In U.S. discourse, immigrants are mostly represented as less than human, a policy problem, or as just that, a category, and categories are prisons.
Interpretation
This quote critiques the dehumanization of immigrants in society and highlights the negative consequences of categorizing people.
Francisco Goldman expresses concern about how immigrants are depicted in U.S. discourse, arguing that they are often viewed as mere statistics, problems to be solved, or categories lacking individual humanity. This reductive framing creates a kind of prison for immigrants, as it strips them of their identities and reduces them to labels, ultimately leading to their devaluation and marginalization within society.
In practice
During a speech on immigration reform, one might refer to this quote to emphasize the importance of seeing immigrants as individuals rather than as statistics.
As the imagination is set to look into the invisible and immaterial, it seems to attract something of their vitality; and though it can give nothing to the body to redeem it from years, it can give to the soul that freshness of youth in old age which is even more beautiful than youth in the young.
There is no way you can get people to believe you on screen if they know who you really are through television.
Forgiveness requires a sense that bad behaviour is a sign of suffering rather than malice.
Do not believe that others will die, not you.... I have wrestled with Thanatos knee to knee and I know how death is vanquished. Man's immortality is not to live forever; for that wish is born of fear. Each moment free from fear makes a man immortal.
Was it pretty? Your country. . .your land?" "It was beautiful," the gunslinger said. "There were fields and forests and rivers and mists in the morning. But that's only pretty. My mother used to say that the only real beauty is order and love and light.
It's very difficult to escape your background. You know, I don't think it's necessary to even try to escape it. More and more, I start to think that it's necessary to see exactly what it is that you inherited on both ends of the stick: your timidity, your courage, your self-deceit, and your honesty - and all the rest of it.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.