Raquel Cepeda > Raquel's Quotes

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#1

“I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: hispanic, hispanic-american, identity, latina, latina-american, latino-american, race, race-as-concept, racial-ambiguity, racism

30 likes

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#2

“We travel with the same clan over and over again, from one life to the next, until some ultimate purpose is fulfilled and we no longer need to return.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: karma, life, purpose, reincarnation, spirituality, traveling

9 likes

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#3

“When we illuminate the road back to our ancestors, they have a way of reaching out, of manifesting themselves...sometimes even physically.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: ancestors, ancestry, illumination, inspirational, journey, journey-in-life, life, manifestation, mythos, spirituality

46 likes

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#4

“Are Latino-Americans white? Black? Other? Illegal aliens from Mars? Or are we the very face of America?”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: america, hispanic, hispanic-american, hyphenated-identities, identity, latina-american, latino-american, political, race, racial-ambiguity, racism-in-the-west

7 likes

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#5

“Our identities are as fluid as our personal experiences are diverse.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: diversity, human-experience, identity, journey-in-life, journeying, race, race-america, spirituality

9 likes

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#6

“Foisting an identity on people rather than allowing them the freedom and space to create their own is shady.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: freedom, freedom-of-thought, hispanic, identity, immigrant-experience, latino-americans, latinos, race, race-in-america

7 likes

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#7

“Sometimes opposites attract, or so they say, but Paloma and Rocío were like arroz and mangú: they didn’t really mix well.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: dysfunctional-families, family, family-drama, family-relationships, family-saga, hispanic, latina-americans, latinas, latino-american, opposites, sisterhood, sisters, sisters-sibling-rivalry

4 likes

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#8

“In reality, Eduardo hoped the mask would make him appear vulnerable and self conscious, like a wounded animal these stupid women would fight each other over to mend.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: machismo, masculinity, masks, playboy, players, rivalry, vulnerability

11 likes

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#9

“Nobody, she felt, understood her--not her mother, not her father, not her sister or brother, none of the girls or boys at school, nadie--except her man.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: adolescence, first-love, infatuation, love, lust, teenage-love, teenagers

7 likes

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#10

“Paradise is a state of being, more than just the name of a suburb or a home.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: being, home, paradise, spirituality, state-of-being, suburbia

7 likes

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#11

“I fall in love with Paraíso. It’s like a giant playground where I’m never scolded for running around recklessly, where I’m almost overwhelmed with the amount of attention and love I receive from Mami’s family. In New York, I’m invisible.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: alone, coming-of-age, family, home, identity, invisibility, isolation, loneliness, paradise, paraiso, transnational

4 likes

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#12

“The gaping hole in her heart is amplified when she catches a glimpse of the strands of silver hair framing her once young face in the mirror.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: immigrant-experience, rocio, self-image, stressed

3 likes

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#13

“Lately, Mami’s eyes have been so dark, I don’t like looking into them because I’m afraid I’ll fall in.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: darkness, eyes, family-relationships, mami, mothers-and-daughters, rocio, stress

6 likes

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#14

“Shakespeare had it right all along: Love will kill you in the end.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: love-kills, love-lost, relationship-advice, romeo-and-juliet, shakespeare, shakespeare-in-love, wisdom

33 likes

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#15

“This is what I know about my parents. They spent the next several years trying to forget each other, and me.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: coming-of-age, divorce, families, family-saga, forgetting, life, parents

5 likes

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#16

“She looks like an empty shell of a woman with her soul hovering above her. We believe in spiritual guías in Santo Domingo. Hers is her own self. I can see Mami’s soul desperately trying to find its way back into her small body.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: lost, lost-innocence, mami, spiritual-guides, spirituality

3 likes

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#17

“Alice’s razor-thin blond hair is what people in Santo Domingo call bueno, but I don’t understand how that kind of hair can be good. It doesn’t move at all, or ripple like the water in Boca Chica when I throw shells at it.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: boca-chica, good-hair, hair, hair-drama, identity, pelo-bueno, santo-domingo

3 likes

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#18

“Hip-hop, this thing we love that loves us back, is our lingua franca.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: 80s-hip-hop, coming-of-age, counterculture, disenfranchisement, hip-hop, lingua-franca, youth-culture

3 likes

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#19

“We aren’t encouraged to think for ourselves and ask questions. We are expected to accept what they teach us as infallible truths.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: coming-of-age, educational-inequity, educational-system, infallibility, miseducation

9 likes

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#20

“You are meant to be, despite how you got here; you’ll see someday.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: coming-of-age, divine-intervention, journey-in-life, spiritual-guides, spirituality

6 likes

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#21

“Women destroy me. I allow them to.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: cheating, infidelity, machismo, male-and-female-relationships, masculinity, weakness

10 likes

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#22

“Hip-hop is storytelling.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: counterculture, culture, hip-hop, storytellers, storytelling, youth-culture

5 likes

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#23

“The tension between people is palpable, and the ideal of what it means to be and look American becomes a preoccupation to folks around the country, including me.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: america, american-people, american-society, hispanics, identity, identity-crisis, identity-politics, latina-americans, latino, latino-americans, race, race-relations, racial-tension, racism, status-quo

3 likes

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#24

“The hospital room was as cold as dead skin, the hallway crowded with lost souls and reeking of illness.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: father-and-daughter, hospital, mortality, sickness, souls

10 likes

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#25

“I think Dad wanted to feel the pain, to feel his body cry, an urgent reminder that he was still alive. I pretended not to notice.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: alive, father, father-and-daughter, mortality, pain

4 likes

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#26

“The truth is usually left for us to hunt and gather independently, if we are so inclined.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: history, miseducation, re-learning, relearning, truth, truth-seeker, truth-seeking

5 likes

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#27

“Hip-hop...has been the proverbial key that’s opened the door for me to roam this breathtaking planet.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: global-hip-hop, hip-hop, hiphop, journey, journeying, journeys-in-life, proverbial-key, roaming, travel, traveling

4 likes

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#28

“Traveling further ingrained my desire to connect to a place other than an island that is slightly older, in a New World way, than the United States, especially after I found characteristics of my face in the faces of the people in my global community.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: global-community, journeying, love-of-travel, new-world, spiritual-journey, traveling

2 likes

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#29

“I have never bought into the idea that blood is thicker than water. Love and respect are meant to be earned from our children, our spouses, our families, and our friends.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: blood-is-thicker-than-water, friendship, love, relationship-advice, relationships, respecting-others, spousal-love

76 likes

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#30

“To me, travel is more valuable than any stupid piece of bling money can buy.”
― Raquel Cepeda, Bird of Paradise: How I Became Latina

tags: bling, journey, journeying, travel, traveling-abroad, value-in-traveling

4 likes

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hispanic
hispanic-american
identity
latina
latina-american
latino-american
race
race-as-concept
racial-ambiguity
racism
karma
life
purpose
reincarnation
spirituality
traveling
ancestors
ancestry
illumination
inspirational
journey
journey-in-life
manifestation
mythos
america
hyphenated-identities
political
racism-in-the-west
diversity
human-experience
journeying
race-america
freedom
freedom-of-thought
immigrant-experience
latino-americans
latinos
race-in-america
dysfunctional-families
family
family-drama
family-relationships
family-saga
latina-americans
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opposites
sisterhood
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sisters-sibling-rivalry
machismo
masculinity
masks
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vulnerability
adolescence
first-love
infatuation
love
lust
teenage-love
teenagers
being
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alone
coming-of-age
invisibility
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transnational
rocio
self-image
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eyes
mami
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boca-chica
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hip-hop
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infidelity
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