As a way to delve fully into Holiday season in the spirit of reflection, we would like to offer a glimpse of inspiration to take on the  in the voice of 4 exceptionally successful,  “wise Latinas” (in the words of Sonia Sotomayor), women we would like to be “when we grow up” .

Entertainment Mogul – Salma Hayek

1. “What is important is to believe in something so strongly that you’re never discouraged .” – Salma Hayek
2. “I have gotten a lot more attention than…other women that I find incredibly beautiful. And this has happened to me ever since I was a girl, when I was flat, had no teeth, was skinny and small as I could be. I always got more attention than anyone else. If I hadn’t, I would have made sure I did…” – Salma Hayek
3. “When it is important for you to say something and you find a vehicle to say it, then go for it. It is so rare when that happens so I think every minute spent fighting for it is always worth it. Even if nothing ends up happening, it’s still worth the fight” – Salma Hayek
4. “I act tall!” – Salma Hayek
5. “My driving abilities from Mexico have helped me get through Hollywood.” – Salma Hayek
6. “People often say that ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder,’ and I say that the most liberating thing about beauty is realizing that you are the beholder. This empowers us to find beauty in places where others have not dared to look, including inside ourselves.” – Salma Hayek
7. “Before you do anything, think. If you do something to try and impress someone, to be loved, accepted or even to get someone’s attention, stop and think. So many people are busy trying to create an image, they die in the process,” – Salma Hayek
8. “Life is tough, and if you have the ability to laugh at it you have the ability to enjoy it.” – Salma Hayek

Literary Maven – Isabel Allende

1. “We only have what we give.” — Isabel Allende
2. “When love exists, nothing else matters, not life’s predicaments, not the fury of the years, not a physical winding down or scarcity of opportunity.” — Isabel Allende
3. “Words are not that important when you recognize intentions.” — Isabel Allende (City of the Beasts)
4. “The longer I live, the more uninformed I feel. Only the young have an explanation for everything.”— Isabel Allende (City of the Beasts)
5. “He realized…that the loudest are the least sincere, that arrogance is a quality of the ignorant, and that flatterers tend to be vicious. “ — Isabel Allende (Zorro)
6. “The source of my difficulties has always been the same: an inability to accept what to others seems natural, and an irresistible tendency to voice opinions no one wants to hear . . .” — Isabel Allende
7. “Fear is inevitable, I have to accept that, but I cannot allow it to paralyze me.” — Isabel Allende (The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir)
8. “At the most difficult moments of my life, when it seemed that every door was closed to me, the taste of those apricots comes back to comfort me with the notion that abundance is always within reach, if only one knows how to find it.” — Isabel Allende (Paula)

Justice Custodian - Sonia Sotomayor

1. I am an ordinary person who has been blessed with extraordinary opportunities and experiences. Today is one of those experiences. - Sonia Sotomayor
2. Although I grew up in very modest and challenging circumstances, I consider my life to be immeasurably rich. - Sonia Sotomayor
3. I firmly believe in the rule of law as the foundation for all of our basic rights. - Sonia Sotomayor
4. I want to state upfront, unequivocally and without doubt: I do not believe that any racial, ethnic or gender group has an advantage in sound judging. I do believe that every person has an equal opportunity to be a good and wise judge, regardless of their background or life experiences. - Sonia Sotomayor
5. This wealth of experiences, personal and professional, have helped me appreciate the variety of perspectives that present themselves in every case that I hear. - Sonia Sotomayor
6. Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. - Sonia Sotomayor
7. With my academic achievement in high school I was accepted rather readily at Princeton and equally as fast at Yale, but my test scores were not comparable to that of my classmates. And that’s been shown by statistics, there are reasons for that – there are cultural biases built into testing, and that was one of the motivations for the concept of affirmative action to try to balance out those effects. - Sonia Sotomayor
8. For as long as I can remember, I have been inspired by the achievement of our Founding Fathers. They set forth principles that have endured for more than two centuries. Those principles are as meaningful and relevant in each generation as the generation before. It would be a profound privilege for me to play a role in applying those principles to the questions and controversies we face today. - Sonia Sotomayor

Conscience Kindler – Joan Baez

1. You don’t get to choose how you’re going to die. Or when. You can only decide how you’re going to live. Now. – Joan Baez.
2. Action is the antidote to despair. – Joan Baez
3. Instead of getting hard ourselves and trying to compete, women should try to give their best qualities to men — bring them softness, teach them how to cry. – Joan Baez.
4. The easiest kind of relationship for me is with 10,000 people. The hardest is with one. – Joan Baez
5. I’ve never had a humble opinion in my life. If you’re going to have one, why bother to be humble about it? – Joan Baez
6. To sing is to love and affirm, to fly and soar, to coast into the hearts of the people who listen, to tell them that life is to live, that love is there, that nothing is a promise, but that beauty exists, and must be hunted for and found. – Joan Baez
7. As long as one keeps searching, the answers come. – Joan Baez
8. If it`s natural to kill, how come men have to go into training to learn how? – Joan Baez
9. The only thing that`s been a worse flop than the organization of non-violence has been the organization of violence. – Joan Baez… Stay tuned for: 32 words of  “wise Latinos”

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