Ines

“One characteristic of racism is that children are treated like adults and adults are treated like children. Watching a parent being debased like a child is the deepest shame. I cannot count the number of times I have seen my parents condescended to or mocked by white adults. This was so customary that when my mother had any encounter with a white adult, I was always hypervigilant, ready to mediate or pull her away. To grow up Asian in America is to witness the humiliation of authority figures like your parents and to learn not to depend on them: they cannot protect you.”
― Cathy Park Hong, Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning

“Ordinary . . .” I mumbled. To be like others. To be ordinary without having experienced terrible ordeals. To go to school, graduate, and if lucky, go to college and get an okay job and meet a woman I like and get married and have kids . . . things like that. Put differently, to not stand out.”
― Won-pyung Sohn, Almond

“And he owned a lot of books, although just now and then, when it got dark and the shelves loomed over him, he got the feeling that they owned him.”
― K.J. Charles, Slippery Creatures

“Oh, and by the way, I love you.”
― Christelle Dabos, Les Disparus du Clairdelune