14 Quotes by Jimmy Santiago Baca

You’ve got to invite Native Americans to the table, and Asians, and Chicanos. You cannot keep us in the back room anymore and give us notations on paper saying this is what you deserve. You have to invite us to the table because America is ours, too.

I am learning to look at myself differently, to see the scattered remnants of hope and dreams and collect them again.

How much truth can we bear? Our tolerance for carrying the truth is not very high. I mean, the slightest discomfort about truth and we run to our refuge of our jobs and our schools and our friends who keep supporting our blindness.

The word was the ember and the forest was my life.

I believe it’s our responsibility as citizens to get in there and not accept the constant failure of prisons to deal with racism, lack of privilege, and impoverishment – not accept any of that. Just get in there!