"There's a picture on her dresser of both of us in Mexico. Our parents used to send us every summer, but it's been years since we've gone back, (Sánchez, 19).

"'A writer? For what? You know they don't make any money, right? You want to be poor.' I roll my eyes. 'I'm not going to be poor.' 'Just make sure you work in a nice office. Remember, don't work like-' 'A donkey," (243).

I'd rather live in the streets than be a submissive Mexican wife who spends all day cooking and cleaning, (Sánchez, 13).

"Then yesterday I was walking home from school and thought of the night at Mamá Jacinta's house when our cousin Valeria told us about La Llorona, the ghost woman who wails through the streets because she drowned her own children, (182, Sánchez).

"Because he works all day packaging candy, he always has problems with his body-cuts, back pains, glue burns, and swollen legs, just to name a few. Some days he works twelve hours and comes back home looking like someone beat him with a bat, (Sánchez, 121).

'"Don't work like a donkey like mr. Be a secretary and work in a nice office with air conditioning, (Sánchez, 121).

"I wonder what it's like to clean houses all day and then come home and keep cleaning. I hate seeing her this way because it makes me feel so guilty-guilty for existing, guilty that she has to work like that for us, (Sánchez, 122).

"We may be poor, but at least we're not this tacky, (Sánchez, 50).

"According to her, it's set up for poor people like me. Actually, she didn't use the word poor, she said low-income, but it's the samr thing, (Sánchez, 219).

"'It shows your chest too much,' Amá says, scrunching her fsce as if she;s just smelled something gross", (Sánchez, 107).

"I'd rather live in the streets than be a submissive Mexican wife who spends all day cooking and cleaning," (Sanchez, 13).

"What kind of woman are you going to be if you can't even make a tortilla," (Sánchez, 33).

Ama had to be all Mexican about it and pack me cold cheese-and-bean burritos,"(Sanchez, 127).

"You know, without family, you won't make it in this life," (Sánchez, 83).

"Besides, Amá and I haven't had that kind of relationship since I was little. We don't hug and say, 'I love you,' like on TV shows about boring white families who live in two-story houses and talk abou their feeling," (Sánchez, 4).

"I've spent so much of my life trying to avoid Amá because we always end up arguing over stupid, petty things," (Sánchez, 4).

"I stare at the cheap replica of The Last Supper next to the cabinets," (Sanchez, 17).

"Tell them to stop bothering us. We're Catholic. I've told them hundreds of times," (141).

"Basically she makes it sound as if it were the most evil thing a person could do if they aren't married, (Sánchez, 235).

"Amá and I also argue about religion all the time. I told her that the Catholic church hates women because it wants them to be weak and ignorant," (Sánchez, 21).

"This Jesus stuff is all a sack of crap. Once you're dead, you're dead," (Sánchez, 5).

"Don't work like a donkey, like the rest of your family, (Sanchez, 242).

"If I'm going to be forced to dance, I want to do it to the Smiths or Siouxsie and the Banshees, but Amá refused of course. What would the family think? And why do I have to always listen to Satan music," (Sánchez, 153).

"My parents don't understand anything about me. And my sister is gone. Sometimes I watch those stupid shows, you know. The ones where mothers and daughters talk about feelings and fathers take their kids to play baseball or get ice cream or some shit like that, and I wish it were me, (Sanchez, 236).