“Marina,” I said, “I don’t know how to explain this, but … well, everything I say or do or even think just doesn’t seem to work out for me. Except wh… - Victor Villaseñor

The truth was that we still spoke Spanish every chance we got. And why, because, simply, it felt good to hear in the sound of the language with which our mothers had rocked us to sleep when we’d been little.

I was TORTURED by teachers! You hear me, TORTURED!” I yelled, jerking the whole podium off the floor. “Hell, I flunked the third grade twice because—BECAUSE—” I was crying so hard that I had to wipe the tears out of my eyes with the back of my hand, but this wasn’t going to stop me. I was all guts up front now. I was in that smooth-feeling, all-true place that I got into when I’d go to my room and start writing each morning before daybreak…with all my heart and soul.

You are a man now, and to be un hombre, a man must not only know right from wrong, he must also know who he is and who he isn’t. Because if a man doesn’t know who he is and who he isn’t, then no matter how much he knows about right and wrong, he will always be like a fish out of water.