Marisabel

“I had never read a book like abuela's living room, but still I savored it my preferred way - like the private, treasured pages of a novel.”
― Quiara Alegría Hudes, My Broken Language

“I feared that not crying meant I hadn’t loved them enough. Perhaps weeping and dancing live in the same place within us, and I had shuttered that part of me away. The part that touches grief, euphoria, and god. Without tears, I could never legitimately call them my losses, only ours.”
― Quiara Alegría Hudes, My Broken Language

“Zipping my lips meant swallowing my contradictions and confusions, guarding the flavor for only myself.”
― Quiara Alegría Hudes, My Broken Language

“Language was not what connected us as a family. A dinner table ritual, where people gather to discuss news of the day, was not at the heart of how we communicated. Bodies were the mother tongue at Abuela’s, with Spanish second and English third. Dancing and ass-slapping, palmfuls of rice, ponytail-pulling and wound-dressing, banging a pot to the clave beat. Hands didn’t get lost in translation. Hips bridged gaps where words failed.”
― Quiara Alegría Hudes, My Broken Language