jaddy

“The truth was that I didn’t know which I was. I wasn’t allowed to claim the thing I felt and I didn’t feel the thing I was supposed to claim.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“Americans can handle one person from anywhere. They had Desi Arnaz from Cuba. And Tin Tan from México. And Rita Moreno from Puerto Rico. But as soon as there are too many of us, they throw up their hands. No, no, no! We were only just curious. We are not actually interested in you people.”
― Cristina Henriquez

“I felt the way I often felt in this country - simultaneously conspicuous and invisible, like an oddity whom everyone noticed but chose to ignore”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans

“I learned something about grief. I had heard people say that when someone dies, it leaves a hole in the world. But it doesn't, I realized. Arturo was still everywhere. Something would happen and I would think, Wait until I tell Arturo. I kept turning around, expecting to see him. If he had disappeared completely, I thought, it might be easier. If I had no knowledge that he had ever existed, no evidence that he was ever part of our lives, it might have been bearable. And how wrong that sounded: part of our lives. As if he was something with boundaries, something that hadn't permeated us, flowed through us and in us and all around us. I learned something about grief. When someone dies, it doesn't leave a hole and that's the agony.”
― Cristina Henriquez, The Book of Unknown Americans