Artists are not cheerleaders, and we're not the heads of tourism boards. We expose and discuss what is problematic, what is contradictory, what is hurtful and what is silenced in the culture we're in.
Junot DiazRead
I grew up in the shadow of the Trujillato, saw how the regime had ravaged so many families.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The impact of oppressive regimes on people's lives can be profound and far-reaching.
In this quote, Junot Diaz reflects on his childhood experiences living under the Trujillo regime in the Dominican Republic. He highlights how the oppressive governmental actions not only affected the political landscape but also devastated countless families, emphasizing the personal suffering and emotional scars left behind by authoritarian rule.
Themes
TrujilloOppressionFamiliesRegimeHistory
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of remembering our history, one could incorporate this quote to illustrate the lasting impacts of dictatorship.
More from Junot Diaz
All quotes βRun a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
Junot DiazRead
I can see myself watching him shave every morning. And at other time I see us in that house and see how one bright day (or a day like this, so cold your mind shifts every time the wind does) he will wake up and decide it's all wrong. I'm sorry, he'll say. I have to leave now.
Junot DiazRead
Migration gives a blank cheque to put anything you don't feel like addressing in the memory hold. No neighbours can go against the monster narrative of your family.
Junot DiazRead
We all dream dreams of unity, of purity; we all dream that there's an authoritative voice out there that will explain things, including ourselves.
Junot DiazRead
I think 90% of my ideas evaporate because I have a terrible memory and because I seem to be committed to not scribble anything down. As soon as I write it down, my mind rejects it.
Junot DiazRead
Similar quotes
...They cannot escape their history any more than you yourself can lose your shadow.
Zadie SmithRead
I cannot write about the past unless I go where history happened. Some make very good armchair historians, I'm not one of them. If you're going to inhabit someone else's world, the very least you can do is to spend a little time in it.
Bettany HughesRead
The historian does simply not come in to replenish the gaps of memory. He constantly challenges even those memories that have survived intact.
Yosef Hayim YerushalmiRead
When I first read Barbara Tuchman's 'The Guns of August' in the autumn of 1963, it was as though history went from black and white to Technicolor.
Margaret MacmillanRead
I understood when I was quite small that there were two special things about the Jews. That we'd endured for over 3,000 years despite everything that had been thrown at us, and that we had an extraordinarily dramatic story to tell.
Simon SchamaRead
Men make history, not the other way around.
Harry S. TrumanRead