Rattle

“The twisted inversion that many children of immigrants know is that, at some point, your parents become your children, and your own personal American dream becomes making sure they age and die with dignity in a country that has never wanted them.”
― Karla Cornejo Villavicencio, The Undocumented Americans

“Immigrants have to grow a thick skin if they want to do something more than wait hand and foot on the Finns, my father used to say. Go ahead, do as they do. Ruin your life by being like them, but one day you’ll see that if you try to become their equal, they’ll despise you all the more, and then you’ll end up hating yourself. Don’t give them the satisfaction.”
― Pajtim Statovci, My Cat Yugoslavia

“The next real literary "rebels" in this country might well emerge as some weird bunch of anti-rebels, born oglers who dare somehow to back away from ironic watching, who have the childish gall actually to endorse and instantiate single-entendre principles. Who treat of plain old untrendy human troubles and emotions in U.S. life with reverence and conviction. Who eschew self-consciousness and hip fatigue. These anti-rebels would be outdated, of course, before they even started. Dead on the page. Too sincere. Clearly repressed. Backward, quaint, naive, anachronistic. Maybe that'll be the point. Maybe that's why they'll be the next real rebels. Real rebels, as far as I can see, risk disapproval. The old postmodern insurgents risked the gasp and squeal: shock, disgust, outrage, censorship, accusations of socialism, anarchism, nihilism. Today's risks are different. The new rebels might be artists willing to risk the yawn, the rolled eyes, the cool smile, the nudged ribs, the parody of gifted ironists, the "Oh how banal". To risk accusations of sentimentality, melodrama. Of overcredulity. Of softness. Of willingness to be suckered by a world of lurkers and starers who fear gaze and ridicule above imprisonment without law. Who knows”
― David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

“Try to teach them something, but they’ll never learn. Give them a job and they’ll steal your money. Give them an apartment and they’ll trash it, though they don’t even have to pay for it themselves,” said the cat sternly. “Good God,”
― Pajtim Statovci, My Cat Yugoslavia