When people ask me where my roots are, I look down at my feet, and I see the roots of my soul grasping the earth. They are here... in the Southwest... I still live in New Mexico.
Interpretation
This quote expresses a deep connection between one's identity and their physical environment.
Rudolfo Anaya's quote reflects the profound relationship between a person's sense of self and their geographical roots. He illustrates how the physical landscape, in his case the Southwest and New Mexico, shapes one's soul and identity, suggesting that our surroundings play a vital role in who we are at a fundamental level.
In practice
This quote can be used during a community gathering to emphasize the importance of one's heritage.
There are many gods . . . gods of beauty and magic, gods of the garden, gods in our own backyards, but we go off to foreign countries to find new ones, we reach to the stars to find new ones--. . . . The god of the church is a jealous god; he cannot live in peace with other gods.
It is because good is always stronger than evil. Always remember that, Antonio. The smallest bit of good can stand against all the powers of evil in the world and it will emerge triumphant.
Understanding comes with life. As a man grows he sees life and death, he is happy and sad, he works, plays, meets people - sometimes it takes a lifetime to acquire understanding, because in the end understanding simply means having sympathy for people.
Christianity is not about good people getting better. It is good news for bad people coping with their failure to be good.
In the big picture, it doesn't really matter if we never made a record, or we never sang a song. That isn't important.
In the glad old days, before the rise of modern morbidities...it used to be thought a disadvantage to be misunderstood.
And then he drew a dial from his poke, And looking with lack-lustre eye, Says very wisely, 'It is ten o'clock: Thus we may see', Quoth he, 'how the world wags: 'Tis but an hour ago since it was nine, And after one hour more 'twill be eleven; And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, And then from hour to hour we rot and rot.
A sombrero fell out of the sky and landed on the main street of town in front of the mayor, his cousin, and a person out of work. The day was scrubbed clean by the desert air. The sky was blue. It was the blue of human eyes, waiting for something to happen. There was no reason for a sombrero to fall out of the sky. No airplane or helicopter was passing overhead and it was not a religious holiday.
Zionism itself has paradoxically come to adopt some antisemitic logic in its hatred of Jews who do not fully identify with the politics of the state of Israel. Their target, the figure of the Jew who doubts the Zionist project, is constructed in the same way as the European antisemites constructed the figures of the Jew – he is dangerous because he lives among us, but is not really one of us.
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