A Quote by John Rechy

I'm Mexican-American, but for a long time I was pushed out of any references to Mexican-American writers. It was easier to come out as a gay man than it was to come out as a Mexican-American.
I usually say Latina, Mexican-American or American Mexican, and in certain contexts, Chicana, depending on whether my audience understands the term or not.
You see the one thing I've always maintained is that I'm an American Indian. I'm not a Native American. I'm not politically correct. Everyone who's born in the Western Hemisphere is a Native American. We are all Native Americans. And if you notice, I put American before my ethnicity. I'm not a hyphenated African-American or Irish-American or Jewish-American or Mexican-American.
I'm not a Mexican writer, but I think everything that happens in Mexico affects the Mexican writers I know, in their sense of being human and of being Mexican, even if they don't in any explicit way address these issues in their writing.
I love the Mexican people; I respect the Mexican leaders - but the leaders are much sharper, smarter and more cunning than our [American] leaders.
You can love the Mexican culture, you can love your Mexican-American wife and also believe that we need to control the border.
It wasn't a cutdown to call someone a Mexican. It would kill my career to refer to someone as Mexican today. It's like calling me an American.
I have many friends who are both Mexican and Mexican-American and others who, I guess you would say, are somewhere in between. The ironic thing is that all three of those categories often exist inside of the same family.
Spanglish is very natural. It's however it comes out. But there are a few patterns that all of us, especially Mexican-American writers, just noticed in how we utilized Spanglish. It comes out of necessity when you can't find the next word. You go to whatever language will serve you best.
Let’s get one thing straight: Mexican food takes a certain amount of time to cook. If you don’t have the time, don’t cook it. You can rush a Mexican meal, but you will pay in some way. You can buy so-called Mexican food at too many restaurants that say they cook Mexican food. But the real food, the most savory food, is prepared with time and love and at home. So, give up the illusion that you can throw Mexican food together. Just understand that you are going to have to make and take the time.
Mexican boxing is very aggressive; you go forward with great heart. The American style is always that you run around, you try to be elusive. The Mexican style is much better. I never tried to be elusive.
A fighter lives in his training camp, and I'm not always paying attention to what is happening on the outside. But I do know the Mexican people and the Mexican-American people in this country are very hard-working people. That's my only comment about Donald Trump.
This is America, where a white Catholic male Republican judge was murdered on his way to greet a Democratic Jewish woman member of Congress, who was his friend. Her life was saved initially by a 20-year old Mexican-American gay college student, and eventually by a Korean-American combat surgeon, all eulogized by our African American President.
I had to endure the worst time of all in terms of racial discrimination in Hollywood when I first started out. It was inconcievable to American directors and producers that a Mexican woman could have a lead role.
Every age, race, socio-economic background of men are 'johns.' It's a little more complicated who's doing the selling. The truth is that the average street pimp selling American girls is often a man of color, however, Mexican pimps are selling Mexican girls, Russian men are selling Russian girls etc. Those who profit off the sex industry overall are not the ones who are standing out on the street. They're the owners of massage parlors, escort agencies, strip clubs, and brothels.
There is a heavy Mexican Catholic streak in my movies, and a huge Mexican sense of melodrama. Everything is overwrought, and there's a sense of acceptance of the fantastic in my films, which is innately Mexican. So when people ask, 'How can you define the Mexican-ness of your films?' I go, 'How can I not?' It's all I am.
I'm aware of what my effect on the populous could be, and I try to use it in a positive way, whether it be in an Instagram post or a tweet, or promoting whatever new job that I have. I don't figure too much as a Latino man coming up, or a certain ethnic man. I'm very, very proud of being a Mexican-American man, but I would rather people just see me as a man coming up who just happens to be Mexican.
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