Every Day We Get More Illegal Quotes

“we will chant our many births
about the abyss and the aurora
about the sacred dizziness as we broke
through all the cries of wars and redemptions of being
-- this blurred world”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“his love for Heidegger & Nietzsche & the Chinese classics
what I mean
is his insistence on deciphering the way of things not
the pettiness of our lives
of our political & cultural entanglement with you he wanted
to pierce the Quantum
of it all of us all”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“& no one knew we existed in the fires
the flames that consume all of us
now”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“that everything
in a time of all things in collapse”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“if you
climb faster
than the others

you will
reach the place
you have dreamed of

yet
you will miss something
you will miss the journey of the
whole”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“Everyday We Get More Illegal

Yet the peach tree
still rises
& falls with fruit & without
birds eat it the sparrows fight”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“get out
of your
bubble

i
am
hitting the
button

what
button

the
deportation
button

wow

you hear
me

wow

i am hitting
it”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“take
my frog

you
got
to be
kidding

take it

you are
out
of your
mind

it's a meditation frog

never
in your
life

you can
meditate
with it”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“i am
here
of my own
free will

there
is no
such
thing

yes
that is why
i am
protesting”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“you have
been instructed
to launch
a spiral a ring
across the
edifice
to install
a fracture
a severance
a crevice

what are you saying
how do you know

we know
you do things &
then you do
them

i am
protesting
that
is
all

no
you
are not”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“you are a paid
protestor

no

we know
you are being
paid

no

we know you
are being
paid
at this
very moment

no

we know
you are
being funded
by shadow
investors

that is
incorrect”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“my time is now >
the time is now >>”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“we stood up
we danced all the colors > there is no standing the color dances are
illegal haven't you heard > we had colors on our hands and scarves >”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“my name is Xochitl Tzompantli
Skull Rack Flower i am
the life-cutter the eater
watchtowers guards artillery
wires & codes & dogs &
filth nourish me”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“this is not a poor-boy story
this is a pioneer story
this is your story
America are you listening”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“was a city wonderer a believer in magic”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“used to think suits were impossible -- still do
clip-ties were doable used clothes most appropriate”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“was an unlicensed professional window shopper”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“was a green-yellow-brown Mexican in a Greyhound bus
you ever noticed green-yellow-brown Mexicans at the depot
was every color & tone & texture except White or Brown”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“used to think I was not American enuf
used to think I would never be American enuf”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“notice: how they bend in the fires no one sees
notice: their ecstatic colors & their knotted shirts
notice: where they cash
their tiny & wrinkled checks & pay stubs:
stand in that small-town desert sundries store
then walk out they do & stall for a moment they do
underneath this colossal tree with its condor-wings
shedding solace for a second or two notice:
how they touch the earth — for you”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“above us & in our hands & on our forehead there is a light
we call it a star a star a starstar a star a starstar



a star”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“It is more than an arbitrary stop or as it is called the border it is
an arrangement of agreements of always-war why is that when all
we desire is peace bread water clothes work a thatched roof -- &
humanity -- most of all”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“somewhere in there
there is change”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“are you the remoteness that is all we know now”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“you do not care about those who fight for you
write for you live for you act for you study for you dance for you
parade for you paint and construct for you carry you build you
inform you feed you nanny you clean you vacuum for you swipe
the grease off your clothes chef for you serve you teach you carry
carry you rock you to sleep and console you the rape the assault
the segregation the jailing the deportations upon deportations
the starving the ones curled up on the freezing detention corners
because they wanted to touch you to meet you against all odds
and you — you
just don’t talk about it”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“you
prefer the holiday merchandise the rational vacuum you just
don’t care about the pushed out the stopped out the forced out
the starved out the fenced out the shot down the cut back the
asphalted out on the other side of the track the suicided the
hanged w/ a bedsheet of nothing in the cell of nothing with
no one at the gate the segregated tier the jailed forever the
imprisoned forever”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal

“As Basho has said —
it is a narrow road to the Deep North — as Mandela has said
the haphazard segregation later became a well-orchestrated
segregation
— as Basho has said the journey began with an attained
awareness
that at any moment you can become a weather-exposed skeleton
— think of us in this manner
these are notes for your nourishment — hold them
as bowls of kindness
from journeys of bravery
the will to seek & find the sudden turning rivers & the dawn-eyed

freedom”
― Juan Felipe Herrera, Every Day We Get More Illegal