I have seen them stagger out of their movie palaces and blink their empty eyes in the face of reality once more, and stagger home, to read the Times, to find out what's going on in the world. I have vomited at their newspapers, read their literature, observed their customs, eaten their food, desired their women, gaped at their art. But I am poor, and my name ends with a soft vowel, and they hate me and my father, and my father's father, and they would have my blood and put me down, but they are old now, dying in the sun and in the hot dust of the road, and I am young and full of hope and love for my country and my times, and when I say Greaser to you it is not my heart that speaks, but the quivering of an old wound, and I am ashamed of the terrible thing I have done.
John FanteTags: america american-literature immigrants immigrant-experience
An ocean could not explain the distance we have traveled.
Jonathan Safran FoerTags: philosophical-reflection immigrant-experience
Every immigrant family, it seems, has someone who does not belong in the new country they have come to. It feels like permanent exile to that one brother or wife who cannot stand a silent fate in Boston or London or Melbourne. I’ve met many who remain haunted by the persistent ghost of an earlier place.
Michael OndaatjeTags: immigrant-experience
Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.
Raquel CepedaTags: freedom identity freedom-of-thought race immigrant-experience hispanic latino-americans latinos race-in-america
The gaping hole in her heart is amplified when she catches a glimpse of the strands of silver hair framing her once young face in the mirror.
Raquel CepedaTags: self-image stressed immigrant-experience rocio
I am in between. Trying to write to be understood by those who matter to me, yet also trying to push my mind with ideas beyond the everyday. It is another borderland I inhabit. Not quite here nor there. On good days I feel I am a bridge. On bad days I just feel alone.
Sergio TroncosoTags: immigration chicano latino border borders immigrant-experience hispanic immigrant-values sergio-troncoso
Again, this week as I walked on Broadway, in front of giant photographs of voluptuous supermodels at a Victoria Secret mega-store, who was rebuilding the sidewalks? With sweaty headbands, ripped-up jeans, and dust on their brown faces? Their muscled hands quivered as they worked the jack-hammers and lugged the concrete chunks into dump trucks. Two men from Guanajuato. Undocumented workers. They both shook my hand vigorously, as if they were relieved I wasn’t an INS officer.
I imagined how much money Victoria Secret was making off these poor bastards. I wondered why passersby didn’t see what was in front of their faces. We use these workers. We profit from them. In the shadows, they work to the bone, for pennies. And it’s so easy to blame them for everything and nothing simply because they are powerless, and dark-skinned,and speak with funny accents. Illegal is illegal. It is a phrase, shallow and cruel, that should prompt any decent American to burn with anger.
Tags: immigrants chicano latino illegal-immigration immigrant-experience hispanic immigrant-values sergio-troncoso undocumented-workers
I hated seeing these spasmodic upside-down chicken heads stretching to puncture my flesh. I imagined once that they reached my groin and pecked out my penis and my huevos and kept pecking until they got to my gut and my eyes and my brain, until I was just a pecked-out piece of human meat surrounded by thousands of nervous, dirty white chickens. I think that was about the time I fucked up a pair of chicken heads against a warehouse wall when no one was looking. Well, almost no one. Rueben was right behind me, and that's when he grinned his stupid grin. Maybe he hated the chickens as much as I did. Maybe he just knew que ya me iba también a la chingada. Maybe I was going on my first joy ride to hell and back, and it was fun to watch.
Sergio TroncosoTags: stories short-stories family-relationships immigrants texas chicano latino immigrant-fiction short-story-collection immigrant-experience hispanic-american hispanic-identity sergio-troncoso el-paso-texas
It’s a great honor, m’ijo. We know that. I’m sure everyone in Ysleta is proud of you. But this is who you are," she said, for a moment scanning the dark night air and the empty street. A cricket chirped in the darkness. "God help you when you go to this ‘Havid.’ You will be so far away from us, from everything you know. You will be alone. What if something happens to you? Who’s going to help you? But you always wanted to be alone; you were always so independent, so stubborn."
"Like you.
Tags: education culture harvard immigrants chicano assimilation latino immigrant-fiction immigrant-experience hispanic sergio-troncoso
Julia, is everything all right?” her father said in a raspy voice. “It’s three in the morning, m’ija.”
“I’m sorry. I have to talk to you; it’s something very important. Papá, Mamá, I’ve made a decision, and I wanted to share it with you. I’ve decided to convert to the Muslim religion.”
“What?” Pilar screamed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“Julia, what are you saying?”
“I want to be a Muslim. I’ve even chosen a new Muslim name, Aliyah.”
“Julia, are you drunk?”
“No, Papá, I’m not drunk. I’ve thought about this for a very long time. I think it’s the right thing for me, a way to follow God.
Tags: family religion immigrants chicano assimilation family-life latino religious-faith immigrant-fiction religious-conversions family-saga immigrant-experience hispanic sergio-troncoso
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