Amanda Desilva

“Life’s not fair, but she doesn’t need it to be fair, because she can take anything life throws at her, and she won’t break.”
― Traci Chee, We Are Not Free

“is that what life was like? people coming together and drifting apart, coming together and drifting apart, over and over?”
― Traci Chee, We Are Not Free

“Another Mexican American in another class, approaches Victor after class, carrying his copy of Fahrenheit 451, required reading for the course. The student doesn't understand the reference to a salon. Victor explains that this is just another word for the living room. No understanding in the student's eyes. He tries Spanish: la salon. Still nothing. The student has grown up as a migrant worker. And Victor remembers the white student who had been in his class a quarter ago, who had written about not understanding racism, that there was none where he had grown up, in Wennatchee, that he has played with the children of his father's migrant workers without there being any hostility. His father's workers. Property. Property that doesn't know of living rooms. And Victor thought of what the man from Wennatchee knew, what the ROTC Mexican American knew, what the migrant worker knew. And he thought of getting up the next morning to go with Serena to St. Mary's for cheese and butter. And he knew there was something he was not doing in his composition classrooms.”
― Victor Villanueva, Bootstraps: From an American Academic of Color

“I want to believe in right and wrong. Here is what's right. Here is what isn't. Here is the line. Here is the question: If I got to war for America, if I kill for America, if I support an America that doesn't support me, and I supporting my oppressors? Am I killing their enemies so they can later kill me?”
― Traci Chee, We Are Not Free