I grew up within a legacy of joyous border crossings, of knowing we have the right to love anyone, to learn any language and speak it, to offer ourse… - Aurora Levins Morales

art, like sex, is an essential and affirming part of aliveness, it cannot be totally repressed. So, as best they can, our rulers steal it, commodify it and return it in barely recognizable form, sanitized, rootless, artificial, or they try to medicate away the need, substituting addiction.

One of my proudest credentials as a writer is to know that my poem “Child of the Americas” was plastered on bathroom walls in a small school in Michigan as graffiti, in an attempt to get people thinking about racism.

The first rule I remember learning was never to harm or deface a book. The second was never to cross a picket line. (Introduction/Acknowledgements)