David

“Yeah, my dad picked [ the name Olga]. Wanted to make me 'ambitious.' But my mother worried that I would take after the Olga from Puerto Rican Obituary. That Olga was ashamed of her identity and died dreaming of money and being anything other than herself.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Yet the way he spoke sounded as natural and sure, so tender and brotherly, and even as I figured it was some sort of con, I understood at last that it was a con I needed. Now and from the beginning. For maybe your favorite teacher or coach or best friend conned you, too, into believing in a version of yourself you hadn't yet imagined, a person many factors more capable, a person who might not have otherwise bloomed.”
― Chang rae-Lee, My Year Abroad

“Again and again, Olga returned to church after that, hopeful that this visit would be the moment when she was healed. That on this occasion, the anger that so often filled her would be replaced by grace.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“And so, Olga, you must see yourself and my absence not as one little girl missing her mother, but as a brave young woman who knows that in a world of oppression, achieving liberation will require sacrifice. You can't stay in your room and cry. You can't keep Abuelita up at night with your tears. You have to keep your head held high, you have to be strong. Like the revolutionary we raised you to be.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming