Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Quotes

They say African Americans. I say black people. I've only been to Africa once. I've been in America all my life!

I remember when I first came to America, nobody had a clue what a black Englishman was. I was either South African or Australian to them.

I always feel like people misunderstand the difference between an Asian story and an Asian-American story. That's completely different, too. I have friends who grew up in Asia, and our experiences are so different. Even though we might look the same, I feel like being Asian and then being Asian-American is completely different.

A lot of people decide, if you're mixed, you're black. And so they try to force you to choose a culture.

I never said I wasn’t Black… I want to make that very clear. I said, I am not African-American. I never expected my personal beliefs and comments to spark such emotion in people. I think it is only positive when we can openly discuss race and being labeled in America.

I'm tired of hyphenated Americans.

In America, the traditional routes to black identity have hardly been normal. Suicide (disappearance by imitation, or willed extinction), violence (hysterical religiosity, crime, armed revolt), and exemplary moral courage; none of these is normal.

The one being abhorrent to the powers above the earth and under them is the hyphenated American

I don't use the term "black" very often. I use the term African-American more than I use "black".

In America one drop of black ancestry makes you black.

I love being black in America, and especially being black in Hollywood.

I'm three quarters Scottish, but I sound English. I don't really see British as a race.

Most of all, I dislike this idea nowadays that if you're a black person in America, then you must be called African-American. Listen, I've visited Africa, and I've got news for everyone: I'm not an African.

In this country American means white. Everybody else has to hyphenate.

Only when I came to America did I think of myself as British.

Just call me black, if you want to call me anything.

I saw an opportunity to use a restaurant to identify a lot of my issues and concerns with being an immigrant in America, and Asian in America, and a young person in America.

It was 1989, and the word 'Muslim' wasn't even really used in Britain at the time; you were either black or Asian.

Growing up in London, with a hippie mom, I don't know that I'm most people's definition of what a black person is. I'm mixed, yes, but in the world I'm defined as black before I'm defined white. I've never been called white.

I couldn't be more American if I tried. I was born in Ethiopia, but I was raised and educated as an American.

America is remarkable, don't you think so? When I came to Washington, I was twelve years old. I spoke English with an English accent. It was assumed that it would go on in that way.

Though I don't have any serious argument with Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods', I believe that Americans cease to be Europeans - the land makes them become Americans. You see it happening all the time when you travel around America.

More often than not, we think of ourselves as black, white, Asian, or Hispanic pretty much in this country, but the real America is much more than that.

I'm black because that's the way the world sees me.

I'm obviously an American citizen. My parents are American citizens. But I'm not looked at as an American.