In-class writing (2 quotes)

1. "I wanted to raise the voice of a lot of the people that I knew growing up, and this was, for the most part, poor people who had extraordinary dreams but also very amazing obstacles."

2. "If a woman is worth remebering,' said my grandmother, 'there is no need to have hername carved in letters."

The understanding of 1st quote: 

It seems like the author met many amazing people who have inspired her before. And she learnt from their stories and experiences. However, future and dreams are extremely far and hard for them to reach. The more and bigger dream you have, the harder and tougher for you to get it. They might suffer because the goal they are chasing, and they would be stopped by the tremedouse obstacles they are facing. 

In the second story 1973, the "my mother" has "flame wings", and she flew when she was at the M. River. In the prison my mother died, those women were all considered flying people. They are special, and of course they have unbelievable admissions (otherwise, they would not be able to fly), so they were caught, became prisioners and ended their lives. Those obstacles were so big which stopped them completely.

Besides, connected with the second quote, those flying people were women, and they were worth writing and worth remebered.