Quotes About Family

Only Puerto Rican girl on the earth who wouldn't give up the ass for any reason. I can't, she said. I can't make any mistakes. ...Paloma was convinced that if she made any mistakes in the next two years, any mistakes at all, she would be stuck in that family of hers forever. That was her nightmare. Imagine if I don't get in anywhere, she said. You'd still have me, you tried to reassure her, but Paloma looked at you like the apocalypse would be preferable.

If you didn't grow up like I did then you don't know and if you don't know it's probably better you don't judge. You don't know the hold our mothers have on us, even the ones that are never around.

Something must have happened, your mother speculated. In her mind a woman with no child could only be explained by vast untrammeled calamity. Maybe she just doesn't like children. Nobody likes children, your mother assured you. That doesn't mean you don't have them.

La Inca shook her head. She was looking at her favorite picture of his mother on her first day at private school, one of those typical serious DR shots. What always happens. Un maldito hombre.

Those last months. No way of wrapping it pretty or pretending otherwise: Rafa was dying. By then it was only me and Mami taking care of him and we didn't know what the fuck to do, what the fuck to say. So we just said nothing. My mom wasn't the effusive type anyway, had one of those event-horizon personalities-shit just fell into her and you never really knew how she felt about it. She just seemed to take it, never gave anything off, not light, not heat.

Don't tell her that your moms knew right away what it was, that she recognized its smell from the year the United States invaded your island.

No matter what the fuck he pulled-and my brother pulled a lot of shit-she was always a hundred percent on his side, as only a Latin mom can be with her querido oldest hijo. If he'd come home one day an said, Hey, Ma, I exterminated half the planet, I´m sure she would have defended his ass: Well, hijo, we were overpopulated.

The next day at breakfast he asked his mother: Am I ugly? She sighed. Well, hijo, you certainly don't take after me. Dominican parents! You got to love them!

It is probably her son she misses, or the father. Or our whole country, which you never think of until it's gone, which you never love until you're no longer there.

Mami must have caught me studying her because she stopped what she was doing and gave me a smile, maybe her first one of the night. Suddenly I wanted to go over and hug her, for no other reason than I loved her.

This is how you treat your mother?" she cried. And if I could of I would have broken the entire length of my life across her face, but instead I screamed back, "And this is how you treat your daughter?

things. For a day he will smell of my job, but I know that bread is stronger than blood. I have not stopped watching

It was the curse that made me do it, you know. I don't believe in that sh*t, Oscar. That's our parents' sh*t. It's ours, too, he said.

Beli thought about it a moment. Thought about La Inca waiting for her at home. Thought about the heartbreak that was beginning to fade in her. Yes. I want to go. There it was, the decision that changed everything. Or as she broke it down to Lola in her last days. All I wanted was to dance. What I got instead was "esto", she said, opening her arms to encompass the hospital, her children, her cancer, America.

with snowballs and I feel Ramón sadden and I know he's thinking about his son and right then I want to put my arm around him, tell him it will be fine. Will you be coming by? Depends on how the work goes.

But then in the back of his head he remembered his family — remembered how he used to be when he was younger and more optimistic.

Papi was a voracious reader, couldn't even go cheating without a paperback in his pocket.

She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter

I had expected a different father, one about seven feet tall with enough money to buy our entire barrio, but this one was average height, with an average face.

That's white people for you. They lose a cat and it's an all-points bulletin, but we Dominicans, we lose a daughter and we might not even cancel our appointment at the salon.

You don't know what it's like to grow up with a mother who never said a positive thing in her life, not about her children or the world, who was always suspicious, always tearing you down and splitting your dreams straight down the seams.

When your mother had confronted your brother about Mrs. del Orbe he didn't deny it. What do you want, Ma? Se metío por mis ojos. Por mis ojos my ass, she had said. Tú te metiste por su culo. That's true, your brother admitted cheerily. Y por su boca. And then your mother puched him, helpless with shame and fury, which only made him laugh.

When your mother had confronted your brother about Mrs. del Orbe he didn't deny it. What do you want, Ma? Se metío por mis ojos. Por mis ojos my ass, she had said. Tú te metiste por su culo. That's true, your brother admitted cheerily. Y por su boca. And then your mother punched him, helpless with shame and fury, which only made him laugh.

Right before I headed out, he said: It was the curse that made me do it, you know. I don't believe in that shit, Oscar. That's our parents' shit. It's ours too, he said.