Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna Flashcards
The smoking star lit the night sky as women wept, holding their babies close.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Abuelita said girls have no business wearing pants.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
It didn’t take long to chop off enough wood to take into the village.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Flour was a luxury reserved for the well-to-do.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
The lady jerked the wood from my hand and slammed the door shut.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
They were the rebels, the army of the people, who fought to give peasants land and liberty.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
His neatly folded sarape sat on top of his bed, waiting for his return.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
If you’re searching for men, you’re wasting your time.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Hiding someone from us is a trespass punishable by death.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I have orders to kill you and your family and then burn down this hut.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I felt my way around the floor, across the broken crates and pots, until my hand found it - my black rock.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I have to stop, m’ija.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Find some stool, and use your hatchet to cut out its heart, but don’t crack it open until you bring it to me.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
It was an independence he believed would change the mestizos’ way of life.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
But if you ask me, I believe the desert is so harsh that every living thing in it has to grow thorns to protect itself.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
You already have thorns, and thorns are beautiful - they make you strong.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
As long as I’m with you, I know I’m safe.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Dios lo bendiga, Padre.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
When a piece of coal gets squeezed very hard for a very long time, it becomes a diamond.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
The girl not only spoke perfect Spanish but her eyes, as blue as morning glories, looked at me like I was a deer friend.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
My heart almost burst with excitement when I saw a slate.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
His hand, soft on my face, provided strength but also reminded me how much I’d promised to protect.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I also knew there was a train a day’s walk away that could take us there.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Despite having had my mouth shut, bits of desert rolled across the top of my tongue and down my throat.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Her drooping eyes were as red and swollen as her blistered feet.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
If nature really guided us or if the wind really sang, I asked myself, why hadn’t it told me where the train station was?
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
After having smelled what seemed like a wagonload of creek pebbles, I finally got the tiny, subtle whiff of rain.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Begging was a slam to our name and our beliefs.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
We’re all tired of fighting, but in order to achieve peace and attain the land and freedom we want, we need to fight.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
We could cook food, make tortillas, wash clothes, and in the meantime, you can start looking for a boy to take care of you.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Fire engulfed the locomotive, and explosions spewed chunks of steel into the air.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
My inside turned and twisted like the dark, gnarled trees burning around us.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
If they give you any trouble when you get across the bridge, tell them I sent you. Show them the scarf.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Soaked to the bone, we crawled down the iron tracks that glowed in the lightning.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
If the streets in America were paved in old, I thought, maybe every house looked like that too.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Five centavos per person meant we’d need twenty centavos to get all of us across - about two days’ worth of earnings selling wood.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Word had spread that the border was closed, and the packed streets soon thinned out.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
With the rebels gone, we were as vulnerable as in the desert, only this time we were trapped.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Despite the beautiful music and the couple dancing, people shed more and more tears.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I slipped into the nearest seat and , for a moment, pretended to be a student.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
It was a tiny hummingbird with bright-purple feathers that matched my scarf. I smiled at the tiny bird.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
I caught sight of the gate and saw people cramming through it, trampling those who fell.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
The deeper indentations, the ones I would cling to for life, had been formed by encounters with formidable people.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
My great-grandmother, despite the many decades having passed since that event, always recalled the fright in her father’s eyes.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna (Author’s Note)
Then suddenly, my great-grandmother would say with nostalgic surprise, the gates swung open.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna (Author’s Note)
Thanks to them and my mother, I learned stories that I would have never learned from books or school.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna (Author’s Note)
We need to listen to their stories, write them down, on paper or on our hearts and pass them on.
Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna (Author’s Note)
