“I was not really of the barrio, but the barrio was an important part of my life. Spanish was my first language; English was the language of my reading world. This was the world I lived in—an idealistic world, and unreal world that filled my senses with hopes, with joy and identification…”

—  Estela Portillo-Trambley

On her upbringing (as quoted in the book Chicana Ways: Conversations with Ten Chicana Writers https://books.google.com/books?id=yq0PkmCGWoEC&pg=PA205&lpg=PA205&dq)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I was not really of the barrio, but the barrio was an important part of my life. Spanish was my first language; English…" by Estela Portillo-Trambley?
Estela Portillo-Trambley photo
Estela Portillo-Trambley 3
American writer 1936–1998

Related quotes

Ludwig Wittgenstein photo

“The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world.”

Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher

1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
Context: This remark provides the key to the problem, how much truth there is in solipsism. For what the solipsist means is quite correct; only it cannot be said, but makes itself manifest. The world is my world: this is manifest in the fact that the limits of language (of that language which alone I understand) mean the limits of my world. (5.62)

Chow Yun-fat photo

“I don't have an English sense of humor. In my language, I have tons of it. In English, you have to really get the slang, and the culture.”

Chow Yun-fat (1955) Hong Kong actor

Interview with Chow Yun Fat https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2009-04-01/3 (April 1, 2009)

Bei Dao photo

“a perpetual stranger
am I to the world
I don't understand its language
my silence it can't comprehend”

Bei Dao (1949) contemporary Chinese (PRC) avant garde poet

"A perpetual stranger...", p. 110
Variant translation:
In the world I am
Always a stranger
I do not understand its language
It does not understand my silence
The August Sleepwalker (1990)

“[13 years old] After almost a month went by after getting World of Warcraft, I was finally able to play it. I made a WoW account with my father, and then I created my first character, a night elf druid. It really blew my mind. My first experience with WoW was like stepping into another world of excitement and adventure. It was a video game world, but they made it so realistic that it was like living another life, a more exciting life. My life was getting more and more depressing at that point, and WoW would fill in the void. It felt refreshing and relieving. I was only able to play it for a few hours for my first session. It was all I would think about when I wasn’t able to play it.”

Elliot Rodger (1991–2014) American spree killer

My Twisted World (2014), Pastimes

Harry Emerson Fosdick photo

“I would rather live in a world where my life is surrounded by mystery than live in a world so small that my mind could comprehend it.”

Harry Emerson Fosdick (1878–1969) American pastor

Source: Riverside Sermons (1958), p. 22

Peter S. Beagle photo

“My people are in the world again. No sorrow will live in my heart as long as that joy — save one, and I thank you for that, too.”

Peter S. Beagle book The Last Unicorn

The Last Unicorn (1968)

Kristen Nygaard photo

“The world language is English as spoken by foreigners”

Kristen Nygaard (1926–2002) Computer scientist, Mathematician
Cherríe Moraga photo

“I think: what is my responsibility to my roots-both white and brown, Spanish-speaking and English? I am a woman with a foot in both worlds; and I refuse the split. I feel the necessity for dialogue. Sometimes I feel it urgently”

Cherríe Moraga (1952) American writer

This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, Fourth Edition (2015)

Don DeLillo photo

“I think fiction comes from everything you've ever done, and said, and dreamed, and imagined. It comes from everything you've read and haven't read…I think my work comes out of the culture of the world around me. I think that's where my language comes from.”

Don DeLillo (1936) American novelist, playwright and essayist

'Exile on Main Street: Don DeLillo's Undisclosed Underworld' by David Remnick, The New Yorker, September 15, 1997

Sherman Alexie photo

“Drinking would shut down my seeing and my hearing and my feeling,' she used to say. 'Why would I want to be in the world if I couldn't touch the world with all of my senses intact?”

Sherman Alexie book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Source: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

Related topics