Latino American Quotes & Sayings

In 2008, the Democrats made a great effort among African-American voters, and they did increase their turnout considerably, and among Latino voters. — Judy Woodruff

And my point was one I think that you'd agree with, which is there's no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we're either color blind or we're not color blind. — Newt Gingrich

The struggle is inner: Chicano, indio, American Indian, mojado, mexicano, immigrant Latino, Anglo in power, working class Anglo, Black, Asian
our psyches resemble the bordertowns and are populated by the same people. The struggle has always been inner, and is played out in outer terrains. Awareness of our situation must come before inner changes, which in turn come before changes in society. Nothing happens in the "real" world unless it first happens in the images in our heads. — Gloria E. Anzaldua

If indeed all lives mattered, we would not need to emphatically proclaim that "Black Lives Matter." Or, as we discover on the BLM website: Black Women Matter, Black Girls Matter, Black Gay Lives Matter, Black Bi Lives Matter, Black Boys Matter, Black Queer Lives Matter, Black Men Matter, Black Lesbians Matter, Black Trans Lives Matter, Black Immigrants Matter, Black Incarcerated Lives Matter. Black Differently Abled Lives Matter. Yes, Black Lives Matter, Latino/Asian American/Native American/Muslim/Poor and Working-Class White Peoples Lives matter. There are many more specific instances we would have to nane before we can ethically and comfortably claim that All Lives Matter. — Angela Y. Davis

New Jersey for me is so alive with history. It's old, dynamic, African-American, Latino. — Junot Diaz

You always wonder whether the attacks on my capabilities came from an honest evaluation of my accomplishments or from stereotypical presumptions that we [people of color] just can't do it, for some reason. This is, for an accomplished Latino, an accomplished African American, an accomplished anyone who disproves stereotypes, it's a constant battle in your life. — Sonia Sotomayor

We have more people in jail than any other country in Earth, disproportionately Latino and African-American. — Bernie Sanders

On the outside, America looks like this great melting pot, but on the inside, there's this segregation in American cinema. Why does a Latino film have to be for Latinos? Why is a black film just for black people? Why? — Gurinder Chadha

Yoga class is intimate even just from the standpoint of taking off your socks. Exposing your bare feet can be a big deal. You may be an African American next to a Caucasian or a Latino. But once practice begins and we drop in, separation dissolves. — James Fox

I held Angie Luna in that room for hours, and I remember the different times we made love like epochs in a civilization, each movement and every touch, apex upon abyss. In the luxury of our bed, we tried every position and every angle. I explored the curves on her body and delighted in seeing the freedom of her ecstasy. Her desperate whispers and pleas. I told her I loved her, and she said she loved me too. We lay in bed with our limbs entangled, in a pacific silence that reminded me of existing on a beach just for the sake of such an existence. I couldn't imagine the world ever becoming better, and for some strange reason the thought slipped into my head that I had suddenly grown to be an old man because I could only hope to repeat, but never improve on, a night like this. I finally took her home sometime when the interstate was empty, and the bridges seemed to lead to nowhere, for they were desolate too. — Sergio Troncoso

Interestingly, a lot of the polling that I see is not along racial lines, but along generational lines. We are doing better and better among younger people, not so well among older people, whether they're African-American, whether they're white or whether they're Latino. — Bernie Sanders

No matter where you're from - you can be Native American, Italian, Jewish, Latino, African-American - whatever you are, we're all distant relatives. — Nas

The only people that deserve to be called Americans are Native Americans, otherwise, I'm a Latino American, you know ... Anybody else ... well where did you come from? — Cristian Machado

Who is as free as a writer? Nadie es tan libre como un escritor . . . No one is as free as a writer! — Sofia Espinoza Alvarez

Affirmative action is not going to be the long-term solution to the problems of race in America, because, frankly, if you've got 50 percent of African-American or Latino kids dropping out of high school, it doesn't really matter what you do in terms of affirmative action. Those kids aren't going to college. — Barack Obama

Being Latina means I have culture I guess. We party together, cry together, and cook together. Or at least my family does as much as we can. We know where we're from and we have a certain kind of rhythm and understanding. Togetherness. As I get older it becomes more apparent that there is a community in this industry that is working together to rise up and fight against the misinterpretation of Hispanic and what it means to be a Latino-American nowadays. — Alicia Sixtos

I had been an activist on the issue of HIV, primarily in the African American and Latino communities here in the U.S. for many years. It was horrifying to me how the pandemic was raging right here in this country but no one was talking about it. — Gloria Reuben

These dreams
These empty dreams
from the make-believe bedrooms
their parents left them
are the after-effects
of television programs
about the ideal
white american family
with black maids
and latino janitors
who are well train
to make everyone
and their bill collectors
laugh at them
and the people they represent — Pedro Pietri

There is no way that we know what is going on between the African American and the Asian American. We don't understand what an Indigenous American is. We don't understand what a Latino American is. — Edward James Olmos

Being Latino means being from everywhere, and that is exactly what America is supposed to be about. — Raquel Cepeda

I don't think every African-American or Latino have the same body type, but, yes, that's been one of the excuses ... saying that African-Americans are too muscular or just aren't lean enough. Usually they say, "Oh, they have flat feet so they just don't have the flexibility that it takes to create the line in a point shoe." — Misty Copeland

You can expect to see a robust discussion and representation of those issues throughout the convention program. Not just from the nominee, but through other vehicles as well. Expect to see the African-American community, the Latino community, the LGBT community, and others represented on stage and in the substance of our policies throughout the week. — Leah D. Daughtry

Race is still a powerful force in this country. Any African American candidate, or any Latino candidate, or Asian candidate or woman candidate confronts a higher threshold in establishing himself to the voters ... Are some voters not going to vote for me because I'm African American? Those are the same voters who probably wouldn't vote for me because of my politics. — Barack Obama

In the long run, we will need many more African-American, Latino, and Native American leaders, and leaders from low-income communities, who can bring additional insight and a deeply grounded sense of urgency, and who are the most likely to inspire the necessary trust and engagement among students' parents and community leaders. — Wendy Kopp

I see Americans of every party, every background, every faith who believe that we are stronger together: black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American; young, old; gay, straight; men, women, folks with disabilities, all pledging allegiance under the same proud flag to this big, bold country that we love. That's what I see. That's the America I know! — Barack Obama

You go to Los Angeles or New York or Miami or Chicago, and you see Latinos everywhere; they are involved in every part of American society. That's why they have to start being represented in Hollywood, because an 'Americano' can't walk down the street and not see a Latino. — Thalia

People take pride in being Irish-American and Italian-American. They have a particular culture that infuses the whole culture and makes it richer and more interesting. I think if we can expand that attitude to embrace African-Americans and Latino-Americans and Asian-Americans, then we will be in a position where all our kids can feel comfortable with the worlds they are coming out of, knowing they are part of something larger. — Barack Obama

Perhaps finding out that we carry New World history in our genes will transcend racial checkboxes altogether and enable Latino-Americans to rethink what America is supposed to look like. — Raquel Cepeda

And while I definitely do not think that secular Americans have ever faced the kind of prejudice, exclusion, or hostility experienced by Native Americans, African Americans, Latino/a Americans, Asian Americans, Jews, Catholics, Mormons, Muslims, or homosexuals, there is still no question that atheists, agnostics, secularists, and others who eschew religion are often disliked and distrusted, or widely regarded as immoral, or not considered fully American. — Phil Zuckerman

On a national level there is a tendency to portray Latino culture as a monolithic entity, which is a really inaccurate way of seeing ourselves. There is as much diversity and uniqueness within the Latino culture as there is in any other kind of American culture. — Benjamin Bratt

Whether white, black, Asian, or Latino, American students rarely arrive at college as habitual readers, which means that few of them have more than a nominal connection to the past. It is absurd to speak, as does the academic left, of classic Western texts dominating and silencing everyone but a ruling elite or white males. The vast majority of white students do not know the intellectual tradition that is allegedly theirs any better than black or brown ones do. They have not read its books, and when they do read them, they may respond well, but they will not respond in the way that the academic left supposes. For there is only one 'hegemonic discourse' in the lives of American undergraduates, and that is the mass media. Most high schools can't begin to compete against a torrent of imagery and sound that makes every moment but the present seem quaint, bloodless, or dead. — David Denby

Again, this week as I walked on Broadway, in front of giant photographs of voluptuous supermodels at a Victoria Secret mega-store, who was rebuilding the sidewalks? With sweaty headbands, ripped-up jeans, and dust on their brown faces? Their muscled hands quivered as they worked the jack-hammers and lugged the concrete chunks into dump trucks. Two men from Guanajuato. Undocumented workers. They both shook my hand vigorously, as if they were relieved I wasn't an INS officer.
I imagined how much money Victoria Secret was making off these poor bastards. I wondered why passersby didn't see what was in front of their faces. We use these workers. We profit from them. In the shadows, they work to the bone, for pennies. And it's so easy to blame them for everything and nothing simply because they are powerless, and dark-skinned,and speak with funny accents. Illegal is illegal. It is a phrase, shallow and cruel, that should prompt any decent American to burn with anger. — Sergio Troncoso

I guess it all depends on whom you ask and when you ask. Race, I've learned, is in the eye of the beholder. — Raquel Cepeda

I struggled with being a Latino growing up in Los Angeles. I felt very American. I still do. I went to 35 bar mitzvahs before I went to a single quinceanera. I could talk all day about my culture and what it means to me. — America Ferrera

From The Corner To The Corner Office - It's Not Just A Book, It's A Lifestyle! — James A. Barlow

Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works, but one that works for the American people. — Donald Trump

Yes, we become stronger when black and whites, Latino, Asian American, Native American, when all of us stand together. — Bernie Sanders

In Atlanta, with a large African-American population, Sosa is often considered a black man. In Miami and Los Angeles, with larger Hispanic populations, he is a Latino man, and the black label is rejected as robbing Hispanics of a hero. — Bill Dedman