Sucks to be left out of adolescence, sort of like getting locked in the closet on Venus when the sun appears for the first time in a hundred years.

I think a lot of the most interesting immigrant writing involves stepping outside of that old, dreary binary. Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker is a great example. Same goes for Maxine Hong Kingston's The Woman Warrior.

She had reason to doubt him; he was real good at planning but real bad at doing.

Books are wonderful, but they aren't that powerful.

As a Dominican man, you're socialized to be a playboy. You spend a lot of time being taught that women are important, but without the really positive framework of why. You figure out quickly it's because of culo (ass). But there is a sense that it's not that simple.

But if these years have taught me anything it is this: you can never run away. Not ever. The only way out is in.

Sometimes you just have to try, even if you know it won’t work.