A Quote by Richard Rodriguez
Mexico was most powerfully my father's smile and not, as you might otherwise imagine, not language, not pigment.
Related Quotes
Be what you would seem to be - or, if you'd like it put more simply - never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise.
Sometimes, by using the most over-the-top, ridiculous plot device you can imagine, you get some interesting little conflicts and cool things that you might not otherwise have a chance to explore.
Otherwise I got out of bed on two strong legs. It might have been otherwise. I ate cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless peach. It might have been otherwise. I took the dog uphill to the birch wood. All morning I did the work I love. At noon I lay down with my mate. It might have been otherwise. We ate dinner together at a table with silver candlesticks. It might have been otherwise. I slept in a bed in a room with paintings on the walls, and planned another day just like this day. But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.
The blood pigment haemoglobin is a compound which can be split by diverse methods into its constituents, pigment and protein.
I was born in Mexico because my father was teaching at a school in Mexico City. I was born during the third year he was there. And when I was 16, I returned to Mexico to learn Spanish.
In the hours that followed, I learned that Ademic hand gestures did not actually represent facial expressions. It was nothing so simple as that. For example a smile can mean you're amused, happy, grateful, or satisfied. You can smile to comfort someone. You can smile because you're content or because you're in love. A grimace or a grin look similar to a smile, but they mean entirely different things. Imagine trying to teach someone how to smile. Imagine trying to describe what different smiles mean and when, precisely, to use them in conversation. It's harder than learning to walk.
You don't know Mexico, man. You have trivialized Mexico. You are a fool about Mexico if you think that Mexico is five blocks. That is not Mexico; that is some crude Americanism you have absorbed.
I want to go to the park. (Livia) Why? (Adron) Because, and I know this is a new concept for you, we might actually have fun. Can you imagine? You might even smile and the world could come to an end over it. (Livia)
Withhold a smile only when the smile can hurt someone. Otherwise, let it bloom forth in a riot.
In the last generation we've moved past a U.S.-Mexico relationship that while friendly on the surface, and demilitarized for the most part, really was not a genuinely cooperative relationship. As a result of the U.S.-Mexico War in the 19th century, and the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, half of what was Mexico was severed and became much of the western part of the United States. To add insult to injury, most Americans never knew that, and most Mexicans have never forgotten it.
What a sight there is in that "smile!" it changes like a chameleon. There is a vacant smile, a cold smile, a smile of hate, a satiric smile, an affected smile; but, above all, a smile of love.
The question of identity has always been a murky issue in my own life and my writing bounces that right back. My father was adamant that my sisters and I were "Arab," and even though our house was in Syracuse, it was filled with the food, language, music, and overbearing relatives of Jordan. Unlike my gorgeous sisters, though, I inherited my mother's lighter complexion - it really is amazing what a difference a little bit of pigment can make on a person's experience!
My mother born in Mexico, but was Lebanese in origin. She born 1902 the same year my father arrived to Mexico when he was 14 years old.
Spanish is a poetic language, in particular the Spanish of Mexico which has a wonderful animistic attitude you might not see in the Spanish of the peninsula. I think it has to do with the indigenous way of looking at nature.
There are moments in life where the question of knowing whether one might think otherwise than one thinks and perceive otherwise than one sees is indispensable if one is to continue to observe or reflect... What is philosophy today... if it does not consist in, instead of legitimizing what we already know, undertaking to know how and how far it might be possible to think otherwise?
The first time I went to Mexico, it was really difficult. Number one is the language, I didn't know any Spanish language. Of course, the culture itself. Very different from where I grew up.
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