Ever read something that you think about for days, even months later?  Those words visit and revisit, affirming the gladness of a day done well, and offering warm comfort when we need to stand against a mean wind. 

Here’s a quote I’ve had in mind almost daily since becoming acquainted with it earlier this year.  It’s not just about the bubbles some of us fill on the census forms, but the names we dash out in every signature:

The core of my identity was not in either description, Mexican or American, but in that little unassuming hyphen that connected the two terms. Even now, more than 150 years after my ancestors crossed from the Republic of Mexico into the United States of America, I was a reflection of the journey itself, a journey between those two worlds that I continue to make every single day of my life, whether or not anyone, including me, is even aware of it.

From “Indivisible Man” by Oscar Casares, Texas Monthly, February 2009.