Matt Ortile

“Unlearning the colonialism I was taught, the stories I've been told and I've told myself, is a daily practice, like learning a new language. You learn it by watching films, listening to the radio, reading books. Your ear gets attuned to it. You pick up the vocabulary, learn the system's grammar and mechanics. From there, you can understand and deconstruct it. Sure, learning a language is a solo task, but it helps to have conversation partners.”
― Matt Ortile, The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance

“Colonization works by cutting off peoples from their own heritage-be it traditions or languages, orthographies or names...They taught us Spanish for the same reason Americans taught us English: to homogenize colonial subjects under one tongue, one fist. ("You're in America," we're told-not only as immigrants to the US but as erstwhile property of the American empire. "Speak English.")”
― Matt Ortile, The Groom Will Keep His Name: And Other Vows I've Made About Race, Resistance, and Romance