Olivia Padilla

“The image America has of us doesn't necessarily translate into the image many Latinos have of themselves.”
― Paola Ramos, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America

“They taught me that they were more willing to align themselves with an authoritarian leader rather than engage in the historical reckoning and civil engagement needed to liberate the United States from its dark past. In many ways, the United States own complicated of interventions in Latin America had led us to this exact point in history, conditionting generations of Latinos to opt for strong men and undemocratic belief systems.”
― Paola Ramos, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America

“Yet, I believe that, as Latinos, we have a particular predisposition to fantasize and romanticize the past because our complicated relationship with colonialism has not only distorted our perceptions of good and evil, but it has also allowed us to view ourselves as both the victors and the oppressed, as both the colonizers and the colonized. Both the beauty and the curse of our history as Latinos lie in the way our race and ethnicities are deeply mixed and intertwined.”
― Paola Ramos, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America

“To understand our history, which tells us that Latinos can carry white supremacist tendencies, whether they are racially coded as white or not, is to understand that Latinos can easily act as the majority that we are supposed to reject.”
― Paola Ramos, Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right and What It Means for America