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“This place, our little cloud forest, even though we missed our papi, it was the most beautiful place you've ever seen. We didn't really know that then, because it was the only place we'd ever seen, except in picture in books and magazines, but now that's I've seen other place, I know. I know how beautiful it was. And we loved it anyway even before we knew. Because the trees had these enormous dark green leaves, as a big as a bed, and they would sway in the wind. And when it rain you could hear the big, fat raindrops splatting onto those giant leaves, and you could only see the sky in bright blue patches if you were walking a long way off to a friend's house or to church or something, when you passed through a clearing and all those leaves would back away and open up and the hot sunshine would beat down all yellow and gold and sticky. And there were waterfalls everywhere with big rock pools where you could take a bath and the water was always warm and it smelled like sunlight. And at night there was the sound of the tree frogs and the music of the rushing water from the falls and all the songs of the night birds, and Mami would make the most delicious chilate, and Abuela would sing to us in the old language, and Soledad and I would gather herbs and dry them and bundle them for Papi to sell in the market when he had a day off, and that's how we passed our days.'

Luca can see it. He's there, far away in the misty cloud forest, in a hut with a packed dirt floor and a cool breeze, with Rebeca and Soledad and their mami and abuela, and he can even see their father, far away down the mountain and through the streets of that clogged, enormous city, wearing a long apron and a chef's hat, and his pockets full of dried herbs. Luca can smell the wood of the fire, the cocoa and cinnamon of the chilate, and that's how he knows Rebeca is magical, because she can transport him a thousand miles away into her own mountain homestead just by the sound of her voice.”
― Jeanine Cummins, American Dirt

“There are hundreds of miracles within a single machine. Americans calmly explain these with mathematical formulas. Our difficulty is to learn, theirs to appreciate. We Latins, even the most intelligent of us, still count on our fingers and toes. But once we do learn, we shall surpass the Americano, because we understand the spiritual significance of a machine. We see the beauty of combining gas, grease and steel into a powerful, exact movement. We appreciate the material destiny of the universe.”
― Warren Eyster, The Goblins of Eros

“We know that Donald Trump loves S.C.A.P.E.G.O.A.T.S. Now he has stooped to new lows - Separating Children And Parents Entering Gateways Of America Truly Sucks !”
― Alex Morritt

“...moral commitments and emotional engagement were principal reasons for insurgent collective action by campesinos in the Salvadoran civil war.

"Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in Rural El Salvador”
― Elisabeth J. Wood

“Poverty in western Mexico is an Unconditional Sentence.”
― Warren Eyster, The Goblins of Eros

“He was given a ranch, and two lovely mistresses. 'Imagine, at thirty, I was put out to stud. And we Latins are such drowsy pigs that I almost fell for it.”
― Warren Eyster, The Goblins of Eros

“We work and slave to get away, only to find that things got in the way. Let's change the script.”
― Dirk Weisiger

“Get out and Live Your Movie!”
― Dirk Weisiger, Leave Tomorrow: My Ride to the Bottom of the World

“Loss in Vietnam radicalized a generation of veterans, pushing many into the ranks of white-supremacist groups. Ronald Reagan, as the standard bearer of an ascendant New Right, effectively tapped into this radicalization, which helped lift him to victory in his 1980 presidential campaign. Once he was in office, Reagan's re-escalation of the Cold War allowed him to contain the radicalization, preventing it from spilling over (too much) into domestic politics. Anti-communist campaigns in Central America—a region Reagan called "our southern frontier"—were especially helpful in focusing militancy outward. But Reagan's Central American wars (which comprised support for the Contras in Nicaragua and death squads in El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras) generated millions of refugees, many, perhaps most, of whom fled to the United States. As they came over the border, they inflamed the same constituencies that Reagan had mobilized to wage the wars that had turned them into refugees in the first place.”
― Greg Grandin, The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America

“For intellectuals and elites, invisibilizing and forgetting are a way of creating blissful ignorance that allows them to enjoy their privilege without acknowledging its basis in exploitation. Forgetting allows them to avoid the shame that would come from seeing.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

“The church wanted souls; the government wanted subjects and taxes; the conquistadors wanted gold. In each case, they needed people, and they needed people identified as Indian. But they each sought to remake Indigenous peoples to fit their own desires. The church claimed rights to evangelize Indigenous peoples, the Crown to tax them, and the conquistadors to enslave them. As they jostled for control, they subjected Indigenous forms of religion, governance, and labor to their sometimes-competing objectives.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

“Paradoxically, they needed Indians to be Indians at the same time they needed to define all that was Indian as inferior and in need of Spanish domination.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

“Large-scale Central American migration to the United States dates to the civil wars of the 1980s and came primarily from El Salvador and Guatemala. Most came fleeing political violence, and their presence became politically very inconvenient for the Reagan administration, which was seeking to justify its support for these countriesâ€� governments. Others were economic refugees. Either way, the refugees gave the lie to Reagan’s claims of the governmentsâ€� legitimacy and right to US support.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

“Very few US Americans can name a single political leader in Central America. We have the privilege of “forgettingâ€� about these countries.
Yet US political leaders, parties, and policies are the stuff of everyday conversation in Central America. People there don’t have the luxury of ignoring or forgetting what is going on in the United States, because they know that US presidential elections, policy decisions, and economic developments are likely to deeply affect them.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration

“One of the conceits of forgetting in the United States is the idea that colonialism ended in 1776 when the new country declared independence. Central American countries, too, celebrate their independence heroes and wars as historical milestones. But in both regions, the colonial roots ran deep and profoundly shaped the new countries. In the United States, independence meant a surge of settler colonial expansion that incorporated Central America into its sights. In Central America, colonial racial hierarchies shaped the new nations even as the United States imposed new forms of neocolonial rule.”
― Aviva Chomsky, Central America's Forgotten History: Revolution, Violence, and the Roots of Migration