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
My father was a Little League dictator. That really affected me, his control-freakery, his impunity, his arbitrary unreasonable power.
Interpretation
The quote explores the impact of a father's controlling nature on his child's development.
In this quote, Junot Diaz reflects on his childhood experience with a father who exerted authoritarian control over him, likening his father's behavior to that of a dictator. This portrayal suggests that such domineering traits instilled in him feelings of oppression and shaped his understanding of authority and power dynamics, highlighting the profound influence parental behavior can have on a child's emotional and psychological growth.
In practice
This quote can be used in a discussion about parenting styles and their effects on children.
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.
Run a hand through your hair, like the white boys do, even though the only thing that runs easily through your hair is Africa.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I don't care who is attacking my son. I still support him; I still love him.
I believe in imagination. I did Kramer vs Kramer before I had children. But the mother I would be was already inside me.
My fatherβs family name being Pirrip, and my Christian name Philip, my infant tongue could make of both names nothing longer or more explicit than Pip. So, I called myself Pip, and came to be called Pip.
I have a certain memory of the way in which my father loved me until I was 10, and it was unconditional and eternal. I get to carry that for the rest of my life, but on a practical level after age 10, it's just me sort of figuring it out.
Sadie," he said forlornly, "when you become a parent, you may understand this. One of my hardest jobs as a father, one of my greatest duties, was to realize that my own dreams, my own goals and wishes, are secondary to my children's.
Dads, is it too bold to hope that our children might have some small portion of the feeling for us that the Divine Son felt for His Father?
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