When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.
Raquel CepedaThis is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.
Raquel CepedaFoisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.
Raquel CepedaWe aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.
Raquel CepedaWe travel with the same clan over and over again, from one life to the next, until some ultimate purpose is fulfilled and we no longer need to return.
Raquel CepedaThis thing I am feeling, I’m almost certain, is the closest I’ll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.
Raquel CepedaI have never bought into the idea that blood is thicker than water. Love and respect are meant to be earned from our children, our spouses, our families, and our friends.
Raquel CepedaI remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.
Raquel CepedaAre Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?
Raquel CepedaThere are things in our blood that are just naturally passed down to us, whether we want to recognize them or not.
Raquel CepedaGlobalization by the way of McDonald’s and KFC has captured the hearts, the minds, and from what I can see through the window, the growing bellies of the folks here.
Raquel CepedaIf Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess’s playground
Raquel CepedaLately, Mami’s eyes have been so dark, I don’t like looking into them because I’m afraid I’ll fall in.
Raquel CepedaEven the juncture in history and the zeitgeist we live in is something we choose, setting the scene for the spiritual fodder we need to grow and achieve deeper elevation of our souls.
Raquel CepedaCome to think of it, maybe God is a He after all, because only a cruel force would create something this beautiful and make it inaccessible to most people
Raquel CepedaBeing Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.
Raquel CepedaIndividually, every grain of sand brushing against my hands represents a story, an experience, and a block for me to build upon for the next generation.
Raquel CepedaThe past is buried deep within the ground in Rabat, although the ancient walls in the old city are still standing, painted in electrifying variations of royal blue that make the winding roads look like streamlets or shallow ocean water
Raquel CepedaI guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.
Raquel CepedaNobody, she felt, understood her-not her mother, not her father, not her sister or brother, none of the girls or boys at school, nadie - except her man.
Raquel CepedaThe hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.
Raquel CepedaThe things that come to us easily, our propensities, are carried on a deep subconscious level into our next life. There are no coincidences.
Raquel CepedaJanet Mock's honest and sometimes searing journey is a rare and important look into la vida liminal, one that she manages to negotiate remarkably well, with grace, humor, and fierce grit. Mock doesn't only redefine what realness means to her, but challenges us to rethink our own perceptions of gender and sexuality, feminism and sisterhood, making this book a transcendent piece of American literature.
Raquel CepedaFor some, excavating the past isn’t an adventure, it’s more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.
Raquel Cepeda