Puerto Rican Quotes

“Ever since then 'Buela is convinced I have magical hands when it comes to cooking. And I don't know if I really have something special, or if her telling me I got something special has brainwashed me into believing it, but I do know I'm happier in the kitchen than anywhere else in the world. It's the one place I let go and only need to focus on the basics: taste, smell, texture, fusion, beauty.
And something special does happen when I'm cooking. It's like I can imagine a dish in my head and I just know that if I tweak this or mess with that, if I give it my special brand of sazón, I'll have made a dish that never existed before. Angelica thinks it's because we live in the hood, so we never have exactly the right ingredients- we gotta innovate, baby. My aunt Sarah says it's in our blood, an innate need to tell a story through food. 'Buela says it's definitely a blessing, magic. That my food doesn't just taste good, it is good- straight up bottled goodness that warms you and makes you feel better about your life. I think I just know that this herb with that veggie with that meat plus a dash of eso ahí will work.
And that if everything else goes wrong, a little squeeze of lime and a bottle of hot sauce ain't never hurt nobody.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent”
― Pedro Pietri

“I have a pint of Puerto Rican rum from Ponce that I am drinking from at intervals in between punctuations on my notes for future reference. Wine is unkind to the mind. I have no emotional use for it. It instigates headaches and induces depression. Rum is articulate.”
― Pedro Pietri, Pedro Pietri: Selected Poetry

“Your Honor, I always wear pants. And on the night in question, instead of wearing them underneath, I wore them just like men do, based on my perfect civil right to do so, on the OUTSIDE

(After getting arrested for wearing pants)”
― Luisa Capetillo

“You're a nice man, Steve. So kind. I'm going to tell my grandmother to pray for you." And I hope he can see in my face that I just sprinkled the juju of a spiteful Puerto Rican grandmother all over his life.”
― Elizabeth Acevedo, With the Fire on High

“A Memory Is Better Than A Phony!”
― Latif Mercado

“They ask for freedom and they practice oppression”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Pants adapt perfectly to this era of female progress

(From "Mi Opinion")”
― Luisa Capetillo

“Seeing the society that the Cuban people were attempting to build inspired me to believe it was possible to arrange a nation’s priorities to meet the needs of the majority of its people instead of just those of its corporations and super rich.”
― Iris Morales, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords, 1969-1976

“We believed that the women’s struggle for equality was the ‘revolution within the revolution.”
― Iris Morales, Through the Eyes of Rebel Women: The Young Lords, 1969-1976

“Where is the voice of freedom, / freedom to laugh, / to move / without the heavy phantom of despair?

(From "Farewell from Welfare Island")”
― Julia de Burgos

“Poetry such as "Puerto Rican Obituary" highlights another significant aspect of movement thought: the shift from cultural shame to ethnic pride. Unlike earlier critiques of prejudice and discrimination, movement rhetoric and writings often focused on the emotional and psychic damage of racism, exploring the need to overcome internalized shame and self-hate.”
― Cristina Beltrán, The Trouble with Unity: Latino Politics and the Creation of Identity

“Dícenme que mi abuelo fue el esclavo
por quien el amo dio trienta monedas.
Ay, ay, ay, que el esclavo fue mi abuelo
es mi pena, es mi pena.
Si hubiera sido el amo,
sería mi vergüenza;
que en los hombres, igual que en las naciones,
si el ser el siervo es no tener derechos,
el ser el amo es no tener conciencia.

They tell me that my grandfather was the slave
for whom the master paid thirty coins.
Ay, ay, ay, that the slave was my grandfather
is my sadness, is my sadness.
If he had been the master
it would be my shame:
that in men, as in nations,
if being the slave is having no rights
being the master is having no conscience.

(Ay, Ay, Ay de la grifa negra/Ay, Ay, Ay of the Kinky-Haired Negress)”
― Julia de Burgos

“¡Río Grande de Loíza!...Mi manantial, mi río,
desde que alzóme al mundo el pétalo materno;
contigo se bajaron desde las rudas cuestas,
a buscar nuevos surcos, mis pálidos anhelos;
y mi niñez fue toda un poema en el río,
y un río en el poema de mis primeros sueños.

Río Grande de Loíza!...My wellspring, my river
since the maternal petal lifted me to the world;
my pale desires came down in you from the craggy hills
to find new furrows;
and my childhood was all a poem in the river,
and a river in the poem of my first dreams.”
― Julia de Burgos

“Piri Thomas' book Down These Mean Streets followed me around for years, in the corner of my eye on bus terminal bookracks. Finally, in a gritted teeth desperation I faced the damn thing and said "OK, tell me." I sweated my way through it in two nights: Gang fights, knifings, robberies, smack, prison. It's the standard Puerto Rican street story, except he lived. The junkies could be my younger brothers. The prisoners could be them. I could be the prostitute, the welfare mother, the sister and lover of junkies, the child of alcoholics. There is nothing but circumstance and good English, nothing but my mother marrying into the middle class, between me and that life.”
― Aurora Levins Morales

“What I wouldn't give for a jibarito joint in Shady Palms," I said, ladling heaps of arroz con gandules on my plate. The rice and beans looked so simple, but one bite was like tasting the rice of the gods.
Xander groaned. "Oh man, jibaritos. I still haven't mastered making them at home. You'd think it wouldn't be too hard since I can make tostones, but somehow smashing and double-deep-frying plantain discs is different than doing that to a whole plantain to make a sandwich."
Jibaritos were a Puerto Rican specialty, consisting of steak or pork, lettuce, tomato, onions, and garlic sauce sandwiched between smashed, fried plantains. They were both simple and utterly decadent, and when a craving hit, nothing else would do.”
― Mia P. Manansala, Blackmail and Bibingka