You don't fight injustice by asking to become part of the system that committed the injustice against you in the first place. That's like a freed slave striving to become a slave owner.

More Quotes by Carmen Yulin Cruz

I want to make sure that people understand that we know the difference between President Trump and the good-hearted people and the good-natured people of the United States. We know they're not one and the same.

I don't have time for politics. There is a mission, and that is to save lives.

My job is to make life better for people, and you cannot make life better if you are in a helicopter. You can't make life better for them if you can't touch them.

Sometimes you have to shake the tree in order to make things happen. And if that has a political cost, I will take it, as long as it saves lives.

If President Trump were to say, 'I'm going to go to San Juan to see that nasty mayor,' I would receive him with open arms because democracy is larger than me.

I often say to my friends that I felt too Puerto Rican to live in the States; then I felt too American to live in Puerto Rico. So when I settled back in Puerto Rico in 1992, I had to come to terms with all of that.