“Knowledge of history is the precondition of political intelligence. Without history, a society shares no common memory of where it has been, of what its core values are, or what decisions in the past account for the present circumstances”
– David McCullough, Historian
“Each time a man stands up for an idea, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope. Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.”
– Robert F. Kennedy
“In this world it is possible to achieve great material wealth, to live an opulent life, but a life built upon those things alone leave’s a shallow legacy. In the end, we will be judged by other standards.”
– Cesar Chavez
“It is only when we encounter the tap root of our history that we feel authentic and able to identify self, family, and community. It is a way to connect to humankind because in history one finds that one is a part of every other human being.”
– Rudolfo Anaya
“With a booming young population, a propensity for hard work and self-sacrifice, and a commitment to family and strong Christian values, Hispanics are strategically posed to become key players in the future success of America during the 21st Century.”
– Tom Rodriguez
“Every man’s life ends the same way, and it is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another”
– Ernest Hemingway
“A man’s judgement cannot be better than the information on which he based it. Give him the truth and he may still go wrong when he has the chance to be right, but give him no news or present him only with distorted and incomplete data, with ignorant, sloppy or biased reporting, with propaganda and deliberate falsehoods, and you destroy his whole reasoning process.”
– Arthur Hays Sulzberger
“Hispanic people are a large and fast growing segment of the multi-cultural mosaic that we call America. We belong here and have earned our stay by helping to build this country, by planting and harvesting its crops, by toiling in its factories, by helping to build and maintain its railroads, and by giving our lives to defend it. We are mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, we are people who have suffered discrimination and who have endured. We are teachers, doctors, lawyers, musicians, actors, secretaries and farmers, we are everyman and everywoman, and like everyone else who claims this country as their home – SOMOS AMERICANOS, WE ARE AMERICANS!”
– Tom Rodriguez
“For many Hispanics, particularly those who have come here from impoverished countries,there is no disgrace or loss of status in holding down a job as a maid, porter, kitchen helper, private domestic worker, or construction worker. On the contrary, most Hispanics consider those Jobs to be desirable employment through which their hard work will one day enable them to move up to a better job and have a better life.”
– Tom Rodriguez
“The real hope for assimilation of new Hispanic naturalized citizens, lies with the second and third generation family members. These are the ones who will speak, read and fluently write in English, attend school, will pay taxes, and will become voters. These are the Hispanic-Americans that will continue the long immigrant tradition of contributing significantly to their communities and country”
– Tom Rodriguez
“We need to do a better job of letting our young people know that they are valuable. We need to surround our kids with attention and our expectations for them must be raised. We also need to allow young people to feel good about themselves and to help them overcome rejection before it defeats them”
– Tom Rodriguez
“The vital measure of a newspaper is not its size but its spirit – that is its responsibility to report the news fully, accurately and fairly”
– Arthur Hays Sulzberger
Tom Rodriguez... Remembrances and Reflections of My Life 