19 quotes
A misinformed people is a subjugated people.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
The solution to your depression lies en esa cueva oscura [in this dark cave] and a deeper integration of your psyche.
Light in the Dark/Luz en lo Oscuro: Rewriting Identity, Spirituality, Reality (2015)
They'd like to think I have melted in the pot. But I haven't. We haven't.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Like a stone thrown into a pool, this book's ripples have touched people on numerous shores, affecting scholars and activists throughout the world.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
Our images/feelings/thoughts have to be conflicted before we see the need for change.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
Who is to say that robbing a people of its language is less violent than war?
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Those who are pushed out of the tribe for being different are likely to become more sensitized (when not brutalized into insensitivity).
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Wild tongues can't be tamed, they can only be cut out.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
For positive social change to happen we need to envision a different reality, dream new blueprints for it, formulate new strategies for coping in it.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
May our voices proclaim the bonds of bridges.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
Among the ashes traces of our roots glow like live coals illuminating our past, giving us sustenance for the present and guidance for the future.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
I preferred the world of imagination to the death of sleep
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Basta de gritar contra el viento-toda palabra es ruido si no está acompañada de acción (enough of shouting against the wind-all words are noise if not accompanied with action).
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
The skin of the earth is seamless. The sea cannot be fenced, El mar does not stop at borders
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Why am I compelled to write? Because the writing saves me from this complacency I fear. Because I have no choice. Because I must keep the spirit of my revolt and myself alive. Because the world I create in the writing compensates for what the real world does not give me. By writing I put order in the world, give it a handle so I can grasp it. I write because life does not appease my appetites and hunger. I write to record what others erase when I speak, to rewrite the stories others have miswritten about me, about you.
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
The soul uses everything to further its own making. … States which disrupt the smooth flow (complacency) of life are exactly what propel the soul to do its work: make soul, increase consciousness of itself. Our greatest disappointments and painful experiences—if we can make meaning out of them—can lead us toward becoming more of who we are.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Alienated from her mother culture, ‘alien' in the dominant culture, the woman of color does not feel safe within the inner life of her Self. Petrified, she can’t respond, her face caught between los intersticios, the spaces between the different worlds she inhabits.
Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza (1987)
Perhaps like me you are tired of suffering and talking about suffering, estás hasta el pescuezo de sufrimiento, de contar las lluvias de sangre pero no las lluvias de flores (up to your neck with suffering, of counting the rainsof blood but not the rains of flowers).
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)
We are not reconciled to the oppressors who whet their howl on our grief. We are not reconciled. (p. 171)
This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (1981)