My mom would spend a week in jail. She would spend a day in jail here - a week again, a week and a half, two weeks. My grandmother tells me stories of how because I would be at the house, I wouldn't notice that my mom was gone because she would be at work sometimes. So it was just like time when my mom would be gone and my grandma would tell me she'll be back. And nobody knew where anybody was.

I became a chameleon. My color didn't change. But I could change your perception of my color.

We all do that as human beings, you know? It's what my mom would call shopping on an empty stomach. You're going to buy food that you shouldn't because, at the time, you are reacting to your hunger.

I learned to use language like my mother did. I would simulcast, give you the program in your own tongue.

I've come to learn as an adult that love is a hell of a drug. It's one of the most dangerous things that human beings can have. It's also one of the most beautiful things that human beings can possess because love, on one hand, gives you the ability to care for a human being sometimes more than you would care for yourself. Love, unfortunately, sometimes gives you the ability to forgive somebody and blind yourself to the truth.

I lived in a world where I didn't share the love for my stepfather that my mother shared for him. She married him.

Smaller incidents in my life made me realize that language, even more than color, defines who you are to people.