{ "type": "quote", "site": { "name": "Leafy Quotes", "language": "en", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com" }, "formats": "Every page has two versions with the same data: JSON (the page address + .json) and markdown (the page address + .md). Append .json or .md to any `url` in this document.", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/america-is-a-faith", "json": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/america-is-a-faith.json", "markdown": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/america-is-a-faith.md", "id": "3347891d-43bd-451d-90b4-e9c705563f2a", "slug": "america-is-a-faith", "text": "America is a faith, perhaps pancakes its sacrament. Opportunity comes to those who put away the disadvantages of family or circumstance and entrust themselves to the future. The point of the American story is simple enough for a child, particularly an immigrant child, to grasp: The past holds no sway in America.", "language": "en", "author": { "name": "Richard Rodriguez", "slug": "richard-rodriguez", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez" }, "book": { "title": "Darling", "slug": "darling", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling" }, "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "the past", "slug": "the-past", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/the-past" }, { "name": "America", "slug": "america", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/america" }, { "name": "emigration", "slug": "emigration", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/emigration" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rodriguez#Darling:_A_Spiritual_Autobiography_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:47", "more_from_book": [ { "id": "cdb3fff0-ad05-4b9b-b116-a35999821d2c", "slug": "my-brother-and", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/my-brother-and", "text": "My brother and I have, after many years, achieved our importance to each other as a difference. Because it is sometimes difficult for my brother to climb the steps to my apartment, he will often come by and we will sit in his car and talk. We quite enjoy one another’s company. My brother is no less a good man for not believing in God; and I am no better a man because I believe. It is simply that religion gives me a sense—no, not a sense, a reason, no, not exactly a reason, an understanding—that everyone matters.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "faith", "slug": "faith", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/faith" }, { "name": "family", "slug": "family", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/family" }, { "name": "atheism", "slug": "atheism", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/atheism" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rodriguez#Darling:_A_Spiritual_Autobiography_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:48" }, { "id": "a938b29c-a8f6-440c-bab9-846eab3dc118", "slug": "on-the-one", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/on-the-one", "text": "On the one side, the Mexican side, Mexican peasants are tantalized by the American possibility of change. On the other side, the American side, the tyranny of American optimism has driven Americans to neurosis and depression, when the dream is elusive or less meaningful than the myth promised. This constitutes the great irony of the Mexican-American border: American sadness has transformed the drug lords of Mexico into billionaires, even as the peasants of Mexico scramble through the darkness to find the American dream.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "irony", "slug": "irony", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/irony" }, { "name": "dreams and aspirations", "slug": "dreams-and-aspirations", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/dreams-and-aspirations" }, { "name": "America", "slug": "america", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/america" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rodriguez#Darling:_A_Spiritual_Autobiography_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:48" }, { "id": "a8452cf0-b3f5-49fa-bc7e-5a6f9c4749c3", "slug": "one-can-become", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/richard-rodriguez/darling/one-can-become", "text": "One can become overwhelmed on vacation—I have become so—by thinking thoughts that are too large. There is a condition identified in psychology textbooks as the Stendhal syndrome, also called, or related to, the Jerusalem syndrome, that describes a tourist’s overwhelmed response to great works of art or to a sudden apprehension of scale, antiquity, multitude, death—the accompanying fear is of one’s insignificance, but also of squandered opportunity.", "language": "en", "character": null, "chapter": null, "chapter_parent": null, "page": null, "verified": false, "original": null, "other_languages": [], "topics": [ { "name": "fear", "slug": "fear", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/fear" }, { "name": "art", "slug": "art", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/art" }, { "name": "travel", "slug": "travel", "url": "https://www.leafyquotes.com/topics/travel" } ], "source": { "name": "Wikiquote", "url": "https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Rodriguez#Darling:_A_Spiritual_Autobiography_(2013)", "license": { "label": "CC BY-SA 4.0", "url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/" } }, "added_at": "2026-09-25T22:52:48" } ] }