self and my identity have been enhanced more than they’ve changed. I’m still Latina-American for the purposes of living here in the States. Sometimes I say I’m Dominican, or Dominican-American, depending on who I’m talking to; the codewords change depending on the community you’re engaging with. But for me, it was a very spiritual journey. It married the logos, the rational, the science, with the mythos, the spiritual."

"Bridge the gap with and extend the olive branch to people from past generations, because you don’t know everything."

"The way we construct race in the States is so different from the way people construct race all across Latin America and the Caribbean. All of a sudden you come to the States and race is foisted upon you. Then my generation’s like, “Wait a minute, where do my ancestors come from?..."

"Sometimes I’ll bring that up and people will say, “Well, you can’t find a true Indian on the Dominican Republic,” and I’m like, “You can’t find a true anything.” What is it about us suppressing this part of ourselves and highlighting this other part of ourselves? I think all that leads to bad self-esteem, which has a ripple effect on society."

"Writing fearlessly because, as my friend Junot Díaz has said, "a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway.""

"This life takes a lot more courage than I ever gave it credit for. When I was growing up around here I was always fantasizing heroic shit without realizing that what was shaping up was going to be the greatest heroic adventure of them all: trying to live and be a decent human being. That shit takes more courage than I ever had."

"I grew up in a world, [a] very New Jersey, American, Dominican, immigrant, African-American, Latino world. And, you know, I went to school and it was basically the same. I went to college; it was basically the same, where largely I wasn't really encouraged to imagine women as fully human. I was in fact pretty much — by the larger culture, by the local culture, by people around me, by people on TV — encouraged to imagine women as something slightly inferior to men. And so I think that a lot of guys, part of our journey is wrestling with, coming to face, our limited imagina[tion] and growing in a way that allows us not only to imagine women as fully human, but to imagine the things that we do to women — that we often do blithely, without thinking, we just sort of shrug off — as actually deeply troubling and as hurting another human being. And this seems like the simplest thing. A lot of people are like, 'Really, that's like a huge leap of knowledge, of the imagination?' But for a lot of guys, that is."

"Our visions of an immigrant community and an immigrant experience are highly moralistic. I feel like our reality is William Gibson meets Toni Morrison, yet the way we’re interpreting the morality of immigrants is Chaucer.”"

"We live in a patriarchal imaginary where men cannot conceptualise women as fully human. What’s really important is how this shit resides in us, how this just lives in us, man, even if we’re the good guy – it should give a motherfucker pause."

"If you think learning salsa is your future, you’re going to be pretty insufferable in salsa classes."

"Motherfuckers will read a book that’s one third elvish, but put two sentences in Spanish and they [white people] think we’re taking over."

"I teach his work in my creative writing classes now, to give students a sense of voice and language and just fierce honesty in your writing."

"Junot Díaz, who is a big science fiction fan."

"When I first read Junot Díaz’s short story collection Drown I felt seen for the first time."

"I am Luis Pie and I am here to make my own path. To fight in my own way."

"I have fought for all the 10 millions of Dominicans."

"Nothing is impossible. Just put a lot of effort and dedication because any of you can be the same or better than Yamilet..."

"The possibility to realize a dream is what makes life interesting"

"This Mayagüez gold, my third consecutive with the national team, has a strawberry flavor."

"Paula, your retirement is the one that every athlete dreams."

"I am always giving advice to young players about how things are, how important it is to work hard every day to reach the glory days."

"I just love the feeling from the fans and when I'm walking on deck I can hear people screaming and wishing you the best. That puts you into the game more than anything."

"This is our fucking city! And nobody is gonna dictate our freedom. Stay Strong! (After the Boston Marathon Bombings)"

"We keep on fighting, we keep on playing. We won tonight and we're going to try to keep on winning."