Olga Dies Dreaming Quotes

“You must remember, mijo, even people who were once your sails can become your anchors.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Benevolent colonialism is still colonialism.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“The greatest fool is the man of color who defines his success by the White Man's standard”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Of course, the problem is that we don’t live in a world just of women. Not only do men exist, but we are drawn to them and, for complex reasons, they do not treasure time in the same way that we do. It may have to do with an inability to face mortality, or needs of ego, or maybe it simply has to do with the fact that they don’t hear the ticking of a biological clock. What I can say with certainty is that a man has no problem wasting time, especially that of a woman. And they manage to do so in such insidious ways we often don’t notice that it’s happening until it’s too late.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Debt is one of The Man’s great tools for keeping people of color oppressed.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“A man has no problem wasting time, especially that of a woman. And they manage to do so in such insidious ways we often don't notice that it's happening until it's too late.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“It's a myth about motherhood, Olga felt, that the time in utero imbues mothers with a lifelong understanding of their children. Yes, they know their essences, this she didn't doubt, but mothers are still humans who eventually form their own ideas of both who their kids are and who they think they should be. Inevitably there were disparities.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“In Olga’s heart there was a pin-sized hole of infinite depth that made every day slightly more painful than it needed to be. She thought of it, this hole, as a birth defect. The space where, in a normal heart, a mother’s love was meant to be.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“It’s dangerous at your young age to be surrounded by people who don’t value who you are. Who don’t understand you. A child can become lost.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“They were nice people, generally, but their litany of problems, real or imagined, never waned. Nor did their sense of urgency around getting these problems resolved, their allergy to even a moment’s discomfort quite severe.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“In a woman's world, time is the most precious commodity. and we don't have it to waste.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Because I understand all the problems, I just fundamentally don’t believe we can fix them. However, I fully support those on the bottom taking as much advantage of the top as humanly possible.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Never remembering that when they ask for your time it's always before and after they accomplished what they wanted to do with their day.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“... if you did nothing for the rest of your life of any note, you'd be more than enough.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“She wanted to know the size and shape of the hole that had been left in his heart that required so many objects to fill it.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Their nation—America—was restless after the collapse of slavery. White supremacists were desperate for new Brown bodies to dominate; the capitalists salivated for new lands to exploit. And so began their destruction of Puerto Rico.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Who wouldn’t want to claim an identity that allows them to pay zero taxes on capital gains, interests, or dividends? Puerto Rico represents a chance to live the American dream as it was intended: the freedom to reach our full potential without having to support a welfare state.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Girl, I don’t need to be Puerto Rican to want to help out. That’s the problem right now. People think they’re only responsible for people exactly like them. I don’t feel that way. They left my people to die after Katrina. It’s the same. Like I said, it’s on us to help each other.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Prieto had never given much thought to The Man. The notion of one mythical, monolithic, rich, powerful White Man puppeteering the lives of people of color to keep them dancing in service of his larger plan seemed far too simplistic to serve the complex issue of systemic oppression very well.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“How much that hurt. How much, she and her brother realized, they had internalized this, becoming these people who needed to be seen in order to exist.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“I won’t try to convince you that this guy isn’t worthy of you. I remember being young and thinking I understood love, too. But I do have to ask questions, in the hopes that you will ask them of yourself. What are his bigger ambitions for himself? When was the last time he asked about yours? Besides your looks, does he value your mind? Does he ask your opinions in public? Does he support your curiosities in a meaningful way? What is his vision for you as a wife and a mother? What is his vision for himself as a husband and a father? Does he ask you if you want to have kids or does he just assume? Does he know that money can purchase things but not joy?”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“There were, inevitably, children’s clothing stores, furniture shops still offering bedroom sets by layaway, and dollar stores whose awnings teemed with suspended inflatable dolls, beach chairs, laundry carts, and other impulse purchases a mom might make on a Saturday afternoon, exhausted by errand running with her kids. There was the sneaker store where Olga used to buy her cute kicks, the fruit store Prieto had worked at in high school, the little storefront that sold the kind of old-lady bras Abuelita used to wear. On the sidewalks, the Mexican women began to set up their snack stands. Mango with lime and chili on this corner, tamales on that. Until the Mexicans had come to Sunset Park, Olga had never tried any of this food, and now she always tried to leave a little room to grab a snack on her way home. Despite the relatively early hour, most of the shops were open, music blasting into the streets, granting the avenue the aura of a party. In a few more hours, cars with their stereos pumping, teens with boom boxes en route to the neighborhood’s public pool, and laughing children darting in front of their mothers would add to the cacophony that Olga had grown to think of as the sound of a Saturday.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Her fear of her own imperfections were softened by his acceptance of his own.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Borikén, the original name of the island from which you and I descend, means Land of the Noble Lord. This name was given by the Taíno, the native people.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Have you forgotten that when money is what centers someone's soul, that soul is hollow?”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“you’re saving me—all of us—from being washed away. You’ve put down little anchors, even if it’s just a few. Even if we’re just little dinghies floating in this big sea. I didn’t think I could love you more.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Women are born with barometers in our belly that make us more sensitive to the climate around us and because we're so often on the lowers rung of any ladder, we're naturally inclined to look out for the least among us.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“I know you are.” And he kissed her softly. “But, there’s another thing. Olga, you can’t be washing money for these Russian cats. It’s all blinis and vodka shots until you end up dead in Little Odessa, and I love you too much to risk that happening. If you need money until you figure out what you want to do next, please let me help you.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“It was a brutal exercise, wrestling with objective reality. To see how their mother had manipulated their lives and their feelings. To see how she attempted to subtly poison the way they saw their aunts and uncles, their cousins, their father, and even, in some instances, their grandmother. All the people who had loved them in her absence.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming

“Indeed, he even gave her odious brother a moment of reconsideration. Such a remarkable rise. It made him feel oddly patriotic; the American dream, still possible.”
― Xóchitl González, Olga Dies Dreaming