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Latinx Literature, Bodies of Latinas as subject to exoticization,…

- - - - Diaz invokes nature to talk about the body. Sensual language in relation to the beauty of nature, the beauty of the body of herself. The results of the world onto nature, and in doing so talks about the effects of the world onto her body.
        
        "Where your hands have been are diamonds / on my shoulders, down my back, thighs-- / I am your culebra [snake]. / I am in the dirt for you. / Your hips are quartz-light and dangerous"
  - - - The narrator is often in the presence of violence due his father’s abusive ways within the family. This constant violence becomes intertwined with the idea of being a form of love. The idea of violence being the only way in which a man can express his innermost emotions
        
        "And when our Paps came home, we got spankings. Our little round butt cheeks were tore up: red, raw, leather-whipped. We knew there was something on the other side of pain, on the other side of the sting" (2)
        
        "I joined in, kicking for Paps but hitting Ma; it felt dull and mean and perfect. Then we were all three kicking and slapping at once, and they didn't say a word, they didn't even move; the only noise was the noise of skin and impact and breath, and then our protests, why don't you come find us, why don't you do what you're supposed to do" (51)
    - - Piri grows up in the presence of violence, dictating his view of what he must do in order to grow up to become the man he is expected to be . Resorting to violence as a way to express that he is a true man.
        
        "Just being a kid, nothing different from all the other kids, was good. Even when you slept over at some other kid's house, it was almost like being in your own house. They all had kids, rats, and roaches in common. And life was full of happy moments -- spitting out of tenement windows at unsuspecting people below, popping off with sling shots, or even better, with Red Ryder BB rifles, watching the neighbors fight through their open windows or make love under half-drawn shades." (70)
        
        "I looked at Little and he at me, and we both knew we didn't ant no more. Sometimes a fight between two men makes them the greatest friends, because of the respect that is born between the swinging fists." (261)
  - - - Piri Thomas goes through a lot of self reflection not only on his race, his ethnicity, and where he belongs on this spectrum of identity but also grapples with the idea of what a man should be. When having experienced a moment with transgender women and witnessing two men get married in jail, Piri experiences different view of what masculinity is and whether he can still call himself a “man”.
        
        "I walked up on the roof and breathed in as hard as I could. I wanted to wash my nose out from all the stink. I felt both good and bad. I felt strong and drained. I hadn't liked the scene, but if a guy gotta live, he gotta do it from the bottom of his heart; he has to want it, to feel it. It's no easy shake to hold off the pressure with one hand while you hold up your sagging pants with the other. But the game is made up as you go along, and you got to pick up what you have or dive out the top-floor window" (62)
        
        "'I do,' Claude said softly, just like any bride anywhere. My God, what an unreal world. Look at Big Jules's face, he really is serious. This faggot is gonna be his wife, for better or for worse until death do them part. And it came to me, scared and hard, that this is what I had to fight against. This farce was for Claude and Big Jules their real life, the whole of existence. Look, they see each other as Romeo and Juliet, as though the world were a part of them and not the other way around" (263-264)
    - - The narrator witnesses what is believed to be the standard of being a man through his father. A violent and abusive individual. As the narrator grows up, he begins to separate himself from his siblings and father more, becoming more of an individual and not conforming necessarily to what they believe a man should be.
  - - - Machado writes a story of how women are capable of being sexually active without demonizing the idea. She provides tales of sexual encounters while emphasizing that the main character wants to go through it. Her ribbon represents the agency and autonomy that women possess, and her expressing her sexual encounters is reflective of such autonomy.
        
        "'Oh, this?' I touch the ribbon at the back of my neck. 'It's just my ribbon'. I run my fingers halfway around its green and glossy length, and bring them to rest on the tight bow that sits in the front. He reaches out his hand, and I seize it and press it away. 'You shouldn't touch it,' I say. 'You can't touch it'" (4)
        
        "His body locks onto mine and he is pushing, pushing, and before the end he pulls himself out and finishes with my blood slicking down. I am fascinated and aroused by the rhythm, the concrete sense of his need, the clarity of his release" (5)
    - - Diaz points out the way in which men view women as no more than a way to release their sexual needs. Categorizing women based on their likelihood of getting some sexual favor out of them. Dehumanizing these women and seeing them as mere objects.
        
        "A local girl may have hips and a thick ass but she won't be quick about letting you touch. She has to live in the same neighborhood you do, has to deal with you being all up in her business. She might just chill with you and then go home. She might kiss you and then go, or she might, if she's reckless, give it up, but that's rare. Kissing will suffice. A whitegirl might just give it up right then. Don't stop her. She'll take her gum out of her mouth, stick it to the plastic sofa covers and then will move close to you." (147)
    - - Rodriguez portrays the struggles of understanding and maneuvering through a developing homosexual relationship in a society where heterosexuality is the norm.
        
        "We never speak about what we do. Our words come in the form of knots in our hearts, glances and brief touches on the hot of my back" (71)
        
        "And when I let her kiss me, I think of Nene. That he could sit across from me, spin bottles, and that we could kiss in front of two, three, six people. He's asleep and his breath is against my neck, and it warms my entire body. I push against him, so I can feel the part of his lips on my back. And maybe this is as public as we can get" (71)
    - - Rosario points out the hypocrisy behind women wanting to explore their sexuality through the father that goes off and has multiple kids with multiple women, but if a woman ever even considered having sex with a man, she will be looked down upon
        
        "Take down any embarrassing photos of your young parents floating in a wine glass, and especially the one with ashy-kneed campo kids straddling a donkey. The kids are your half-siblings because whenever your pops visited DR, he did with their mamas what he'll kill you for trying to do now. " (9)
    - - Diaz is trying to say that intimacy leaves a reminder on your body, filled with a sense of beauty comparable to diamonds. Gorgeous from the outside, but with sharp edges that can cut deep. They can ache when remembering the moment, almost like a post-war period
- - - - Borutzky sees Borders as a way for systems to take advantage of groups of individuals that have been forced to flee. They are vulnerable and these borders that they must cross do not guarantee a home free of pain, abuse, and suffering.
        
        "Their bodies were traded by country A in exchange for some valuable natural resource needed by country B" (15)
        
        "I am moving beneath the ground and not sleeping and trying to cross the border from one sick part of the world to another" (15)
    - - Man can develop man-made borders, but that does not define where the land begins and ends. The borders developed cannot stop the connection established by its original people and the land. The culture will continue to flourish no matter how many borders there are.
        
        "1,950 mile-long open wound / dividing a pueblo, a culture, / running down the length of my body, / staking fence rods in my flesh, / splits me splits me / me raja me raja"(2)
        
        "But the skin of the earth is seamless. / The sea cannot be fenced, / el mar does not stop at border. / To show the white man what she thought of his / arrogance, / Yemaya blew that wire fence down" (3)
  - - - The land is owned by no one. The deep cultural connection developed by the people will forever be engraved in the land. Power structures can try to take the land away from the people by pushing them out, but the culture will always remain.
  - - - The ideals of both Capitalism and Communism are represented in the character of Lourdes and Celia respectively. Each adhering to a specific side as they believe that their lives are reliant on each structural system. Lourdes’s obsession with capitalist ideals is enhanced by the idea of upward mobility and the goal of embracing whiteness. While Celia is committed to doing whatever it takes to help Cuba and its economy.
        
        "The next day, Lourdes works extraconscientiously, determined to prove to herself that her business acumen, at least, is intact. She sails back and forth behind the bakery counter, explaining the ingredients in her cakes and piers to her clients." (66)
        
        "Celia imagines the cane she cuts being ground in the centrales and its thick sap collected in vats. The furnaces will transform it to moist, amber crystals. She pictures three-hundred-pound sacks of refined white sugar deep in the hulls of ships. People in Mexico and Russia and Poland will spoon out her sugar for coffee, or to bake in their birthday cakes. And Cuba will grow prosperous." (45)
  - - - A manifesto to combat the capitalist and socialist movements. Create a sense of control and power while seeking economic growth for those who have been oppressed by these systemic structures and imperialist nations.