Let Hernandez

“Does it go away?" she asks. "Missing each other?"
I think about how much I missed Maman. I still do, though it isn´t as acute as it once was.
"A little bit," I whisper.
"Enough so that life continues. In a year you won´t even think about me. " She turns around in my arms and looks up at me, tugging at a strand of my hair.
"don´t say stupid things, Sahar. You´re smarter than that.”
― Sara Farizan, If You Could Be Mine

“In this country, lesbianism is a poverty-as is being brown, as is being a woman, as is being just plain poor. The danger lies in ranking the oppressions. The danger lies in failing to acknowledge the specificity of the oppression. The danger lies in attempting to deal with oppression purely from a theoretical base. Without an emotional, heartfelt grappling with the source of our own oppression, without naming the enemy within ourselves and outside of us, no authentic, non-hierarchical connection among oppressed groups can take place.

When the going gets rough, will we abandon our so-called comrades in a flurry of racist/heterosexist/what-have-you panic? To whose camp, then, should the lesbian of color retreat? Her very presence violates the ranking and abstraction of oppression. Do we merely live hand to mouth? Do we merely struggle with the "ism" that's sitting on top of our heads?

The answer is: yes, I think first we do; and we must do so thoroughly and deeply. But to fail to move out from there will only isolate us in our own oppression- will only insulate, rather than radicalize us.”
― Cherríe L. Moraga, Loving in the War Years

“True love can break the most powerful curse”
― Jodi Picoult, Between the Lines

“Have you ever been in love?"
"Love is for real people.”
― Charles Bukowski, Factotum