This Place Is Still Beautiful Quotes

“I found out being lonely is different than being alone. Loneliness, it turns out, isn't quite as easy to escape." -Margaret”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“I think about all the other Asian families who stay quiet, the mothers who tell us that we only need to put our heads down and work hard to succeed in this country, the bitterness of that lie. Our community. They always tell us that we're the good ones, the ones who don't complain, the model minority. We smile as they walk all over us.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“As I go around, living my life, the small transactions and moments with my friends, the support of teachers, the smiles of strangers, I tell myself repeatedly that there are good people. People can be bad, but they can be good too. I don't want to forget that.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“But Thom did chose, in the end. He didn't choose me.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“This is my mother . . . I wish I could talk to her the way I want to. I wish I could make her understand my heart, or that I could understand hers, but between us, there is an entire ocean that we will never be able to cross.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“Part of growing up, I think, is realizing that not everything your family does is normal or acceptable.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“You can't count on anything these days except yourself.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“You can only push someone away so many times before they never come back" -Margaret”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“I tell her about how if feels to be part of a community, only to be rudely told that you are "other" out of nowhere. What it's like for something racist to happen to you, only to have to defend whether it's racist enough to count, and whether I've considered the feelings of everyone else about my own harm. I talk about how being Asian means that people only like you when you're trying to assimilate, but you're the first to be scapegoated when somebody needs a scapegoat. How easy it is for you to forget for even a moment that you are still not one of them, how easy it can be to turn away from other people of color when it matters. You're standing with a foot inside the door of whiteness, but you'll never step all the way in.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful

“Maybe one day we will find the right words, but at the moment, he just stands with me in this alley, shielded from the sun. Dark, but not alone.”
― XiXi Tian, This Place Is Still Beautiful