Deeyah Khan Quotes

You know, even growing up going to school, I had teachers that were against bilingual teaching. I never understood that. My parents always had me speak Spanish first knowing I was going to speak English in school.

An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write.

I don't feel guilty about expressing myself in French; nor do I feel that I am continuing the work of the colonizers.

Most Arab Israelis speak Hebrew, but not the other way around. It's about time that changed.

Insist on one language. English for all Americans.

I'm against the idea of force-feeding all of Canada on two languages.

We will never have "a" Chicano English or Spanish because of regional differences. But I think that because of our bilingual history, we'll always be speaking a special kind of English and Spanish. What we do have to do is fight for the right to use those two languages in the way that it serves us.

You can't be an American if you don't speak English. Our public schools should be mandated to teach all children in English.

The anglophones are Quebecers, as are the French, as are the new Quebecers.

People are always saying, English, English, English rose, and I just feel so completely different.

I am not anti-English, and I never was.

When I was a girl, there wasn't anything in Spanish in the movies until you saw it on DVD.

When everyone at school is speaking one language, and a lot of your classmates' parents also speak it, and you go home and see that your community is different -there is a sense of shame attached to that. It really takes growing up to treasure the specialness of being different.

One of the biggest problems is - you know, I've got some Hispanic friends - is that a lot of those folks that don't know English, is primarily because they don't even know Spanish. They don't even know their own language.

Make no mistake. Canada is not a bilingual country. In fact it is less bilingual today than it has ever been.

So what's really behind the 'English Only' Movement? Fear. Fear of being taken over and one day they will have to learn something different. Heaven forbid they would have to learn something new.

Unless you speak English and read well, you'll never be a first-class citizen ... but when you say "official," that becomes a racial slur.

Bilingualism is not an imposition on the citizens - it is an imposition on the state.

Bilingualism is a great asset for any individual, but it has perilous consequences for a nation.

Here's my advice to my brown friends: The next time you're on an airplane in the U.S., just speak your mother tongue. That way, no one knows what you're saying. Life goes on.

One thing I wish I'd been told in school is that my language is valid.

Should people working in our country speak English? Yes, they should.

Living freely means being able to freely communicate in your native language and to be guided by the 10th article of the constitution, which defines Ukrainian as the only state language and guarantees the unhindered development of Russian and all the other languages.

Language is an intrinsic part of who we are and what has, for good or evil, happened to us.

As a Welsh speaker, I'm very conscious of how activism can effect real change.