Allee

“At the heart of our relationship was a debt that changed hands each time we failed to be good to each other. We had passed it back and forth for years, and it had grown to an unbearable size. We would never settle the score.”
― Santiago Jose Sanchez, Hombrecito

“What would my parents tell me now? Your intentions and your actions must always match, Daiyu. I want to be thick and strong and straight, my lines as black as ink, my corners sharp and neat. I want to be someone I can be proud of. Not someone ruled by fate, but someone who can be certain that her life is a result of the choices she has made. This is the kind of person I want to be: the perfect line.”
― Jenny Tinghui Zhang

“A promise is a promise indeed. But is it any different from the promise my parents made to me, that they would always be there for me? Or is a promise the one they made to themselves, that they would do everything in their power to help those without power? Both were promises. Both were important. My parents were good people. But they had a higher calling.”
― Jenny Tinghui Zhang, Four Treasures of the Sky

“Into this maelstrom, this present elaboration of the slave quarters, this rehearsal for a concentration camp, we place, armed, not for the protection of the ghetto but for the protection of American investments there, some blank American boy who is responsible only to some equally blank elder patriot… The white cop in the ghetto is as ignorant as he is frightened, and his entire concept of police work is to cow the natives. He is not compelled to answer these natives for anything he does; whatever he does, he knows that he will be protected by his brothers, who will allow nothing to stain the honor of the force. And he is assured of the rightness of his court and the justice of his bigotry every time Nixon, or Agnew, or Mitchell - or the governor of the state of California - open their mouths.”
― James Baldwin, No Name in the Street