J. August Richards Quotes

I remember thinking, in Kansas my name will be Evett - which is my middle name. I didn't want to explain to anyone how to say Em-a-yat-zee.

I never wanted to give up my given name. I'm proud of it, but the only problem was that no one remembered it. It was just a little too awkward, and they mispronounced it so frequently.

My first name is a boy's name. It's Tanner. I've always gone by my middle name but, yeah, my first name is Tanner. And King is my mom's last name. I took my mom's last name since I was 18.

It was my dad's idea to change my name from Sahatciu to Ora. He said it would be easier to pronounce.

The English was really my mother, it was never me. Being the daughter of my father, I always felt very French.

I didn't emphasize my Jewishness because I wanted to. I just happen to have been raised in a family where everybody happened to talk like this, so why would I talk like somebody else?

I was born Chinese, and I write in Chinese. I don't think there's any need to evade this... to a writer, as to a person, what matters is not his political label or his nationality, but whether he is a person and whether his work is worth looking at.

Language and identity are so fundamentally intertwined. You peel back all the layers in terms of what we wear and what we eat and all the things that mark us, and in the end, what we have are our words.

RCA wanted me to change my name. They asked me around 1965, when they first signed me. They said, 'Feliciano is too Latin.' I said, 'That's who I am. I'm Jose Feliciano.' They wanted me to change my name to Joe Phillips.

I don't consider myself an Iranian comedian; I consider myself a comedian who happens to be of Iranian descent.

Being an immigrant myself, but feeling very American, and also being the child of immigrants, I understand the feeling of wanting a home.

I'm American; I was born and raised in America, and I don't want to fake who I am to fit a stereotype.

There is a psychic gulf that exists between myself and my grandparents because they don't really speak English, and I don't speak Chinese, and that's my own personal shame because I did not learn, ever. I only saw my paternal grandma a few times in my life, and that's really crazy.

I happen to be half West Indian, but I don't know that side of my family.

I never learned to speak Yiddish, ever.

We're living at this funny time, where we're all urged to express ourselves as unique individuals, but on the other hand, we share a limited set of tools for doing that. It's easy to feel like nothing more than the sum of your consumer choices.

I've got the fighting Irish, and Puerto Ricans are some of the best fighters in the world. I'm proud of who I am, but it doesn't define me as a person.

When my mom, Mercedes, and her younger sister, Juanita, first came from Puerto Rico, they were the youngest in the family. They had to jump into a new community and really learn English, assimilate, and adapt - and I saw that. I grew up in that community.

The notion of someone who is fitting in or trying to become part of a larger family... It's hard to separate that from my own Jewish roots.

It's really empowering when you see yourself represented in entertainment and, especially, onstage when you're talking about how this country came to be.

I've got Africa stamped on my chest, and I've outlined Nigeria because that's my bloodline.

My heritage has definitely shaped my music and my character in a lot of ways.

Cordae is like my government name. I was like, just be myself. What's a better name than the name my mom gave me, or my pops gave me?

Art and culture and all of these things - they really matter. They shape your individuality.

On my mum Marie's side, my nana was from the Republic of Ireland, and my granddad was from the north. Lots of families in Manchester have strong Irish connections, but it never occurred to me to play for anyone other than England.