Samantha

“Nobody is ever beating off starvation at Mitzi’s house. Her parents are so utterly boring, old-fashioned, and ordinary. Her dad works at a clinic, and her mom volunteers, does the laundry, and cooks. Everybody does his or her job – and Mitzi’s is only to study. I decide that annoys me too. What would my life be like if my dad were still around? Easier, I bet, just like hers.”
― Meg Medina, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

“When I look up, I’m surprised to find myself in front of the old building. My feet must have gone on autopilot. I’m like one of those African elephants that finds her way home, no matter how far she’s roamed.”
― Meg Medina, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

“Son unas cualquieras,” she mutters. Nobodies. No culture, no family life, illiterates, she means. The kind of people who make her cross to the other side of the street if she meets them in the dark on payday. They’re her worst nightmare of what a Latin girl can become in the United States. Their big hoop earrings and plucked eyebrows, their dark lips painted like those stars in the old black-and-white movies, their tight T-shirts that show too much curve and invite boys’ touches.”
― Meg Medina, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass

“The camera does a close-up on the girl who can miraculously see again. It cuts to the mother-in-law, then to the clueless husband. All at once, the credits run.

“Maldito sea!” Lila shoves the coffee table with her foot. “We have to wait to see that hussy get what’s coming?”

“Please. You know what’s coming.” I rub perfume on my wrists and sniff. It’s better than sour milk, and it reminds me of fancy department stores where I can only browse. I stuff a few samples in my pocket. “It’s going to end the way all the novelas end. Everybody happy.”

She shoos away my idea like it’s a bad smell. “So what? Nobody gets happy the same way. That’s what’s interesting.”
― Meg Medina, Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your Ass