Aylim Castro

"Have you ever read 1984, the thought police… that’s exactly what it is like.  You feel like they are always watching.  There is something called El Jedos which is the equivalent of Russia’s KGB, so you never know who is in with the government and who is out, and so you have to be very watchful you can not necessarily talk outside of your nuclear family not even just your regular family.  It is really hard to tell who is in and who is out; who’s trying to get you and who is not. You live in a constant fear."

Dr.  Luís Marcelino Gómez

"I know I am a person that, I am a writer, I am a painter…I know that, for sure. So never do I feel inferior than anybody. Believe me. I am a human being. I’m an American citizen, I am proud to be a citizen of the world. It is wonderful."

Denise Cabrera

"I went to Catholic school all my life and to a military high school. I was not educated in public schools. My parents believed that education was extremely important. In Catholic school, I was the only one in the whole school that was not white."

Mexico

Raquel Herrera

"I know it's going to change, but I know I have to make an effort to keep my culture."

Juan Diego Sepeda

"Have you seen that Bandido’s … that picture, I don’t like that…. Mexican … they just put like peppers or something … and that’s Mexican.  Like see, I dunno, I feel offended when, I see like, they put a hat and a mustache …A sombrero … yea, like … and a pepper and that’s a Mexican … haha.  I think that’s, that’s stupid, cause you know, that’s like, like making people look at us like that’s what we are."

Mia Gonzalez

"Like in school, I think I got like more racial comments or prejudice from Hispanics themselves, like my friends used to be like, “oh you’re not really Hispanic because you speak English without an accent, you are smart, you live in a white neighborhood, you don’t live in an apartment with a bunch or other people.”

Jorge Luis
"Por eso yo vine aquí a los estados unidos.  Porque podría encontrar gente de todo el mundo y podría placticar sus historias."
That's why I came to the United States.  Because I could find people from all over the world and I could share their stories.

Nicaragua

José A. Espinál

"Normally the kids they lose Spanish and they win the English.  The kids.  The people they coming here they don’t know English, they only listen to Spanish channel and they never listen to English channel.  The elders don’t learn English and the small ones forgot their Spanish.  It’s so terrible but this is what I look at, what I saw in the community."


Jonathan Gutierrez

"…when I lived in California, my friends and I were questioned by a bunch of cops because we fit the description of a Latino who they were after. It’s like they were saying that we fit one profile just because we are Latino. Then you have those stereotypes, everyone thinks that we are either farmhands or construction workers. This guy once called me a “wetback” and I hit him."

Puerto Rico

Joanna Blanco

"One of the days I realized that this was getting complicated, the bilingual thing, was I was at the supermarket and I was getting bananas or something and I started counting them in English.  That was so terrifying for me because you usually count in your head in your native language. "

Bolivia

Guido de Chazal

"In Bolivia, I was so anti-Bolivian culture because I was so Americanized.  I didn’t familiarize myself with the folkloric music.  But once I got here, whenever I hear these songs and this music, I feel proud because I can identify myself with this music because it belongs specifically to my country."

El Salvador

Lissette Guadalupe-Martinez

"Well, you see, over there in our country, they kill a lot of people, in about 70, 70-something, so my mom came, brought us over here for that cause’ she didn’t want us to see, they were killing a lot of people in that time, so that’s when we came to California."

Honduras

Guillermo José Larach Gómez

"I prefer to be called American … but what’s an American?... I’ve lived here more than at home and my wife, kids, and family are in the US  -- Latino means people from Latin America;  Hispanic means people who speak Spanish."