Quotes by Puerto Rican Authors

ANTONIO PONTÓN’S TRIAL made front page headlines across major newspapers. On April 17, 1915, the Schenectady Gazette headline read, “Trial of Ponton on the Charge of Committing one of Most Startling Murders in History of County.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
If race disappears as a category of official division, as it has in most of the world, this will facilitate the emergence of a plural racial order where the groups exist in practice but are not official recognized - and anyone trying to address racial division is likely to be chided for racializing the population.
Eduardo Bonilla-Silva
What we have here is a war—the war of matter and spirit. In the classical era, spirit was in harmony with matter. Matter used to condense spirit. What was unseen—the ghost of Hamlet’s father—was seen—in the conscience of the king. The spirit was trapped in the matter of theater. The theater made the unseen, seen. In the Romantic era, spirit overwhelms matter. The glass of champagne can’t contain the bubbles. But never in the history of humanity has spirit been at war with matter. And that is what we have today. The war of banks and religion. It’s what I wrote in Prayers of the Dawn, that in New York City, banks tower over cathedrals. Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion. When I came back to midtown a week after the attack—I mourned—but not in a personal way—it was a cosmic mourning—something that I could not specify because I didn’t know any of the dead. I felt grief without knowing its origin. Maybe it was the grief of being an immigrant and of not having roots. Not being able to participate in the whole affair as a family member but as a foreigner, as a stranger—estranged in myself and confused—I saw the windows of Bergdorf and Saks—what a theater of the unexpected—my mother would have cried—there were only black curtains, black drapes—showing the mourning of the stores—no mannequins, just veils—black veils. When the mannequins appeared again weeks later—none of them had blond hair. I don’t know if it was because of the mourning rituals or whether the mannequins were afraid to be blond—targets of terrorists. Even they didn’t want to look American. They were out of fashion after the Twin Towers fell. To the point, that even though I had just dyed my hair blond because I was writing Hamlet and Hamlet is blond, I went back to my coiffeur immediately and told him—dye my hair black. It was a matter of life and death, why look like an American. When naturally I look like an Arab and walk like an Egyptian.
Giannina Braschi
The Universe is like a great ocean of Qi in which we are as rivers that drain into it. In a given moment, we may believe that we are only individual rivers, but when we join it, we realize that we were never separated from the ocean. Some of us emerge as wide and turbulent rivers. Others, as tranquil or as weak streams, but we’re never alone in our path. Whatever affects the ocean, affects the river and what affects the river, impacts the ocean.
Ivan Figueroa-Otero
It is up to you. How far you want to go and how far you want to grow. Do not let that your worries, the unanswered questions or the abundant and free offer of distractions draw you away from the One who wants to illuminate your way . . .
Yilda B. Rivera
Antonio’s will was cursed. Not once, but twice.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Do you know who Samuel Langhorne Clemens is, Antonio?” Bessie asked.“No, chood I?” he said. “He is best known as Mark Twain, the author of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,” she said.“I have herd of the story, but I hav not red the booc,” he said.“Well, you should read it,” she said. “It is excellent reading. An American classic. Mark Twain worked in Schoharie for a while,” she said.“Is that so?” he said.“Yes, he worked as a brakeman on the Schoharie railroad station on Depot Street the winter of 1879, three years after he wrote his famous book,” Bessie said.“Why would he do that, a famos author?” Antonio asked.“A self-published author, I should add.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
I write because, if I don't, my characters will murder me in my sleep.
Astrid 'Artistikem' Cruz
When men learn to glimpse the Universe through the eyes of the Spirit, all they see is Love
Ivan Figueroa-Otero
You more than anyone else dederve to be loved and happy. Do not remain in any relationship that robs you of those two things.
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin
Where do I come from?We are the children of the Great Explosion of Love that begot the whole Universe. We bear a common lineage that unites us in its interminable matrix, that is manifested in all of the different and infinite dimensions, allowing us to participate in this unending co-creation with an attitude of loving co-responsibility. Who am I?I am a being of light (Love), with innumerable dimensional manifestations of shadings of Love and Life. The transitory experience within matter, time and space (human being) resides in those manifestations. This allows me the use of my free will in a co-responsible way in the co-creative process of life.
Ivan Figueroa-Otero
In Sing Sing Prison, in a ghastly white room stands a chair. Its parts are heavy joinings of oak, riveted and screwed together; its strong legs fastened to the floor with teeth and claws of steel. It bites into the marrow of men with fangs of fire. For this is the faldstool of bloody human justice, the prayer-chair of man’s vengeance upon man. Into it are strapped ... men who have killed other men. In it, for a high moral purpose, erring human lives are shocked across the barrier into night and the grave. - Edward H. Smith (1918)
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
The Death House back then was a self-contained unit, with its own hospital, kitchen, exercise yard and visiting room. The cells were inadequate, dark, and did not have proper sanitary facilities or ventilation. One window and skylight furnished the ventilation and light of the entire unit. Twelve cells were on the lower tier, six on each side, facing each other, with a narrow corridor between them. Five cells were located in an upper tier. There was an area the prisoners called the Dance Hall that housed a prisoner to be executed on his last day. The narrow corridor connected the Dance Hall to the execution room, where the Electric Chair resided. The prisoners named this corridor the Last Mile or the Green Mile, because this was the last walk a prisoner would take all the way to the small green riveted door at the end of the corridor, on his way to the execution room.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
You'd think hindsight would do us some goodBut all it does sometimesIs add glass to the kaleidoscope
J.D. Estrada
When it came time to build a tabernacle, the Israelite women brought all their mirrors to Moses so he could use them to make God's building more beautiful. (Exodus 38:8.) They were far more interested in enjoying God's glory than reflecting on their own images.
Gwendolyn Díaz
Already the people murmur that I am your enemybecause they say that in verse I give the world your me.They lie, Julia de Burgos. They lie, Julia de Burgos.Who rises in my verses is not your voice. It is my voicebecause you are the dressing and the essence is me;and the most profound abyss is spread between us.You are the cold doll of social lies,and me, the virile starburst of the human truth.You, honey of courtesan hypocrisies; not me;in all my poems I undress my heart.You are like your world, selfish; not mewho gambles everything betting on what I am.You are only the ponderous lady very lady;not me; I am life, strength, woman.You belong to your husband, your master; not me;I belong to nobody, or all, because to all, to allI give myself in my clean feeling and in my thought.You curl your hair and paint yourself; not me;the wind curls my hair, the sun paints me.You are a housewife, resigned, submissive,tied to the prejudices of men; not me;unbridled, I am a runaway Rocinantesnorting horizons of God's justice.You in yourself have no say; everyone governs you;your husband, your parents, your family,the priest, the dressmaker, the theatre, the dance hall,the auto, the fine furnishings, the feast, champagne,heaven and hell, and the social, "what will they say."Not in me, in me only my heart governs,only my thought; who governs in me is me.You, flower of aristocracy; and me, flower of the people.You in you have everything and you owe it to everyone,while me, my nothing I owe to nobody.You nailed to the static ancestral dividend,and me, a one in the numerical social divider,we are the duel to death who fatally approaches.When the multitudes run riotingleaving behind ashes of burned injustices,and with the torch of the seven virtues,the multitudes run after the seven sins, against you and against everything unjust and inhuman,I will be in their midst with the torch in my hand.
Julia de Burgos Jack Agüero Translator
Entrepreneurship is all about energy
Dr. Wanda Bonet-Gascot
How do you mourn endless numbers of people in endless numbers of places? Is there a form for it, a requisite time and place for mourning? Is there ever an end to it? Can there ever be an end to it?
Rosario Morales
There are tales that rise like the early sun, breathe, and take on a life of their own. There are ones that flow quietly and effortlessly until time forsakes them, but there are others that fight until they find their way to the edge of reality, as if coming straight out of a dream.
Edwin Fontanez
As the children left, Antonio shifted his gaze towards his father and gently waved at his family, while they returned the gesture.With half a smile and a tight lip, Antonio’s green eyes spoke, “Adiós” (“Good-bye”).Then, he turned and walked towards the green metal door of the steam cargo vessel that swallowed him away.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
What to do now, Father? I am going to die like a killer, and I do not even remember killing.”“You can pray, my son. You are in the hands of God now,” said the good priest.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
SHE RESEARCHED WHEN everyone slept. In the dead silence, her mind worked with more clarity. No interruptions, no worries. Sometimes she even imagined that her ancestors guided her. That they reached out from the past to share their stories. “Hocus Pocus!” she thought, smiling. Her inside joke was a source of inspiration. But her imagination was not far-fetched.My second cousin, twice removed, is a family historian. She is also a lawyer. And this is why I chose her. I needed her to do me a favor. I chose her, although she is a business lawyer and not a criminal lawyer. That was fine by me. It’s not like my lawyers did a superb job at defending me. I was wrongfully executed.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
¡Hundieron el Maine!” said Manuel to his wife Etervina, as he read the newspaper on February 16, 1898. “They sank the Maine!
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Leadership is all about energy
Dr. Wanda Bonet-Gascot
If you are so worried of things that can be fixed that you can't fix them. Just remember we came to this world without refactions.
Pedro A. Pérez Raymond
They have no achievements of their own. They've made nothing, created nothing, worked at nothing. They will leave no trace that they ever existed. They have no legacy except for their names, which they did nothing to earn.
Esmeralda Santiago
I never wanted to be saved, just loved in ways that would make the Gods jealous.
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin
Always remember that with privilege comes responsibility. You must go to Casa Azul and see the place you came from. Only then will you be able to understand how far you've come.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
The path of imperfection is the loving way to learn tolerance and happiness.
Ivan Figueroa-Otero
I want to see a flowering of Arab and Jewish cultures in a country without racism or anti-Semitism, without rich or poor or spat-upon: everyone beneath the vine and fig tree living in peace and unafraid. A homeland for each and every one of us between the mountains and the sea. A multilingual, multireligious, many-colored and -peopled land where the orange tree blooms for all. I will not surrender this vision for any lesser compromise.
Aurora Levins Morales
The physiological effects of an electrocution are severe and painful. Besides launching the body into violent convulsions, the electrocution of a human being causes massive destruction throughout the body.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.
Esmeralda Santiago
I will teach my daughter to color outside the lines, to make mistakes, to take risks, and not be afraid to fail. I will teach her that even when the world tries to knock her down the best revenge is getting up and forging ahead. I will teach her to be brave enough to be different, to stand up for what's right. To never quiet her voice to make someone else feel comfortable. Because no one remembers the person that fits in. It's the one who stands out that people won't be able to forget.
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin
Pardon me for this resolution … I know that this will be a disgrace that I bring to my people, but I cannot help it. Love is the blame for it. I go in peace ... pray for me ... good-bye all.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
We teachers break our bodies to give you a shirt that you will wear in the future, to conferences, to presidential speeches, to autograph signings. That is up to you and if you can do that for at least in a little thank to us. Then thank you, thank you all.
Pedro A. Pérez Raymond
The Porto Ricans at Harvard University believe that the crime was a horrible one and it should be punished, but death penalty would add to, and not detract from, its horrors,” the Harvard students wrote. One of the student signatures on the letter was by Pedro Albizu y Campos who would later become a Puerto Rican promoter of ideals for the island’s independence from the United States.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
If you want something to happen, you must make it happen, because if you really don't want it, it's not going to happen without you. You can't make other people do things for you. You can't wait for people to come and give it to you. You must go out and get it.
Olga Custodio
Children are God's way of saving us. They give us a second chance at getting it right.
Nancy Arroyo Ruffin
I'm pissed off because of all the fuckin' people who shut their eyes while others are victimized because it doesn't benefit them to get involved. It pissed me off that every-fuckin'-body is such a tough guy until a tough situation is actually present to them. Then they become crying little pussies blaming the world and everything it in.
Reymundo Sánchez
I am political in spite of myself. I don't want to do the things I know I have to do, don't want to expose myself to disapproval, to retribution, don't want to go to meetings and demonstrations, distribute leaflets, don't want to ask people for signatures, for money. I don't do these things as naturally as I breathe, the way I imagine real political people do, real communists, real socialists and feminists, real radicals, real troublemakers, real champions of the people. I do them because I know I've got to, because I am convinced it's the only way to make changes, to stop abuses. I do them almost as a last resort. I do them because I've been putting off doing them, avoiding them for months, because finally the necessity has gripped me and overcome my reluctance, my desire for the warmth of my room, for my books, for my people, for the reassurance of my homely habits.
Rosario Morales
It’s over,” said Carmona to the town’s men at the casa alcaldía (city hall). “Word is that the United States Flag is waving in Guánica, Coamo and at El Morro and San Cristóbal Castles in San Juan. Puerto Rico is now United States territory.”“Another transition!” Manuel sighed. “What will this bring?
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Don't sabotage your energy, focus on expanding your energy bubble.
Dr. Wanda Bonet-Gascot
¡Zape! (Shoo!) Go away, go away, espíritu maligno (bad spirit)!” they sang. “Go back to where you came from!”The festive musical celebration combined the prayers and songs with expressive dancing to the rhythm of percussion and string instruments, which accompanied the child’s ascent into heaven, where she would become an angel. Women, men and children ate, drank, prayed, sang and danced. They also played games like la gallina ciega (the blind chicken) where children tried to escape the touch of a blindfolded child who would walk around trying to feel for them. Whoever she touched was disqualified from the game. The baquiné lasted throughout the night. In a time when so many children perished to disease, this was a way for the child’s loved ones to say good-bye and endure the painful loss. But when all were gone, the crude reality set in. Manuel will never forget the image of those poor parents, devastated, sitting alone right next to the altar where their child lay dead, weeping desperately at her loss.He prayed for Ana’s soul. He prayed for those parents.And he prayed that he would never have to suffer the agony of losing a child.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
This is the one who will find us. He's the one who will lead them all back to me someday. He's the explorer. El curioso.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
There is no victory without pain.
Lolita Lebron
What you are about to witness is a blot upon the civilization of the twentieth century."- Sing Sing Deputy Warden Spencer Miller, Addressing Antonio Pontón’s execution witnesses on January 7, 1916
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
THEY CALLED HIM “Ponce de León” because he acted as though he could conquer anything and anyone. He enchanted every young woman that came his way with piropos (pick-up lines) and clever sweet talk. “Has spring started? I just saw the first flower!” Antonio whispered as he walked by a group of blushing young ladies, tipping off his white Panama hat as a silent ‘How do you do?’ He was never at a loss for words. “What are you doing out this morning? Don’t you know that stars only come out at night?” was one of his favorite lines. And he had many. On a good day.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Acuerdate de lo que te digo, mi niño. No tengas miedo. Todo lo que te ha pasado te ayudará. Vas a salir adelante.
Sandra Rodriguez Barron
And then there was nature’s music. The small frog the locals called coquí was a treasured new sound, a lullaby sung by the chanting Puerto Rican native species. Sometimes, while he lay in bed awake at night, Manuel tried to imitate the sound of the little frog. He tried to sing it at first. But then he realized he could get the sound just right by whistling it. “Coquí! Coquí!” Manuel whistled. He improved his coquí whistle every day, until he sounded just as the little frog. People in town laughed at Manuel practicing his coquí sounds. Sometimes they could hear his whistles from outside the store, as though Manuel was carrying out a conversation with the small creatures.The tiny coquí sang through the nights and soothed Manuel’s sleep, keeping him company and reminding him that he was not alone.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
All Americans were immigrants at one point or another,” he explained in his letters to his parents. Even his father Manuel migrated to Puerto Rico. Manuel was deemed a Peninsular, an immigrant from Spain, and sometimes even the Puerto Rican-born, the criollos, resented the Spanish-born newcomers. Manuel was familiar with being singled out, although not quite as much as Antonio felt while in New York. “It is amazing how people tend to forget their past,” Antonio wrote to his parents, surprised. “I recall what you told me about Maestro Rafael, Papá, when he said to you ‘never forget your history.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
On Thanksgiving Day, during our family gathering, we pray you to have mercy on Antonio Pontón …
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
It's all about energy
Dr. Wanda Bonet-Gascot
God listens and He responds. Sometimes His reply could be “I’m with you. Do not be afraid.” Sadly, many times we withdrew long before receiving the blessing He has for us, what He wants to show us; or we get disappointed because we don’t recognize His answer for not being what we expected.
Yilda B. Rivera
There were so many things going on inside me and on the outside—many beyond my control. However, one thing I could control was to pray and commit myself every day to trust God so He could guide me.”—Yilda B. Rivera, Courage Under Fire
Yilda B. Rivera
Banks are the temples of America. This is a holy war. Our economy is our religion.
Giannina Braschi
Antonio looked down, silent, as Shillitoni kept talking. There he was, among cold-blooded killers, talking to a gangster. A much different picture than a year prior.“Can’t trust priests, can’t trust cops either. Can’t trust nobody! Whaddaya say?”“I am not like you,” Antonio said. “I’m not like them, either. That’s what I say. I am not a cold-blooded killer!”“Ya killed, you a killa! There’s not’ng more to it!” Shillitoni said.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
No person … shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law …- Fifth Amendment, United States Constitution
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
Manuel acquired as much land as he could afford and refused to sell it to anyone, even if he was not planting anything on it. “La tierra no se acaba” (“the land does not perish”), he often said.
Yasmin Tirado-Chiodini
She was mourning all her life - not for her husband, who had released her with his death, but for her own dead heart.
Judith Ortiz Cofer
Recuerdo que algún día yo le hablé de mi río y una como tormenta se agitó en sus estrañas. No sé si fue mi pecho que tembló de recuerdo o si fueron mis ojos que asomaron nostalgias." "I remember a day when I spoke of my river and something like a storm stirred in his being. Was it my breast that trembled with the memory Was it nostalgia that showed through my eyes
Julia de Burgos