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69e7fbe
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I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.
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life-lessons
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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4902ef8
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How can you know what you're capable of if you don't embrace the unkown?
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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3b3ae16
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For me, the person I was becoming when we left was erased, and another one was created.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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14aea94
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What doesn't kill you, makes you fat.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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ddddbdb
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Another train will come. Why rush? Why worry? Why go crazy? Another train will come. And sure enough, another train going my way was pulling into the station. My bad mood evaporated. I entered the car smiling, certain that there would be more missed trains in my life, more closed doors in my face, but there would always be another train rumbling down the tracks in my direction.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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143abbd
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They have no achievements of their own. They've made nothing, created nothing, worked at nothing. They will leave no trace that they ever existed. They have no legacy except for their names, which they did nothing to earn.
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destiny
future-plans
pride
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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24e9260
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I dressed to their murmurs in the other room, their voices soft but strained, and I wondered if men ever talked like this, if their sorrows ever spilled into these secret cadences.
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pain
sorrow
women
quiet
men-and-women
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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eef22a3
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It' her life, and she' in the middle of it.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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670a471
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In the twenty-one years I lived with my mother, we moved at least twenty times.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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2048970
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The night before I left my mother, I wrote a letter.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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42fedee
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Envy, Dona Lola had once said, eats at you from the inside and turns your eyes green when you look at the person of whom you're jealous.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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4245642
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I would just as soon remain jamona than shed that many tears over a man.
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women
tears
women-and-men
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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fe85177
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There were more fights, more arguments, more yelling in the night, more long absences. Until it seemed as if anything would be better than living with these people who hated each other.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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1317503
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Ana had experienced reactions like Ramon's in the mirrored salons of Sevilla society, in the waxed halls of the Convento de las Buenas Madres, on the streets of Cadiz and San Juan. It was a look that said, "I see you, but I deign not to speak to you." It said, "I see you but I do not share the high opinion you have of yourself." It said, "I see you but you're not who I want to see." It said, "To me, you don't exist."
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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e6e573e
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We came to Macun when I was four, to a rectangle of rippled metal sheets on stilts hovering in the middle of a circle of red dirt.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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b4c6dce
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and the shortcuts through the woods that led to the next barrio where all sorts of pocaverguenzas took place.
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latino
latino-america
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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a3cdf75
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El bohio de la loma, bajo sus alas de paja, siente el frescor mananero y abre sus ojos al alba. Vuela el pajara del nido. Brinca el gallo de la rama. A los becerros, aislados de las tetas de las vacas, les corre por el hocico leche de la madrugada. Las mariposas pululan --rubi, zafir, oro, plata...--: flores huerfanas que rondan buscando a las madres ramas...
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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da23b7d
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In the Spanish-speaking Americas, Christmas is much more than a one-day event followed by a staggering credit card bill. The festivities last for weeks, beginning well before Christmas, and continuing straight through to the arrival of the Three Kings and the Feast of the Epiphany on January 6. Las Navidades involves a lot more partying and a lot less shopping than a US. Christmas.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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9029ffd
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She'd worried at the beginning when she first met them that there were too many patrones. But within weeks she was sure that there was really one boss, and that the other three were working for her.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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702441a
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n the tropical climates of the Caribbean and the temperate climes of South America, where Christmas falls smack in the middle of summer, there is no Santa arriving on a sleigh, no jingle bells in the snow, no stockings hung on the mantel with care. it's a holiday for family, for grown-ups as well as children, celebrated with plenty of traditional food, drink, music, and dance. Nochebuena, Christmas Eve, is the night for la misa del gullo, "..
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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7cdabc4
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It seemed too complicated, as if each one of us were really two people, one who was loved and the official one who, I assumed, was not.
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Esmeralda Santiago |
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b25da85
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Plito, chicken Gallina, hen Lapiz, pencil y Pluma, pen. Ventana, window Puerta, door Maestra, teacher y Piso, floor.
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Esmeralda Santiago |