Raquel Cepeda - Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina (2013)

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The things that come to us easily, our propensities, are carried on a deep subconscious level into our next life. There are no coincidences.

Raquel Cepeda
While America will always, I think, feel foreign to me, New York City is my home. This is where I can construct my own identity freely and reject labels imposed on me.

Raquel Cepeda
I wish she'd said something different, but patriarchy is as prevalent around the world as racism and xenophobia are. We can't hide from it, not even here.

Raquel Cepeda
Even 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 Cepeda
There are things in our blood that are just naturally passed down to us, whether we want to recognize them or not.

Raquel Cepeda
Being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about.

Raquel Cepeda
For some, excavating the past isn't an adventure, it's more akin to tearing a Band-Aid off an open wound.

Raquel Cepeda
Lately, Mami's eyes have been so dark, I don't like looking into them because I'm afraid I'll fall in.

Raquel Cepeda
We 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 Cepeda
This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.

Raquel Cepeda
Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.

Raquel Cepeda
Nobody, 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 Cepeda
Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?

Raquel Cepeda
If Aphrodite chills at home in Cyprus for most of the year, then Fez must be the goddess's playground

Raquel Cepeda
I remember feeling that pieces of me were scattered around the world; I belonged to her, Mother Earth.

Raquel Cepeda
When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.

Raquel Cepeda
Our identities are as fluid as our personal experiences are diverse.

Raquel Cepeda
We aren't encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.

Raquel Cepeda
This thing I am feeling, I'm almost certain, is the closest I'll ever come to standing somewhere in between truth and reconciliation.

Raquel Cepeda
I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.

Raquel Cepeda
Come 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 Cepeda
The 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 Cepeda
Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.

Raquel Cepeda
To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy

Raquel Cepeda
A mother isn't the person who births you; it's the person who rears you and shows you love.

Raquel Cepeda