Adolfo Aguilar Zinser Quotes

I can get along great with the Hispanics. In fact, I sure would like to meet them, even the politicians, maybe in the back room or whatever, have a couple of beers and try to explain. But they need to understand that I enforce the laws. I want to listen to them and hear their problems. I want them to tell me what their problems are.

The PC way of handling culture has been to not talk about it. But we should be talking about it.

Africa doesn't leap on you immediately; it seeps slowly, and it's incredibly important to be respectful and humble there.

I think the biggest insult, the worst way you can offend a Mexican, is to insult their mother. A mother is the most sacred thing in life.

I wanted Kimi to be a Japanese record with a Japanese title. I wanted it to be for them. They appreciate things on a different level, and take their art very seriously - that's special if you're an artist.

Orientals, and the Malays in particular, are a sensitive people: delicacy of sentiment is predominant with them.

I say the same thing that I've said for decades now, which is: don't go over to Japan trying to change it, thinking that you know better. Go there trying to understand.

We have to allow ourselves the freedom to make mistakes, including cultural mistakes, in our first drafts. I believe it's okay to get cultural details wrong in your first draft. It's okay if stereotypes emerge. It just means that your experience is limited, that you're human.

You know, you're living in a society where if you say something that you might think may be OK, when it's more sensitive to that particular culture. You have to be very, very careful.

When you do music concerts at Taj Mahal and the Acropolis, you have to be careful about your performance being appropriate with the place that surrounds you. It has to be appropriate to the culture - it should fit the building behind you, the environment you are playing it in and the culture of that place.

For a journalist who covers the Muslim world, we have responsibilities to be familiar with that culture and to know how to respond to that.

I try to study the background of the country I am in and what were my hits there, so I can at least give them some of what they want. It's like a wedding - give them something old, something new, something borrowed and definitely something blue!

Believing in each culture's right to be understood by the other party without any form of falseness or distortion is paramount.

Successful occupation will not occur unless the special circumstances of this unusual country are heeded.

One is treading on very delicate ground when you have to consider the public opinion in China, Japan, the League of Geneva, and at home. It is pretty hard to avoid using a word which may arouse unintended repercussions in one or the other of those half a dozen localities

You approach the Mullahs as if they are normal people. They are not. You see them in your own image; you should not.

Some things are really sacred and important to other cultures, so you have to be aware, politically, about those things before you just adopt them.

I don't think that people understand enough about each other's cultures any more.

There's a kind of integrity to being an observer of a culture. I think Canadians have that privilege innately. We are, like, the observers of the American culture.

Wherever you go, respect the local culture or you will suffer.

There's a difference between being culturally insensitive - being insensitive towards a culture - and being insensitive.

There's the fine line between presenting your culture and learning about other cultures so it becomes global.

I think that we in the West expect people to adapt to our culture very, very quickly when they come to our country. But when we go over to someone else's, I don't think we are willing to meet them halfway like we expect them to meet us. I think having cultural sensitivity is a lot more important than we realize.

A lot of issues that we have in the world today rise from the fact that we do not know enough about each other's cultures, that we don't respect each other's origins and there is so much negativity and strife around because we don't know where the other person is coming from.

When you care about the culture, you can stop, pause, and say, "Okay, where do I stand in the midst of this all?"