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Richard Rodriguez

Richard Rodriguez Quotes

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Famous Richard Rodriguez Quotes

“My parents had come from Mexico, a short road in my imagination. I felt myself as coming from a caramelized planet, an upside-down planet, pineapple-cratered. Though I was born here, I came from the other side of the looking glass, as did Alice, though not alone like Alice. Downtown I saw lots of brown people. Old men on benches. Winks from Filipinos. Sikhs who worked in the fields were the most mysterious brown men, their heads wrapped in turbans. They were the rose men. They looked like roses.”

PeopleMenFeltParentSidesBornImaginationSawsFieldsPlanetsRoseGlassesMysteriousBrownOld ManMexicoMy ImaginationNot AloneBenchesUpside DownDowntownFilipinoPineapplesTurbans
Book:Brown: The Last Discovery of America
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“Suddenly the land is haunted by all these dead Indians. There is this new fascination with the Southwest, with places like Santa Fe, New Mexico, where people come down from New York and Boston and dress up as Indians. When I go to Santa Fe, I find real Indians living there, but they are not involved in the earth worship that the American environmentalists are so taken by. Many of these Indians are interested, rather, in becoming Evangelical Christians.”

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Author:Richard Rodriguez
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“What has happened in the last generation is that Tijuana has become a new Third World capital - much to the chagrin of Mexico City, which is more and more aware of how little it controls Tijuana politically and culturally. In addition to whorehouses and discos, Tijuana now has Korean factories and Japanese industrialists and Central American refugees, and a new Mexican bourgeoisie that takes its lessons from cable television.”

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Author:Richard Rodriguez
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“There is San Diego - this retirement village, with its prim petticoat, that doesn't want to get too near the water. San Diego worries about all the turds washing up on the lovely, pristine beaches of La Jolla. San Diego wishes Mexico would have fewer babies. And San Diego, like the rest of America, is growing middle-aged.”

WantAmericaWishWaterWorryGrowingMiddleBabyLovelyBeachVillageRetirementFewerMexicoWashingMiddle AgedPristineSan DiegoTurds
Author:Richard Rodriguez
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“The average age in the U.S. is now thirty-three, whereas Mexico gets younger and younger, retreats deeper and deeper into adolescence. Mexico is fifteen. Mexico is wearing a Hard Rock Cafe T-shirt and wandering around Tijuana looking for a job, for a date, for something to put on her face to take care of the acne.”

HardCareAgeJobsFacesThreeRocksAverageDeeperTake CareWanderShirtsThirtyMexicoFifteenAdolescenceRetreatT ShirtCafesHard RockWandering AroundAcneLooking For A JobTijuana
Author:Richard Rodriguez
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“Mexico is sex and Canada is mind. There is much about Canada that I find admirable - the treatment of immigrants, for example, particularly those from Central America during the recent civil wars there. But there is confusion too: I know of Croatian Nazis who are subsidized by the Canadian government to maintain their racist culture. There is Canada, trying to sustain diversity without knowing exactly what it's doing.”

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Author:Richard Rodriguez
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